SOUTH AFRICA: PRESIDENT ASKED TO TRACE 9 MEN MISSING IN ANGOLA

(16 Aug 1995) English/Nat

President Mandela has been asked for help in establishing whether nine South African men missing in the war in Angola are dead or alive.

Family and friends of the missing have heard no news of the men who were working in Angola as military instructors.

President Mandela will be asked to use his influence to return either the men or their bodies home.

The missing nine were sent to Angola to help train government forces there.

If still alive, it is likely they have been captured by rebel UNITA forces.

SOUNDBITE:
"My husband left in September 1993 to go and train the MPLA (government) people. He was taken on as an instructor. He used to go
for two months and come back home two weeks at a time. he
came back in ... we got married in November on the 6th in 1993 and
he came on February 24th and that's the last time I saw him. ..
April 2nd 1994 and three other people disappeared in Angola."

SUPERCAPTION: Marie Van Tonder, wife of missing Dolf Van Tonder

While two of the missing men are confirmed dead - they were shot in July last year - the families of the remainder have been unable to confirm reports they were captured by UNITA which planned to execute them.

All the men were employed by a South African company called Executive Outcomes which provided military instructors for Angolan soldiers.

The company denies allegations that it is an agency supplying mercenaries to Angola, but UNITA says the request for their bodies is proof that the men were hired soldiers.

SOUNDBITE:
"Yes, if they are purely training purposes. Why are they asking
us for bodies or remains of those who were killed in combat? Then
I think the allegations (were from) Executive Outcomes saying
publicly and (the) other thing is what Executive Outcomes and the
families, the relatives of those people who were killed are saying."

SUPERCAPTION: Isais Samunkura, Unita official

All avenues of hope seem to have been exhausted by relatives, some of whom have even travelled to Angola to search for the missing men.

Their names are not on a list of prisoners of war compiled by The International Committee of the Red Cross.

South Africa's ambassador to Angola has raised the issue with the United Nation's secretary general's Special Representative to Angola Alouine Blondin Beye, as well as the ambassadors of three observer nations Russia, the United States and Portugal.

So far no officials can provide any concrete information about the men.

And while Executive Outcomes has said that it is doing all it can to help find the men, relatives are pinning their hopes on their last resort: President Mandela.

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