Koevoet, meaning "crowbar" in Afrikaans , also known as "Operation K" and officially known as the "South West Africa Police Counter-Insurgency Unit" (SWAPOL-COIN), was a police counter insurgency unit in South-West Africa, now Namibia, during the 1970s and 1980s. ("Crowbar" was an allusion to their mission of prying insurgents from the local population).
They were the most effective unit deployed against SWAPO fighters (seeking Namibian independence from South Africa), and were accused by them of brutal and indiscriminate use of force.
Koevoet was a +-1000-man force consisting of about 900 Ovambo and about 300 white officers and white SAP (South African Police), non-commissioned officers (NCOs). It was organized into 40 to 50 man platoons equipped with mine-resistant wheeled armored personnel carriers of the types Hippo, and later Casspir and Wolf (including one, Zulu Alpha One, informally armed with a 20 mm cannon), a Duiker mine-protected fuel truck and a Blesbok mine-protected supply truck. They rotated one week in the bush for one week at camp.
There were three units based in Kaokaland, Kavango, and Ovambo with each unit controlling several platoons.
It was the 1978 brainchild of then Colonel Hans Dreyer (later a Major-General in the SAP) to develop and exploit intelligence and was based on the Portuguese Flechas and the Rhodesian Selous Scouts. Koevoet was based in Oshakati and suffered 153 killed in action and several hundred more wounded. They killed more than 3,681 SWAPO insurgents which resulted in a 1:25 or one to 25 kill ratio.
Koevoet learnt many of its techniques, especially training and vehicle patrolling, in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.This came about because Col Hans Dreyer kept a team of "training observers " right up to 1980, based at the Chikarubi Barracks of the BSAP/ZRP Support Unit. The Support Unit were known as the "Blackboots" due to their distinctive black footwear (other police units all wore brown boots and shoes). Koevoet therefore became known by association as the "Green boots". Training and discipline at the BSAP Support Unit was harsh. Observers were frequently shocked at how recruits — black and white — were treated by the BSAP Support Unit training team. The pass rate was about 30–50 percent, but incorporated a lot of junior leader incentive training. First phase in training patrol officers usually lasted about 11 weeks, longer than the Rhodesian Light Infantry, which was only 6 weeks long. On leaving Zimbabwe in 1980, Koevoet offered positions to any Support Unit details who wished to change over to them, such was the high esteem they had for the "Blackboots".
Training
The white officers were either South-West African or South-African police officers and, as often as not, untrained for what were effectively military operations. Accordingly, these officers were usually sent for additional training with South African Special Forces Brigade in bushcraft, tracking and small arms handling and tactics.
The Ovambo and Bushman trackers were rated as Special Constables, who essentially underwent intensive basic infantry training although many were captured and "turned" SWAPO fighters that had already received training elsewhere.
From a Koevoet Operators perspective, Special Constables were "TIN" or "COIN" ("Teen Insurgensie" in Afrikaans) or in English " Counter Insurgency", and Koevoet Operators (local) were KOEVOETE (meaning plural of Koevoet) and were "a cut above the rest (of Special Constables)" because they had been accepted - Not just anyone could be accepted in a Koevoet fighting team!. The trackers of the unit in the early days were local Owambu and not Bushmen as often claimed. Operations were conducted with the bushman and paratrooper "bat" units with success. The Owambu, although accepting the skills of the bushmen, were in close competition and were in "actual" tracking and not just knowledgeable of the habits of the "tracked' equal.
Tactics
Koevoet operations were devoted to tracking groups of SWAPO fighters who were on foot. Their tracks were picked up in various ways, but most often from:
- Patrols of areas favoured for crossing by SWAPO fighters.
- Information from local inhabitants.
- From areas surrounding a recent attack.
Once a suspicious track was found, a vehicle would leap-frog ahead a few kilometres to check for the same tracks, and once found, the other vehicles would race up to join them. Using this technique they could make quickly catch up with the guerillas who were travelling on foot. The technique borrows strongly from experience gained during the Rhodesian Bush War.
The trackers were so skilled at their art that they could provide very accurate estimates on the distance to the enemy, the speed at which they were travelling and their states of mind. They were able to do this by "reading" factors such as abandoned equipment, changes from walking to running speed, reduced attempts at anti-tracking or splintering into smaller groups taking different directions ("bomb shelling").
Once the trackers sensed that the SWAPO fighters were close, they would often retreat to the safety of the Casspir armoured personnel carriers to face an enemy typically armed with RPG-7 rocket launchers, rifle grenades, AK-47s, SKS carbines and RPK and PKM machine guns.
Koevoet members were financially rewarded through a bounty system, which paid them for kills, prisoners and equipment they captured. This practice allowed many of the members to earn significantly more than their normal salary, and resulted in competition between units.
In October 1989, Koevoet was disbanded so that SWAPO could not accuse South Africa of influencing the election. Its members incorporated nationwide into the South West African Police (SWAPOL). Its former members conducted many operations in support of or with the South-West Africa Territorial Force.
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