Now that our departure for Angola draws nearer, I can let you all know a little more about what has been going on behind the scenes in the Bring Skillie Home Project.
From the outset, we felt that, for the project to succeed, it would need to be a mission of reconciliation and mutual international co-operation.
Uniquely, the Skillie Project would involve three countries. SA, Namibia and Angola, all old enemies at one time or another. The SA side was made possible by a man of great generosity of spirit, Patrick “Blaz” Ricketts. I was introduced to Blaz by another great Parabat, Eeben Barlow.
Blaz is an ex MK soldier who has repatriated MK remains from other countries before. He knows everyone both in the SA government as well as many Angolan government and military influential people.
In fact it was Blaz that first introduced the 61 Mech Angolan Tour group to the Angolan general who received the recent tour so magnanimously.
Blaz was the vital key to both the Angolan embassy as well as the SA DIRCO which have both helped to make our project possible.
As many of you now know, we were asked by the Angolan embassy to solve a problem that they had received no satisfaction with since 1981.
They wanted to know what we had done with their FAPLA Capt. Jeronimo.
The PVO, after exhaustive investigation established the fate of Capt. Jeronimo, much to the relief of both the Angolan ambassador and Capt. Jeronimo’s widow, Rita.
To be continued