Red Ants, the private army on the frontline of South Africa conflict
Fighting force is being used to carry out evictions and enforce policy of expropriating land without compensation
First you see the smoke, above the dry hills and the scattered corrugated iron homes. Then you hear the noise.
If the operation is going well, it is that of a work site: hammers rhythmically striking metal, straining diesel engines, work songs, radios, and shouted orders.
If the operation is going badly, the noise is of a battle: shattering glass, rocks striking plastic shields, stamping feet, shots, sirens and screamed abuse.
The outcome of any confrontation is rarely in doubt. The inhabitants of the squatter camps and “hijacked” buildings may be desperate – but they are no match for the Red Ants.
This is the frontline of the conflict over land in South Africa, a hugely divisive question that exposes many of the deep fractures of a troubled country.
The African National Congress (ANC), in power since the disintegration of the repressive, racist apartheid regime and the first free elections of 1994, voted late last year to implement a new policy of expropriation of land without compensation.
Many South Africans see a new distribution of land as essential for the “radical economic transformation” that they believe will mitigate the deep inequality in the country. Opponents say such a reform would destroy the economy. The argument is playing out within the ANC, pitting its radical wing against the moderates associated with Cyril Ramaphosa, who became president in February.
Such debates focus mainly on vast farms and commercial holdings. In and around South Africa’s cities, the land conflict takes a different form as local authorities try to enforce the law in the face of massive popular demand for a patch of earth to build a home.
Every week illegal squatters, tired of paying extortionate sums for rented rooms, move on to vacant government land. To clear them, officials hire specialist private security firms. Among the most effective, and the most controversial, is the Red Ants.
The company is based on a sprawling farm in Gauteng, the prosperous province. Two, sometimes three, times a week a convoy of trucks drives out of its gates, carrying hundreds of men, led by “officers” armed with shotguns and handguns.
Repeatedly criticised by human rights campaigners, the Red Ants are rarely out of the headlines in South Africaand have been repeatedly accused of crimes ranging from theft to murder.
But the attitude of the general public is more ambivalent. One elderly female spectator at the site of one mass eviction praised the firm for doing “the work the government doesn’t want to do itself”. The Red Ants themselves are fiercely loyal to each other and their employers.
“We are a family. We look after each other … We have built a community,” said Johan Bosch, the farmer who founded and owns the company.
The land issue is aggravated by the lack of adequate housing - one of the most toxic legacies of the apartheid regime that governed South Africa for nearly 50 years.
Some operations are on wastelands around the ragged fringes of big cities. The Guardian watched 650 men, equipped with crowbars and shields, all dressed in identical red overalls and helmets, demolish an illegal squatter camp on the ragged outskirts of Pretoria, the South African capital.
Others are in city centres. Hundreds of people were evicted from a derelict 1930s apartment block in central Johannesburg, where they shared just three taps and lived with no toilets and no electricity. Police sirens filled the narrow streets but there was no resistance. Adult residents had long expected they would be cleared from their homes and did not resist.
This is not always the case. Last year, one Red Ant was shot and stabbed to death during an operation. He was buried after eulogies, songs and a volley of shots from his colleagues.
The Red Ants come from impoverished small former mining towns, from distant provincial villages in parched mountains, from Soweto, from hardscrabble neighbourhoods half hidden amid the urban sprawl of Johannesburg. Most are young. Many are without basic educational qualifications. All are poor. They are paid the equivalent of $10 (£7.50) a day. Some even live in squats themselves.
Among those deployed by the firm to clear “illegal invaders” at Atteridgeville on the outskirts of Pretoria in December, was 37-year-old Lucian, from Kliptown in Soweto, with few teeth and convictions for grievous bodily harm.
There was Ben, who left neighbouring Mozambique to work on building sites but struggled to find employment. “My wife said get a job … so I did,” he explains, shrugging narrow shoulders and tugging at the miniature portrait of Bob Marley hung like a talisman around his neck.
There is Rowan, 28, saving for a sound engineering course, and Lenzi, 22, who has siblings to feed and clothe and send to school. “No one likes doing this … But I got to church every Sunday and pray for my soul and I know my Lord is watching over me, even here,” he says.
In charge are older men whose own life stories are intimately intertwined with the complex, troubled history of their nation.
There is the 48-year-old veteran of South Africa’s 1980s cold war battles in Angola. There is the ex-policeman from Soweto whose family was deeply involved in the struggle against apartheid. A 20-year police career ended when he denounced corruption.
Bosch, the owner of the Red Ants, grew up on the farm where the firm is based. His big game hunting trophies look down on the hundreds of workers given steak, stew and maize every lunch time in the vast traditional eating hall.
The 58-year-old, who distributes vegetables to hundreds of needy families every week, says the eviction business is only a fraction of his turnover.
“We do a lot of evictions for the government …. you can’t allow [land invasions] to happen. If the government leaves it, what will happen to the rest of the country?”.
One incident prompted a slew of new allegations. The Red Ants were hired to clear squatters from land where a mall was due to be built in Lanesia, on the southern outskirts of Johannesburg. The operation started in the early morning. But the squatters were ready and fought the Red Ants with machetes, rocks and staves. The eviction stalled and the Red Ants withdrew. Two squatters’ bodies lay on the ground. One dying from head injuries, one dead. Under a tree, huddled in a plastic chair salvaged from her makeshift hut, a widow sobbed.
The violence prompted investigation by private security industry regulators. Bosch dismisses all charges of wrongdoing and, within weeks, they were working again.
“We always win,” said Sikhumbuzo Dlamini, a Red Ant leader. “We have to win … we are on enemy territory. We are a long way from home.”
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