Big Game Parks - Swaziland

CONTROVERSIES – THE GRIME!

Rhino War
Game Act and Legislation
Big Bend Shoot-Out

The Rhino War

Commercial horn poaching arrived from the north in November 1988. Poaching had always existed, but the extent and sinister character of commercial poaching was new. Due to the exaggerated value of horn, this new wave brought with it mafia-style gangsterism, organised crime syndicates, murder and corruption at all levels. Africa had already lost 98% of her black rhino population due to horn poaching. Swaziland’s Rhino War began in 1988, and ended in December 1992. During these 4 years, Swaziland lost nearly 80% of her rhino. During this time, the general crime, with particular reference to violent crime, rose substantially in Swaziland. Rhino poachers were more often than not involved in other serious crimes, including armed robbery and trafficking in both contraband and illegal substances.

Swaziland’s first rhino to fall to a spray of AK47 bullets was at Hlane. The massacre of nearly 100 rhino was to follow, four of which were lost at Mkhaya during 1992 after the dehorning of the Hlane rhino. Near the end of the Rhino War, Swaziland was losing a rhino every two weeks. It was during and because of the rhino poaching investigations that Petros Ngomane, Chief Ranger of Big Game Parks, had his second life assassination attempt.

It was a busy time for the rangers, arresting offenders and then spending countless hours in courtrooms, only to be disillusioned when they were released. With their covers blown and the culprits free, the rangers were now in constant danger. The need for stronger laws was evident, and in April 1991 the Game Amendment Act became law. Since being passed, this Act has been acclaimed the best anti-poaching legislation in Africa! This law was drafted as preventative rather than remedial legislation because of the continual assault on rhino. It, together with the Big Bend Shoot-Out, resulted in an abrupt end to rhino poaching in Swaziland. The penalties are too harsh to make poaching worthwhile. Rangers were arrested for aiding and abetting poaching, and rewards were doubled if parks employees were complicit in any such activities.

The mandatory penalties did not sit well with the courts and the number of acquittals and reduced penalties (at times below legislated minimums) increased. The poaching escalated and in a desperate attempt to save the rhino, Hlane dehorned its remaining animals in December 1991 and confined them to high security bomas. By this time 39 carcasses had been recovered. Even in the bomas poachers put rangers to flight with superior weaponry and killed 2 confined rhinos for their horns. Mlawula’s count of 16, then 12 rhino (1992) reduced to 0, with unexplained discrepancies in carcass recoveries.

The rhino crisis was presented to King Mswati ll with a recommendation to relocate Swaziland’s remaining rhino to South Africa for safekeeping. Instead, the result was the Amended Game Act and the rangers armed with R5 automatic and LM semi-automatic weapons, equalising the terms on the battlefield.

In April 1992, Mkhaya lost two pregnant rhino cows, in the second rhino poaching incident on Mkhaya. A shoot-out between rangers and the poaching gang ended with only the horns of one rhino being taken and the recovery of four AK47’s, a .38 Special and a .22 rifle, both stolen during a recent AK47 armed robbery on a nearby farm. This operation culminated in the well publicised Big Bend Shoot-Out at the Bend Inn, where rangers converged on rhino horn traffickers who were trading the missing horn. Two traffickers were shot when they drew guns and resisted. The horns were recovered. Only one rhino poaching incident followed in December 1992 at Mkhaya, where 5 men were arrested and an AK47 was recovered. The last rhino slain was Mthonddvo, who at the time may have been the most photographed rhino in southern Africa. Since his slaying and his killers brought to book, not a single rhino has been poached in Swaziland – almost 2 decades ago! (article published 2010)

The Game Act and Legislation

The Game Act of 1953 was amended in April 1991 with the Game Amendment Act – passed by Parliament, ratified by the King. This Act, applied by Swaziland’s rangers, has worked and thousands of Swazis and visitors to Swaziland now peacefully view rhinos and other wildlife species in the protection of our parks. It is hard to believe rhino had become locally extinct, and then very nearly went extinct for the second time - until the King and the leadership of our country came to the rescue with the Amendment of the Game Act and its transfer to the Office of the Head of State.

Before enactment, the Game Bill stuck with the Minister of Agriculture for more than a year until in desperation, Reilly loaded a rotting poached rhino carcass and delivered it to the King. The result was the prompt enactment of the Bill by Parliament.

The salient features of the Game Act are:

First Schedule – Specially Protected Game (rhino, elephant, lion) – 5 years minimum mandatory imprisonment, without the option of a fine PLUS replacement of the animal taken or its value compensated, failing which an additional 2 years imprisonment;
Second Schedule – Royal Game - Mandatory minimum sentence of E4000,00 or 2 years imprisonment, PLUS replacement of the animal taken or its value compensated, with provision that the fine imposed may not be less than the value of the animal taken;
Third Schedule – Common Game – Minimum of E600,00 or 6 months imprisonment, PLUS replacement value of the animal taken;
Values of each species are gazetted for each Schedule;
Section 28 reads – “No sentence or part of any sentence may be suspended by the court” and “No vehicle, gun or other apparatus may be released by the court unless the accused is acquitted”
Mandatory minimum prison sentence of 12 months without the option of a fine for any official, including a judicial official, convicted of frustrating or defeating the ends of justice;
Rangers may search and arrest without a warrant; may use all reasonable force necessary to affect arrest; may bear arms and use them in life threatening circumstances; and in doing any of the above in the course of duty, rangers are not liable to prosecution; (This became necessary when arrested poachers invariably and as a matter of course, brought their own fictitious charges of assault against arresting rangers, who were then prioritised and called to trial while poaching cases were relegated to the back of the queue).
Non-Bailable Offences Act – Offenders of First & Second Schedule of the Game Act may not be granted bail by the court. The Non-Bailable Offences Act was repealed in 2004.

Comment – if you put your hand in the fire, you will get burned! Poaching is a deliberate, premeditated act!

The Game Act currently sits with the King’s Office, a Ministry in Swaziland. Points to consider:

The responsibility for wildlife in Swaziland has traditionally always been vested in the King. This responsibility became legally formalised with the responsibilities for the Game Act and CITES placed under his direct control in the King’s Office by legal notice 142 of 1998.
The Game Act, enacted by the Nation’s elected representatives to Parliament in spite of a law society petition against it, has legal application Kingdom wide – inside and outside Parks and Nature Reserves.
The Chief Officer in the King’s Office assumes all the roles previously designated to the responsible Minister under the Act
Big Game Parks has been delegated by the Head of State to administer the Game Act, CITES and all international Conventions/Agreements on Nature Conservation, under the governing control of the King through the King’s Office.
The Swaziland National Trust Commission (SNTC) authority and jurisdiction is limited to the boundaries of its own Nature Reserves and institutions (SNTC Act 1972). There is no other legislation at variance with this. The SNTC Act has legal application only inside its own properties.
Game Rangers gazetted under the provisions of the SNTC Act have powers only within the boundaries of their own Parks and institutions (such rangers are gazetted by the Minister of Tourism).
Game Rangers gazetted under the Game Act or appointed by Royal Warrant have powers Kingdom wide (such game rangers can only be gazetted by order of the Head of State through the King’s Office).
All Game Rangers are subject to the laws of the land.

Swaziland can be very thankful that the responsibility for Wildlife has been formally elevated to the portfolio of the Highest Authority in the land. Being elevated to the King’s Office gives wildlife its best chance of survival in Swaziland.

In exactly the same way as cattle and goats have ownership, so does Wildlife. Game that has been legally purchased with money – not public money but private money – has legal ownership. To say you cannot sell an elephant you have legally purchased is the same as saying you cannot sell your cow or goat. To say that you can steal an impala or warthog to feed your family is the same as saying that you can steal a cow or goat in order to feed your family.

The infamous

BIG BEND SHOOT-OUT, 1992

The biggest and most successful anti-poaching/trafficking bust of all time in Swaziland

In March 1992, a neighbour of Mkhaya, Tim Purcell, was awakened when two intruders entered his home wearing balaclavas and held an AK47 to his head. They forced him to produce the keys of his safe and tied his hands behind his back. As the two criminals ransacked Purcell’s safe, they took his .22 rifle; his .38 revolver and holster; all his ammunition; his stun gun for cattle; his briefcase and all his money. While they were robbing the safe, they discussed killing Purcell, which caused him to make a break and he fled into the darkness with his hands still tied behind his back. Later that night he was admitted to the Big Bend Clinic with injuries sustained during his escape.

Some days later, automatic gunfire broke out not 400m from the ranger Head Quarters at Mkhaya, followed by the anguished screams and groans of rhinos dying. The rangers rushed to the site and found two heavily pregnant females dead, sprayed with AK47 bullets. One had already had the horn chopped off, but the other rhino’s horn was abandoned as the rangers had interrupted the process of removal.

Early the next morning, the game rangers followed the tracks of the poachers through miles of bushveld – the poachers were accomplished at evasive retreat, but late that afternoon their tracks led to the homestead of Dumakutse Gamedze. The rangers surrounded the house and Gamedze came out, giving himself up, but then suddenly and unexpectedly he made a break and escaped into the night. The other occupant of the hut was arrested. He confirmed that the escapee was Dumakutse Gamedze. He also told the rangers that the rhino horn was hidden in a tree. When the rangers got to the tree, the horn had already been removed. The rangers were told Dumakutze Gamedze had shot the rhinos with an AK47, which was hidden under a barrier of branches protecting a field. The AK47 was recovered, and then the rangers were shown where pieces of rhino skin and bone chips had been buried.

Col Pieter Lategan of the Endangered Species Unit of the South African Police was contacted to alert him that there was a fresh rhino horn in circulation. Col Lategan wanted to photograph the dead rhinos for publicity material, and while he was in the country, a telephone call came to say that a rhino horn was being offered for sale at Matata. As Col Lategan had vast experience in this field and he was also a stranger with a foreign registered car, it was suggested that he make contact with the trafficker.

The plan worked. The deal was set to take place in the car park of the Bend Inn, at a given time. The ambush was set up in the surrounding garden. Col Lategan emerged from the hotel with the dealers and they went to a vehicle from which the rhino horn was produced. As soon as it was visible, the game rangers closed in and two of the traffickers immediately drew guns. Shooting broke out and the two traffickers who had drawn guns were shot. All the others were arrested, taken to the police station at Big Bend and charged. The two injured traffickers, Dumakutse and Ncampalala, were taken to hospital where Dumakutse revealed the whereabouts of additional stolen and unlicensed weaponry before he died. The gun Dumakutse went down with was the .38 stolen from Purcell. Ncampalala went down with an unlicensed handgun of Chinese origin. These guns were both handed to the police.

Ncampalala’s home was searched by the Royal Swaziland Police with the rangers. There they recovered more of Purcell’s stolen items: his holster, cattle stun gun and briefcase. Following Dumakutse’s confession, the police and rangers continued to Dumakutse’s father’s homestead where they were shown the hiding place of more of Purcell’s stolen property and more AK47 automatic weapons of war.

Following this, there was a full Police investigation into the Big Bend affair. To summarize, the Police took possession of:

A total of four AK47s
All the recovered stolen weapons and belongings from the armed robbery, March 1992
The rhino horns of one dead rhino.

All this was recovered from the two people who drew guns in the Big Bend shootout – Dumakutse and Ncampalala.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided not to prosecute the game rangers, because they had no case to answer. This is the DPP’s prerogative.

Ted Reilly was not charged with murder as it is claimed. A nole proseque was granted to lawyer Sam Earnshaw following an application by Yonge Nawe to the High Court, with a certificate of urgency for the private prosecution of Ted Reilly and his game rangers. After more than a year no private prosecution had materialized, despite the certificate of urgency with which it had been submitted, and this resulted in the DPP withdrawing the nole proseque on the premise that it had had an inordinate period of time to be processed and that it was wrong to have it hanging over someone who was not being prosecuted.

So, in summary, dangerous men with dangerous weapons were robbing Swaziland of her heritage. They were stopped. And they were stopped by the law.

Any law enforcement agency, which Big Game Parks is, is never popular with criminals if it applies the law without fear or favour. In response to accusations that Big Game Parks' game rangers are above the law and shoot people with impunity, we simply say these statements cannot be substantiated because they are simply untrue. No ranger who abuses his powers is above the law, and it does not require the police to arrest him if he does because the rangers of BGP do so themselves, and hand the wrong-doer to the police. Indeed, if sensible and unbiased research were conducted, it would be found that the rangers of Big Game Parks have arrested and charged their own colleagues for breaking the law. So, if any person checks, he will find this to be true – it is all a matter of police record and can be checked on.

Operation Big Bend is still considered to be the most successful anti-poaching bust of all time in Swaziland. The Kingdom’s rhinos were without any doubt saved from extinction for the second time by the collective impact of the Big Bend Shoot-Out and the Swaziland Game Act as Amended. Since December 1992, Swaziland has not lost a rhino to poaching – a record that no other African Rhino Range State can claim! But of course, it all goes back to the top. Without the encouragement of the King and his Office, nature conservation would not have survived in Swaziland.

Food for Thought

From a simple calculation using an average rhino inter-calving period of 30 months, it can be extrapolated that the rhino recruitment yield of 20-odd animals could have been expected between 1991 and 2004 from those two rhino females that were slain in 1991. Add to this Msholo – a rhino bull known to have died by Dumakutse’s hand, and an additional two or three rhino calves born to those born in 1992, 1993 and 1994. Therefore, we are looking at a probable loss of some 25 rhinos over the 13 years following the Big Bend Shooting. WHO WILL PAY FOR THESE LOSSES?

CONSERVATION INITIATIVES – THE GLORY!

The Swaziland Rhino Story

Both black and white rhino were absent from Swaziland for nearly 70 years, until in 1965, the first pair of white rhinos returned to Mlilwane, to be followed by more. Umfolozi Game Reserve in the now KZN province of South Africa, was where the rhino populations of southern Africa were turned around – their numbers had been reduced to an estimated 10-40 animals in the 1930’s. The Natal Parks Board, with individuals such as Ian Player, Tony Harthoorn, Moses Ntombela and Nick Steele among others, were instrumental in saving this species from extinction. The Umfolozi populations exploded and some rhino naturally dispersed beyond the park boundary. These break-out rhino were classified “problem animals” – and some among these (about 60 in total) were donated to Mlilwane. From this tiny nucleus, today’s southern white rhino population has grown to become one of the world’s most successful conservation exercises.

With the proclamation of Hlane, many of the rhino donated to Mlilwane were diverted to Hlane, with its prime habitat and greater space. Most of these original animals broke through fences and bomas and dispersed as far as Mozambique – this was termed the “First Dispersal”. How many stayed is not certain, but the rhino did well at Hlane. By early 1984, the population at Hlane had grown to approximately 110 animals and probably more!

Under the reign of King Sobuza ll, there was a no culling policy. The King stated that the animals had sought refuge from him, so who was he to slaughter them?! The game populations at Hlane continued to grow, with wildebeest alone reaching no less than 4600 animals. Space was limited and due to incredible competition amongst the grazers, natural selection took place – wildebeest, zebra and impala populations reduced by more than 50%, while the white rhino pushed through the fences in search of grass and space – moving as far as Maloma! Capture and release back on to Hlane proved pointless as they broke out of the park again and again. This was termed the “Second Dispersal”. By the end of 1984, following this second dispersal, the rhino population had settled as a resident population of approximately 36 animals. No rhino had succumbed to commercial horn hunting at that stage, but several had been killed by trains running through Hlane. From this settled nucleus the rhino population grew and founder groups were introduced to Malolotja and Mlawula.

The Mlawula rhino population was initially successful and grew to 26 animals, but this population was later devastated by poaching during the rhino war. Furthermore, Mlawula’s proximity to Mozambique did not help.

The Malolotja population also died out, probably due to sub-optimal habitat.

Mkhaya became Swaziland’s 4th protected area when it was purchased to provide a home for the Kingdom’s highly endangered Nguni Cattle, which had virtually vanished as a pure breed through contamination by alien breeds. Because the sourveld at Mlilwane was sub-optimal habitat, its rhinos also began breaking through the fences. Two of these were donated to the Kruger National Park while others were relocated to Hlane and then to Mkhaya where an endangered species programmes was being developed.

Hippo History

In 1967 Mlilwane received her first Hippo bull from Kruger National Park. Being a sole hippo on the Sanctuary, he busied himself by performing somersaults in the water – his big flat feet often seen breaking the surface of the water amid a mad of ripples. This earned him the name Somersault!

12 years later, in 1979, the London Zoological Society donated a young female hippo from Whipsnade Zoo in England. Winnie (taken from ‘Winile’ which in SiSwati means ‘to win’) flew out in a passenger carrying jumbo jet, sponsored by SAA, to join Mlilwane’s lone bull. Ian Haggie provided tickets to England for Ted & Liz Reilly to fly back with Winnie, and the news made newspaper headlines in the UK, Swaziland and South Africa. In midair, the Captain called Ted and Liz to the cockpit and asked a few questions. As the story goes, he reached for his microphone and called all passengers for their attention, notifying them that there was a good tonne of live hippo on board in the hold, destined for Swaziland. When the Reilly’s opened the door of the cockpit, returning to their seats, they were met by a scene of passengers sitting bolt upright, their white knuckles and faces bearing large concerned eyes!

The Natal Parks Board then donated a third hippo cow and the three were for many years the only protected nucleus of hippo in Swaziland. Some local businesses in Matsapha including Alfa Cement later donated another hippo, and the pod grew quickly. Another male hippo, Machobane, was later donated by Whipsnade Zoo.

Somersault has sadly passed on, having reached a ripe old age. Winnie took to the delicacies provided on a neighbouring farm which lead to her capture and now lives happily at Mkhaya Game Reserve, along with Machobane.

The Return of the Royal Symbols

Probably the highlight of Swazi conservation to date has been the return of the lion and the elephant – the symbols of the Royal House of Swaziland. The lion, Ngwenyama, represents the King for his power and majesty and the Queen Mother, Ndlovukati, is represented by the matriarch elephant – respectively the wise patriarch and matriarch of the Swazi nation. These animals, so significant to Swazi culture, were hunted to extinction in Swaziland in the early 1900’s. The last known record of an elephant sighting in the Kingdom was in 1954 when two vagrant bulls crossed north to south through the lowveld, moving from SA to Mozambique. Recently 4 bulls visited from Zululand, 2 of which were darted and collared by Mick Jubela Reilly before being heralded back to KZN.

In January 1986 the first two young orphan elephant bull calves arrived from Kruger. They stayed in a boma in Mlilwane Rest Camp before going to Mkhaya, the only park with adequate electric fencing at the time. A second group of 18 animals arrived in April 1987 and where introduced to Hlane and Mkhaya.

The lion was one of the later reintroductions to Swaziland – and possibly the climax. The last lion seen on Hlane before this was by King Sobuza ll was on Hlane at Hunter’s Rock, in the 1950’s. Following a command by King Mswati lll at the opening of Bhubesi Camp on 5th April 1991, Big Game Parks organised three young lions – one male and two females donated by South African National Parks Board, with capture and relocation costs sponsored by Dr Anton Rupert. The lions arrived in Swaziland on 9th February 1994 and were released into a large specially fenced area (funded by the European Union) on Hlane.