Willem Els: The Commander who trained Genl. Mkhwanazi to handle bombs…

KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi is “not scared of all types of bombs”. So says former police commander Willem Els, who is now with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) as Senior Training Coordinator in the ENACT organised crime programme. Els tells BizNews that the “bomb” dropped by the General last Sunday took “tremendous courage”. Els, who trained the General in Bomb Disposal, described him as a”disciplined officer, a straight talker, a straight shooter, a straight walking” officer who is doing “the right thing as a policeman in his heart, in his actions…”, stressing: “He's a policeman in heart and down to the bone.” Apart from training the General, Els also worked with him on s number of foreign missions, and the two even had to “hot extract” former President Thabo Mbeki and then Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma from a coup in Haiti. They also worked together in Mozambique “where we lifted arms caches and destroyed huge, huge numbers of arms and munitions”, as well as in Equatorial Guinea in preparation of an African Union Summit. Els warns that it would “hurt” President Cyril Ramaphosa “very much” if he deals with the general’s allegations of police-underworld links by using the “old playbook that the ANC (African National Congress) has been using ever since they came to power”. As for threats that black and white citizens could even riot together if the KZN general is not treated right, Els notes there are people who say “we might see a repeat of 2021 if people feel that they're not being listened to…”