And the armed struggle still affects the lives of thousands of veterans, from both sides. BBC News Online publishes the accounts of two ex-combatants - one black, one white.

Deacon Mathe is national chairperson of the veterans association of Umkhonto We Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress. He joined in 1976.

The situation in Angola was really horrifying. The South African Defence Force were actively trying to topple the government in that country, where we were based for purposes of training and preparing ourselves to come to South Africa.

You would be told that there's a unit of invaders in one part of the country and you'd immediately have to move in that direction and deal with the situation.

Mathe still suffers from nightmares

You needed to have been trained to utilise any form of weapons, and to deal with the air power superiority of South Africa in the form of anti-air guns and so on.

You'd use mortars against units which are moving around, and create ambushes for them.

Quite often there were serious casualties on both sides, I must be very honest.

I've lost a lot of friends and other people who were part of my unit. And those are the things which we live with today and they obviously have serious psychological effects on most of us.

Brown uniforms

Becoming a guerrilla fighter, you are forced to deal with the fact that you killed somebody the previous day.

That obviously will lead to a lot of trauma in your state of mind. It has been very difficult to deal with.

You justify yourself by saying you are dealing with the system Deacon Mathe South African soldiers face the past

Of course you definitely have nightmares because they are people, humans, who are involved.

But more than any other thing, the point of encouragement from a point of doing it was the defence of the defenceless people of South Africa: who was it who was perpetuating this conflict?

It was those men and women in the brown uniforms who were serving in the South African Defence Force.

After killing a person in that brown uniform, or a person who seemed to be serving it, or a person who seemed to be collaborating with it, you justify yourself by saying you are dealing with the system.

But of course with time you have to realise that there will be victims who are innocent in the process.

Dave Swart, was conscripted into the army in 1981 at the age of 18.

It seemed to be the right thing to do at the time. It wasn't something I looked forward to, it was just part of life, you had to do it, it wasn't even questionable.

There was a huge clampdown in terms of information - all you heard about was how brave and how good your people were and how bad the ANC and Swapo and whoever we were fighting at that particular time were.

During the apartheid era, every white man faced conscription

Training is rigorous, both mental and physical. Mentally it's a breaking down of any barriers so that you don't question orders at all you just react.

Our main job was to find out where enemy troop movements were.

We'd form alliances with informers inside Mozambique and Angola, and find out where tanks and troops were. Then we'd have to call in air strikes.

We worked closely with Renamo - the Mozambican resistance movement.

If they captured some of the Frelimo troops, we would be on hand when they interrogated them.

It's not something I would ever want to witness or be a part of - it was shock treatment, near drownings, beatings. They used to record it and then bring us the tapes. It was pretty horrific.

Perverse success

The incentive that they gave us if any of the enemy was destroyed was to give us a pass - you could go and have a night on the town if you got someone killed.

It sounds horrible, but you didn't actually think about it. You thought: 'This is my job, this is what I have to do in order to protect my family and my comrades: if I don't do it they're going to do it to us.' That's the logic.

We went into Ngivo, a town about 200 km into Angola.

I saw a lot of burning buildings, dead cattle, dead people, dead children, a lot of dead things, a lot of burning, a lot of smoke, a lot of gunfire. It was horrible.

Perversely you feel a sense of success.

When you see men in uniform dead, you don't get used it, but it's more acceptable, it's an enemy, someone who was going to kill you if you don't kill them.

But to see women and children, that's different, that hits home. That's when you start to question.

Brainwashed

A lot of the time the women and children were killed by their own people when they were fleeing from the fighting - because they were meant to stay and fight.

Our rationale was that we didn't cause that, that these guys are animals.

That is why we are doing what we are doing, because they have no feeling for life and that's what they'll do to your family if they were allowed to.

I wouldn't ever want anyone in my family to be involved in something like that.

You get brainwashed. There were times when I wanted to kill black people because I was so angry at losing my friends and at being injured myself.

And I think that is what they wanted: that sort of anger, that resentment, that sheer blind hatred.

I managed to escape conscription but friends of mine experienced the horror of being in the South African army while apartheid was crumbling in 1991. A school friend had an emotional breakdown when two room mates committed suicide within the first three months of service. Another friends fiance returned from service a different man, paranoid, violent and impulsive. She called off the engagement. Not every experience of conscription was bad, I have many friends who enjoyed their two years, but for many the damage was permanent.
Athol Moore, South Africa

I have no regrets doing my national service, I met some fantastic guys in the SADF and I am still in contact with some of them to this day, almost 17 years later. I was one of the lucky ones, I had been shot at many times by our own hastily trained, young and nervous infantary troops and by the enemy and never been hit. I saved many lives and never took any. I have no nightmares, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms. I hold no grudges to any members of society either.
Raymond, UK

UNFORGIVENESS

When I forgive
The one who has done me wrong
I cheat the Law of Hate
For to whom evil is done
Gives evil in return

When I turn the other cheek
I cheat the Law of Fate
For what goes out
Must come back
To find familiar base

That is where
The world has got it wrong:
Paying back hate for hate
Spawns a cycle of violence
And a defenceless state

Emmanuel Aiah Senessie (Sierra Leone)

You have made much of South Africa but the same things happened in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. For us it was even more personal. After the war I could drive past the place where my best friend was blown to pieces by a rocket, and half expect to still see parts of him in the tree. In the end I found peace in my religion and with my new friend, a former guerilla fighter.We shared about our dead friends, lost dreams and what would have been if not for the war. And in the end he has lost his farm to Mugabe's "war veterans" and I have fled to a far off land. At this year's Anzac parade I wept for the wasted lives.
Andy, Australia