Monograph 127: South African Guerrilla Armies: The Impact of Guerrilla Armies on the Creation of South Africa`s Armed Forces, Rocky Wi

Rocky Williams, the author of this monograph, sadly passed away before its publication. It is therefore fitting that the ISS dedicate this monograph to his memory and pay a tribute to a dear friend and highly respected colleague.

Rocky devoted most of his youth to the South African liberation struggle and was a guerrilla commander in Umkhonto we Sizwe at the end of the struggle. He played a pivotal role in the negotiation of the military dimensions of the transition to a democratic South Africa. He integrated into the South African National Defence Force with the rank of colonel in 1994. During the transformation process he played a leading role in nearly all activities, including the integration of forces, the establishment of the Defence Ministry and Secretariat, the development of new defence policy and the drafting of the Defence White Paper and the Defence Review. He will always be remembered for his role as the convenor of the Defence Review Work Group and especially for his commitment to transparency and consultation in the process. The South African Defence Review (1998), which has been internationally acclaimed, stands as a monument to Rocky Williams.

Rocky worked at the ISS from 1999 to 2002 as the head of the programme on Security Sector Transformation and did pioneering work into Africa in this regard. The culmination of his work at the ISS was the publication of the book ‘Ourselves to Know’, which is a study of civil-military relations and defence transformation in Southern Africa. He was highly regarded at the Institute for his sterling work in the field of security sector transformation and for laying the foundation of related ISS work in Africa.

Rocky was a key member of the Advisory Group of the Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR) and instrumental in the establishment of the African Security Sector Network (ASSN), of which he was the first convenor of the Steering Committee. He was active in many African countries, assisting them to stabilise their civil-military relations and better manage their defence and security processes.

Rocky completed a PhD in Sociology at the University of Essex.

The death of Rocky Williams is a great loss to all concerned with security sector transformation in Africa and to all who knew Rocky as a friend.

Len Le Roux
Head: Defence Sector Programme
Institute for Security Studies