Mike Horn: these revelations about his past that are controversial

Known for more than 30 years for his adventures all over the world, Mike Horn is now suspected of having taken part in much criticized military operations during his youth in South Africa.

From him, we know the exploration trips to the four corners of the world since 1991 and the adventures so perilous that they put his life in danger. But recent revelations have thrown the image of mike horn. At 56, the adventurer is renowned with the general public thanks to films and numerous television appearances consecutively on M6 with The Island, Wild or Cape Horn and on RMC Story with Mike Horn: Surviving the Impossible in 2021. But he, who has lived in Switzerland since 1990 with his family, more particularly his daughters, has just been the subject of an investigation by the RTS, chain French-speaking Swiss TV, broadcast on January 19 in its show Present time (an investigative magazine, editor’s note). In the program titled “Mike Horn: the hidden side of the adventurer”we discover hitherto unknown – and controversial – elements of the explorer’s youth that are controversial among the Helvetians.

“I have to look at my diary”

As explained The Parisian, it is Mike Horn’s past before his media coverage that resurfaces. Born in the 1960s in South Africa, Mike Horn would have, according to the research of journalists, participated, before the end of Apartheid, to several military operations in present-day Namibia consisting in tracking down those who fought against the regime within Battalion 101, nicknamed “murderer battalion” by Namibia’s first president. While the team is notably accused of being behind a massacre during a meeting of an armed rebel group in favor of the independence of Namibia, Mike Horn was questioned by the RTS on his involvement that day. Facing the camera, he replies: “That was so long ago…I have to check my diary…I’m not sure I was there.” The investigation then reveals that Mike Horn would have carried out several secret missions for the South African Army. About his former years of service, Mike Horn tries to justify himself

“I strictly obeyed orders”

On screen, he says: “I wanted to play an active role in protecting South Africa. People think we were hunting and killing. Me I was hunting people who wanted to kill other people. Like a policeman. I was not looking to kill but to prevent bad elements from killing people I love.” According to him, these military expeditions “gone his life” just like going “buy croissants”. In a lengthy message sent to the show’s production a few days before it aired, Mike Horn spoke in more detail: “I strictly obeyed the orders given to me. I had no particular love for the apartheid regime. I was only fulfilling my civic duty. I never supported the regime, not only during my military obligations, but also once they were accomplished. My coming to Switzerland is not linked to these operations but is due to chance. (…) It is clear that today I regret having participated in these operations, although I fully assume everything I have done in my life”.