A view of the False Bay yacht Club and the South African Naval Docks in Simons Town, (Photo: David Harrison)
“I don’t want to say anything; if my name comes out it will get back to me. The less we know the better. There is a lot of speculation. It is best for me to stay out of it.”
A baboon colony, penguins and a statue of the legendary sailor dog, Just Nuisance, are some of the reasons Simon’s Town has featured in news articles.
Now it’s been in the news for something far racier — a secret operation in the naval base that involved armed security and a sanctioned Russian cargo ship, Lady R, which temporarily disappeared from the maritime automatic identification system.
Simon’s Town was involuntarily dragged into the controversy over South Africa’s ostensibly close ties with Russia when United States ambassador Reuben Brigety publicly claimed earlier this month that South Africa had sent weapons to Russia when the Lady R docked at the naval port last December.
And residents had front row seats to the whole spectacle.
Dennis Lihou, the senior manager of the tourist information centre, told the Mail & Guardian that he knew about the Lady R the moment she entered the harbour, but did not consider it odd at the time.
Lihou, who has 30 years’ experience in the shipping industry, initially thought the government had finally heeded calls to allow commercial ships to dry dock in the naval harbour.
But he changed his mind when he screened the office’s closed-circuit television footage after a burglary at a local hardware store across the road. The same night that large containers were transported under armed guard to the waiting Lady R in the harbour, less than 300m away someone had broken a small window at the shop and stolen R12 000 worth of sunglasses.
While Lihou was scanning the footage, he started seeing large trucks carrying containers in the direction of the naval port. “I was mystified. What are they doing?” recalls Lihou, who, like many others, started speculating about the cargo when his wife showed him the many media reports and attention it was receiving.
Open secret: Many people in Simon’s Town saw Lady R, which docked in the harbour, including the statue of Just Nuisance, the dog who was enlisted into the Royal Navy in 1939. (David Harrison)
Defence Minister Thandi Modise flat out denied to the M&G that South Africa had loaded weapons onto the Lady R, as claimed by Brigety. The ANC government has also pushed back against suggestions that, contrary to its stated non-aligned stance, it has chosen to side with Russia in its war against Ukraine.
“Everybody now sees the spook called South Africa. I can tell you that categorically, we did not send fokol, not even a piece of Chappies [bubblegum] to Russia. We should be left alone,” an irritated Modise said.
On the night in question, using the main and only road through Simon’s Town, large containers were transported under armed guard from sports fields, where the trucks are believed to have waited, for about 7km to the naval harbour.
“You cannot hide something like that. Everybody is looking from the top of the mountain at this ship being offloaded and uploaded at night,” says Simon Liell-Cock, a Democratic Alliance ward councillor in Simon’s Town for the past 12 years.
He spoke to the M&G from the False Bay Yacht Club, as a crisp autumn breeze whispered through the historic 1680 harbour town on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula. Like many other townspeople, he had watched events unfold as the cargo vessel anchored at the town’s naval port.
“It came here under the cover of darkness,” said Liell-Cock, explaining that nothing has moved in the dockyard at night “for decades”.
“There were armed guards who looked neither military nor police. They were dressed in dark suits, tinted cars and Vito Mercedes Benz buses. They ate at the hotel. You cannot hide something like that.”
Weighing in on the debate about South Africa’s stance on Russia, the councillor speculated that the ship’s brief visit was “just gangsters in one government dealing with gangsters in another”.
The M&G bumped into a former South African navy officer in Jubilee Square, who would not be drawn into the subject.
“I don’t want to say anything; if my name comes out it will get back to me. The less we know the better. There is a lot of speculation. It is best for me to stay out of it,” said the officer as he hurriedly walked off.
In contrast, a cheerful group of street vendors unpacking their art in Jubilee Square were eager to talk about the “Russian ship” they had read about in the news, but admitted they did not actually see it in the harbour.
President Cyril Ramaphosa wants an investigation led by a retired judge to look into the matter and government officials have confirmed it will proceed.
Even in Simon’s Town, there is division about South Africa’s stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Last week, Lihou was confronted by two police officers who ordered him to take down the Ukrainian flag he had hoisted in Jubilee Square 10 months ago.
Nautical flags usually float from a giant pole overlooking the harbour, but last year someone asked Lihou to put up the Ukrainian flag in solidarity with the war-ravaged country.
When the police’s order came to take it down he was at first reluctant, arguing that there was no law barring him from hanging a foreign flag outside. Lihou believes the police were ordered “to remove all signs of Ukraine”.
Lihou eventually took the flag down and is “now flying flag India”, a reference to the nautical flag alphabet “I” which is the signal for: “I am altering my course to port”.
Vendors in Jubilee Square didn’t see but knew about the vessel. (David Harrison)
“If [the police] come back and ask me what flag it is and I say flag India, and they don’t tell me to take that one down, the Ukrainian flag is going back up again,” a defiant Lihou said.
Colonel André Traut, police spokesperson in the Western Cape, said that although not familiar with the circumstances, “this office is not aware of any legislation or a bylaw that prohibits the display of a foreign flag in this country. The only exception is the display of the old RSA flag, which will constitute hate speech.”
“My only guess is that the mentioned flag was hoisted onto someone else’s flagpole. If this is not the case, the instruction to lower the flag was not based on legislation.”
Not far from Jubilee Square, Sheribeen Amlay, who used to work in the docks, questions why the Ukrainian flag was put up in the first place. “Don’t cause disharmony and disunity among people here. Not everyone is of Ukrainian support or of Russian support. We are trying to live a normal life here.”
Amlay manages the Simon’s Town Heritage Museum from his family home on navy owned-land. Because of the Group Areas Act of 1950, Amlay’s family was removed from the house but returned in recent years when the government granted his request to turn the empty house into a museum. The house still belongs to the government.
He did see the Russian vessel that December 2022 night.
A view of the South African Navy dockyards in Simons Town, (David Harrison)
“They came here, and [in] my personal opinion, why can’t they come here? I had Russian visitors here last week.” Amlay said, opening his visitors book to point out their names.
“We belong to Brics,” Amlay added, referring to the bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The M&G’s last stop was the South African Navy. If anyone had any answers about the mystery surrounding the Lady R, it should have been the harbour master, Cois Roux. But he declined to comment, referring the M&G to “official communication channels”.
A reliable source said even the harbour master had been ordered to let the Russian cargo vessel dock at the naval port and not to board the ship.
With Simon’s Town harbour now in the rear-view mirror, a comment earlier that day from a street vendor who is solely dependent on tourists for his survival is instructive: “What Russian ship?” he asked.