Stefaans Brummer
FORMER superspy Craig William-son — the one former agent that knows more than most about the ”dirty tricks” of his apartheid bosses — this week was at loggerheads with Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Pik Botha and other National Party politicians over their handling of the police indemnities saga.
Williams warned NP politicians ”not to think we have forgotten who gave us the orders”. It drew a sharp response from Botha, who said Williamson was a ”clown you have to be careful of”.
The former spy accused NP politicians, and in particular Botha, of betraying the security forces ”which kept the Nats in power for so long”.
Williamson said he was ready to take his own ”sins” to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He said he had rebuffed an approach by a police brigadier to join the 3 500 policemen who applied for indemnity before April’s elections as ”I thought it would do more harm than good”.
He said both sides to the conflict had committed crimes but charged that the difference, as illustrated by the NP’s ”incompetent” handling of the indemnities issue, was that the ANC ”stood by its people” while NP politicians did not.
Williamson said Botha’s statement before last week’s cabinet meeting that no amnesty had been granted to the 3 500 had left him confused. ”If anybody who is in cabinet now knew what was happening then (in the apartheid years), it is Pik.”
Botha said his statement had been misinterpreted; that he had never said the amnesties were invalid — only that the courts would have to decide, which was the accepted legal ”consensus” anyway.
But to Williamson’s charge that he had known of ”dirty tricks”, Botha shot back: ”He is talking nonsense.” He said he had been a member of the State Security Council — the body which co-ordinated the apartheid government’s response to the ”total onslaught” — but he had ”tried to stop wrong things from happening so that we would not get further sanctions against us”.
Asked if that did not imply he knew about ”dirty tricks”, Botha said: ”I did not know of ‘dirty tricks’. I knew what was on the agenda of the State Security Council, but I never served on the sub-committees which had to put broad directives into action …
* Sue de Villiers, publicity officer for Justice Minister Dullah Omar, said this week that high-ranking delegations from the army and police had met Amnesty Office officials before the April elections to discuss whether their applications would be successful.
The Amnesty Office officials told them their formula, which asked for indemnity for ”all actions” rather than specifying the individual applicant’s offence, would not lead to automatic indemnity. De Villiers said the Defence Force delegation then announced it would not submit indemnity applications en masse.