New evidence has surfaced suggesting links between Armscor and Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, reports Stefaans Brummer
Top South African lawyers returned this week from Belfast in Northern Ireland with fresh evidence of collusion between Armscor and Ulster paramiliary groups.
Now the Cameron Commission, which is investigating irregular Armscor deals, will be asked to extend its probe to the Ulster link. The commission was in Switzerland this week to take evidence from Michael Steenberg, a key player in the aborted Yemen arms deal.
Former Lawyers for Human Rights chief Brian Currin, who headed the mission to Belfast after an invitation by Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, said on his return this week that “an enormous amount of evidence” had been collected.
“We are in the process of collating it, and we do intend to approach the Cameron Commission soon regarding prima facie views we have following our trip.”
He confirmed that their intention to go to the commission implied evidence of Armscor involvement in the arming of the loyalist paramilitaries, which have been embroiled in terrorist attacks against Irish Catholics.
It is believed the evidence may relate to the “Blowpipe fiasco” of 1989, when South African diplomat Daniel Storm and three Irishmen, including Noel Lyttle, a leader of the loyalist Ulster Resistance, were arrested in Paris while allegedly negotiating a deal to give South Africa parts of the British Blowpipe missile in exchange for weapons to loyalists.
The Cameron Commission is limited by its terms of reference to the investigation of arms deals only after February 1990, meaning the Blowpipe deal could technically not be considered by Cameron, were it an isolated incident.
But it is understood there is evidence that the nature of contacts between loyalists and Armscor — and in fact a wider network with elements the likes of British military intelligence operatives, former Rhodesian Selous Scouts, South African rightwingers and South African security forces members — would have been such that it continued well after the botched 1989 deal.
Former security police Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock, who is on trial on more than 120 charges ranging from murder to illegal arms possession, is known, for example, to have maintained strong Irish contacts.
A Sinn Fein spokesman this week said: “There was a loyalist connection to South Africa. I can see no reason why it would suddenly have terminated after 1990.”
He pointed to the Blowpipe deal and a 1987 consignment of South African weapons, which included rifles and RPG rocket launchers, part of which was confiscated by police. A BBC programme in 1989 claimed that while police found weapons destined for the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Resistance kept theirs.
The Sinn Fein spokesman said terrorist actions by the loyalist groupings had increased significantly in the late 1980s after they had apparently been re-armed by South Africa.
Should proof arise of post-1990 dealings between Armscor and the loyalists, the question remains whether the Cameron Commission will be able to investigate these.
This may mean a battle to widen the scope of the commission, which was appointed by Defence Minister Joe Modise late last year to investigate all irregular post- February 1990 Armscor deals, but which to date has concentrated mainly on last year’s aborted shipment of AK47 and G3 rifles to Yemen.
The commission, chaired by acting Judge Edwin Cameron, has come under increasing pressure to wind up or curtail its inquiry, not least from the SA National Defence Force, which foots the bill.
Both Modise and Cameron have been under pressure to curtail the commission’s investigations and bring them to a close, partly because of the R4-million cost so far. While Modise said in parliament last week that he was “looking at ways” to save costs, he is said to have resisted a strong push from the SANDF not to authorise the commissioners to travel to Switzerland, where they are to take evidence from Steenberg this week.
A spokesman for the commission said while the commission “cannot ignore” new evidence, it was already behind schedule on an interim report planned to be completed before the end of the month, and that the formal sittings of the commission were to be terminated on March 30 when a last witness was to present evidence.