Anne Eveleth
A northern KwaZulu/Natal Crime Intelligence Service officer admitted knowledge of Stratcom (Strategic Communications) under oath in the Ladysmith Regional Court this week.
Ladysmith CIS commander Colonel Rowan Hendricks was testifying under cross-examination by defence attorney Colin Heads in the trial of five right wingers alleged to have plotted to poison water supplies in the province shortly after last year’s election.
Hendricks denied he told the accused — Gerrit Anderson, Allan Nolte, Sheron Hattingh, Gerald Veltman and French national Patrick Rousseau — that the right wing was ”meddling” in his unit’s efforts to damage the African National Congress (ANC).
Hendricks said he was aware of Third Force activities which targeted the present government, but denied knowledge of any Third Force activities targeting right- or left-wing political groups, or of activities aimed at focussing blame on the right wing. Hendricks said he knew of the existence of Stratcom, which he said had spread disinformation against the ANC and Pan- Africanist Congress until 1992 or 1993.
Heads said he would later present evidence that one of the people involved in the October 1993 bombing of the Port Edward Hotel was a Third Force member trying to discredit the ANC.
Right-winger Harry Jardine appeared in the Port Shepstone magistrates court last week in connection with that bombing. Jardine also faces charges, with five other right wingers and two of the Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) Port Shepstone leaders — Sipho Ngcobo and IFP southern KwaZulu/Natal publicity secretary James Zulu — in connection with the 1994 attack on the Flagstaff police station.
The attacks are, together with the alleged poisoning plot and the February 1994 attack on Margate’s Sey Shells restaurant, alleged to have been the work of the Natal Liberation Army, a shadowy alliance of white right wingers and IFP members.
The five accused face charges for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, as well as four bottles of cyanide-based powder, between May 17 and June 8 last year. The trial is expected to adjourn this week. When proceedings resume — probably later this year — the prosecution is expected to call six secret witnesses to testify that the accused provided them with weapons.