The trial of General Magnus Malan and the 19 other accused has has exposed the methods of the previous government’s State Security Council during the turbulent 1980s. Mangosuthu Buthelezi was seen as a puppet by the State Security Council in its covert battle against the ANC. Eddie Koch and Ann Eveleth report
TOP-SECRET government documents handed to court in the Magnus Malan murder trial make repeated use of an English and Afrikaans word “marionette” when describing covert military negotiations with Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
The conspiracy at the centre of the trial, Project Marion, deriving from marionette and its synonyms — dummy, puppet, manikin and pawn — describe how the State Security Council in 1985 viewed Buthelezi as a central component of its strategy to recruit surrogate black allies to act as a bulwark against the African National Congress in the 1980s.
The most revealing comments are in a military intelligence report — “South African Defence Force Support to Chief Minister Buthelezi and Bishop Lekganyane” — a detailed analysis of how important it was for the preservation of apartheid to build a paramilitary capacity against the ANC around these two conservative leaders.
The document, drawn up on 19 December 19 1985 just before a critical State Security Council meeting called to approve Operation Marion, says it had become clear “the internal unrest situation cannot only be characterised as a black-white struggle and that part of the unrest is the result of a power struggle between black groups.
“It is important that a large portion of the black population is currently not prepared to accept the expansion of the Charterist movement and is willing to actively resist this activity.
“If the Charterists succeed in neutralising Inkatha, it is unlikely that the other groups will be able to withstand the pressure against them. The end result of this will be that the government will only have the whites as a bastion against the revolutionary onslaught on the Republic of South Africa.”
The document describes how urgent it was to provide Buthelezi and Lekganyane — who were estimated to have a total following of some seven million people — with paramilitary forces which could be used against the ANC-UDF. “Inkatha and the ZCC’s willingness to actively resist revolutionary elements provides a golden opportunity for the State to pull a meaningful and influential section of the black population into a counter- insurgency and mobilisation programme.”
It describes, in detail, how a covert military unit could be supplied to Inkatha but emphasises this collaboration between the Zulu nationalist movement and the SADF had to be kept secret so Buthelezi’s image as an anti- apartheid leader would not be tarnished.
“Open SADF support to Chief Minister Buthelezi and Bishop Lekganyane will clearly have a negative impact on their power base and must not be overlooked. Any support must be clandestine or covert. Not one of the leaders must, as a result of SADF support, be branded as marionettes of the South African government by the enemy.”
Another section of the same document warns strongly of the possibility Buthelezi could change sides. “There must be vigilance against any plan that can create a potential monster.”
Later documents refer repeatedly to the need for covert support to prevent Buthelezi from being seen as a “marionette” and at least one of the papers shows the Inkatha leader actively collaborated with the military to make sure his image as a bona-fide nationalist leader was not compromised by his willingness to become a surrogate for Pretoria’s military.
A secret report dated October 16 1986 and drawn up by Brigadier John More, one of Malan’s co-accused, says Buthelezi expressed extreme gratitude to the SADF late in 1986 after the first batch of paramilitary fighters had been trained and sent back to KwaZulu.
More notes “the Chief Minister is worried about his image and that he recently had to criticise (Defence Minister) General Malan because of certain statements he made but these comments were made with tongue-in- cheek”.
Buthelezi did not respond at the time of going to press to queries about the apparent role he played in disguising that he and his movement were used by the military as puppets.
The documents indicate the State Security Council operated on a need-to-know basis and careful effort was made to ensure there was no written evidence that cabinet members on the council — including Deputy President FW de Klerk — knew of plans to create an offensive military unit which would take part in violent attacks on UDF members.
However it becomes clear from the papers that members of the State Security Council knew it was illegal, in terms of laws governing the self-governing homelands, for South Africa to supply any of these mini-states with an army or military force. Attorney General Tim McNally indicated in papers that the creation of a paramilitary force in KwaZulu-Natal was criminal because it contravened Law 21 of 1971 which prohibited aid of the kind given to Buthelezi.
De Klerk declined to comment on queries about whether he and his cabinet colleagues knew they were breaking the law when the State Security Council approved Operation Marion.
McNally put new particulars before the court — in which Malan and 19 co-accused are charged with setting up the paramilitary unit which carried out the 1987 Kwamakhuta massacre — accusing former army chief Kat Liebenberg of providing “false evidence to the Goldstone Commission during 1992” about his knowledge of the Inkatha unit trained in the Caprivi Strip.
McNally accused Liebenberg of lying to the commission “in order to conceal his personal role and the role of the Defence Force in relation to the Caprivi trainees”. Goldstone’s probe into the activities of the Caprivi 200, as the unit came to be known, was set up after the Mail & Guardian published evidence that members of this band were murdering people in Natal and the Transvaal in the early 1990s.
Another startling allegation contained in new details presented by McNally this week is that military officers involved in Operation Marion discussed murdering the leader of the Caprivi 200, Daluxolo Luthuli, because they feared he was leaking information about the operation.
Luthuli defected from Inkatha last year and provided the KZN based Investigative Task Unit with critical information which led to the arrest of Malan and the co- accused.
McNally said former Durban security policeman Major Louis Botha “intimated” to Caprivi instructor JP Opperman that Luthuli had “become a security risk in that he was disclosing details of Operation Marion to parties outside those who had become involved in such operation”.
McNally alleges Botha “recommended” (to Opperman) Luthuli be killed but this advice was never carried out.