PW Botha’s ex-private secretary has denied rumours of illegal cargo flying. But that’s not the end of the story, reports Stefaans Brummer
EX-President PW Botha’s arms-dealing former aide, implicated by the Namibian government in illegal cargo flights to Angola, this week denied direct involvement — yet a complex tale has emerged of contacts in high places, a South African-based Russian facing charges, and questions about the destination of thousands of litres of fuel transported by air.
Dr Klaus Dierks, Namibia’s deputy minister of works, transport and communication, this week repeated claims that the air-cargo operation from Grootfontein Airport — halted when authorities grounded a Russian-registered Antonov-12 aircraft late last month — was connected to Ters Ehlers, PW Botha’s last private secretary.
The United States-based Human Rights Watch last year charged that Ehlers had transported arms to Rwanda’s defeated Hutu army
in contravention of a United Nations ban . The UN and South Africa’s Cameron Commission are looking into the allegations.
A member of the Namibian prosecutor general’s office this week said a police investigation was near completion and a decision would probably be made next week on charges against Pretoria-based Russian Iouri Sidirov, owner of the aircraft which allegedly made about 10 illegal flights from Grootfontein to Angola, Zaire and Botswana, carrying thousands of litres of fuel as cargo.
Dierks said Ehlers was introduced to him on February 15 by Namibian opposition leader Moses Katjiuongua and Namibia’s auditor general with an urgent request to approve an airlift of fuel, food, mining equipment and other supplies from Grootfontein to neighbouring Angola.
He said he explained the aircraft licensing rules to Ehlers, but on the same day the Antonov-12 started operating without a licence and without filing flight plans. He claimed a letter he had written to Katjiuongua — of which the Mail & Guardian has a copy, and which clearly points out the need for a licence — was used by Sidirov as purporting to give him permission to fly.
A police source in Grootfontein said Sidirov and his pilot face fines of R40 000 on two main charges of flying without an air service licence and not filing flight plans.
He said there had been a contract between Sidirov’s company, Yurand Air, to buy R750 000 worth of fuel from BP in Namibia, and that police wanted proof that the fuel — 14 000 litres a flight — was sold to legitimate customers in Angola. Angola’s Unita rebel movement is still embargoed by the UN from receiving arms or fuel.
The police source said the 10 allegedly illegal flights had been to Kinshasa in Zaire, Saurimo and Lobito in Angola, and Gaborone
in Botswana, but it was not impossible that “detours” had been made. Saurimo is at the centre of Angola’s rich, north-eastern diamond mining area, and is one of the few areas where tension remains between Unita and government troops.
Ehlers this week acknowledged he had “investigated a business proposition” where Sidirov would have been a potential “supplier of services”. He said he communicated Dierk’s feelings on the licensing requirements to Sidirov, but that the operation subsequently started by Sidirov had nothing to do with him.
An official of South Africa’s Directorate of Civil Aviation claimed another of Sidirov’s aircraft had skirted the law in Mozambique and South Africa as well. An Antonov-32 had been involved in an accident in Mozambique, and flew to South Africa’s private Lanseria Airport for repairs.
A delegation from Russia’s aviation authorities — under whose jurisdiction the Russian-registered Antonovs fly — visited South Africa last month to ask that the Antonov-32 be grounded. But the plane left, allegedly without clearance, before civil aviation inspectors could get to it. It is not known where the Antonov-32 is now.
Sidirov, who was in Grootfontein this week, could not be reached for comment.