Eddie Koch and Mungo Soggot report on General Marius Oelschig’s sinister actions in the 1992 Bisho massacre, and his subsequent military dealings
The man who gave the orders to shoot when 30 people were killed by Ciskei soldiers at Bisho in 1992 — and then allegedly played a role in blocking an effective probe into the massacre — is now a military general in charge of transforming the old apartheid armed forces into a cohesive national army.
Evidence presented this week by former Ciskei attorney general Jurie Jurgens at a special truth commission hearing dealing with the causes of the Bisho massacre indicated thatMajor General Marius Oelschig, a man who now holds a strategic post in the highest echelons of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), played a role in scuppering earlier efforts to find those responsible for the killings.
Jurgens said he had instructed the Ciskei police to open 30 dockets of murder “relating to the random shooting at the demonstrators”, but a number of organisations had hindered his effort to prosecute the perpetrators.
He told the truth body that Oelschig — former head of the Ciskei Defence Force who admitted in separate testimony to the truth commission this week that he gave the first orders for his soldiers to fire on a crowd of demonstrators — had subsequently created major problems for his criminal investigation.
“A fourth, and major obstacle was the lack of co- operation from the then Ciskei Defence Force,” said Jurgens. Oelschig, then a brigadier in charge of the Ciskei army, had promised his support during the attorney general’s investigation. “However the co- operation promised was not forthcoming, especially when certain details were sought and when all the firearms on the scene of the massacre were sought for ballistic tests.”
Jurgens said Oelschig had given him a “top secret” report from a military board of inquiry into the massacre which was of some value for the attorney general’s investigation. But he noted that “feeble” excuses had been given by Ciskei military officials under Oelschig’s command when the police demanded access to witnesses and weapons used in the killings.
The attorney general’s evidence contradicted Oelschig’s earlier claims to the commission that he had “responded expeditiously to every request to assist in all investigations and enquiries into the Bisho tragedy” and had “co-operated fully, had provided all the information and documentation at my disposal and had told the the truth at all times”.
The contradictions between the general’s evidence and that supplied by the attorney general raises serious questions about why a man who played a key role in one of the worst massacres in this country’s history is now in a position to oversee the military’s adaptation to democratic conditions.
In his testimony to the commission, Oelschig admitted he had given the first authorisation for Ciskei soldiers to open fire on demonstrators at the Bisho stadium in September 1992 because he had received reports that some of the troops were being shot at by members of the crowd.
When he realised the shooting was “not of a defensive nature, that it aimed at neutralising the immediate threat” he gave an order three times for the shooting to stop, said the general. “I am unable to say who gave the orders to fire on the ground, or in which terms those orders were communicated.”
These claims were also contradicted earlier by ballistic expert Jacobus du Plessis who told the commission there was no evidence that demonstrators had fired upon soldiers, and that many of those killed had been shot in the back while running away.
Separate investigations by the Mail & Guardian show that parliamentary defence committee chair Tony Yengeni is investigating allegations that Oelschig has been involved in irregularities over a R50- million management consultant contract to transform the SANDF.
Rival consultants have complained about the award of the transformation tender to leading consultancy Deloitte & Touche who allegedly developed close ties with Oelschig while he was working with the firm on another military transformation consultancy.
The general’s military background makes him a startling choice as the man tasked with leading the armed forces in shedding its apartheid legacy.
His career has included a substantial stint in military intelligence at a time when this wing of the defence force played a key role in coordinating the apartheid’s “total strategy” against its political opponents.
He was a member of Military Intelligence’s (MI) directorate of special tasks and responsible for co- ordinating logistics to Angola’s right wing Unita movement at a time when the South African military was smuggling poached ivory supplies out of Southern Africa to offset the massive costs incurred in providing the rebels with war material. He then became the military attache to France, a post which almost certainly involved liaising closely with the MI officials.
When he returned to South Africa he took up another post with army intelligence, before becoming chief of the Ciskei Defence Force in 1991. Oelschig was seconded to the homeland at the height of a dirty tricks campaign designed by MI to ensure that Ciskei military ruler General Oupa Gqozo would help quash anti-apartheid uprisings in the Eastern Cape.
Astonishingly, key players in manipulating events in Ciskei through the South African Defence Force’s covert MI fronts were not called by the truth commission to give evidence. There is a substantial amount of reliable information that MI fed false intelligence to the Ciskei over a sustained period which influenced former leader Brigadier Oupa Gqozo’s African National Congress stance and crackdown on his political opponents.
In 1992 Oelschig, fluent in both Portuguese and French, returned to the national army and has since been involved in various transformation projects.
Despite his controversial career he was promoted by Defence Minister Joe Modise to the rank of major general in March 1995 and appointed as the SANDF’s chief director of transformation management.