Peta Thornycroft
The leading contender for the National Party crown, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, was a paid agent of military intelligence.
His salary, as president of the Afrikaans student organisation Jeugkrag, was paid from covert funds of the South African Defence Force during the mid-Eighties.
And Van Schalkwyk lied to his colleagues in Jeugkrag about the source of the funding for his salary and the organisation.
Van Schalkwyk confirmed on Thursday that he had received covert funding both for Jeugkrag and himself while a law and politics student at Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg.
He said he had several meetings during his meteoric rise in Afrikaans student politics with the Army Intelligence covert funder, Brigadier Ferdi van Wyk.
Earlier this week, FW de Klerk resigned as NP leader and said: “It’s my hope that my retirement will be seen for what it is: the last remaining high-profile link with the old National Party and its so-called baggage … a rejuvenation and a new leadership which does not have this historical bond with the NP.”
Van Schalkwyk (37) told the Mail & Guardian he was not ashamed to have received covert funding during his tenure as president of Jeugkrag: “This is an old story. I am very proud of what we did. Those were not normal circumstances … We pushed hard for the African National Congress to be unbanned.”
Jeugkrag came into existence as a national student body after the demise of the Afrik- aanse Studentebond.
At least one of Van Schalkwyk’s colleagues from the Jeugkrag era is dismayed to find his suspicions that the student body was covertly funded had been well-founded.
Hermann Thiel, now a lecturer in politics at Stellenbosch University, who was a member of Jeugkrag’s executive at the time, said: “I could never figure out where the money came from. I asked to see the books, Marthinus showed them to me and it seemed to be OK, there were donations from several big organisations … like Nedbank … I was critical of the way we spent money, left, right and centre, on conferences, on smart hotels, on air fares for students.
“We thought we were the good guys, not like NSF [National Students’ Federation], who received government funding. Marthinus was never open about who paid his salary.”
Thiel said he resigned in 1988, after Van Schalkwyk had a disagreement with De Klerk, then the NP’s Transvaal leader: “After that meeting, Jeugkrag became a lot more conservative.”
Following that meeting, according to Thiel, decision-making was taken away from the national conference, and restricted to Jeugkrag’s executive. He said a Jeugkrag magazine condemning the government crackdown on the press disappeared from view. Black students who had been showing interest were alienated by the organisation’s sudden move to the right.
Van Schalkwyk said Jeugkrag had made important contacts with the Inkatha Youth Brigade, and with Peter Mokaba, then head of the ANC-aligned South African Youth Congress. He said Jeugkrag had also gone to Lusaka to meet members of the then banned ANC in 1988.
“Initially, when we were approached [about funding], we thought it was a private foundation; then we were told it was government funding. There were strict controls, I do take responsibility, and it is true I didn’t disclose it to all my colleagues,” said Van Schalkwyk.
“But I am very proud of what we did, as the youth was being radicalised on both the left and the right, and we were a stabilising force.”
Army Intelligence was responsible for funding a number of covert “hearts and minds” types of operations. It spent vast sums of money in many parts of the world and also worked as chief propagandist for the South African government in the Namibian election campaign in 1989.