Ivor Powell
Six truckloads of weapons delivered to Inkatha Freedom Party strongman Phillip Powell represent only a fraction of the arsenal distributed by former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock to agents of the apartheid regime.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)is in possession of evidence that in advance of the 1994 elections, enough weapons to load up at least 34 10-ton trucks were diverted from secret arms stores held De Kock at the notorious Vlakplaas death farm outside Pretoria. The munitions – enough to wage a small war – remain unaccounted for.
With the death toll in KwaZulu-Natal political violence sharply on the increase in the run-up to the June elections, fears are mounting the missing weapons could be used by forces bent on destabilising South Africa to further raise political tensions. Already more than 165 people have died in political violence in the province since the beginning of this year.
Six 10-ton truckloads – vehicles supplied by the KwaZulu homeland government – of arms delivered to Powell in October 1993 ostensibly for use in the training and provision of IFP self-protection units are currently the subject of investigations by the Office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka.
Four times that quantity, however – a staggering consignment of up to 240 tons of guns, explosives, rocket launchers, mines, mortars and ammunition – was handed over to a former police general, De Kock claims. Other sources have indicated that the weaponry was delivered to a farm in the Free State. The name of the police general is known to the Mail & Guardian.
De Kock also refers to a further four truckloads, packed up at the same time as the Powell consignment, of which he himself took charge. According to former Vlakplaas colleagues, these guns were believed to have been concealed on smallholdings in Gauteng. In all, the arsenal could amount to as much as 350 tons of matriel.
The armoury was apparently assembled largely from weapons and ammunition confiscated by the apartheid security forces in pre- independence Namibia. Orders that confiscated munitions be moved from Ovamboland to Vlakplaas were given by Brigadier Willem Schoon, at the time commanding officer of the security police’s C Section, which conducted counter-insurgency against the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress.
De Kock claims that the decision to move the weapons was taken by Schoon in conjunction with General Hans “Sterkhans” Dreyer, former commander of the police’s notorious counter- insurgency unit, Koevoet.
Weapons were transferred on at least four occasions between 1986 and April 1989 by Vlakplaas members working with Koevoet operatives. According to testimony in the possession of the TRC, the matriel included AK-47s and ammunition, hand grenades and explosives, light machine guns, claymore mines, limpet mines, 60mm and 80mm mortars, SAM7 missiles, RPG7s, as well as other lethal equipment.
Various secret agents of the apartheid regime, including Willie Nortj and Leon Flores, have corroborated De Kock’s account in their amnesty applications.
In addition to the Ovamboland matriel, an official letter was sent to all units of the security police throughout South Africa, requesting them to send all confiscated East Bloc weapons, ammunition and explosives to Vlakplaas, which, according to De Kock, was at this time identified as the “operational arm of the security police and of the police in general”.
Some of these weapons were later allocated to security police operatives for use in covert operations. The bulk, however, remained at Vlakplaas until the existence of the police death camp was exposed in the media, and the armoury was moved to Daisy, another secret police farm in the Pretoria area.
When the existence of Daisy was exposed, the arsenal was moved to the South African Police (SAP) training camp, Maleoskop, near Groblersdal. Finally the armoury was broken up with one-fifth of the matriel being transferred to parastatal Mechem in 1990 for safekeeping at its Paardefontein premises. Some of this, packed into Safmarine containers, were delivered to Powell in 1993.
The remaining four-fifths were given to the former SAP general. The general is believed to have been associated with a loose grouping of senior officers of the apartheid security forces with strong right-wing connections.
Other information in the hands of the TRC – including testimony by former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB)operative Chris Nel, who later became chief of counter-intelligence in the new South Africa’s military intelligence, as well as the amnesty application of Freedom Front leader General Constand Viljoen – have linked members of this “general staff” to the training of IFP paramilitaries. Powell, a former secret police operative, headed the IFP’s self-protection unit training programme.
Information in the possession of the M&G indicates that towards the end of 1992, De Kock was making overtures to networks of former security forces personnel bent on continuing with covert “CCB-type” operations and structures.
A September 1992 military intelligence document reports that, with his departure from the SAP imminent, De Kock approached former CCB boss Joe Verster (after the disbanding of that organisation).
De Kock apparently offered to throw his own resources in with those that Verster was mustering – partly with the aim of sabotaging the new South Africa indefinitely. According to the report, De Kock said he would bring large quantities of weaponry as well as former SAP colleagues and various IFP members with him into the network.
De Kock was arrested, apparently before these plans could come to fruition.
This week the Office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions intimated that the six truckloads of weapons given to Powell in 1993 were the subject of ongoing investigations.
The weaponry – which included AK-47s, rocket launchers, grenades, limpet mines and explosives, among other things – was ostensibly to be used in the training of IFP self- protection units at Mlaba in advance of the 1994 elections.
About 5 000 IFP loyalists were trained at the Mlaba camp between October 1993 and April 1994 – when the camp was raided by transitional authorities established under the process of constitutional negotiations. Violence monitors in KwaZulu-Natal believe that at least some of the trainees continue to be organised in paramilitary structures.
Only 76 G3 rifles, 49 shotguns and assorted ammunition and grenades were recovered in the raid. It is believed that only two truckloads of the Vlakplaas weapons were ever used in the Mlaba training project. Four 10-ton truckloads of matriel were apparently buried immediately before the other 20 tons were taken to the Mlaba camp.