Ivor Powell went in search of some of the ogres of the past to find out what they’re up to in the new South Africa
The extension of amnesty to “superspy” Craig Williamson for the remote- controlled murders of Ruth First, Jeanette Schoon and her daughter Katryn, put into sharp focus the extent to which icons of apartheid-era atrocities have got away with it.
For Williamson, like many another perpetrator of torture, double-dealing and oppression in the apartheid era, the decision of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty committee was a green light to return to business as usual – business built on skills and contacts acquired in the secret service, and now privatised for profit.
Security police intelligence chief Alf Oosthuisen, for example, now runs a private intelligence company, OPM, whose clients include the new regime’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
Others, like former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) agent Slang van Zyl, have not even had to privatise – Van Zyl continues to run the private investigations front company set up as a cover during his Military Intelligence days.
These are among the lucky and/or the resourceful. Others, like former Vlakplaas heavy Nicolass Johannes “Snor” Vermeulen, have apparently had it tougher. When Vermeulen had to justify his failure to answer questions or make testimonial sense before the TRC, he produced two psychologists’ reports that had earlier secured him early retirement with pension.
One report evaluated Vermeulen as having been brutalised by his experiences to the point where he was only rarely capable of higher-level reasoning and prone to severe memory loss. The other report branded him a “destroyed human being”. The two reports agreed he was unemployable, though one raised the chance of possible employment in the armed forces.
But what about the others? The Mail & Guardian went in search of some of the ogres of the past to find out what they’re up to in the new South Africa.
Staal Burger: Once one of the toughest operatives in the notorious Brixton murder and robbery squad – and subsequently one of the most notorious in the CCB – Burger made a surprisingly low- key amnesty application. He admitted only to involvement in two dirty deeds, both in 1989 – the bombing of the Early Learning Centre in Athlone and the attempted murder of Minister of Transport Dullah Omar.
Burger’s apparent modesty was difficult to reconcile with testimony before the TRC that linked him to a variety of atrocities – including the assassinations of David Webster and South West African People’s Organisation lawyer Anton Lubowski, and various murders associated with illegal diamond sales and the like.
But – especially if you can get away with it – Burger is proof there is life after the CCB. After acquiring estates in the Pongola region of northern KwaZulu-Natal, Burger has been named sugar farmer of the year by the KwaZulu-Natal Sugar Farmers’ Association for two years running.
Calla Botha: Less illustrious has been the post-CCB career of Calla Botha, once a subordinate of Burger’s. Botha was the subject of investigations into the sale of dubious life insurance policies to police officers – and forced out of business. More recently he was spotted leading commercial hunting expeditions in Mpumalanga.
Phillip Powell: Former campus spy, police intelligence agent and Inkatha Freedom Party warlord Phillip Powell appears to have embarked on a new self-improvement programme. Powell was recently allowed to go off to further his studies in London – despite the fact that, by conservative estimates, well over 10 tons of weapons handed over to Powell from secret stocks at Vlakplaas in the early 1990s remain unaccounted for.
Some might say that, given Powell’s past, there is some irony in his choice of subject matter for his academic stint in London – conflict resolution.
Johan Coetzee: An equally surprising change in career direction has been pulled off by the septuagenarian former police commissioner, General Johan Coetzee. Once one of the key securocrats in the PW Botha regime, Coetzee is serving his time as an articled clerk in the legal firm owned by his son-in-law in Graaff-Reinet, having recently completed his degree.
Coetzee’s successor, General Johan van der Merwe, has stayed closer to his securocrat roots, living in Pretoria and devoting most of his time to an association of apartheid-era policemen seeking to survive in the new South Africa. Van der Merwe is also active in the Association for Equality before the Law – which exists to defend the apartheid era securocrats against retribution in the new South Africa.
Brood van Heerden: Van Heerden – together with Vlakplaas colleagues Willie Nortje and Chappies Klopper – earned a footnote in history when they broke ranks to expose Eugene de Kock and the extent and scope of dirty-tricks operations run by the security police. Not, it has emerged, out of idealism, but rather because their boss De Kock’s psychopathy was reaching such extremes that they feared for their lives.
It was also not known at the time that Van Heerden – who was the point man in supplying secret weapons to the IFP – was one of the major players in a bizarre plot to promote the spread of HIV/Aids by passing HIV on to Hillbrow prostitutes.
His unsavoury past was, however, apparently not held against him when Van Heerden, with his colleague Nortje, was employed by the NIA.
Barend Strydom: Asked by the police who arrested him in November 1988 who he was, Barend Strydom said: “I am the king of the Wit Wolwe.”
Only minutes earlier, dressed in camouflage uniform, Strydom had randomly opened fire on black pedestrians in Pretoria’s almost-eponymous Strijdom Square, killing seven and wounding 15. Why? Because, he later explained, they were black. QED.
Six years after his release from Pretoria prison’s death row as part of a pre-TRC political indemnity agreement, Strydom is to be found working for a picture framer in a whites-only community at De Wildt near the Hartebeespoort dam.
Dirk Coetzee: As the man who first blew the whistle on apartheid-era dirty tricks, Dirk Coetzee, commander of the murderous Vlakplaas hit squads in the 1970s and early 1980s, once had hopes of becoming police commissioner – or at the least a top officer in a new South African police force.
Neither of course happened. Coetzee – who has received amnesty for several atrocities, including the brutal stabbing of African nnNational Congress nnlawyer Griffiths nMxenge and the subsequent death of his wife Victoria – was shuffled off by the new administration into a backroom in the NIA. Here he was effectively left to rot, his formidable knowledge of apartheid-era irregularities ignored, and his diabetic tension levels allowed to rise.
That was until 1999, when Coetzee suddenly left the service of the NIA to relocate to Cape Town and join his son Dirkie in the employ of one of the princes of the Cape underworld, Cyril Beecker, a close associate of alleged Mafia boss Vito Palazzolo.
Brian Mitchell: The first applicant to be granted amnesty, Brian Mitchell appeared to have been carefully chosen for the role. For he appeared to show genuine contrition and remorse over his role in the pre-dawn massacre of 11 mourners at a funeral vigil in December 1988 in Trust Feed in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. He begged the community for forgiveness and he committed himself to making good through community service in the Trust Feed community.
On his release from prison – where he was serving 11 life sentences for murder and eight additional sentences for attempted murder – Mitchell duly approached the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Christian Social Awareness in order to become involved in community work in the area. It is, however, unclear whether he has in fact made good on his commitment.
Jeffrey Benzien: Former anti-terrorist squad policeman Jeffrey Benzien provided one of the most graphic images of the entire TRC process when he performed a live demonstration of his “wetbag” torture method – an interrogation tool, he boasted, that was guaranteed to produce results in 30 minutes.
The vaunted effectiveness of his techniques notwithstanding, Benzien is on record as torturing at least one victim for more than five hours at a stretch, using both the wetbag method and more prosaic techniques like electric shocks and blunt instruments.
In some instances – such as that of Western Cape activist Ashley Forbes – it didn’t work at all. Forbes died of his wounds. But others, like ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni lived to tell the tale – and to express outrage when Benzien, the Western Cape police’s torturer, and alleged sadist-in-chief, was duly granted amnesty for the death of Forbes and various other atrocities.
Ironically, many of his former victims, like senior director Gary Kruser, serve in the same police force as the indemnified Benzien, now a captain in the air division of the police at Wingfield in the Cape.
Magnus Malan: Like most of his former colleagues – the generals and the top securocrats of the apartheid security forces – former minister of defence Magnus Malan saw nothing in his past for which he had to seek amnesty. And a bungled prosecution by former KwaZulu- Natal attorney general Tim McNally smoothed his entry into an undisturbed retirement.
At least for the time being. The M&G understands that Malan, who is enjoying his retirement in Pretoria, is paying keen attention to proceedings in the trial of chemical warfare boffin Wouter Basson, whose activities and funding the former minister helped sustain. Malan is also involved in pre-trial meetings with his son-in-law Philip Mijburgh, who handled funds specifically made available by Malan to the chemical and biological warfare programme.
Ironically, the M&G understands the Basson link goes further. As a surgeon at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria, it was Basson who last year performed major heart surgery on the ailing former minister.
Craig Williamson: Former student spy Craig Williamson, and the one-time head of the South African security police’s intelligence section, had a dirty finger in every covert pie, if his former colleagues are to be believed. But Williamson has proved pure Teflon.
After unsuccessful forays into the fishing business in Mozambique, Williamson emerged as Angola’s potato king, importing the Lusophone world’s favourite vegetable to a country he had helped turn into a landmined wasteland while in the service of the apartheid government.
Though jailed in Luanda’s notorious Viana prison in the mid-1980s, Williamson has reportedly returned to his old Angolan stomping ground as a “mining consultant” – the middleman in diamond concession partnerships between outside investors and members of the political and military elite.