The apartheid-era South African Military Intelligence service had links with the United States’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
This has been confirmed by Military Intelligence files obtained by the Mail & Guardian through the South African History Archive (Saha).
The files, with mysterious names such as Project Rodent and Project Cake, also reveal that the Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor) sold armoured Buffel vehicles to Sri Lanka in 1988, when the United Nations arms embargo was still in place. The manufacturing facilities of Armscor were handed to the new state-owned company Denel in 1992.
The files also reveal that Armscor and military intelligence personnel travelling under the guise of private citizens met arms manufacturers in Italy. They also travelled to the then West Germany to acquire equipment for naval vessels and trailers for transporting tanks.
One file shows that R4 rifles were delivered to South Africa in June 1981. The name of the country that sold the rifles has been marked over by Military Intelligence.
Most of the details in the files, including names of Armscor personnel, some countries and the private companies involved, were covered before the files reached Saha and the M&G.
Explaining its reason for covering names, the defence department said it had to protect the names of the Armscor personnel and their involvement in ”arms deals during the time when international sanctions were in place against the RSA” because the officials were protected by the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
The department also said the names of private companies were obscured because they ”dealt with the RSA during the time when international sanctions were in place against the RSA and agreements were signed by both parties prior to commencement of the projects in order to protect all parties involved”.
The department said it could not reveal the names of some of the countries involved because international agreements signed before the projects started were still in place.
The UN-imposed arms embargo, which forbade any ”overt or covert” military intervention in support of the defence of the apartheid regime, and any recruitment, financing, training or passage of mercenaries in support of the apartheid regime, came into effect in 1977. Sanctions were only lifted in 1993.
Saha has lodged an internal appeal with Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota asking for a review of the decision to obscure the names of countries and private companies involved in sanction busting.
”The key issue is that the matter could set a precedent as to how the Act will help in unmasking people who break the law,” said Saha’s Sello Hatang. ”It will test whether they still deserve protection. This is in light of the fact that apartheid was declared a crime against humanity.”
A file marked ”USA”, with the title ”Information gathering”, contains the correspondence of a Colonel Opperman of military intelligence. It reveals that US intelligence experts visited South Africa in January 1986, but the names of the agencies have been obscured.
In a letter dated February 17 1987 titled Visiting the CIA, Opperman says that in a reciprocal gesture three military intelligence personnel would like to participate in a similar conference being held in the US from March 9 to 15 1987. While in the US, the letter says the three Military Intelligence personnel would also meet with the CIA. The letter explains the need to project South Africa with the ”correct” perspective and adds that the two organisations will discuss matters of mutual interest.
Two of the three military intelligence personnel who were to visit the US appeared to be high ranking, because they were allocated funds to buy first-class airline tickets.
Military intelligence and Armscor personnel also visited the then West Germany on a number of occasions in the early 1980s.
A trip under the auspices of Project Cake took place in 1982 in connection with a transaction pertaining to naval research vessels. A reference to another visit to West Germany in 1984 is contained in a file entitled Project Thoroughbred.
The correspondence in the file indicates that the trip dealt with a feasibility study on a project about naval vessels and equipment Armscor had bought.
”The German embassy has no knowledge of the alleged visits of South African delegations to Germany between 1982 and 1984 and is not in a position to comment,” said counsellor Clemens Kroll this week.
The Armscor personnel also visited the United Kingdom in December 1982 to receive ammunition after a project pertaining to submarine pyrotechnics was approved. Earlier that year another trip was made to the UK to attend a conference of the International Professional Security Association, a private body.
Nick Sheppard, the British High Commission’s spokesperson in South Africa, said: ”Due to the sanctions in place at the time, no Armscor or military personnel would have been invited on official visits to the UK by the British government during this period. Nor would the British government have sanctioned any such official visits, if proposed by the South African side.”
Sources in the UK believe that the visits might have been made to private companies and organisations by people travelling in a private capacity.