The Scorpions investigative unit is searching for tons of armaments that former Inkatha Freedom Party warlord Phillip Powell smuggled into KwaZulu-Natal in the early 1990s.
Advocate Lungisa Dyosi, legal adviser to Scorpion head Bulelani Ngcuka, confirmed that the unit is in search of the arms, ”which we believe are in the KwaZulu-Natal area”. He said the search was part of investigations related to a warrant for Powell’s arrest issued in early 2000, which involved gun-running.
In the past few weeks the Scorpions are known to have questioned former senior IFP officials, including a previously close associate of Powell, Walter Felgate, who they suspect may have knowledge of the whereabouts of the weapons. Dyosi refused to confirm that the Scorpions had indicated to the IFP officials that they were looking for as much as 27 tons of armaments.
He also refused to give reasons for the new impetus behind the investigation, simply insisting that it was ”ongoing”. However, Powell’s case is bound to resurface next year, when the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions is expected to move on human rights violators identified in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report.
Dyosi said Powell’s case was being independently pursued by the state, as was the case with the apartheid regime’s head of chemical warfare, Wouter Bousson.
In any event, the missing weapons have long been of concern in KwaZulu-Natal, which witnessed the deaths of several thousands in political violence during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
With the balance of power evenly poised between the African National Congress and the IFP in KwaZulu-Natal, ahead of the 2004 elections that are now only months away, some observers fear the possibility of a resurgence of violence, despite the province having been relatively stable for years. Comments ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Sbu Ndebele: ”Even today, if there is a by-election, the guns come out.”
In May 1999 Powell led investigators to six to seven tons of weapons buried in Nqutu, 50km from Ulundi. It was the largest weapons cache ever uncovered in South Africa. Soon afterwards, the weapons were blown up with great ceremony before an audience of ANC and IFP leaders.
But the Nqutu cache is believed to be only a fraction of the arms supplied by De Kock. In his book A Long Night’s Damage De Kock claimed that he supplied six 10-ton trucks full of weaponry to the IFP at Powell’s request.
The supply, according to De Kock, included R-1 and 9mm ammunition, RPG rocket launchers, a variety of grenades, 60mm and 82mm mortars and South African-made landmines.
Powell left the country for the United Kingdom in early 2000 under a cloud of controversy. He was allowed to leave even though Ngcuka insisted he had not made a ”full disclosure”.
Powell’s legal representative, Piet Coetzee, maintains that Powell had been granted indemnity by the KwaZulu-Natal Director of Public Prosecutions, Mokotedi Mpshe, for facilitating the process of recovery of the arms cache.
Dyosi told the Mail & Guardian this week that Powell had not received indemnity for the weapons he had not disclosed.
IFP spokesperson Blessed Gwala described the search for the weapons as the ”ANC’s political ploy to make Powell an issue at the elections. The ANC is devoid of issues to run its election campaign.”
He said the Powell issue had been discussed at length between the parties ”and the file was closed”. Gwala asked: ”Why has the ANC not delivered on its 1994 promise to reveal its arms caches?”
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has long held the Scorpions responsible for letting Powell get away. An angry Ndebele asked this week: ”Under what law was Powell allowed to leave? A person found in possession of an AK-47 gets 15 years in prison. Here we are talking about enough weapons to fuel a war for more than 15 years.”
According to Dyosi, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions in KwaZulu-Natal refused to prosecute Powell upon recovery of the first cache. By the time it put together a warrant for his arrest in early 2000, Powell had left the country.
Effectively, the Scorpions are in search of evidence to prove whether Powell was involved in gun-running — the basis of the warrant of his arrest, which still stands, according to Dyosi.
While South Africa does have an extradition treaty with the UK, it could not be used in instances where the individual involved had committed a crime before 1994, said Dyosi.