Basson wants job back
2003-06-05 19:00
Pretoria - Apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson is seeking reinstatement to the South African National Defence Force.
The first overtures in this regard were made on his behalf on Thursday, he told the National Press Club in Pretoria.
A reinstatement would make him the most experienced and academically qualified general in the SANDF, Basson said.
He is currently employed as a cardiologist at a private hospital in Cape Town.
Basson and 23 other generals were discharged from the former SA Defence Force in 1992.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein refused the State's request that Basson be re-tried. The Pretoria High Court acquitted Basson on 46 criminal charges last year, including charges of murder, drug trafficking, fraud and theft.
Basson said the defence force owed him a reinstatement since he was dismissed without reason or a chance to defend himself.
He thought he would be suited for a senior command post.
He would accept a posting in any field, "anywhere, as long as I can achieve my seniority". He had most likely "outgrown" the military medical service.
Legal fees paid
Asked if he would accept a financial package instead, Basson said he was not sure, "but they will have to give good reasons".
He thanked the SANDF for paying his legal fees to the tune of R13m, and said he would be able to "serve them with great fruit in the next few years".
He had been offered numerous other jobs - from defence forces seeking his services as a chemical and biological warfare adviser, and from pharmaceutical companies.
He was not interested, however, as he had become a "has-been" in that field.
Basson felt he was owed apologies by a number of people, including former Truth and Reconciliation Commission chairman Desmond Tutu, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and religious minister Ockie Raubenheimer.
All three, he said, made much in public of human rights abuses he was supposed to have committed, Raubenheimer doing so in Basson's own church.
On the costs of his drawn-out court case, which Basson estimated to have exceeded R40m, he said he hoped the State would find ways of putting its money to better use.
'Demon'
He lamented the "long, hard" road he has had to travel for the past few years, claiming police maltreatment, and saying he was made out to be a demon.
"I have been in the process for the last ten years of stating my case. Eventually now it seems... as if we have been exonerated."
He said he was not considering any libel actions, as he believed most people no longer believed all the bad things they heard about him, "and that is good enough for me".
He had no hard feelings towards anybody, and could not afford to waste energy on such things, Basson said. It was important, however, for him to find out what the motivation of his superiors was when they fired him 11 years ago.
Basson said it was time for the matter to be laid to rest and for politicians and the media to stop making wild allegations,
"I think the truth prevailed ultimately."
He added he was considering working on a collaborative book explaining certain aspects of the apartheid past. He has also been approached by a novelist planning to write a book on the apartheid government's chemical and biological warfare programme, Project Coast.
- SAPA