10 The targets and objectives of the various security operations conducted in Angola by the security forces of the former South African state were two-fold.

11 First, the possibility of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) taking power in Angola was regarded by the former government as a threat to South Africa’s security, as the MPLA was viewed as a Soviet surrogate. The introduction of Cuban forces into Angola in support of the MPLA simply confirmed that view. The South African government’s initial objective, therefore, was to prevent the MPLA from taking power at independence. When this failed, the goal became its overthrow and replacement by a ‘friendly’ anti-Communist government led by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

12 Second, the movement of the forces of the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) into bases in Angola was regarded as escalating the threat to South Africa’s position in South West Africa. Aware that it would ultimately have to implement UN Resolution 435, the South African government was determined to weaken or cripple SWAPO’s military capacity in preparation for the time when SWAPO would enter the electoral stakes inside South West Africa.

13 South Africa’s active involvement in Angolan politics after the collapse of Portuguese colonial rule escalated with the SADF’s invasion of Angola, through Operation Savannah, in the second half of 1975. Though the operation was undertaken with the covert support of the US State Department, this undeclared act of war did not receive the approval of the South African cabinet. Indeed, the issue was not even raised at cabinet level until the invasion was several months old and no longer a secret.

14 The invasion was also illegal in terms of the 1957 Defence Act, which made no provision for the deployment of non-voluntary forces (conscripts) beyond South Africa’s borders. To override this legal difficulty, Parliament passed an amendment to the Act in January 1976, sanctioning the deployment of non-voluntary South African troops outside of the Republic’s borders. It was made retroactive to August 1975, the month in which Savannah was launched.

15 The Commission was not able to access any files on Operation Savannah in the SADF archives, nor did it have access to any Angolan data. There is no doubt, however, that the human and economic cost of the operation, involving over 2 000 men in mobile columns, was immense. In three to four months, the SADF swept through vast areas of central and eastern Angola, capturing numerous towns, until it was halted on the outskirts of Luanda by stiff Cuban-led resistance.

16 Civilian and military casualties on the Angolan side were considerable, given the known extent of damage to the social infrastructure. Thousands of people were displaced internally.

17 Though the SADF’s intervention failed to prevent the MPLA from taking power at independence in November 1975, and even though SADF forces were withdrawn in March 1976, South African military and political involvement in Angolan affairs continued for the next thirteen years, with human and other consequences of varying degrees of severity for all the parties involved – Angolan, South West African, South African, Cuban and Soviet. South Africa’s forces were not entirely withdrawn; the SADF created an eighteen-kilometre-wide demilitarised zone (DMZ) along a 1 000 kilometre stretch of the border, which it retained after the termination of the invasion. By creating a ‘free-fire’ zone, the SADF effected further large-scale displacement of people, this time of residents from both sides of the border.

18 Between 1976 and 1978, the SADF’s strategy in respect of Angola focused on establishing a string of bases along the border, on rearming and strengthening UNITA’s fighting capacity through the launch of Operation Silwer and on preventing SWAPO from moving south. This it did by deploying the 32 Battalion in frequent forays against SWAPO in the south of Angola.

19 Despite these efforts, by the end of 1977 the SADF believed that SWAPO had established a significant presence in the south and sought authorisation from Prime Minister Vorster for large-scale SADF operations. The concern of the SADF was shared by the administration in South West Africa, where there were plans to hold elections leading to the installation of an interim administration of which SWAPO was not to be a part. Were SWAPO to succeed in establishing a permanent foothold in the south of Angola, both the South African government and the administration in Windhoek feared that its capacity to disrupt the election would be enhanced.

20 In human rights terms, the SADF raid on Kassinga, which killed over 600 people, is possibly the single most controversial external operation of the Commission’s mandate period.

22 CSOPS calculated that, by the end of 1978, SWAPO would grow from a force of 3 700 to 5 000 guerrillas, though it estimated that only 1 000 of these could be operationally deployed in the short term. The current estimate was that between 250 and 300 guerrillas were currently active in Owambo. Of SWAPO’s five principal bases in the region, CSOPS identified Kassinga as the largest, with an estimated 800 guerrillas in camp. It was, however, also the furthest from the South West African border (198 km north of the border) which made the logistics of an assault complicated.

23 In arguing for a raid, CSOPS noted that SWAPO was becoming better organised and that, as a result, the SADF’s principal operating unit inside Angola, 32 Battalion, was finding it difficult to operate. UNITA was likewise under pressure. In short, SWAPO was benefiting from the fact that South Africa was not fighting to its full potential. If operations became effective, on the other hand, SWAPO would be forced to disperse its camps into smaller components, making the organisation less effective. This would also make it more difficult for Cuban instructors to work with and easier for UNITA to operate against SWAPO.

24 On 8 March 1978, the chief of the army, Lieutenant General Viljoen, sent a communiqué (H/LEER/309) to the chief of the defence force, in which he identified the camp at Kassinga as the planning headquarters of SWAPO’s armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) – subordinate only to SWAPO’s defence headquarters at Lubango. He also noted that the camp was the principal medical centre for the treatment of seriously injured guerrillas, as well as the concentration point for guerrilla recruits being dispatched to training centres in Lubango and Luanda and to operational bases in East and West Cunene. The camp also offered refresher courses in infantry warfare and mine-laying.

25 General Viljoen noted that the camp was not heavily defended and that the nearest Angolan army and Cuban forces were at Techumutete, fifteen kilometres to the south. The target lent itself to the maximum use of air power and the infliction of maximum casualties. Finally, he suggested that, given the presence in the camp of PLAN’s commander, Dimo Amaambo, important documents could be captured. Other documents in the SADF files make it clear that it was also hoped that Amaambo and other senior PLAN officials would be captured or killed.

26 Approval for the Kassinga operation – which became part of Operation Reindeer – was received in about March 1978. The original operational orders included the following priorities and instructions:

27 The details of the plan were as follows:

28 Accompanying this document in the file is an undated message from SWA Command to the chief of the army, which reads: "Contingency plans in progress to create own incidents that can be attributed to SWAPO should insufficient publicity or further SWAPO actions be forthcoming". The signal also emphasised the need to counter any enemy propaganda about attacking civilian targets.

29 On 25 April 1978, the SWA Command sent a signal for the attention of either General Viljoen or General Gleeson. It noted that the UN General Assembly was in session on the subject of SWA and that the debate would last until 3 May. D-day should, therefore, be delayed until the conclusion of the debate to avoid making life difficult for those countries favourable to South Africa. On 30 April, higher authority dictated a delay of at least forty-eight hours.

30 As the commanders of Reindeer waited for the go-ahead from the cabinet, a number of messages were passed on the changing situation. On 2 May 1978, the chief of the defence force signalled the chief of air staff that considerable extensions were being made to Kassinga’s defensive installations. It was also now estimated that between 1 000 and 1 500 PLAN recruits were at Kassinga, including fifty to one hundred Cubans. Permission was given for two Mirages to be added to the air component.

31 It is clear that from the SADF’s perspective, Kassinga was a military facility rather than essentially a refugee camp or refugee transit facility, as SWAPO has always claimed. The photographic evidence shown to the Commission at the SADF archives suggests a military dimension to the camp. This cannot, however, be taken as conclusive evidence that Kassinga was a military base. In the context of the ongoing war in Angola, some defensive fortification of any SWAPO facility, whether civilian or military, would have been standard practice.

32 What is evident is that human settlement in the Kassinga area had grown considerably in the period since Angola’s independence. The site was allocated to SWAPO by the Angolan government in 1976, after an appeal for help to cope with an inflow of thousands of refugees. Under SWAPO’s control, the abandoned homes in the village had been converted into offices, a kindergarten and primary school, a clinic, a sewing facility, and storage and vehicle repair workshops. New permanent structures had also been erected, plots cultivated and a set of defensive trenches dug. SWAPO had also installed two anti-aircraft guns in the centre of the village, and the camp contained a self-defence unit of approximately 300 male and female PLAN cadres.

33 The fact that Kassinga had a non-military dimension is reflected in a UNICEF report of a visit by a UNICEF delegation from its regional office in Brazzaville, published two days before the raid. Central to the report was the fact that, although well-run and well-organised, the facility was ill-equipped to cope with the rapid expansion in the size of the refugee population as a result of a steady inflow in early 1978. Kassinga was thus both a military base and a refugee camp. It housed a considerable number of combatants, including senior officers. It also housed considerable numbers of civilians. As a large facility, it was easily partitioned into military and non-military sections.

34 Reindeer began with an attack at 08h00 on 4 May 1978. Four Canberra jets dropped 300 Alpha bombs, followed one minute later by four Buccaneers which dropped seven 400kg fragmentation bombs. The initial target was the parade ground where between fifty to one hundred ‘enemy’ were seen immediately before the attack. At 08h04, 370 paratroopers were dropped on the camp, but many of them fell well away from the target area because of high winds. It took just over an hour for the paratroopers to group together, during which time many of Kassinga’s inhabitants were able to flee to safety. These included most of PLAN’s senior officers, including Dimo Amaambo.

39 The official death toll (according to an Angolan government White Paper) was 159 men, of whom only twelve were said to be soldiers, 167 women and 298 teenagers and children – a total of 624. In addition, 611 South West Africans were wounded in the attack. These were largely victims of the initial bombing attack. The dead were buried in two mass graves. Foreign journalists who saw the graves before they were covered confirmed that large numbers of the dead were women and young people wearing civilian clothes. This does not necessarily mean that they were all non-combatants. In a guerrilla camp, not all combatants would be wearing uniforms. Moreover, the figure of twelve soldiers cited by the Angolan White Paper is not credible, unless the reference to soldiers is limited to the twelve Angolan government soldiers killed during Reindeer. It is known too that PLAN forces contained women and it can be assumed that some of the women casualties were combatants.

40 The Kassinga raid formed only a part of the Reindeer operation. There were also attacks on a number of SWAPO facilities in and around Chetequera (an area known by SWAPO as "Vietnam") where over 300 South West Africans were killed and a large number captured. These prisoners – between 200 and 300 in all – were taken to the Oshakati military base where many were tortured. Nearly two years later, in January 1980, the International Red Cross reported that 118 of them were still being held at a detention centre near Mariental in the south of South West Africa (see further below).

41 Some 1 200 hundred people – South West African, Angolan, Cuban and South African – died; over 600 others, overwhelmingly South West African and Angolan, were wounded in the attacks on Kassinga and Chetequera that day. It is probable that some died later from their wounds. In addition, several hundred were captured at Chetequera. No prisoners, or perhaps at most a handful, were taken from Kassinga. Those reported in the early despatches as being held as prisoners were released when no room on the evacuation helicopters was available for them.

42 All the planning documentation, including aerial photographs, would indicate that the SADF command was convinced that Kassinga was the planning headquarters of PLAN, and thus a military target of key importance. Given the objective (expressed in the CSOPS communication to the Minister of Defence on 27 February 1978) of demonstrating South Africa’s military superiority and inflicting major damage on SWAPO’s military capacity, it would seem strange if a refugee camp had been chosen as a target. This does not, of course, obviate the possibility of mistaken target identification, though the aerial photographs and the detail of intelligence reports of what was going on at Kassinga obviously guided the SADF command to their conclusions. It is probable therefore, that the SADF could mount a plausible defence of its operation in terms of the doctrine of pre-emptive interventionism and the right of states to defend themselves.

43 This argument would, however, have to fail in this case for the simple reason that the state being defended by South Africa was South West Africa, which South Africa was occupying illegally. In terms of UN General Assembly Resolution 2145/66 and UN Security Council Resolution 385/76, South Africa’s mandate in South West Africa was revoked and its occupation deemed illegal. Hence any justification of a retaliatory operation cannot be accepted.

44 Beyond the issue of the mandate, Operation Reindeer violated international humanitarian law on other counts, one of which was the failure to take adequate steps to protect the lives of civilians. International humanitarian law stipulates that the right of parties in a conflict to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited and that a distinction must at all times be made between persons taking part in hostilities and civilians, with the latter being spared as much as possible. There is little evidence that the SADF took sufficient precautions to spare those civilians whom they knew were resident at Kassinga in large numbers.

45 The fact that the operational orders for Reindeer included the instruction that "women and children must, where possible, not be shot" is evidence of the SADF’s prior knowledge of the presence of civilians. However, this apparent intention to spare their lives was rendered meaningless by the SADF’s decision to use fragmentation bombs in the initial air assault, as such weapons kill and maim indiscriminately. Their use, therefore, in the face of the knowledge of the presence of civilians, amounts to an indiscriminate and illegitimate use of force and a violation of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The foreseeable killing of civilians at Kassinga was therefore a breach of humanitarian law.

46 The treatment of civilians in this operation may have violated international legal covenants in another respect; in this case a provision of Protocol 11 regarding the treatment of the wounded. If press reports based on a press interview with an officer involved in the operation are accurate (see below), the SADF failed to protect and care for those wounded in the operation. According to this source, some of the wounded, irrespective of their status as combatants or civilians, men or women, were shot.

47 The Commission has not been able to corroborate the information contained in this quote. It did, however, speak to retired General Chris Thirion who was present at Kassinga and who stated that he was standing next to General Viljoen when he heard him give a command that no wounded were to be killed. He concedes that this does not mean that none were killed but, if so, this would have been contrary to orders. The Commission accepts, therefore, that there were no orders to kill the wounded, but is not convinced that this did not happen. The Commission also has evidence from the war in South West Africa that, on occasion, badly wounded SWAPO fighters were shot and not given medical treatment.

48 The Commission, therefore, makes no finding on the treatment of the wounded. It does, however, make a finding on the choice of weaponry used in the attack and on the question as to whether adequate care was taken to protect the lives of civilians. In making a finding, the Commission has taken cognisance of the following international legal provisions: Principles III, IV, VI of the Principles of International Law Recognised in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgement of the Tribunal 1950:

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT OPERATION REINDEER WAS A VIOLATION OF THE TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ANGOLA AND THAT IT RESULTED IN THE COMMISSION OF GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AGAINST THE CIVILIAN OCCUPANTS OF THE KASSINGA CAMP WHICH ENTAILED DELIBERATE PLANNING ON THE PART OF THE FOLLOWING PERSONS WHO ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE:

• PRIME MINISTER BJ VORSTER IN HIS CAPACITY AS HEAD OF STATE (PRINCIPLE III);

• MINISTER OF DEFENCE PW BOTHA IN HIS CAPACITY AS POLITICAL HEAD OF THE SADF;

• GENERAL MAGNUS MALAN IN HIS CAPACITY AS CHIEF OF THE SADF;

• LIEUTENANTS GENERAL CONSTAND VILJOEN AND RH ROGERS IN THEIR CAPACITIES AS CHIEFS OF THE ARMY AND AIR FORCE RESPECTIVELY.

55 The document concludes by emphasising the urgency of the situation and the intensity of the Marxist onslaught in the region. It then goes on to argue that, owing to the abbreviated UN time-scale envisaged for South West Africa (a reference to the pending implementation of UN Resolution 435), the short-term strategy must be implemented as speedily as possible.

56 The implementation of this strategy was discussed at a series of meetings in March 1979. At a meeting between Savimbi, the chiefs of the defence force and the army and senior staff officer of special operations in the department of Military Intelligence (MI), it was agreed that UNITA’s priority would be to clear the MPLA and SWAPO out of Cuanda-Cubango province and "dele van die Cunene" (parts of the Cunene province) so that the nucleus of a UNITA government could be established and so that "die verbindingslyne tussen Angola en SWA weer daargestel kan word" (the lines of communication between Angola and SWA could be restored). A modus operandi was agreed whereby the SADF would take the initiative in Cunene province (see discussion on Operation Protea below) with support from UNITA, while the reverse would apply in Cuanda-Cubango. It was also agreed that, from this point, 32 Battalion would be semi-permanently deployed in southern Angola.

57 The post-1979 military strategy in Angola therefore took the form of a series of large-scale conventional military operations against pre-selected SWAPO and Angolan Army targets, while 32 Battalion formed the vanguard of a low-intensity counter-insurgency campaign. The third prong was Operation Silwer (see below), which provided ongoing logistical and other support to UNITA.

58 The Angolan war was an ongoing, thirteen-year-long occupation, enabling the SADF to achieve one of its aims, namely, the de facto secession of the south from central government control. This is certainly the view of former army and SADF chief, General Geldenhuys. Writing in his autobiography, he states:

59 The first big operation in this post-1979 phase of the war was launched in June 1980. Operation Sceptic began as a lightning attack on a SWAPO base complex called ‘Smokeshell’, 120 kilometres into southern Angola and developed into an extended operation which produced the first serious clashes between the SADF and the Angolan Army and mechanised elements of SWAPO. It ended by driving SWAPO from its forward bases; 380 guerrillas and seventeen members of the SADF were killed.

60 A year later, in August 1981, the SADF launched Operation Protea, the largest mechanised operation undertaken by the South African military since World War II. Protea was launched in implementation of the decision made in March 1979 to install UNITA as the de facto government of southern Angola. In the initial eighteen-day phase of the operation, the SADF occupied 50 000 square kilometres of Cunene province. Thereafter, parts of the province remained under SADF occupation until 1989, essentially as a support for UNITA which, from January 1982, took effective administrative control of most of the province.

61 The information below is drawn from a variety of sources including files in the collection "Aanvullende Dokumente" (Supplementary Documents) OD 1968 no. 20 held by the military archives.

62 According to this collection, the immediate military objectives of Operation Protea were the destruction of PLAN headquarters at Xangongo and Ngiva and the capture of the extensive caches of equipment held at Ngiva. During the initial 1981 phase of Protea, several towns in Cunene province such as Cahama, Chibemba, Xangongo, Mongua and the provincial capital Ngiva were extensively damaged by bombing and artillery attacks which also caused civilian casualties.

64 According to press reports, more than 1 200 SWAPO and Angolan Army soldiers were killed in the operation, along with several Soviet advisers. One Russian warrant officer and seventy-nine Angolans were captured. The SADF files give a casualty toll of 746 Angolan Army and eighty-one SWAPO combatants, and four Soviet advisers. The number of civilian deaths is not known to the Commission, but, given the systematic and sustained targeting of civilian centres, it must have been large. The SADF suffered fourteen dead and sixty-four wounded.

65 In terms of civilian casualties, the mass displacement of civilians and the creation of an internal refugee population, as well as the wholesale destruction of towns and socio-economic infrastructure, Operation Protea probably caused more human suffering and physical damage than any other operation in the thirteen-year-long Angola war, resulting in violations of human rights on a vast scale.

66 Protea was followed by Operations Daisy in 1981, Super and Meebos (1982), Phoenix and Askari (1983), Boswilger (1985), Modulêr and Hooper (1987–88), Packer and Displace (1988). Each of these was a smaller-scale version of Sceptic and Protea and resulted in large numbers of casualties. According to the military historian, Colonel CJ Nothling, writing in the 1989 South African Defence Review, over 8 000 ‘terrorists’ (SWAPO and Angolan Army forces) were killed in these campaigns. No figures are cited for civilian deaths. The SADF acknowledged 136 fatalities (three each in Daisy and Super, twenty-nine in Meebos, twenty-seven in Phoenix, twenty-one in Askari and fifty-three in Hooper and Modulêr).

67 The December 1983 Operation Askari was aimed at disrupting PLAN’s logistical infrastructure and its command and control systems through ground and air attacks. In its advance towards SWAPO headquarters near Cuvelai, a major battle developed between South African forces and Angolan Army units aided by two Cuban battalions. According to the SADF, this was the biggest encounter between South African and Angolan Army forces of the entire war: 324 Angolan and Cuban troops and twenty-one South Africans were killed. Another casualty was the town of Cuvelai, which was almost totally destroyed. In 1984, when there was a temporary withdrawal, Angolan authorities re-entered the ruined town and reported that facilities and most buildings had been destroyed while livestock had either been killed or taken to South West Africa. There had been extensive civilian casualties.

68 During Operation Hooper, SADF and Angolan Army forces clashed in a number of large land battles near the town of Cuito Cuanavale. The town was shelled by SADF 155mm artillery for several weeks, and largely destroyed. The SADF failed, however, to capture the town and the stalemate led eventually to negotiations and the signing of the New York Accords in December 1988. These agreements produced an SADF withdrawal from Angola (Operation Displace), the implementation of UN Resolution 435 and the independence of Namibia in March 1990.

69 The above operations all targeted either SWAPO or Angolan Army facilities. In another SADF raid, the South African Air Force (SAAF) attacked an African National Congress (ANC) camp at Nova Catengue on 14 March 1979. Essentially a transit facility, the camp housed large numbers of recent exiles (the 1976 Soweto outflow). While the facility was severely damaged in the raid, casualties amounted to three dead (including one Cuban) and fourteen wounded. Casualties were comparatively low because advance intelligence had been received and the camp had been evacuated.

70 In addition to destroying Angolan towns in the south of the country, the SADF targeted economic installations in Angola, especially its petroleum facilities. These included attacks on the Luanda oil refinery on 30 November 1981, the storage tanks in the port of Namibia in June 1988 and those at Huambo in 1987. On 21 May 1985, a Recce 4 commando unit was intercepted attempting to sabotage the Cabinda Gulf Oil complex and the commander, Captain Wynand du Toit, was captured. Road bridges and the Benguela railway were also frequently sabotaged.

71 The effects of the war on Angolan civilians were devastating. UNICEF has estimated that, between 1980 and 1985, at least 100 000 Angolans died, mainly as a result of war-related famine. The cumulative effect of the battering of the economy and social infrastructure in the 1980–85 period produced an even greater escalation in the death rate after 1985. Between 1981 and 1988, again according to UNICEF, 333 000 Angolan children died of unnatural causes. The Angolan government estimated the economic cost of war damage to be US$12 billion in 1987 alone.

72 The environmental effects of the war on the south (and in the Caprivi) were devastating. Both forest lands and wildlife were destroyed. This rape of the environment was sanctioned by the SADF. In the early 1980s, covert front companies were established to facilitate trading in rare woods like teak and kiaat, and in ivory, skins and diamonds. A safari company was also set up through which the hunting of big game was regulated. Ostensibly, these activities were undertaken to raise secret funds for UNITA, but they led quickly to widespread and high-level corruption.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT’S MILITARY CAMPAIGN IN ANGOLA BETWEEN 1977 AND 1988 LED TO GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ON A VAST SCALE. THE COMMISSION FINDS FURTHER THAT THE CAMPAIGN CONSTITUTED A SYSTEMATIC PATTERN OF ABUSE, WHICH ENTAILED DELIBERATE PLANNING ON THE PART OF THE FORMER CABINET, THE STATE SECURITY COUNCIL AND THE LEADERSHIP OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN DEFENCE FORCE. THE COMMISSION FINDS THESE INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR MEMBERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE AFORESAID GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS.

76 In the account that follows, emphasis will be laid on two particular factors – torture and extra-judicial killings. In regard to the latter, the focus will be on the bounty or ‘cash-for-corpses’ policy employed by the police counter-insurgency unit, Koevoet (crowbar). Where possible, reference will be made to those human rights violations and amnesty applications pertaining to South West Africa that were submitted to the Commission. These were, however, relatively few: only one human rights violations submission and thirteen amnesty applications were received.

80 The third period falls between 1971 and 1974. The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in 1971, that South Africa’s presence in South West Africa was illegal, triggered a contract workers’ strike which involved between 13 000 and 20 000 workers. Subsequent political tensions in Owamboland in the north, where most South West Africans live, resulted in considerable police activity and public floggings carried out by bantustan officials (see below).

82 The fifth period falls between 1980 and 1988. From around 1980, the nature of the war began to change. South Africa increasingly relied on Koevoet, a newly-formed special police counter-insurgency unit, which became notorious for its human rights abuses during its pursuit operations. A process of indigenising the war effort began and South West Africans were recruited and conscripted into a South West Africa Territory Force (SWATF), a largely locally-staffed military force which took on much of the burden of the war, although it remained under firm South African control at the senior officer level. A South West African Police force (SWAPOL) was established in a similar manner.

83 In 1989, elections were held under UN supervision. South West Africa became independent (as Namibia) the following year and all South African police and military forces were withdrawn.

91 Detention without trial was widely used by the South African authorities in South West Africa, mainly for purposes of interrogation, which almost invariably and routinely involved torture. Much of this was carried out under emergency proclamations, notably Proclamation AG26 of 1978 (which provided for indefinite detention) and AG9 of 1977, which became more and more severe and allowed police and soldiers to detain people for up to thirty days without reference to any higher authority. In 1983, the SADF revealed that it had detained a total of 2 883 people during the 1977–83 period, while the security police disclosed that they had detained 2 624 people during the same period.

92 Mass detentions in the ‘operational areas’ were common. Many detainees were held secretly and without access to lawyers or relatives for long periods, sometimes years. Such conditions provided opportunities for prolonged abuse and torture. Torture was also used as a method of intimidation by police and soldiers in the war zone, and as a way of extracting ‘operational’ information quickly. Torture methods reported in the South West African press, in affidavits by South West Africans and as a result of international human rights investigations included beatings, sleep deprivation, drowning, strangling and suffocation, suspension from ropes or poles, burnings (sometimes over open fires), electric shocks and being held against the hot exhausts of military vehicles.

93 SWAPO’s Administrative Secretary in South West Africa, Mr Axel Johannes, was a victim of repeated detentions, torture and arrests. He was detained in 1964, 1966, 1973, 1974, 1975 (twice), 1977, 1978 (twice) and 1979 (twice). During these periods, he reported being repeatedly tortured and was often held incommunicado and in solitary confinement. After his final detention in 1979, restrictions were placed on his movements and he was prohibited from leaving the township of Katutura. He went into exile in 1980.

94 Captain Pat King of the South African Security Branch was charged in 1987 with the murder of detainee Mr Johannes Kakuva, who had been killed seven years previously. The trial followed international protests as a result of an official enquiry held in 1983, which had accepted the evidence of seven men detained with Kakuva that they had been assaulted and tortured. The men said that they and Kakuva had been beaten with sticks and subjected to electric shocks on King’s orders, resulting in Kakuva’s death. The trial ended with the acquittal of Captain King.

THE ABDUCTION OF ANGOLAN CITIZENS AND SOUTH WEST AFRICAN REFUGEES FROM ANGOLAN SOIL, THEIR TORTURE AT THE OSHAKATI MILITARY BASE AND THEIR FORCIBLE DETENTION AT MARIENTAL WHERE THEY WERE DENIED BASIC RIGHTS AND FORCED TO UNDERTAKE HARD LABOUR AMOUNT, IN THE COMMISSION’S VIEW, TO ILL TREATMENT AND DEPORTATION TO SLAVE LABOUR AND, AS SUCH, TO GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS. FOR THIS, THE COMMISSION FINDS PRIME MINISTER BJ VORSTER, MINISTER OF DEFENCE, PW BOTHA, AND THE CHIEF OF THE SADF, GENERAL MAGNUS MALAN, TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PERPETRATION OF GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE CASE OF THE MARIENTAL DETAINEES. IT ALSO REGARDS AS INDIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE (DOLUS EVENTUALIS) ALL THOSE PRESENT AT THE SSC MEETING OF 23 APRIL 1979.

100 The South African authorities refused to accord prisoner-of-war status to captured SWAPO combatants, despite the 1977 Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions, which extended the provisions of the Conventions to anti-colonial struggles and wars of national liberation and self-determination.

102 In other cases, captured combatants were kept in makeshift detention centres, such as the camp at Osiri, 160 kilometres north of Windhoek, where they were interrogated and often tortured. Reporters found that Osiri detainees were held in tiny corrugated-iron cages and were always blindfolded in the presence of their interrogators. Though periods of detention were limited to thirty days, detention orders could be renewed indefinitely, running into months and even years.

103 After the formation of Koevoet, it became standard practice to ‘persuade’ captured guerrillas to ‘turn’ and become askaris assisting Koevoet in the conflict against their former comrades. This was a practice pioneered by the Rhodesian Selous Scouts, the archetypal model for Koevoet and the unit within which most of Koevoet’s founding members had learnt their counter-insurgency skills. There is considerable evidence that the process of ‘turning’ was accompanied by torture and that the price of non-compliance was summary execution. Once ‘turned’, these askaris and other Koevoet members are said to have carried out atrocities while disguised as SWAPO fighters in order to discredit the liberation movement, as the Selous Scouts had done during the Rhodesian war.

104 One such incident occurred at the village of Oshipanda near Oshikuku in June 1983. A group of armed black men in camouflage uniforms raided the kraal of Mr Hubertus Mateus Neporo, a modestly prosperous shop-owner who was suspected of giving financial backing to SWAPO. They ransacked the kraal, stealing cash, clothes and a radio, and smashing the family vehicle. Neporo was away that night, but the rest of his family and other occupants of the kraal were lined up against a wall and shot. Neporo lost his wife, children, mother, brother and friends – in all, eight civilians were murdered. The official line from the police, media and magistracy was that they were killed by ‘terrorists’. However, one kraal resident survived and identified the attacker as a certain Nakale from the Koevoet base at Okalongo. Within months of this incident, Koevoet members were reported to be boasting of this successful false-flag operation.

105 In an amnesty application, SADF conscript Mr Kevin Hall [AM1383/96] provides an insight into the brutal nature of the conflict with SWAPO as well as the routine use of torture. In May/June 1975, he was stationed at the Mapungeerela base in northern South West Africa. He recounts an incident where he was sent out on a seven-day patrol with instructions "to eliminate or arrest any terrorists". On the first night of the patrol, the group was "attacked by unknown forces and came under heavy gunfire". A lengthy gunfight ensued. In the morning, several bodies were discovered, as well as three badly wounded combatants. According to Hall:

106 Hall’s action in killing the three was a gross violation of human rights for which he applied for amnesty. His commanding officer, whom he names but whom the Commission cannot identify as he has not applied for amnesty, is likewise accountable. So too is the command structure of the SADF at the time.

107 A day or two later, while on the same patrol, the group came across four unarmed "terrorists" and arrested them. On their return to base, the four were placed in a hole in the centre of the base "approximately eight foot square by about seven foot deep" which served "as a place of safekeeping of all arrested terrorists". Hall continued:

108 Amnesty applicant Captain Eugene Fourie [AM3767/96] was a member of the Security Branch of the SAP stationed in Oshakati between June 1980 and January 1982. His application covers the death of a "SWAPO terrorist" whom he was interrogating. Fourie describes how, after administering electric shocks, the victim "het op ‘n stadium inmekaar gesak en sy bewyssun verloor en hy is toe agterna oorlede" (collapsed at one stage and lost consciousness and later died).

109 Former security policeman Warrant Officer Paul Francis Erasmus [AM3690/96] served in Owamboland in 1981. He applied for amnesty for the murder of a suspected SWAPO medical officer and for "suspects who were tortured on a regular basis by myself and other SB [Security Branch] members with the full knowledge and consent of commanding officers".

110 Another former member of the Security Branch based at Oshakati, Warrant Officer John Deegan, gave a lengthy statement to the Commission on his experiences with the SAP and Koevoet in South West Africa and Angola. He describes visiting the Security Branch offices in Oshakati in January 1981 where a round-the-clock interrogation session had been underway for about a week.

111 He describes how, during this particular session, the base came under rocket attack. The interrogators reacted by severely assaulting the teacher they were questioning at the time. Deegan joined the assault. Later that night the victim died.

112 Civilians were routinely harassed, intimidated and beaten by security forces in the operational areas, especially by Koevoet members in pursuit of SWAPO guerrillas. Many were killed during such operations, either by accident (caught in crossfire) or deliberately. Sometimes the human rights abuses involved detention under emergency proclamations, although it was often difficult to determine when the emergency regulations had been invoked as, under their provisions, any member of the security forces could summarily detain any South West African. Often intimidation happened as a result of a belief that the local population were assisting guerrillas and knew their whereabouts, although retribution against suspected SWAPO supporters was also a factor. The Bishops’ Conference reported in 1982:

113 In 1986, in a ‘false-flag operation’ that went awry, a group of recces placed a bomb near a bank in Oshakati and detonated it. The intention was to make it look like a SWAPO operation in order to justify harsh measures planned against the organisation. The bomb killed one bank employee who turned out to be the wife of a member of the same Recce detachment. No charges were ever brought.

114 During 1973, following mass detentions in Owamboland, the SAP began to hand over alleged SWAPO supporters to the bantustan authorities. After cursory hearings, the victims were publicly flogged with epokolos, the central ribs of makalani palms. Both women and men were subjected to these ‘traditional’ punishments, which resulted in extensive cuts and bruising, as well as public humiliation.

115 Dusk-to-dawn curfews were imposed on much of northern South West Africa for most of the duration of the war, although the application varied from time to time and from place to place. This was a major grievance of the local population, as the curfews caused considerable disruption of day-to-day life, and also gave rise to many killings and assaults as troops and police tried to enforce restrictions on movement. In some areas, security force members were under orders to shoot on sight during curfew hours, and there are many reported incidents of civilians being shot while going to the toilet, seeking medical attention or looking for livestock after dark.

116 The police unit Koevoet, as noted above, was responsible for many human rights abuses in South West Africa. The unit was set up by Brigadier Hans Dreyer of the SAP Security Branch in June 1979. While its officers were mainly white South African policemen, the unit recruited mostly from the local black South West African population and eventually numbered about 1 000. Cast in the mould of the Portuguese Flechas and Rhodesian Selous Scouts, Koevoet was established as a mobile unit, using specially designed Casspirs (armoured personnel carriers) to gather intelligence, track guerrillas and then kill them.

117 Koevoet was established as a consequence of a failed attempt to create a South West African surrogate force along the lines of RENAMO (the Mozambique National Resistance). This project, known as Operation Vanguard, involved the training of local Owambos at Fort Doppies in the Caprivi but failed when it could make no inroads in Owamboland because of overwhelming local support for SWAPO. Once Vanguard was abandoned, a small group of locals, many ‘turned’ ex-SWAPO fighters (known locally as makakunyanas which means literally blood suckers) and former members of the Front for the National Liberation of Angola (FNLA), were selected and trained as the nucleus of Koevoet. Over time, other groups were established, each made up of ten to fifteen makakunyanas under a white officer with considerable counter-insurgency experience. At its largest, Koevoet comprised approximately 250 white officers and 750–800 Owambos.

118 Speaking in Parliament in Cape Town in 1984, in the only public debate ever permitted on the activities of this unit, Minister le Grange explained the reasons for its formation:

119 Koevoet was in many respects an archetypal counter-revolutionary unit, a means of fighting fire with fire. Its top echelon comprised battle-hardened veterans of the Rhodesian war. Amongst these were Dreyer, Colonels Eugene de Kock and Eric Winter, Captains Sakkie van Zyl and ‘Beachball’ Vorster, Lieutenant Frans Conradie and Warrant Officer ‘Snakes’ Greyling. Koevoet soon gained a reputation for brutality, largely because of its methods of interrogating local people, which invariably involved torture, and for the way its members careered around the operational areas in Casspirs, laying down heavy fire, flattening fences, driving straight through fields of crops, and even people’s homes, whenever they suspected a guerrilla contact.

120 In his amnesty application, Lance Corporal Sean Callaghan [AM4026/96] described his experiences on attachment to Koevoet:

121 Koevoet’s operational mode involved monetary rewards for killings, captures and the discovery of arms on a graduated scale which rated and rewarded killings most highly. Corpses were also used for purposes of spreading terror and intimidating villagers. Callaghan described another incident:

122 Space does not permit a detailed description of the violence and torture used by Koevoet. However, the Kairos report contains extensive documentation on physical beatings, the destruction of property, sexual assault and various forms of torture (such as solitary confinement, hooding, electric shock, submersion in water, mock burials, mock executions, roasting over fire, and sleep, food and water deprivation) as a means of coercion, intimidation and the extraction of information. Rape was common, and women and girls of all ages were victims. In the Kairos documentation is an account of the rape of an eighty-year-old woman by a Koevoet member, and one referring to the rape of a four-year-old girl.

123 In operational terms, Koevoet was a highly effective unit. It is said to have achieved a killing ratio of some one to twenty-five. According to an article by Mr Helmoed Heitman in Armed Forces (December/January 1984), in its first year of operations Koevoet lost twenty-three members and killed 511 "insurgents" – a killing ratio of one to forty-two.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE KOEVOET UNIT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PERPETRATION OF GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN SOUTH WEST AFRICA AND ANGOLA. THESE VIOLATIONS AMOUNTED TO A SYSTEMATIC PATTERN OF ABUSE WHICH ENTAILED DELIBERATE PLANNING BY THE LEADERSHIP OF THE SAP. THE COMMISSION FINDS THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT, THE SAP AND THE MINISTER OF LAW AND ORDER ACCOUNTABLE. THE COMMISSION FINDS FURTHER THAT THE BOUNTY POLICY OF THE SAP, BY WHICH MEMBERS OF KOEVOET WERE MONETARILY REWARDED FOR CERTAIN OF THEIR ACTIONS, SERVED AS A POSITIVE INDUCEMENT FOR THE COMMISSION OF GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS, INCLUDING KILLING.

126 The New York Accords signed on 22 December 1988 set in motion the implementation of UN Resolution 435 adopted ten years earlier. Actual implementation by a United Nations Transitional Assistance Group (UNTAG) was set to commence on 1 April 1989, culminating in an election seven months later. The agreement also provided for a cease-fire, a phased withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola and South West Africa/Namibia respectively (to be completed only after the election), the dissolution of Koevoet and the deployment of both SWAPO guerrillas and South African forces to designated assembly points or bases.

127 With its acceptance of 435 and the end of the armed phase of the conflict, the South African government reverted to other methods – developing a multi-faceted effort to weaken and damage SWAPO and disrupt its electoral campaign. This took a number of forms.

128 The first of these was the breach of the cease-fire agreement. On 1 April, UN forces moved into South West Africa/Namibia to oversee the transition process. From that day on, both SWAPO and the South African forces were expected to abide by the cease-fire and be confined to base. Instead, the launch of this new era was marred by a series of military battles across a 320-kilometre front in Owamboland. The fighting was prompted by what the South African government referred to as a large-scale SWAPO incursion from Angola. The new UN administration conceded to pressure from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha and permitted the redeployment of Koevoet and other military units into northern South West Africa/Namibia.

129 SWAPO denied the allegations of an incursion and claimed its guerrillas had crossed the border to link up with UNTAG elements who, in turn, were to deploy them to the bases in terms of the New York agreement.

130 Whatever the cause of the fighting, the consequence was the death of more than 300 South West Africans. While the South African authorities argued these were all SWAPO combatants, local residents claimed that some of the dead were civilians. There is prima facie evidence that some of the dead may have been summarily executed as many of the victims had single bullet holes to the back of the head. It is possible that some or many of these were SWAPO prisoners shot on the day they were scheduled for release. This suspicion is expressed in the statement of Sean Callaghan:

131 The Commission has not been able to verify this suspicion.

138 All five were arrested in South Africa and held incommunicado under section 29 of the Terrorism Act. No charges were ever laid and they were all eventually released. During their detention the five were never interviewed by South West African authorities.

139 Another dimension involved the deployment of CCB members to South West Africa. Testimony in regard to the CCB operation was given to the Commission by the CCB’s intelligence head, Colonel Christoffel Nel. He told the Commission:

140 There is evidence in the Commission’s possession that the task of attacking the UNTAG facility was assigned to a senior CCB member. Captain Pieter Botes. whose area of CCB responsibility was Swaziland and Mozambique. He was assigned five operatives for the mission. As noted above, five detainees were held in South Africa in connection with the UNTAG case.

141 On 12 September 1989, Advocate Anton Lubowski was shot dead outside his home in Windhoek. At the time, he was the secretary general of SWAPO and the highest-ranking white person in the organisation. One human rights violation submission and two amnesty applications were made to the Commission on this case. The human rights violation submission was made by Ms Molly Lubowski, the deceased’s mother. She appealed to the Commission to identify her son’s killers and to clear him of allegations that he was a South African MI agent.

142 Considerable attention was given to this case, including a trip to Namibia and meetings with the judicial authorities there. A vast amount of documentation was supplied to the Commission by various parties.

143 Neither of the amnesty applications – by Mr Derrick Nielsen [AM 4792/97] and Mr Horst Klenz [AM0316/96] – provided any evidence of substance. Nielsen originally applied for amnesty for the murders of both Lubowski and David Webster but supplied no details. Later he sent letters to the Commission. In one of these, dated 4 December 1996, he alleges that he supplied an AK-47 to Mr Ferdie Barnard for "a hit" and that three days later Barnard "bragged that they had got rid of a kafferboetie". He said that the name Lubowski was mentioned. The Commission paid several visits to Pollsmoor prison where Nielsen was serving a sentence for a traffic offence in 1997, but he refused to discuss his application and divulged no further details. His main interest seemed to be to bargain information for a speedy release. Given these facts and the developments pertaining to the Webster murder, the Commission is of the view that little credence can be given to this application.

144 Horst Klenz’s application contained only some hearsay information to the effect that SWAPO had killed Lubowski but contained no corroborating evidence.

145 In an amnesty application [AM1909/96] not directly related to this murder, Mr Kevin Trytsman, an associate of Ferdi Barnard, claimed that Barnard had told him that the CCB had committed the murder. This is also the view of Christoffel Nel as expressed in the quote cited earlier. Elsewhere in his hearing, Nel described the Lubowski murder, along with the killings of Ms Dulcie September and Mr David Webster, as one of the CCB’s "successes".

146 This was also the conclusion of Judge J Levy of the Namibian Supreme Court, who conducted a lengthy inquest into the case. In a 144-page judgement, Levy named Irish mercenary Donald Acheson as the assassin and, as accomplices, CCB members Joe Verster, Staal Burger, Abraham ‘Slang’ van Zyl, Calla Botha, Leon ‘Chappies’ Maree, Johan Niemoller jr, Captain Wouter Basson (aka Christo Britz), Ferdi Barnard, and Charles Wildschudt (formerly Neelse).

THE COMMISSION BELIEVES THERE ARE NO GROUNDS TO CONTRADICT JUDGE LEVY’S GENERAL FINDING PERTAINING TO THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE CCB AND ITS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONSPIRACY THAT LED TO THIS KILLING.

147 The evidence of the CCB’s intelligence head, Christoffel Nel, is regarded by the Commission as important corroborating evidence of the CCB’s role.

148 It is well established that the CCB was set up as a covert grouping with the purpose, among others, of killing political opponents. So, too, is the fact that prior to Lubowski’s killing, such opponents were subject to extensive ‘target identification’ or intelligence-gathering operations. It has been established that Lubowski was the subject of such an exercise, an operation conducted by the West Front (South West Africa and Angola) section of the Directorate of Covert Collection (DCC) then headed by Brigadier Koos Louw. His deputy, Major Geoffrey Burton Price (aka Arthur Wilshire), was in charge of the South West African arena.

150 This would seem to lend credence to the view expressed by Judge Levy that Acheson was the assassin. The Commission had some reservations about this view. Its investigation suggested that, although Acheson may have been the intended killer and was certainly in the vehicle used for the operation (probably the driver as he had hired the vehicle, a red Toyota Conquest), the fatal shots may have been fired by a passenger, who was probably his CCB handler for this operation. The Commission has been given the handler’s name but lacks the corroborative evidence to name him as the killer.

151 In a statement to the police which is in the possession of the Commission, Acheson denied that he killed Lubowski. He confirmed that he had been recruited by Chappies Maree and Ferdi Barnard into an organisation which he later learnt was the CCB, and deployed to South West Africa, where he said that one of his tasks was to kill Ms Gwen Lister, the editor of The Namibian newspaper, regarded by South African security as a pro-SWAPO organ. He was to use "slow acting poison which could be injected into her toothpaste, placed on her Tampax or put into anything she would eat or drink … she would keel over in forty-eight hours". Although he tried to fulfil his assignment, he said he was unable to access her household. After his release and return to South Africa, Acheson said he was paid R20 000 and US$ 4 000 and sent to a hideout in the Greek islands where he remained for several months.

152 The allegation that Lubowski was a paid informer for MI was first voiced by General Magnus Malan in 1990 – in Parliament, where he enjoyed the protection of parliamentary privilege. Appearing before the Commission in 1997, he repeated the statement. One of Malan’s sources for this allegation may have been Brigadier Koos Louw, the head of the West Front of DCC. When Louw was interviewed by investigators from the Commission, he claimed to be Lubowski’s handler. He refused, however, to divulge the names of any other handlers and stated that all the documents pertaining to Lubowski had been destroyed.

153 Louw also stated that he paid a sum of R100 000 into Lubowski’s account in June 1989 through Global Investments, an MI front company. Despite the alleged destruction of the Lubowski documents, Louw was able to produce the original microfiche of the bank clearing house that processed the payment. Further, Lubowski never used this money. This would seem strange given the claim put out by MI that he was in financial difficulties, a factor which they claim was used to recruit him.

154 The allegation is not universally accepted, even by some MI members themselves. Verster, who worked in Louw’s DCC section, claims that the documentation was forged:

155 Verster’s doubts were echoed by Major Nico Basson, who was running a disinformation campaign at the time of the killing. Basson’s view is based on the fact that Lubowski had rejected his offer of R250 000 to leave SWAPO and join the DTA. Operative Clive Brink, who operated in South West Africa in the pre-election period, also expressed scepticism and stated that the paying of money into bank accounts to compromise recipients at a later date was a not unusual intelligence practice.

156 This latter view is shared by Mr Julian Knight, the Lubowski family lawyer, who argued that the payment was made either as an anticipatory cover-up, a pre-arranged alibi for the planned assassination, or fraudulently as part of a post-killing cover-up.

157 Finally, the Commission took note of two factors. The first is the lack of consensus on this issue among those connected to MI structures in South West Africa. The second is a question as to why the agency would have paid a considerable sum of money to someone they were on the point of killing.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE ALLEGATION THAT MR ANTON LUBOWSKI WAS A PAID INFORMER OF SOUTH AFRICAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE IS UNPROVEN AND THAT HE IS CLEARED OF THE ALLEGATION.

THE COMMISSION FURTHER FINDS THAT THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SADF AND THE SAP IN THE FORMER SOUTH WEST AFRICA BETWEEN 1966 AND 1989 LED TO GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ON A VAST SCALE. THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT SUCH ACTIVITIES CONSTITUTED A SYSTEMATIC PATTERN OF ABUSE WHICH ENTAILED DELIBERATE PLANNING ON THE PART OF THE FORMER CABINET, THE SSC AND THE LEADERSHIP OF THE SAP AND SADF. THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THESE INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR MEMBERS ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE AFORESAID GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS.

158 Operation Plathond involved training by the SADF of a surrogate force for operations in Zambia in the early 1970s. At the Commonwealth heads of state meeting in 1981, the Zambian Foreign Minister claimed that between 500 and 600 Zambians were being trained in the Caprivi for operations inside Zambia. There is no evidence to support the claim. While there certainly were foreign nationals being trained in the Caprivi for military operations in the region, they are more likely to have been Mozambican members of RENAMO than large numbers of Zambian dissidents.

159 Zambia was a target of South African aggression. Between 1978 and 1980, the SADF undertook several conventional military operations inside Zambia, aimed largely at SWAPO installations in the Western Province. The first occurred after a SWAPO rocket and mortar attack on the SADF headquarters base at Katimo Mulilo in the eastern Caprivi in which ten servicemen were killed. The SADF responded by sending combat units 250 kilometres inside Zambia to attack SWAPO camps.

160 During the SADF’s Operations Saffran and Rekstok in 1979, SWAPO bases in Western Zambia were again attacked. The recurring nature of these attacks in 1979/80, and the civilian casualties they caused, as well as the disruption to rural life (burning of crops, poisoning of local water supplies, killing of cattle, mining of roads) led SWAPO to abandon its camps adjacent to the Caprivi and move further north. However, with Western Zambia under virtual occupation by two SADF battalions for nine months after Zimbabwe’s independence in April 1980, and with malnutrition and starvation rife, the Zambian government eventually banned SWAPO from operating any military bases in the country – an early success for the strategy of counter-revolutionary warfare. What was also significant, and a lesson the SADF noted, was that this success owed more to the disruption to civilian life than to the damage inflicted on the military capacity of the ‘enemy’.

161 With SWAPO now concentrating its military facilities in Angola, large-scale SADF operations inside Zambia largely ceased. One exception was the SAAF raid near Lusaka in May 1986.

162 Further information supplied to the Commission by the NIA revealed that, as of June 1985, four people were being held in Zambian prisons for spying for South Africa. Two were current members of the SADF, one a former SADF member and the fourth a Caprivian working for South African MI. One of the SADF members was Sergeant Isaiah Moyo, a former member of the Rhodesian African Rifles, who had joined the SADF after 1980 and who was placed in Zambia by MI in about 1984/5. He was sentenced to twenty-five years for spying but released in 1991.

164 By 1978 the SADF was supplying sophisticated Mirage III fighters and Impala strike planes, as well as Alouette and ‘Huey’ helicopters. It was also secretly deploying troops into southern Rhodesia from bases inside South Africa and sending conscripts to Rhodesia to fight in local uniforms as ‘members’ of Rhodesian army units.

165 Colonel Craig Williamson told the Commission (3 February 1998) that the South African Security Branch also funded out of its secret account the police counter-insurgency unit, the Selous Scouts, in which numerous SAP members also served.

166 At its meeting on 26 March 1979, the SSC approved both the setting-up of a Rhodesian Joint Management Centre (JMC) to operate from the South African diplomatic mission in Salisbury, as well as a short-term strategy for Rhodesia. This recommended, inter alia, clandestine support (logistic as well as special forces) for the Rhodesian security forces. In July 1979, the SSC approved a stepping-up of military assistance, including covert air support for offensive measures against ‘terrorist’ and other targets in their host states ("gasheerlande"); unspecified military support with electronic warfare; aerial reconnaissance and support of special operations undertaken by the Rhodesian forces.

167 Six weeks later, at an SSC meeting on 27 August 1979, General Malan reported that the situation in Rhodesia had reached a watershed and that it needed further military help. As a result, the SSC authorised special clandestine actions, ordering that these be mounted within the context of a co-ordinated strategy. To this end, it established a Mozambican JMC comprised of representatives of the SADF, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), South African Railways (SAR), the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the SAP and the Departments of Finance, Trade and Industry and the Information Service. The presence of the SABC should be noted.

168 Special Forces operative Johan Verster told the Commission that, in 1979, he participated in parabat attacks on guerrillas moving into the cease-fire assembly points in the Tshipise Tribal Trust area. His group operated from a camp "on the side of the river at Gumbu Mine" in Botswana. The attacks, Verster claimed, were ordered by "military headquarters" using intelligence provided by the Selous Scouts.

170 Most of the ANC infiltrators were eventually returned to Zambia by the new government, but it was largely in response to this MK inflow that the SADF moved a unit of its troops through the Beit Bridge border post towards the end of 1979. According to Mr Pik Botha’s statement to the Commission, the movement of troops across the bridge was done with the concurrence of the Muzorewa Government.

171 In the run-up to the March 1980 pre-independence election, Rhodesia remained at the top of the SSC agenda. Excerpts from the minutes of the SSC meeting of 28 January 1980 provide an insight into the state’s strategic thinking at the time. General Malan asked what would be done if Rhodesia "verkeerd gaan" (goes wrong) and argued that Rhodesia and South West Africa were key to South Africa’s defence. Arguing for a proactive defence strategy, he asserted that the country’s first line of defence had to be beyond the Republic – "ons moet die tyd en die plek kan kies" (we must be able to choose the time and place). Mr PW Botha assured the General that the meeting shared his views, arguing that "as ons op die Limpopo en die Oranje veg, kan die vyand ons hartland aanval" (if we fight on the Limpopo and the Orange rivers, the enemy can attack our country).

172 Early in February 1980, the SSC dispatched a special task team to review the situation in Rhodesia. The most significant of its ten recommendations read: "Die implikasie van eliminasie van politieke figure in Rhodesie moet voortdurend onder oë gehou word" (The implication of the elimination of political figures in Rhodesia must be constantly kept in mind.) There is an ambiguity about this statement in that the reference could be to other countries’ attempts to assassinate Mr Robert Mugabe. This was the interpretation that both Mr Pik Botha and Dr Niel Barnard gave in their appearances before the Commission and there is no evidence to suggest that South African security forces ever attempted to assassinate Mugabe in the period prior to the election.

173 The South African government raised in excess of R12 million in support of Bishop Muzorewa’s United African National Council (UANC) in the March 1980 election, approximately half of which came from state coffers, while the rest was raised from the private sector by Foreign Minister Pik Botha. At independence in April 1980, the government of Zimbabwe inherited a total debt over R4 000 million which South Africa was to insist be repaid. Moreover, the long tradition of direct South African involvement in the country’s security affairs did not end at independence; it merely changed its form.