Dulcie September, died 1988

[Magda Hassan]

Making a Killing: Casinos, oil, the mafia
and Anton Lubowski
Evelyn Groenink
Evelyn Groenink hails from the Netherlands, where she won an award
for her foreign correspondence from South America before co-editing
Anti Apartheid News, a publication of the Dutch anti-apartheid movement
(AABN) in Amsterdam. Groenink moved to South Africa in 1990 and has
since been based in Johannesburg as a correspondent for both the local
and Dutch media, specialising in reporting on the arms trade and
exploitation of natural resources in African countries. Groenink has also
conducted research on these issues for the Netherlands Institute on
Southern Africa (NiZA), the Jubilee campaign and the University of Berne
in Switzerland, and has authored a number of books, most recently one
examining the murders of prominent liberation struggle figures Dulcie
September, Anton Lubowski and Chris Hani. In 2002 Groenink
spearheaded an Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ) probe
into the working conditions of investigative journalists in the Southern
African region. The research report, ‘Patriots or Puppets?, laid the
foundations for the establishment of the Forum for African Investigative
Reporters (FAIR). Groenink has since worked as facilitator and daily
coordinator of FAIR.
This case study exemplifies several aspects of investigative journalism
practice: from formulating a thesis, chasing leads, collaborating with
fellow journalists, verifying sources and overcoming obstacles. Evelyn
Groenink’s story was originally published in The Namibian and Mail &
Guardian:
Mail & Guardian
Furniture deal used to entrap Lubowski, Evelyn Groenink & Pierre Roux,
16 July 1999
Lubowski: The French, the Mafia and the MI Links, Evelyn Groenink, 1
October 1999
The Namibian
How SA’s MI set up Anton,
Watchdog’s Guide to Investigative Reporting 41
http://www.namibian.com.na/Netstories/July99/mi.htm
Shot dead after blackmail bid failed,
http://www.namibian.com.na/Netstories/Oc...heory.html
The story of how South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) lawyer
Anton Lubowski was assassinated is in itself significant because it exposes
how the private sector is not investigated enough – the focus in Africa
tends to be on corruption in government. In the era of globalization,
however, it is important to monitor multinational companies, especially
since these companies do not really answer to any particular place’s laws.
The Lubowski file shows how French oil and arms interests, an Italian
mafia group and elements in the South African military tried to corrupt
Lubowski – Swapo’s ‘investment man’ – on the eve of the first free
elections in Namibia in 1989. Months before that, Lubowski was
approached by Italian Mafioso, Vito Palazzolo, and French arms trader,
Alain Guenon, for the delivery of some services: Palazzolo wanted casino
rights in Namibia and Guenon wanted Lubowski to support an oil transport
project (a railway line from Angola to Namibia) in which he had a stake.
Lubowski accepted a payment of R100 000, thinking the money concerned
some more innocent ‘commissions’ on a major furniture deal he had helped
facilitate. But he was caught in a precarious situation as the money turned
out to have come from South African military intelligence (MI), and his
‘financiers’ were in a position to blackmail him – they could ‘prove’ to
the world that Lubowski, the Namibian freedom fighter, was a South
African MI agent. Otherwise, how could he have accepted apartheid
military intelligence money? Lubowski was later killed after he had had
a secret conversation with a colleague in Swapo, probably about this
problem. On the afternoon of his assassination, Lubowski had tried to
work on the Swapo financial books which showed that he had taken the
‘furniture’ commission. He was shot professionally in his front garden
on arriving home from that stint at the office.
Finding and refining a story idea
The story started with a rumour published in the Mail & Guardian that
‘mafia money’ had been found in Lubowski’s account after he died. This
rumour was the reason why I started to investigate, as the main mafia
42 Watchdog’s Guide to Investigative Reporting
man mentioned in the Mail & Guardian story was a French arms trader,
Alain Guenon, whom I had stumbled on in Paris while investigating the
murder of Dulcie September. I had already confirmed in Paris (through
police, mercenary circles, Africa-watching circles and fellow journalists)
that Guenon was an arms trader who tried to befriend people in African
countries who could conceivably help him with contracts; Guenon had
done this in ANC circles, befriending Winnie Mandela.
Sources: Contacting “exes”
I contacted former friends and colleagues of Lubowski and found that he
had indeed been close to Guenon shortly before he died. The most valuable
of these sources was Lubowski’s ex-wife, Gaby, who was loyal to him
despite the separation they had gone though shortly before he died. Gaby
would not believe that Lubowski was an apartheid agent (“he hated the
South Africans”), and was severely hurt having to bring up two small
children while “these things” were being said about their father. (Then
South African Defence Minister, Magnus Malan, had shown cheques paid
out to Anton Lubowski by military intelligence in parliament; Malan used
this to deny that South African operatives had killed Lubowski: “Why
would we kill our own agent?”)
Gaby Lubowski could not believe the allegations, but as somebody who
had shared Lubowski’s life for more than six years and an intelligent
person, she was able to see that the man had had weaknesses. Lubowski
had loved attention and gifts, and was happy to hang out with rich
businessmen, and even benefit from favours from them as long as he
thought they were “really nice guys”.
Establishing a thesis for the assignment
It is in large part due to the honesty and perception of Gaby Lubowski,
who proceeded to tell me that there had also been “allegations of corruption
on a furniture deal between Guenon and Anton” that I was able to come
to a feasible theory.
Lubowski had accepted money – the evidence was incontrovertible. Many
people had perused the accounts and found the cheques had been
deposited. So he had accepted the R100 000 – but he had thought it had
come from his businessman friend Alain Guenon, who had provided
furniture for Swapo offices (everybody in Windhoek knew Guenon as
Watchdog’s Guide to Investigative Reporting 43
the ‘furniture man’). In other words, Guenon had set Lubowski up with
the MI money in order to blackmail Lubowski into giving him and his
pal Vito Palazzolo the desired ‘projects’. (Or else, they could say, we will
tell the world that you work for MI). I thought this theory could very well
have been what happened, since I knew from my experience in Paris that
French arms traders like Guenon had very intimate relationships with
South African MI at the time, and they could well have cooked up such a
plan together.
Identify sources, confirm details
I set to work on the basis of that theory. Gaby Lubowski and other friends
and colleagues of Lubowski were able to point me to Pierre Roux, a
lawyer and also a friend of Lubowski, who had first raised ‘irregularities’
in the furniture deal between Guenon and Lubowski. Roux helped: he
managed to retrieve the furniture deal papers and we discovered that the
three payments made to Lubowski between June and August 1989 of
about R33 000 each, each amounted to 10% of three batches of furniture
Swapo received from South Africa during that period.
I also confirmed that the ‘furniture shop owner’ presented to Lubowski
(and his secretary, Nina Viall) by Alain Guenon, one Rob Colesky, was a
fulltime MI operative. I confirmed that through a colleague who worked
as a researcher for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC) at the time and who had investigated the military intelligence elite
dirty tricks unit, the Directorate for Covert Collection (DCC). I also
confirmed it by phoning Admiral Koos Louw, the last head of the DCC,
and simply asking him about “his operative, Rob Colesky”. Louw
confirmed that Colesky was his operative before realising what he was
saying; then he hung up the phone.
Lubowski’s business partner Michaela Clayton confirmed to Pierre Roux
that Colesky had phoned to ask when Lubowski would be home on the
evening he was killed.
Revise thesis as new information comes to light
So the DCC and Guenon had channelled money to Lubowski to make
him look like an MI agent. But for what purpose? I obtained confirmation
from business and legal sources in Windhoek, who had also been close to
44 Watchdog’s Guide to Investigative Reporting
Lubowski, that he had been under pressure to facilitate casino rights for
mafia money launderer Vito Palazzolo, who, like Guenon, had strong
ties with the apartheid security establishment. Lubowski, they said, had
also been under pressure from arms trader Guenon (who also dabbled in
oil) to facilitate a new railway project for oil transport from Angola through
Namibia. Sources informed me that Lubowski had dropped the project
because “so many vultures were involved”. Some of these sources added
that Lubowski had been muttering about “not wanting to do what these
people wanted”, shortly before he was killed.
Together, the two story lines indicated strongly that a private network of
wheeler-dealing individuals connected to arms trade, organised crime and
apartheid MI had tried to make a lot of money in Namibia through
Lubowski. Many prominent individuals in MI had become more and more
involved in sanctions busting, privatising state military projects and
general profiteering as the demise of apartheid approached. They preyed
on Lubowski’s weakness for the ‘high life’, and thus they had him killed
when he turned out to be more principled than expected.
But were the different elements of the story – were the money and the
pressure – really connected to the murder? Maybe Lubowski was simply
assassinated by apartheid killers out to get freedom fighters; killers who
were unaware of the deals going on higher up. I never found a smoking
gun, but what I did find at the very least warranted a story.
Collaborate with other journalists and agencies
It was a stroke of luck that I discovered a Finnish journalist, Timo
Korhonen, who happened to have spoken about Lubowski’s last day to
Lubowski’s closest associate in Swapo, Hage Geingob. Korhonen had
had difficulty getting an answer from Geingob on what Lubowski and
Geingob had been doing on that last day in September 1989. It was known
that the two men had gone out ‘for a walk’ on the eve of what was to be
the busiest day in Namibian political and Swapo history: the arrival back
home from exile of Swapo leader Sam Nujoma.
Countless observers had asked why Lubowski and Geingob needed to go
on an hour-long walk that day, without guards, when there was so much
work to do and when the situation was ‘hot’. No answer has ever been
Watchdog’s Guide to Investigative Reporting 45
forthcoming. Geingob did tell Korhonen, vaguely, what Lubowski went
to do after they parted, in the Swapo office, with the same financial books
that lawyer Pierre Roux had found “irregularities around the furniture
deal” in. “It was an issue of control of finances,” Korhonen related
Geingob’s words. “There was some kind of an arrangement”.
I put this to another source, who was a Swapo financial adviser at the
time, and he confirmed that in his opinion Lubowski’s work at the office
on that day, the walk with Geingob, and Geingob’s words, could only
have related to the problem of the furniture bribes, which he came to
know about later. “There was no other issue of control of Swapo finances
on that day”, he recalled. “Everything else was on hold for Nujoma’s
arrival.”
The fact that Lubowski was shot later that day, and that the TRC found
that this had been a DCC operation, combined with the fact that the DCC
man Colesky and Alain Guenon had been part of the same ‘furniture
operation’, convinced me that the story was hard enough to publish. Then
Mail & Guardian editor Phillip van Niekerk agreed with me and published;
it was also published in The Namibian. Afterwards, Swapo government
Prime Minister Hage Geingob announced he would sue the Mail &
Guardian, but he didn’t.
Regrettably, it was only much later that I came across a witness close to
the DCC who named the actual perpetrator of the killing. This source
was a very good one, as he was able to convey details told to him by the
perpetrator, that only the perpetrator could have known. The source also
named a very prominent individual in the security establishment, with
important business interests in the oil and money laundering sectors, who
would have personally given the DCC operative the order.
Assessment of sources
I am generally happy with the sources in this story. They were verifiable;
I knew all of them and I knew their motives. I was pursuing the story ten
years after the murder and no one had much personal interest anymore.
Also, I initiated all contact, which lessened the possibility of being pushed
or manipulated in a certain direction.
46 Watchdog’s Guide to Investigative Reporting
Obstacles
The only difficulties we encountered were from authorities. The TRC
authorities did not allow researcher Jan Ake Kjellberg to finalise the
investigation, and Swapo’s Hage Geingob not only refused to talk to me
but threatened to sue. Geingob, who was known as Anton Lubowski’s
friend, is only on record as saying that the Lubowski affair “proved that
there were spies in Swapo”. These difficulties show how pervasive the
influence of the private sector and powerful individuals is on political
parties, and even on respectable official institutions such as the TRC. In
the end, only the individual who is not personally dependent on political
or economical friends can carry out an investigation such as this one to
the end – or almost the end.
Postscript
Alain Guenon has all but disappeared from the press’ monitors since the
story was published. A French colleague told me recently (without
knowing who had written the story) that “Guenon has disappeared because
there was a story that he was implicated in a murder in Namibia”. Vito
Palazzolo still denies being a mafia man, even though he was convicted
for money laundering and is still wanted in Italy for mafia activities.
Palazzolo lives in Franschhoek and supplies mineral water to South
African Airways.
The prominent individual who allegedly gave the order for the killing is
a respected member of the political and economical establishment.
http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_8940-544-1-30.pdf