Dulcie September, died 1988

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Names[/FONT]: September, Dulcie Evonne.[/FONT]
Born[/FONT]: 1935, Gleemore (Athlone), Western Cape, South Africa.[/FONT]
Died[/FONT]: 29 March 1988, Paris, France[/FONT]
In Summary[/FONT]: An ANC member, anti-apartheid activist, humanitaria and political prisoner who went into exile in London. She was later assasinated in Paris.[/FONT]
More about her from: http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people...mber_d.htm[/FONT]
And from: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/pe...ember.html[/FONT]



I became interested in her death because of a connection to a certain “Dirk K. Stoffberg”, who is also intricately connected to the death of Rainer Barschel and to the October Surprise. And to many other deeply interesting stuff like the death of Dr. Kelly and Olof Palme. And the Marcos gold. And chemical waepons in South Africa. And mini-nukes. Oh yeah, drugs as well, but that is dubious. Looks like a key figure in the eighties and early nineties.[/FONT]

Here is the first mentioning of Stoffberg in connection with Dulcie September: http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/chrono...-03-29.htm[/FONT]

Dulcie September, the African National Congress (ANC) representative in France, Luxembourg and Switzerland in the late 80s was assassinated in Paris. Sergeant-Major Joseph Klue of the South African Defence Force (SADF), Dirk K. Stoffberg (arms dealer and SA agent) and Heine Hüman who has claimed to be involved in the killing became possible suspects, while the French were accused of complicity in the incident.

And then please digest the information found in a document of the South African Truth Commission found on scribd:[/FONT]
302009

[FONT="]2. Dirk K. Stoffberg (see Notes *2), arms dealer and a SA agent, was also named as[/FONT]
[FONT="]the head of the 'Z-Squad Incorporated' operating in Europe [Pauw,1991:208]. Stoffberg[/FONT]
[FONT="]always admitted to knowing details of this case. He arrived in France two days before[/FONT]
[FONT="]the assassination of D.S.[/FONT]
[FONT="][Couret:32]. "Z-Squads Incorporated" is alleged to consist of professional highly trained[/FONT]
[FONT="]hit men, with virtually unlimited range of action and operational funds. Created by[/FONT]
[FONT="]BOSS, perfected by NIS [SS].[/FONT]
[FONT="]Later -not long before his death- Stoffberg told Jacques Pauw [Thorny:3; see also the[/FONT]
[FONT="]SABC documentary Guns for September] that "he gave the orders for assassination of[/FONT]
[FONT="]the ANC's Dulcie September (...). He said he paid two former members of the French[/FONT]
[FONT="]Foreign Legion L 20 000 each to kill the ANC's chief representative in France. And[/FONT]
[FONT="]Stoffberg said he had no idea why she was to be assassinated and presumed it was[/FONT]
[FONT="]because she held a prominent position in the ANC.(...) He activated (these) two hitmen[/FONT]
[FONT="]through the Adler Group. (...) Intelligence about Dulcie September was received from[/FONT]
[FONT="]the SA Security Police who asked him to facilitate her assassination.[/FONT]

Two company names spring into view:[/FONT]

• Z-Squads Incorporated[/FONT]
  
• Adler Group[/FONT]
  

Do these names ring bells? Alarm bells?[/FONT]
At least Adler is mentioned in connection with Rainer Barschel as well, with three letters written over it: CIA.[/FONT]
If you try to find more about these companies, good luck. If you find something, let me know.[/FONT]

By the way, the scribd document appears to be originally from contrast.org, but is no longer available online there.[/FONT]

But, thanks to archive.org, information is preserved:[/FONT]
http://web.archive.org/web/2002081721564...org/truth/[/FONT]

I recommend making a copy of all available documents there.[/FONT]

I cannot say much more on this right now, suffering temporary information overload again.[/FONT]

Carsten[/FONT]

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=57849&




South Africa: Unsolved murder of activist is reopened

Date Posted: Sunday 23-Aug-2009By Fiona Forde

In a dramatic turnabout, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has said it will consider investigating the mysterious murder of Dulcie September, 21 years after the ANC activist met her fate in Paris.

"We would look into such a request if and when we receive it and we would then take the appropriate action," NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga told Independent Newspapers this week. "But we have never received any request to look into her death and therefore it has never been under consideration by the NPA."

This comes after publisher Maggie Davey breathed new life into the 1988 killing, arguing at the Ruth First lecture in Joburg last week that, until such time as the reasons for the ANC activist's death are known and recognised, South African politics will remain in a perpetual state of rot.
Continues Below ↓




Drawing on the research carried out by Dutch investigative journalist Evelyn Groenink, which Davey's publishing house Jacana was prevented from launching as a book some years back, she traced a shady but powerful world of arms deals and big business which to this day has managed to put a muzzle on the understanding of our contemporary history.

Shortly after September's death, Groenink began to chase the tails of what she believed were South African death squads running amok in Europe. But two years into her investigation she came face to face with the sordid world of sanctions- busters and nuclear and arms dealers who she found were beating a steady path to the southern hemisphere, with September, it would seem, in hot pursuit.

September had wanted to know who was benefiting financially from apartheid and "who would resist calls for sanctions and disinvestments at all costs", as Davey put it last week.

Hence Groenink wanted to know who would have benefited from September's death. Like September, she too followed the money and the big business interests.

By the time she knocked at Davey's Johannesburg door in the early years of the new democratic dispensation, Groenink was also chasing the tails of some of the middle men of the multi-billion rand arms deal which would rock the foundations of South African politics for the next 10 years.

"I had stumbled on a pattern and that was the most threatening aspect for the people involved," Groenink now says, a pattern that would reveal how the arms industry did not discriminate between the apartheid regime and the new democracy.

The pair encountered ferocious resistance to the book project and, after a series of legal and other threats, they decided to shelve it, knowing full well it would have closed the doors of Jacana in the process.

"What was so threatening about the prospective publication of Evelyn's book?" Davey asked, a question that would remain with her for a number of years to follow.

Meanwhile, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) had also looked into September's death and concluded that she was most likely "a victim of a CCB operation involving the contracting of a private intelligence organisation, which, in turn, contracted out the killing".

"Why was there neither full disclosure nor a thorough investigation of the military and business sectors at the TRC?" Davey also asked last week.

"Perhaps the preceding years of secrecy and ambiguity had forged a link that, if broken, would destroy all around it," she contended. "The failure of the TRC and the South African state to hold big oil, big arms and big business to account, allowed for a continuation of the rot which we saw in the arms deal; a rot that persists to our day, and a rot, which is, as Mark Gevisser so aptly puts it, 'the poisoned well of SA politics'," she continued.

Davey began to probe the ANC in a bid to understand who led the investigation into September's death on the part of the liberation movement. Few answers were forthcoming. Earlier this year she wrote to President Jacob Zuma, who was head of ANC intelligence at the time of September's murder, to see if he could shed light on the investigation. She is still awaiting a response.

Last week, Aziz Pahad, who recruited September into the movement and who was based in London at the time of her killing, told Independent Newspapers that the late Solly Smith led the inquiry, "though it's possible that it could also have been someone in Lusaka, or someone in security".

Smith, alias Samuel Khanyile, who had been the ANC's London representative, succeeded September in Paris. In 1991 he confessed to being a spy. He died a few years later.

If it was Smith, what became of his investigation?

Dr Frene Ginwala, who was head of the political research unit in the office of president Oliver Tambo and based in London at the time of September's death, says it's difficult to know. She says the files could have gone to a number of departments in Lusaka: "(They could have gone to) intelligence or security or even international affairs. I really do not know. But you must remember, that was a very chaotic time. We were all preparing to come home."

Ginwala doesn't believe that September was the victim of an international web of shady deals. "Dulcie would have reported anything like that to the ANC first," she says. "Or to people like Abdul (Minty) who was still involved in the arms embargo. It's very strange if she didn't," she says.

Yet Groenink says she spoke to Minty, who claimed that September had been in touch with him soon before she died and that she was going to "send me some information". It never arrived.

Either way, it doesn't explain the resistance to publishing Groenink's book. When all else failed, the Dutch journalist deposited her manuscript with the offices of the Scorpions in 2001. "I didn't want to withhold evidence, and if anyone could solve this, the police would," she says.

She was informed a while later that there was "no interest" in taking the matter further.

What is equally inexplicable is why the NPA now insists that no request has ever been made to investigate September's death, yet Piers Pigou, the former director of the South African History Archive (SAHA), has repeatedly been denied access to information about her murder for a number of years. Pigou had been an investigator in the TRC and was aware that the dockets from the French investigation into her death had been brought back to South Africa.

SAHA attempted to gain access to the dockets but the Department of Justice (DoJ), the National Intelligence Agency and the National Archives each resisted its requests.

"In an out-of-court settlement in 2005 some 60 to 70 percent of those documents were handed over to us by Vusi Pikoli," Pigou told Independent Newspapers. Pikoli was then the director-general of the DoJ.

However September's docket was not among them. "The matter was still under investigation," Pikoli told SAHA. "I have that in writing," Pigou says.

What is also in writing is a response by the DoJ to Davey earlier this month explaining why they would not allow her access to the September files.

"The records relating to Dulcie September contain information obtained by law enforcement agencies in the course of their investigations of her assassination. It has also been verified that these investigations have not yet been concluded..."

Yet Mhaga insists that if September's murder was being investigated, it would fall under the remit of the Priority Crimes Litigation Unit, headed by Anton Ackerman, at the NPA. "The murders or deaths of former political activists, prior to 1994, is part of their mandate," Mhaga explained, "and September's investigation is not there."

"If that is the case, then the dockets and information concerning her murder must now be released," Pigou says.

Davey says she will reapply for access to the files immediately.

[Magda Hassan]

2009 Ruth First lecture - Maggy Davey [URL="javascript:void(0)"]
[/URL] [URL="javascript:void(0)"]
[/URL] [URL="javascript:void(0)"]
[/URL] Monday, 24 August 2009 Dulcie September
Ruth First Memorial Lecture 2009
Maggy Davey
Listen to a podcast of Maggy Davey's talk
I don’t know who murdered Dulcie September. If I knew, then chances are, that you would too.
This is what I know: Dulcie was murdered on a March morning in 1988, as she prepared to open the door to the ANC office on the Rue des Petites-Ecuries in Paris.
As the ANC’s chief representative for France, Luxembourg and Switzerland, she had held the position since 1983. A warm and stylish woman, in the prime of her life, she was shot five times in the head by a .22 calibre rifle, although some reports say that 6 shells lay at the crime scene. It was a professional hit. She was 52 years old.
Alex Moumbaris, Dulcie’s friend and comrade remembers seeing Dulcie lying there alongside the pile of that day’s post, which stood neatly to one side of her body. He contacted the French Communist Party and together with other organisations with whom Dulcie had worked, they took to the streets that same afternoon. Emotions ran high amongst the over 60,000 people who marched. Parisians had taken Dulcie into their hearts.
I know too, that there have been great difficulties in finding out who murdered Dulcie. In spite of investigations, public, private and for publication into her murder, her family are none the wiser than when they went to Paris in 1988 to bury her.
In 1999, eleven years after the murder, I was approached by Evelyn Groenink, a Dutch investigative journalist and a former member of the Dutch anti apartheid movement to publish her book, the story of her investigation into Dulcie’s murder. Groenink, who has been living in South Africa for many years, went to Paris in 1988 to investigate the murder.
At that time, I knew very little about the ANC’s French representative. I just had an image and a sound from the television in my mind; of the crowds gathered around the murder scene, and the mewling, slightly wonky sound of the French police vans.
Over the following years, I became drawn into the story, into the quest to find out what happened. It dismays me that we were never able to publish Evelyn’s book. This lecture, then, is my attempt at a kind of restitution; it arises out of a desire to place on record what I have learned about Dulcie.
The Ruth First fellowship has allowed me to ask questions about what was so threatening about the prospective publication of Evelyn Groenink’s book. These questions are not just about an unsolved murder and the denial of justice for Dulcie and her family, they are about how truth can be covered up and how the interests of a few powerful constituencies can shift and shape our understanding of history.
Dulcie September was born in Gleemore, Athlone, on the Cape Flats in 1935. As Dulcie’s great friend Alex la Guma described the times and the place: “Spring is pouring out all over. Nice weather for ducks, but in many homes there is enough water to float a snoeking fleet.”
Dulcie, who trained as a teacher was committed, fastidious, tough and innovative. She would have had to have been. Her father withdrew her from her formal schooling at the recently opened Athlone High School during her Standard 8 year, and it was at the age of 29, while she was in Barberton gaol, convicted of sabotage, that she completed her senior certificate. She continued trying to educate herself. In 1983, then aged 47, she wrote a letter to the ANC Education Secretary Henry Makgothi ,“[…] If I do not get on to this course then I shall just have to plod along as I am doing now. Dit gaan maar swaar in mens se ou dag.’
From the time of her membership of the Cape Peninsula Student’s Union, to the Teacher’s League of South Africa, to her joining the African People’s Democratic Union of South Africa, Dulcie’s political outlook strengthened. In 1963 with leaders such as Kenneth Abrahams and Neville Alexander, she formed the Yu Chi Chan Club. The group was, in the delicate words of Pallo Jordan ‘a ginger group of young militants…’
Detention, arrest, torture, and 5 years in gaol were to follow, with a further 5 year banning order which made it impossible for Dulcie to teach. In 1974, at the age of 39, and within days of her banning order having expired, Dulcie had an exit permit and was aboard the Edinburgh Castle to Britain. She returned to her Unity Movement roots and joined the ANC.
Dulcie must have been a complex person. Everyone, bar none, will tell you what a warm and cranky, generous but tough, difficult yet honest, loving and always contrary person she was.
As a full time member of the ANC, Dulcie worked in London and Lusaka, and travelled extensively to conferences and organised. In 1983 she was offered the position of Chief Representative to France, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Her years in Paris coincided with the reigning years of Thatcher and Reagan. And although Mitterand was president, Chirac was prime minister, and cut from a similar cloth as his British and American counterparts. Sanctions were not on the negotiating table for these governments, and Dulcie had a vast job on her hands, mobilising and lobbying for sanctions and disinvestment. The significant progress that she made was halted by her death.
For some time before her murder, Dulcie had been nervous, and not just of the right wing thugs who had mugged her a couple of times. She reported in a telex to Lusaka that ‘Le Pen, the leader of the ultra right has just made mention of the school [SOMAFCO] it [sic] his paper. That is besides saying where I live. Be careful. The struggles continues.’ It is a sickening thought that Le Pen, who is still alive, had publicised Dulcie’s home address. Dulcie too expressed her deep unease about both the South African and French security forces, especially in the months before her murder. Her appeals to Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua for some security measures to protect her were not acted upon. Pasqua subsequently denied her ever having asked.
In 1999, in the years just after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the story that Evelyn told interested me greatly. Not only had she investigated Dulcie’s murder, but this had led her to look into the murders of Anton Lubowski and Chris Hani.
Groenink had made some breakthroughs in connection with the 1989 murder of Anton Lubowski. She writes: ‘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’ […]. 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.’
Evelyn recognized the name of Alain Guenon since she had come across it in her investigation into Dulcie’s death. Her articles on Lubowski and Guenon were published in The Namibian and the Mail and Guardian in 1999.
At our very first meeting I knew that I wanted to publish the book, and almost immediately commissioned a cover design. After receiving the completed manuscript, I realised that I may have been a bit hasty, and instead, I should be putting my energies into finding a good lawyer. Still, the cover looked powerful, and was to appear, ever hopeful, in no less than 4 of our annual
catalogues.
It is as well to be an optimist if you find that you’re a publisher. It is also just as well to believe in what you are publishing.
The story that Evelyn told was startling. In brief, her thesis was that Dulcie came upon some information which got her killed. Aziz Pahad, who worked for the ANC in London, had told Evelyn that ‘Dulcie stumbled on nuclear issues.’
Evelyn’s investigation led her to the intricate network and seamy business world of ex-sanctions busters, military confreres and oil and minerals specialists. These same people now serviced a new elite, and were of course, not happy to have their old ways raked up and their new ways looked over. In particular, her investigation led her to scrutinise several of the gentlemen of La Francafrique and their fixers and enablers here in South Africa.
La Francafrique is a term used to describe how businessmen who are usually involved in oil, nuclear energy, mining, arms and government, carved up anew, the already whittled down resources of African states who were willing and able to do business. Achille Mbembe calls it a "system of reciprocal corruption tying France to its African feudatories."
As Evelyn told it, Jean-Dominique Taousson, veteran soldier of the French Algerian war and ex-editor of the Courrier australe parlementaire, who then worked for Interior minister Charles Pasqua, known as France’s ‘top cop’, was aware of a planned attack on Dulcie before her murder. Evelyn’s source for this was himself a top cop.
Taousson’s old magazine incidentally, was paid for by the South African National Intelligence Service, and Taousson supplied them with information on a regular basis.
Because of the people Evelyn was looking for answers from, she and I met with lawyers often, and together we devised a strategy which, we hoped, would get us into a strong enough position to publish. In order to do this, we were advised to fact check within an inch of our lives, and to get comprehensive comment from all those concerned. If someone, anyone, disagreed with what Evelyn put to them, then their rebuttal would be duly noted and printed in the book.
This process turned out to have all the appeal and some of the fright, of the minor blood sports. We embarked on a vast fact checking project, where basically everyone we asked denied everything that was asked of them in very inventive ways.
When the replies started coming in, they were invariably from lawyers. Some respondents however chose to contact us directly. We were liars, ‘cabbages’, crooks, fifth columnists, quislings and publishers of recherché information that would only be of interest to other crooks, ‘cabbages’ and quislings.
The founder of one of the biggest private suppliers of soldiers to the Iraq war, and a competitor of Blackwater and Haliburton called me out of the blue. In a calm and reasonable manner, he threatened us with a legal action which would close us down, were Evelyn’s contentions ever to be published. On another occasion, we were told that the Scorpions were on their way to our offices, (they never pitched), and one former provincial premier laughed angrily and told me that I would make him ‘very, very rich.’ One morning, wife of someone who had been asked for comment called. She told me that I had torn their family apart, and that I would personally be held liable for the breakdown of their lives. A former government minister known for evoking frissons of delight in women, called and offered this: ‘I want to warn you my dear, the world is a very dangerous place.” Indeed I tingled.
A court case brought by Withold Waluz, brother of Janusz, wanting full access to the manuscript, in fact, wanting ”seizure of all the material to be published…destruction of the matter, and [...] punitive costs…”, caught us unaware. Waluz had been approached for comment, and this was the reply. But we won the case on the basis of having been fair in our approach to Waluz, thus upholding his constitutional right to dignity and on the basis of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.
Winning the court case was not enough. I was spending increasing amounts of time on the book, and despite winning the case with costs, the entire project soaked up more money and resources than a small publisher could afford. We decided not to go ahead with the publication. As a publishing firm who staked our reputation on a fierce independence, it was a painful and disquieting decision to take.
Independent publishing and the determined dissemination of information was, after all, an integral part of the fight for freedom. Skotaville, COSAW, Ravan, David Philip, the university presses, Lovedale, Taurus, African Writers Association, all had the bravery and smarts to turn secrecy and suppression on its head. Here we were, six years into freedom, and we were shushed.
It was clear that powerful interests were uneasy. And those powerful interests were considerably bigger than us. Their reactions and their threats scared me, but also led to a great curiosity. I became captivated by the idea of Dulcie’s desk, and that if I could find out what she was working on at the time of her murder, what documents lay on that desk, it might help me to understand the powerful interests which had effectively shut down the project. As a publisher, it was maddening to think that we had rolled over. But worse still, was the worrying accumulation of evidence that there were other silences and gaps when it came to the life and death of Dulcie September.
In trying to find out what was on Dulcie’s desk at the time of her murder, one of the archives I visited was the one at Fort Hare, curated by Mosanku Maamoe.
There I found extensive and comprehensive files, notes and handwritten documents relating to sanctions busting, arms sales, oil sales and the companies and people involved. Amongst her handwritten notes were fragments of sentences. Often, ‘call Abdul’, or ‘Spoke with Abdul.’
Abdul, is Abdul Minty, Dulcie’s close friend and comrade. He ran the World Campaign against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa. There were train timetables and phone numbers and a photocopied label from a carton of navel oranges, bearing the name of the chemical thiabendazol, and the French supplier.
Undated note; 1. Name of ship on arrival in Durban: Nema. Flying under Panamanian flag. Made 5 trips. Need to know when they arrived in Durban […]’
Comprehensive notes were there too, in her careful handwriting, most especially regarding her visits to Switzerland: ‘Switzerland – Loans to SA’ ‘Second largest investor in SA. Role in giving SA credit. Swiss banks have unofficial transactions in gold with SA. Swiss representative with SA at nuclear meeting. (nuclear waste). And then, typically, something practical: ‘(a) Bank campaign – protest in front of banks.
Bills of lading took up several archive boxes. Some photos were scattered amongst her papers. Dulcie, squinting on a bright day. Unveiling something. At a long conference table, listening. Toasting her ankles in the sun.
Going through the diary of her last appointments, I found myself in a reverie that involved her missing the train back from the last place she’d been, and not being in Paris on March 29th. The only thing is, that were she alive, she’d have been difficult and contrary and honest about my running scared.
Then, an item from 1985, a copy of a letter from the National Security Council, Office of the Special Counsellor of the Head of State, Kinshasa, entitled: Organisation of Commando Groups, caught my eye. The letter shows that specially trained commandos were recruited, ‘taking into consideration…their psychological and physical characteristics, their ethnic and linguistic particulars…’ and these commandos were sent to the Lubumbashi and Kapanga Camps. Then came the information that a Mr Smith, Deputy Chief at the US Military Mission, and yet another Mr Smith, First Secretary at the US Embassy, would be along soon to inspect the training camps.
Now, there’s something about reading about a couple of Mr Smiths who are going to be inspecting a couple of camps in Zaire that makes the eyes water. Yet, to be honest, I don’t even know if the document on Dulcie’s desk was original. And, I was getting carried away imagining the Smiths, the linguistic and physical profiling and the subsequent ethnic wars in the region. But it told me that Dulcie kept tabs on many things, issues, and events. She was after all, a meticulous schoolteacher. Surefooted.
It was a revelation for me to discover the reports of the Shipping Research Bureau. These pale green bound files, with an elegant logo, hold such powerful information and provide a way of negotiating the labyrinth of South African state oil and arms smuggling in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Talk about pirates in the Somali waters! These two-bit bureaucratic buccaneers were ten a penny in the years of high apartheid. And they were obsessed with secrecy.
FW de Klerk, in a 1983 speech before parliament said: “Any relaxation in respect of secrecy can help spotlight the target and enable our enemies to identify our friends and partners who deliver to us.’
As minister of energy and mineral affairs, De Klerk had the backing of the extensive and protective legislation that was in place relating to oil imports. But in general, I wonder if the extent of the state secrecy relating to oil, arms and business dealings, will ever be known? Think of it. Like any crooked business the state must have been running another few sets of account books. Who knows how many?
Amongst Dulcie’s papers there was information on Marc Rich, an American who was the subject of an investigation in the US into tax evasion, racketeering, fraud and ‘trading with the enemy.’ Through his various companies, Minoil, Marc Rich & Co, Richco Grain, Richco Sugar, and others, over a 6-year period, he supplied South Africa with at least 6% of its total crude oil imports. Rich’s skills were in supplying one pariah nation with oil from another. Much of our oil therefore came from Iran, shipped via many places, and on ships that flew an inventive panoply of flags. Marc Rich & Company became Glencore, one of the largest metals traders in the world. Glencore, with Rich no longer a shareholder, now has a 35% shareholding in Xstrata, which is currently involved in a takeover bid for Anglo American. Rich was pardoned by President Clinton in the dying moments of his presidency
Was it Napoleon who said that an army marched on its stomach? Well, in the late 20th century, the South African army marched, so to speak, on oil. The state needed more liquid fuel than the Sasol oil from coal project could produce.
De Klerk’s statement on secrecy explains a point that Stephen Ellis of the Free University of Amsterdam makes, and it is that the business dealings of apartheid remain hidden. They were not opened up at the TRC, nor was there any meaningful disclosure by big business.
Evelyn and Dulcie both followed the money trail, the shelf companies and the offshore banking scams. Evelyn looked for answers from the money connections, and for evidence of who would have benefitted from Dulcie’s murder. Dulcie looked for evidence of who benefitted financially from apartheid, and who would resist calls for sanctions and disinvestment at all costs.
Dulcie got up the noses of those with powerful interests. Evelyn had irritated a similar set of noses.
Of the three major investigations into the murder, by the French government, the TRC and the ANC, and in terms of what the public has been allowed to know, not one has tackled the possible involvement of Big Oil and Big Arms in Dulcie’s death. Groenink’s investigations, like Dulcie’s, followed the money.
The French investigation report ran to 3,000 pages, and because no new evidence came to light within the ten-year window period of the crime having been committed, the case was closed in 1998. Stephen Ellis, one of the few to have seen the report, says that Jean Paul Guerrier, former member of the Comorean Presidential Guard and associate of the mercenary Bob Denard, instigator of a myriad of coups, was mentioned as the key suspect in the investigation. Eugene de Kock too, points to Guerrier, under the direction of Commandant Dawid Fourie, deputy head of the CCB.

Dulcie’s murder was high on the list of unsolved cases that the TRC wished to investigate. Jan-Ake Kjellberg is a Swedish policeman, deployed by the Swedish government to work for the TRC. Throughout this time, he was the only one who worked on apartheid era international investigations. ‘It was unbelievable’, he says, ‘because they [the death squads] were so active in neighbouring states and in Europe.’ Kjellberg feels that he was hindered from investigating certain matters, and the September case was certainly one of them. Yet he says that ‘there are people alive who know exactly what happened to Dulcie September, and the window of opportunity for pushing them to come forward has been lost. The TRC was that window of opportunity.’ While he says that the TRC achieved many good things, it was weak when it came to investigating the military and the business sectors. There were factions in the TRC, some who wanted reconciliation at all costs, and who were not prepared to allow deep investigation into the facts.’ Why was there was neither full disclosure nor a thorough investigation of the military and business sectors at the TRC? Perhaps the preceding years of secrecy and ambiguity had forged a link that, if broken, would destroy all around it?
The failure of the TRC and the South African state to hold Big Oil, Big Arms and Big Business to account, allowed for a continuation of the rot which we saw in the arms deal; a rot that persists to our day, and a rot which is, as Mark Gevisser so aptly puts it, “the poisoned well of SA politics.”
The finding in the Truth Commission final report reads: “While it is not able to make a definitive finding on the assassination of Ms Dulcie September, the commission believes on the basis of evidence available to it that she was a victim of a CCB operation involving the contracting of a private intelligence organisation which, in turn, contracted out the killing.”
The death squads could have killed Dulcie. The late Dirk Stoffberg, who worked for South African intelligence, and who was in Paris at the time of the murder, told Jacques Pauw that he was the brains, so to speak, behind the murder of Dulcie September, paying two French Legionnaires 20 thousand pounds each for the murder.
Ellis and Groenink say that Stoffberg was a fantasist, a mythomaniac, yet, he was indeed in Paris at the time of the murder. The South African military death squads were up to gills in blood. In southern Africa the SADF murdered 4 people in a raid into Botswana on the 28th March, the day before Dulcie’s murder. A month after her death, Albie Sachs was attacked in Maputo, and later in 1988, Joan and Jeremy Brickhill were attacked in Harare. It was a busy year for the South African Defence Force. Busy, brutal and bloody.
Their European division, run by Eben Barlow was busy too. Godfrey Motsepe, the chief representative to Belgium, had recently been shot at, and had narrowly escaped death. Just before Dulcie’s murder, Belgian police found and defused an explosive device at his office.
It is an absolutely extraordinary state of affairs that the CCB, if they were responsible, had contracted out the murder to some other people who then subcontracted it to yet others. Why, when they were content to leave evidence of other murders lying around, would they have been so careful with this murder?
It has been impossible to find out who led the ANC investigation, and thus to know what evidence, if any, came from it. Dr Frene Ginwala, who was Head of the Political Research Unit in the office of President Tambo and based in London at that time, says, ‘We had to work with the French police…that was, after all, the official investigation.’
I wrote to President Zuma, who, as head of ANC intelligence at the time of the murder, surely would be able to tell me who led the investigation, and what was uncovered. But as yet, although my request has been acknowledged, it remains unanswered.
In this research I have heard that Dulcie was not working on ‘important stuff’, that she was ‘not an ideologue’, and that ‘she was one of thousands’ about whom the circumstances of death are unknown. After her murder, friends and comrades asked, Why Dulcie?
In denying my application to the Department of Justice to see their files on Dulcie, the department said: “You will recall that the National Prosecuting Authority has commenced with the prosecution of those persons who allegedly committed serious offences during the conflict of the past.” So, is someone finally being prosecuted for Dulcie’s murder? And if so, then why is secrecy still needed? Or does this relate to another prosecution? This is the standard Department of Justice response to repeated requests over the years for access to the Dulcie September files.
Oliver Tambo declared after Dulcie’s murder: ‘The African National Congress makes this solemn vow: that these murderers, who today arrogantly strut the globe…will be brought to justice. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be next year, but they will be brought to justice.’
Ruth First was a journalist, an investigator and an activist. She, like Tambo, never stopped fighting for justice. And there is a great injustice in being prevented from knowing. As the United States Supreme Court Justice Brandeis said, ‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant’ and were we able to shed this light onto the secrecy of Dulcie’s murder, it could help to disinfect the poisoned well of South African politics.
And so I would like to conclude this lecture by urging all of you to continue the fight for justice by asking ‘Why Dulcie?’; to resist the temptation to allow the murder to remain a cold case, and to demand that the NPA reveals what is going on so that justice can be seen to be done.
Ends.
Listen to a podcast of Maggy Davey's talk

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.contrast.org/truth/html/dulci...ember.html
The Case Of “Dulcie September”
The Truth Commission Files
[DS-report]
Date (murder): 29-03-1988;
Place: Paris (France)
Name Victim: Dulcie September (here called D.S.) Address Victim: Val-de-Marne, France
Sex Victim: F;
Age Victim: 45 years;
Mar.Status: unmarried;
Born: Cape Town (SA)
Position Victim: Chief representative of the ANC in France (and also of Switzerland and
Luxembourg). Arrived in Paris in 1983, head of the ANC Information Bureau in France
[Monde 31/3/88]
Information Victim:
Effective ANC representative (see Crime Motives); in France considered as a member of the
SACP ; Some of D.S.'s friends asserted that she knew she was being followed and threatened and
that she had asked the ministry for protection which was not accorded [Couret:32].
The interior minister Charles Pasqua stated that D.S. never made any request for
protection.[ION-326:2]. However, already in December 1987, the French seem to have been
informed by the Swiss authorities that South Africa was 'up to something', probably killing D.S.
They warned the SA-embassy in Bern (the only European capital where an SA-military attaché was
still permitted to be), that nothing must happen on Swiss soil. This information has been confirmed
by two sources in the Swiss 'Bundesanwaltschaft', but officially denied. The sources also said that
all western intelligence services knew about the SA-plans (FBI-warning Sept. 1987)[G&D;WoZ
31/3/89 & 24/4/92]. It isn't known why the French didn't do anything about it.
Perpetrator: X
Perpetrator Information:
1. SADF Sergeant-Major Joseph Klue [Pauw:208,281], who was positively identified by Godfrey
Motsepe (ANC rep Brussels) as the man who took a shot at him [Roth:47], some weeks before
D.S's murder (4/2/88). I (KdJ) doubt it, if Klue himself fired these shots. But he certainly could have
been involved. (see Notes *1)
Klue was also suspected to be involved in the assassination of D.S. After the attack on Godfrey, the
Belgian secret service informed their French colleagues about three involved SA-agents in
Brussels, one of them has a name that begins with 'K'.[G&D-doc]. The French didn't take any
action.
Josep Klue lives in the Cape (SA) where he seems to be the owner of an ostrich farm.
2. Dirk K. Stoffberg (see Notes *2), arms dealer and a SA agent, was also named as the head of
the 'Z-Squad Incorporated' operating in Europe [Pauw,1991:208]. Stoffberg always admitted to
knowing details of this case. He arrived in France two days before the assassination of D.S.
[Couret:32]. "Z-Squads Incorporated" is alleged to consist of professional highly trained hit men,
with virtually unlimited range of action and operational funds. Created by BOSS, perfected by NIS
[SS].
Later -not long before his death- Stoffberg told Jacques Pauw [Thorny:3; see also the SABC
documentary Guns for September] that "he gave the orders for assassination of the ANC's Dulcie
September (...). He said he paid two former members of the French Foreign Legion L 20 000 each
to kill the ANC's chief representative in France. And Stoffberg said he had no idea why she was to
be assassinated and presumed it was because she held a prominent position in the ANC.(...) He
activated (these) two hitmen through the Adler Group. (...) Intelligence about Dulcie September was
received from the SA Security Police who asked him to facilitate her assassination.
3. Jean-Dominique Taousson:
Some French journals (as "Le Monde" and "Libération") mentioned the involvement of Taousson.
According to the "Indian Ocean Newsletter" [ION-326:1], this Frenchman made name during the
Algerian war, when he was responsible for numerous attacks as a member of the "Delta
commandos" ( a death squad) of the underground anti-independence "Organisation de l'Armée
Secrète"(OAS).
This same newsletter revealed in an earlier issue in 1985 [ION-193] that the Paris bureau of
Pretoria's NIS had "received orders to organise attacks against missions of the ANC and the
South-West Africa People in France and elsewhere in Europe. For this purpose the NIS began to
form hit-squads (as did for example Stoffberg & Klue), recruiting among mercenaries, the security
services of extreme-right movement and veterans of the South African army's own 32nd Battalion,
many of whom were French." According to the ION [326] Taousson had been given the job leading
this recruiting campaign, as well as collecting full information on the targets. Taousson had
extremely good contacts with the European right-wing.
Taousson was bitterly opposed to the ANC: he had been the chief-editor of the pro-South African
newsletter 'Courrier Austral Parlementaire' (published by a Paris based organisation ADERI see
Notes *3). His newsletter was distributed to members of the European and French parliaments and
it was set up with help from the South African authorities. [AC ; Couret :31-32]. In 1981 Taousson
became the head of the photography service in the election campaign headquarters of the RPR, the
Gaullist party of Jacques Chirac and Charles Pasqua. These elections were lost, but in 1986 the
Chirac government took over. Shortly after these legislative elections of March 1986 Taousson was
appointed a technical adviser on the personal staff of interior minister Charles Pasqua, where he
was in charge of highly-sensitive matters like New Caledonia and relations with Algeria. [ION-326]
Taousson being opposed to the ANC having a representation in France, is said to have given 'strict
orders' to the relevant service not to renew Dulcie September's residence permit which would
expire in October 1987. However, DS succeeded in having it extended for a further year by applying
not to the authorities in Paris but to those in the suburban "département" of Val de Marne, whose
prefect had been appointed while the previous socialist administration was in power.(ION-326:1)
When French newspapers [G & D-doc: 5] wrote that Taousson had also been the recruiter for the
murder of Dulcie, he sued them with success. But it is known that DS was harassed from the
moment that the Pasqua government (1986) came into power in France: Taousson threatened DS
that she would be expelled if she wouldn't cease public activities and he had the new ANC-office
monitored [see Notes *4]. But, there is no evidence that Taousson him self has contacted people
for attacks on ANC. It seems unlikely, that a publicly known SA-propagandist working officially with
the French government, would be directly involved in an undercover-operation, but he certainly
plaid a role in the harassing of Dulcie on an official level and probably also passed on intelligence
information.
4. Heine Hüman (+/- 45), is allegedly a Swede of SA origin (or the other way round). He could be
an interesting witness. According "Vrije Weekblad" [VW] he said: "I helped to murder Dulcie"and
claimed to have participated in the planning of D.S.'s murder. Hüman told them that he had worked
for the Security Branch of the SAP (section A1: external security operations) and that he had
fetched Dulcie's hitman at Heathrow-airport. After Dirk Coetzee's revelations he got afraid and
contacted the Swedish Embassy in Harare (Zimbabwe). The Swede and his then 8 years old son
took refuge in the Nigerian Embassy in Harare on the 1st of Dec. 1989. ANC intelligence officers
interviewed him during this period. Hüman came to Sweden in the beginning of the 80's [Interview
Tor Sellström]. His name was later also mentioned in relationship with the murder of the Swedish
prime-minister Olof Palme [see Palme-case]. During the time of Palme's murder in 1986 Hüman
lived in a small place outside Uppsala (Sweden) where he had a car repair shop. Fourteen minutes
after the murder of Palme an elderly couple in Stockholm (Bromma) received a mysterious
phonecall with the message: "The job is done, Palme is dead". With the only difference of one digit
in the area code (Stockholm 08; Uppsala-area 018), their number corresponded to the number of a
telephone in a room of a clubhouse of which allegedly only Hüman had the key. Soon afterwards
Hüman left Sweden in a hurry, without saying goodbye to his neighbours. These neighbours, who
were interviewed by Swedish newspapers, said that there was a lot of funny business going on at
night at his place. Swedish journalist have tracked him down in Florida (USA) where he lives under
another name in a place outside Miamy where a lot of American ex-intelligence people are retired
too [Expressen 29/9/96:12-13]. Hüman denied any involvement in the assassination of Olof Palme
and didn't want to talk about his involvement with the murder of D.S..
5. Eeben Barlow (see Notes *5) seems at the time of DS's assassination to have headed the
CCB's Western Europe region. He operated out of Frankfurt (Germany). D.S. 's assassination was
according to Ellis almost certainly directed by Barlow as CCB desk officer for Europe.[Int.Ellis]
Eeben Barlow seems to deny this, although an informant told me that Barlow allegedly once
received an order to kill Dulcie September, but that his section refused because DS wasn't a
military target
6. Comoro-link ?? the Comoros were effectively run by mercenaries in close alliance with France
and South Africa:
a) According to 'Actuel' (French investigative magazine) the assassination of D.S. was personally
set up by a French mercenary, Capt. J.P. Dessales, who later served in the Comoros (as a member
of the presidential guard) with Col. Bob Denard [WA].
b) In the beginning of 1988, an ex-Rhodesian mercenary based in Paris, goes to the Comoro
Islands to undergo some kind of training for 'special operations'. There is talk about more mercs
going the same way. [G&D-doc]
c) A much more complete picture about the Comoros-link is given in the official French document
"Ordonnance de Non-Lieu" [Non-Lieu]. According to this document, the French police (Brigade
Criminelle) suspected at a certain moment that a French mercenary, named Richard Rouget
could have plaid a role in DS's murder, but no hard evidence could be produced to arrest neither
him nor other members of his group who alledgely had been working for the South Africans .This
Rouget directed a group doing reconnaissance missions on the ANC in Europe. [Notes *6]
7. ?? Pitha Assesso, Angolan (self-declared president of the PDLA) and a draft-resisting South
African refugee (Martijn van Geems) were arrested for the murder of D.S. together with their
partners All were released the following day.[SS; Monde, 9-10/4/88]. False track!
8. ?? Italian link: involvement of Mario Ricci, former confidante of Seychelles president Albert
René. Ricci now lives in SA where he has a business partnership with former SA superspy, Craig
Williamson [TB]. Ricci ran Italian mercenaries at the Seychelles [G&D]. It was said that Ricci was
linked to GAL also [G&D-doc], but this is probably a false track [TB].
Crime Activity:
Five bullets from a .22-calibre weapon (22 Long Rifle, with a silencer or "canon lisse" ) hit D.S. in
the head as she stood, mail in hand, opening up the ANC office. Time: between 09.45 and 10.00 h.
28 Address: Rue des Petites-Ecuries, 4th floor, Paris-10)"[Pauw:207]. Work of professionals,
probably silencer used (nobody heard anything) [Breyten; Pauw:207; Non-Lieu:2].
Crime Result: murder
Crime Motives:
1. Answer probably related to military links between France and RSA (Armscor particularly)
[Notes *7]. France important illicit supplier of essential parts and materials to Armscor. Fact that
France almost alone of major western European countries had no powerful anti-apartheid
movement facilitated these clandestine links. There were signs that September was putting together
an effective anti-apartheid lobby. Thus a threat; thus a hit [Ellis].
The reality was probably a bit more complex:
From Oct.1986 - Sept.1987 the Albertini affair dominated the diplomatic relationship between
France and South Africa. Pierre André Albertini worked in South Africa (as part of the French
Government's Foreign Exchange Programma) where he was employed as a lecturer in French at
Ciskei's University of Fort Hare. He became politically involved and was imprisoned for
collaboration with the ANC. President Mitterrand didn't want to accept the credentials of SA's new
Ambassador to France before Albertini had been released from his Ciskei prison and allowed to
return home. To improve the relationship between the two countries negotiations were initiated with
a prisoner swap in mind (especially between the SA captain Wynand Du Toit, caught during an
commando action in Angola, and Albertini).
The main negotiator became the French businessman Jean-Yves Ollivier, a representative of
Thomson-CSF (electronics), the French arms-company. Ollivier admitted that he did it "because I
have business interests in the region (...)" [Soule:284]. This matches with what Craig Williamson
told an investigative journalist [E.G.] that during the 1987 negotiations about this case
(l'opération "Condor") also some weapon deals were settled. This was also confirmed by
French investigators. Ollivier worked especially through some senior officers in the SADF
[Glaser:154; Soule:285] and had the support of Defence Minister Magnus Malan and General
Jannie Geldenhuys (Chief of the SADF). He also became well accepted by the new goverment,
as can be deduced from the fact that Ollivier got decorated by President Mandela. According to this
investigative journalist Dulcie September probably heard something about these weapon
transactions from somebody inside a French arms industry (we don't know who, yet). Just before
her death she phoned Aziz Pahad (then ANC-HQ and the actual SA deputy minister of Foreign
Affairs) in London, asking him to come to Paris for a very sensitive matter. Aziz thought that
Dulcie "had stumbled on something nuclear". Dulcie had also said that she feared for her
life.[E.G.]
We have to remember that since 1986 the arms-trade between SA/ Armscor and France
became privatised and continued only in clandestinity through arms dealers (see for
example the "Blowpipe" scandal).
Antoine Glaser, a French investigator and co-author of the books Ces Messieurs Afrique (I and II)
wrote about Operation Condor and the persons involved: Besides Ollivier himself, there was his
assistant, a French former para colonel and former head of "service action" of the DGSE Jacques
Rigault (who wrote a book called Démantèlement de l'apartheid). Ollivier was also helped by the
experienced French diplomat Fernand Wibaux (member of the Africa network of Jacques Chirac &
Jacques Foccart).
Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the son of the French president (nickname "papamadit") who headed
his father's Africa-network didn't know about the whole negotiation process until it was finished,
although he was the President's main adviser for African Affairs [Gaillard:326]. Later
Jean-Christophe befriended Ollivier and they became very close [Gaillard:326]. Another person
mentioned as somebody who could have been linked to this whole affair, was Alain Guenon
(Notes*8).
According to Glaser (discussion Dec.1996) was Pasqua's Africa-network probably also involved in
these arms deals. Pasqua, at the time of DS murder minister of interior, ran an important political
and economical Africa-network, in which public and private interests are closely entangled. Pasqua
Pasqua managed to turn the "Service de Coopération Technique Internationale de la Police"
(SCTIP= Department of international technical development-aid of the Police) into his own private
department, completely devoted to him. This department is known to have organised some strange
deals and some of its members were accused to have killed some French development workers
[Dossiers:27-28].
During the period 1987-88 some secret top-level summits took place between French and
South African intelligence chiefs: General François Mermet (director of the French DGSE
Secret Service) , General René Imbot and the French diplomat and Africa specialist Fernand
Wibaux had a meeting with General C.J. van Tonder (head of the South African Directorate
of Military Intelligence/DMI) in June 1988. Before that -on the 9/10/87- Pik Botha, SA minister
of Foreign Affairs, had visited Paris to see members of the Chirac government (President
Mitterrand didn't know about its) and again on March the 12th of 1988 (in transit at Rossy)
where he met Fernand Wibaux and Jean-Yves Ollivier [CE].
Although there have been suggestions that members of the French secret service were
directly involved in the murder of Dulcie September and especially some belonging to
Pasqua's network (see Jean Taousson above), Glaser doesn't think that the French they
themselves planned or executed this murder. More probably they created in 1988 some
space for SA agents to eliminate DS, as a kind of spin-off of the ongoing weapendeals. But
they probably lend a helping hand (surveillance etc.).
2. ?? Part of "The fifth phase (+/- early 1985 - first quarter of 1988) of South African's regional
policy (...) marked by increased activity of death squads." See:Alby Sachs, Godfrey Motsepe etc.
(Pauw,1991:207]. Like was said before, in August 1985 the Indian Ocean Newsletter (ION-193)
revealed that the Paris bureau of Pretoria's National Intelligence Service, which had a staff of ten
and was headed by a woman (WHO??), had "received orders to organize attacks against missions
of the ANC and SWAPO in France and elsewhere in Europe. For this purpose the NIS began to
form hit-squads, recruiting among mercenaries, the security services of extreme-right movements
and veterans of its own army. Those operations planned in 1985 had to take place in early 1986.
[ION-326:1]. Apparently DGSE (French intelligence) stopped it then, but in 1988 the
1986-scenario was used. [G&D-doc]
3. ?? The killing of D.S. was an 'internal struggle' within the ANC. Opinion stated by the French
minister M. Robert Pandraud (ministre délegué chargé de sécurité) [Monde 3-4/4/88] and by the SA
Minister of Information Stoffel van der Merwe [WoZ:15/4/88] and Pik Botha (SA minister of foreign
affairs)[Boon 13/4/88]. D.S. was a turned South African double agent, and therefore "liquidated by
the militant communist faction of the ANC" [SS]. False track: smear campaign.
4. ?? D.S. could in no way be described as a 'military target'. Though a very active militant, her
effectiveness was often doubtful, although much better than that of her two successor (among them
Solly Smith, see Notes *9 ) . DS seems to have restricted her contacts and connections entirely to
French communists. The CP newspaper l'Humanité (31-1-88) wrote: "in killing her, the South
African secret services have also struck at France's communists. " "For this reason the theory
cannot be ruled out that this murder, arranged as it was by an extremist faction in South African
intelligence, was intended to sabotage the beginnings of a thaw which had begun to appear in the
relations between Pretoria and Moscow" [Breyten; ION-326:2]
Chain of Command:
Must have been cleared at very high levels: SSC or Min.of Def. Malan. Stephen Ellis [Int.Ellis]
believed such an operation in a major western European capital had to be cleared at very
high levels; at least SSC or Ministry of Defence (then Malan). If so, this assassination was
almost certainly directed by Eeben Barlow, according to Ellis at that time the CCB desk
officer for Europe (Notes-3). General Marius Oelschig, as a Senior Military Representative
must have had some knowledge of this affair.
Witness: Mr. De Crepy [Non-Lieu:2]
Witness Information:
Mr. De Crepy (commercial agent) was the only person who saw at about 09H45 two men (whites)
of about 40 years old, coming down the staircase and leaving the building where the ANC had its
office [G&D; Non-Lieu: 2]. De Crepy confronted with photographs of Klue (see later) and Rouget
(see later) didn't recognice none of these two as one of the two men he had seen.
Notes:
*1. Joseph Klue [see photo; Black ; Kent]: Klue, a warrant officer in the SA security police, was a
member of the South African Embassy in London ( under Ambassador Marais Steyn) from August
1980 until 1982. He wasn't mentioned in the official Diplomatic List. As a SA spy he tried to enlist
ex-British soldiers for the SADF in Namibia and to gather information about black activists of the
ANC, PAC and SWAPO. When the British government threatened to expel him for "activities
incompatible with his office" , he was recalled to Pretoria. Klue was named in an Old Bailey trial in
London in connection with a plot to burgle the offices of black nationalist movements in Britain and
steal documents from them [Pauw:208]. In London he seem to have been the assistant of Colonel
C. van Niekerk, then the armed forces attaché who would become, as a General the MID's chief of
operation in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Benelux countries [WA]. At the time of DS's
murder, it was however General Marius Oelschig who had MI responsibility for France and
Belgium [CV Oelschig]. The Belgian intelligence identified Joseph Klue as the person who shot at
the ANC representative in Brussels, Godfrey Motsepe. Klue could be also involved in the
assassination of D.S. [Intel/PP 88 07]. Belgian authorities issued an international warrant for the
arrest of Klue [Pauw:208]. KdJ: The TRC should ask the Belgians to handover his file.
*2. Dirk K. Stoffberg: South African spy; when questioned by British security officers at London's
Heathrow Airport a list of ANC names had been found.[Pauw:208]. He lived from Dec. 1987 until
July 1988 in Germany (Frankfurt). Later in Luzern (Switzerland). Was mentioned as the head of the
Z-Squad operating in Europe. Although Stoffberg said "Our job was to do the things that the (SA)
government could not be seen to be doing", he denied long time to be the head of a SA'n hit-squad
or to be responsible for the assassination of D.S.[Roth:56,61]. Stoffberg told Roth [61] that "my
people in Johannesburg were responsible for the murder of D.S." He admitted to work for the NIS
and claimed responsibility for the murder of Ruth First in Mozambique [Roth:61]. Stoffberg worked
in Frankfurt as an arms dealer (through "ABComputers and Electronics", an Iranian company and
entertained relations with "Teiger Handels AG" -in St. Gallen, Switzerlandand the "Iran International
Trading Company" in Johannesburg)[Roth:54]. In Switzerland (Luzern) Stoffberg was an authorized
representative of the "Atlantic Bankers Corporation" in Atlanta/USA, an CIA front company.
[Roth:40]. Stoffberg admitted to know Joseph Klue [Roth:67]
*3 ADERI: This "Association for Development of Exchanges and International Relations" in
Paris was an important base of the international right-wing [SS]. Besides the publisher of the
pro-South African (and pro-Unita) newsletter, the "Courrier Austral Parlementaire", ADERI
organized via Christian Morritz a course for UNITA-cadres at Cercottes in France: the headquarters
of the 'Action Service of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure' (DGSE) secret service.
These UNITA cadres have been trained in sabotage.[AC]
This newsletter was mentioned during the "Muldergate" affair in the late 70s and ADERI was linked
to Stratcom, the SA State Security Council arm specialized in intelligence gathering and dirty tricks
as assassinations, bombings and propaganda against the ANC. ADERI functioned as a SA front
company for Radar (SA Foreign Affairs project no. 319), one of Starcom's special projects in
Europe, set up to boost SA's image. ADERI's chief was Mr. Leon Delbecque, who like Taousson
had headed one of the Delta death squads during the war in Algeria.
*4 Concerning the surveillance of DS and the ANC-Office in Paris by French or/and South
Africans, it could be useful to go deeper into the activities of two companies which were housed in
the same building [information EG]:
- "Sport Eco" an office of a journal about sports articles, at the time at the same floor and next to
Dulcie's ANC-office in Rue des Petites Ecuries 28. Sport Eco occupied this office at the same day
(1/8/85) as the ANC did and it moved out a short time after DS's murder. Its editor in chief was
Pierre Cazeel, who worked previously as an Africa-specialist at "Radio France Internationale"(well
known for its contacts with the French secret service). Cazeel seems to have discovered DS's body
the morning of the murder and he was present when the police arrived.
- Company Donati (house painters from Paris, Rueil): their painters worked in the building during
the period Dulcie was murdered. Especially the whereabouts of two out of 4 painters: Daniel
Storelli (an Italian with a Swiss passport) and Stephane.
*5. Eeben Barlow: was member 32 battalion; served in Namibia; worked in the office DCC
(Directorate of Covert Collection), an MI agency; later run Executive Outcomes/EO, which generally
works from Pretoria, although EO has a presence in England (mansion Hampshire/UK); EO
originally set up as a CCB front company [Ellis].
*6 In the 70s François Richard Rouget (or Sanders) had been active in extreme right-wing
movements like GUD ("Groupe Union Défense", a student union) and PFN ("Parti des Forces
Nouvelles"). Without completing his studies he entered the French Army. He left the army in 1984
with the rank of warrent officer ("sous lieutenant"). In Juin 1985 Rouget became, under the alias of
Sanders , a mercenary officer of Bob Denard's Comorian Presidential Guard. January 1987 he
went to live in South Africa where he worked as a representative for two French companies: Essor
Ingineering (address at the time of the head office of the " Société Essor International
Ingenerie"/SEII in France: 51 Quay de Valmy, Paris 10; the actual address of SEII seems to be: 63
Blvd. du Marechal Joffre, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France; tel. +33.1.40 91 12 47,
fax: +33.1.46 83 95 85) and E.A. Export, ("Europe Afrique Export"; head office in France: 3 rue du
Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris 8). In both companies his business partners and friends were two
former mercenary officers of the above mentioned Presidential Guard: Jean-Claude Cabanac
(alias "Barjac") of SEII and Christophe Chabassol at "Eurosept Associés", of which E.A. Export was
a branch. Rouget travelled frequently between South Africa and Europe, making visits to places
like Basel & Zürich; Lyon & Paris; Brussels and London. officially concerning the export of steel to
SA
Some background [Weinberg]: In 1978 the French mercenary Bob Denard established himself with
a group of mercenaries in the Comoros where he became the head of the Guard of President
Abdallah. Since September 1979 Denard worked not only with French secret services who had
always backed him and monitored his activities, but also with South African agents. SA military
intelligence and foreign affairs decided to start funding and training the Denard's PG in return to the
permission to set up a secret listening station on the islands. A handful of SA agents slipped into
the country and blended in with the Presidential Guard. Their job was to keep an ear on what was
happening in the important ANC bases in Lusaka and Dar-es-Salaam and to monitor the war in
Mozambique, in which SA was playing an active role. The Comoros were also used as a base for
"sanctions-busting", particularly in arms. When in 1981 François Mitterrand was elected president
Denard lost the support of the French intelligence service, but he managed to strengthen the link
between SA and the Comoros. Between 1982 and 1989 the SA department of foreign affairs
channelled through the Presidential Guard around R40 million in this country. Besides the Guard,
Denard established his own company SOGECOM, which was in both the security and building
business. He seemed to have made a lot of money. In 1985 Denard tried to raise the quality of the
"European officers" ( also the year Rouget had been recruited) but without much sucess. During
the period 1985-87 the relationship of the PG with the majority of Comorians became worse. At the
end of the 1980s the SAns didn't want to continue to prop up a mercenary regime and France also
wanted to get rid of the mercenaries. Finally, also President Abdallah wanted the mercenaries to
leave. Their response was a coup and the death of President Abdallah in which Bob Denard and
his men were involved. SA suspended further assistance to the PG and all other forms of
co-operation. The SA and the French government forced Denard and his mercenaries to leave the
islands in 1989.
Taking into account the close relationships between the Comorian Presidential Guard and the
South African intelligence services (MI), one can imagine that former mercenary officers as Rouget,
Cabanac and Chabassol started working for South Africa, although officially being linked to French
companies (or were these perhaps also SA front companies?) as Essor Ingineering and E.A.
Export.
This fits in with the information that Rouget allegedly directed a group doing reconnaissance
missions on the ANC in Europe. [Non-Lieu:5]. The head of his group in Europe was Victor Paul
Tramond. [Non-Lieu:7]. The liaison agent would have been Antonia Lucienne Soton, once Rouget's
lover, and a former militant of the right wing movements "Ocident" and "Jeune Europe".
[Non-Lieu:6]. Paul Tramond (or "Victor") is an alias for Tran-Thuy Tuong born in Saigon (Vietnam)
and a former militant of GUD, where he met Rouget in 1976 at the faculty of Assas in Paris. During
the period 1985-87 he lived under the name Paul Tramond in Brussels, where he worked until
December as a receptionist in Hotel Sheraton. The 22/12/87 he established himself in France with
his girlfriend, a Belgian woman named Anne Lejeune who had found a job in France (address: 7
allée de Longchamp, Suresnes (92), tel. 40.99.05.98) [Non-Lieu:7]. According to information of the
Belgian authorities Rouget staid two times at Sheraton in Brussels: the night of 6-7/12/87 and of
15-16/2/88 . This first "fiche d'hôtel" had been signed by Tramond, the only proof that Rouget and
Tramond have met at least once [Non-Lieu:8].
At the time of the attempted attack on Motsepe (4/2/88) and the murder of DS (29/3/88), Rouget
declared to have staid in South Africa. This could never been verified. However, Mrs. Soton told
the police that she was with Rouget in the Comoros until the 29/2/88, the date of DS's murder...
*7. Other murders in the 80's who could have been linked with weapon deals were the one of the
Norwegian diplomat Ole Dørum (Geneva, September 1987) and the murders of Anton Lubowski
(Windhoek, September 1989) and David Webster (South Africa) [see EG].
*8. A good friend of Jean Yves Ollivier is another Frenchman Allain Guenon [EG; Smith]. He is a
businessman, a former lecturer in philosophy at the University Sorbonne (Paris), who lived since
1984 in South Africa where he established himself as a TV producer. He befriended the Namibian
lawyer Anton Lobowski and Winnie Mandela. Later, as a representative of several big French
companies in SA, as for example Sagem (specialized in military and professional electronics),
ELF-Aquitaine (petrol/chemistry) and Spie-Batignolle (linked to the construction of the infrastructure
of Koeberg) he got to know Tokyo Sexwale well and Sivule Xhayiya also, for whom he arranged a
visit to France (April 1991), paid by Sagem. More and more he became an important middleman
between certain French business circles (especially the weapon industry) and the South African
Government. Guenon became a good friend as well of the old regime (he knew Magnus Malan well)
as of the new one. Guenon seems to have had a good relationship with the Mitterrand-family.
Guenon is suspected to be a French spy and/or a spy for the apartheid-regime. The Weekly Mail
linked Guenon to the murder of Anton Lubowski.
*9. Solly Smith (real name Samuel Khunyeli), who succeeded D.S. was according to French
informants not very effective: often drunk and not dedicated at all. According to the French lawyer
who dealt with the DS case, Solly Smith was rather hampering the investigation than helping to
resolve the murder case [Int. Dreyfus]. Smith whose loyalities were questioned since 1988 and who
confessed in 1991 to spying for the SA security services [Stober] was perhaps not the best person
to stimulate further investigations in the DS case.
Amsterdam July 97
Sources:
Persons interviewed:
- PA Albertini (see above)
- A. Bouillon (AAM)
- M. Cukierman (AFASPA)
- JB Curiel (PS)
- M. Délaever (PCF)
- A. Glaser (ION)
- M. Omet (CGT)
- J. Tillerson (former secretary of DS)
- N. Dreyfus (lawyer)
Articles, letters and documents:
a) official documents:
- Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris - Cabinet de Mme Forkel (Juge d'Instruction): Ordonnance
de Non-Lieu; Réf. générale No. P 88 102 2006/3; Réf. du cabinet no. 629. Paris 17/7/1992. (
Official declaration concerning the murder of Dulcie September with a summary of the results of the
investigation, concluding that no sufficient evidence was found to take suspects into custody)
[Non-Lieu]
b) other documents
- AC 29-07-88 Pointers. Angola: UNITA in France.[AC]
- Boon, Rudi:'Ik kan best de volgende zijn. Frikties binnen het ANC, heet het dan', De Groene
Amsterdammer 13-04-1988 [Boon]
- Black, Ian: "Britain exposes South African spy chief. Kicked Out", Daily Express 16/12/82
(about J. Klue) [Black]
- Breytenbach, Breyten:'Hoekom Dulcie?' in: Die Suid-Afrikaan, aug.1988 p.49 [Breyten]
- Le Canard Enchaîné, 6/4/88 [CE]
- The Citizen: "Police killed ANC's Dulcie - Coetzee" 1/10/96:1-2 [Cit]
- Couret, Bernard: 'Les tueurs de Botha', Africa International no. 206 -juin 1988. pp.31-32 [Couret]
- Daniel, John: Notes on the CCB and Vlakplaas based on a Discussion with Stephen Ellis,
Amsterdam, June 13,1996 with corrections/additions from Stephen Ellis [Int.Ellis]
- Document 'Godfrey & Dulcie'[G&D-doc]
- EG (investigative journalist): confidential letter of 21/10/96 about the murders of Dulcie
September, Anton Lubowski and David Webster [EG]
- Le Figaro 30/3/88; 31/3/88; 5/4/88 [Fig]
- Gevisser, Mark & Brümmer, Stefaans: "Spying row at SABC", The Weekly Mail & Guardian,
20-26/1/95 (about Stoffberg) [Gevisser]
- L'Humanité 30/3/88; 9/4/88 [Huma]
- The Indian Ocean Newsletter, no. 193 August 3, 1985 [ION-193]
- The Indian Ocean Newsletter: "Spotlight, South Africa: Pretoria's handiwork", no. 326 April 2 1988
pp.1-2 [ION-326]
- Intel/PP: 88-05 (12-14); 88-07; 88-08 (104)[Intel].
- Kent, Peter & Black, Ian: "Secret army of spy who lured British troops", Daily Express, 17/12/82
(about J. Klue) [Kent]
- Krop, Pascal: "Qui protège les tueurs < Z > ? L'Afrique du Sud bénéficie d'étranges complicités à
Paris. Jusqu'au cabinet de Charles Pasqua." L'Evenement du Jeudi, 7-13/4/88:56 [Krop]
- Libération: 30/3/88; 31/3/88; 1/4/88; 5/4/88; 6/4/88; 7/4/88; 8/4/88; 9-10/4/88; 11/4/88 [Lib]
- Le Monde: 30/3/88; 31/3/88; 1/4/88; 2/4/88; 3-4/4/88; 5/4/88; 6/4/88; 7/4/88; 8/4/88; 9/4/88;
10-11/4/88; 12/4/88; 13/4/88; 10/6/88; 20/7/88 [Monde] - Näslund, Lars: "Han förhördes två
gånger", Expressen (Extra), 29/9/96:12-13
(about H.Hüman) [Naslund]
- Resister 58: "SA-France: Intelligence chiefs meet", oct/nov 1988:10 [Res]
- Smith, Stephen & François, Didier: Guénon, un <parrain> Français chez les Mandela, in Paris,
Libération 4/7/91 pp.28-29 [Smith]
- South African Report: 'Italian link in September assassination probed',(SA), 22-04-1988 and
TB-letter 29-03-93 [TB-29/3/93]
- Southscan: 'Paris assassination. Doubts cast on Chirac government integrity', 13-04-1988 [SS]
- Sowetan: 30/9/96; 1/10/96 [Sow]
- Stober, Paul: "ANC inquiry into death of self-confessed spy", in Weekly Mail, 28/5/93:15 (about
Solly Smith) [Stober]
- S.Tribune: "New death squad allegations rock SAP, Hit squad dossier", 14/1/90
(about H Human) [ST]
- Thornycroft, Peta: "Security police asked Stoffberg to kill September", S.Tribune. 24/7/94 [Thorny]
- Vrije Weekblad: "Ek het Dulcie help vermoor sê Sweed", 12/1/90:5 (about H. Hüman) [VW]
- West Africa: 'South Africa. The long arm of terrorist apartheid', Dateline, 1/8/1988 [WA ]
- WoZ, die Wochenzeitung, Zürich 7 Jhg 1988, no. 13 & 15 [WoZ 15/4/88; 31/3/89 & 24/4/92]
Books:
- Bach, Daniel C. (ed): La France et l'Afrique du Sud. Histoire, mythes et enjeux contemporains;
Paris: Karthala, 1990. [Bach]
- Dossiers Noirs de la Politique Africaine de la France No.6: Jacques Chirac et la Françafrique.
Retour à la case Foccart?; Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995.[Dossiers]
- Gaillard, Philippe: Foccart Parle. Entretiens avec Philippe Gaillard II; Paris: Fayard/Jeune Afrique,
1997
- Glaser, Antoine & Smith, Stephen: Ces Messieurs Afrique (1). Le Paris-Village du continent noir;
Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1992. [Glaser]
- Pauw, Jacques: In the heart of the whore. The story of apartheid's death squads, Halfway House:
Southern Book Publishers, 1991 pp. 207-208,281 [Pauw];
- Rigault J. & Sandor E.: Démantèlement de l'apartheid; Paris: l'Harmattan, 1992 [Rigault]
- Roth, Jürgen: Die Mitternachtsregierung. Reportage über die Macht der Geheimdienste; ?: Rasch
und Röhring Verlag, 1990:22-27 & 38-68 [Roth]
- Smith, Stephen & Glaser, Antoine: Ces Messieurs Afrique (2). Des réseaux aux lobbies; Paris:
Calmann-Lévy, 1997 [Smith]
- Soule, Allan; Dixon, Gary & Richards, René: The Wynand Du Toit Story; Johannesburg: Hans
Strydom Publishers, 1987.[Soule]
- Weinberg, Samantha: Last of the Pirates. The Search for Bob Denard; London: Jonathan Cape,
1994 [Weinberg]
The (secret) Truth Commission Files
http://www.withmaliceandforethought.com/...tember.pdf

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Thank you Magda for posting the speech!
Carsten

[Magda Hassan]

Relevant section of a report into censorship in South Africa from The Anti-Censorship Programme Third progress report to the Open Society Foundation for South Africa March 2004.

2.7. The Dulcie September book


In November last year, the ACP was approached with a request from Maggie Davey- an independent publisher- to give opinion on a book written by Evelyn Groenink an independent journalist in regards to the 1988 assassination of Dulcie September. September was the then ANC representative in Paris. The publisher’s interest was whether or not the book would potentially result in defamatory suits and if so whether the FXI would be willing to provide legal support

Originally published in Dutch, the book’s primary focus is on the assassination of Dulcie September. However, it also investigates and makes certain connections around the murders of Anton Lubowski, then prominent SWAPO lawyer, in 1989, and Chris Hani, former commander of Umkhonto We Sizwe and General Secretary of the South African Communist Party in 1993.

In all these assassinations, the author shows (or attempts to show) that the victims were killed because they stood in the way of the French and French interests. In the case of September, the author alleges that she stumbled upon evidence of French collaboration with the apartheid government over the then South African nuclear armament programme. For Lubowski, the author argues that he refused to accede to the plans of international Mafia groups who sought Casino rights, oil exploration ventures and transport opportunities for ELF the French oil giant as well as other Franco-Italian international dealers, with the newly constituted government of Namibia.

Hani's case involves a wider conspiracy beyond the accepted right-wing plot in that his incorrigible nature posed a threat to French interests around arms deals with the then ANC government in waiting. A number of companies such as Thompson-CSF (now Thales, and currently embroiled in the SA multi-billion dollar arms scandal) are mentioned as having stood to loose if Hani -as was likely to be given his influence and popularity- became the defense minister and possibly even Mandela's successor.

There are many individuals mentioned in the book who may want to sue on allegations of defamation. The main ones are firstly Alain Guenon, a renowned French arms dealer and international financial kingpin. He is linked to all the three deaths. Secondly, Tokyo Sexwale, a former Premier of Gauteng Province, deputy to Chris Hani. He is now one of the richest people in South Africa. He is portrayed as possibly 'corrupt' or not averse to cutting deals with the French. In actual fact, the author raises controversial points on the possibility of his having accepted to do what Hani wasn't prepared to do i.e. smooth the way for French arms merchants with the incoming ANC government.

Thirdly, the family of Joe Modise. Modise was the first black defense minister of the new SA and Hani's boss as the head of Umkhonto We Sizwe during the liberation struggle. At the time of his death in 2002, there was already a sizeable cloud hanging over his head in relation to his 'below the board' contracts for certain favoured companies involved in the SA arms deal. In the book, he is presented as a corrupt character and though as a dead person he cannot sue, his family or estate may claim defamation by association.

Other persons mentioned in the book include Mathews Phosa, an advocate and former Premier of Mpumalanga Province during the Mandela administration. He was appointed by the ANC in 1993 to head a committee that investigated the Hani murder but the committee's findings were not conclusive. Nevertheless, Evelyn has tied him to a questionable housing project initiated in his province and alleges that he may have taken kickbacks in the process. Though Phosa does not have a reputation for cleanliness, he has already hinted to Maggie Davey- the intending publisher, that unless the passages referring to him are deleted or edited he stands to be "very rich".

ACP's general view is that this book is a very interesting historical narrative of South Africa's troubled past. According to SA's common law of defamation, the probable defenses that both Evelyn and Maggie can raise are one, truth and in the public interest and two, reasonableness, i.e. that they have taken all reasonable steps to establish the veracity and authenticity of their information. Furthermore on the second defense, the courts have pointed out that political expression will normally invite a higher degree of protection as compared to other forms of expression and this book is in my opinion, such a case.

The problem nevertheless is that it is difficult to sufficiently establish the truthfulness of the allegations unless for instance documents can be produced which is certainly impossible. The first defence would not therefore be good enough. On reasonableness, both the author and publisher would have to show that they took all necessary steps such as proper research, verification and a sober analysis of the information in their hands. Before a progressive bench, they could possibly get away with it.

For the FXI, this book is a good case for testing the right to freedom of expression and the flexibility of the courts when interpreting s16 of the constitution on matters of defamation. Our problem however is that we do not have the funds to engage the services of an advocate to represent the two in court. Maggie runs a small independent publishing house called Jacana Media and hence the reason for her initial fears of getting the book in the market in case she gets slapped with a barrage of law suits.

In February 2004, Witold Waluz, brother of Janus Waluz (the latter was convicted for the murder of Chris Hani and jailed for life), sued Maggie Davey and her publishing company for defamation. Witold asked the court to place an interdict on the publication of the book and that he also be given access to the manuscript for his comments prior to publication. The court declined to grant his prayers and the case will proceed to a full hearing at a later date.

A Namibian individual named Andreas Guibbeb has also threatened legal action over claims in the book that he and his late brother Hans Guibbeb were allegedly apartheid agents during the 1980s.

In December, the ACP sent a request to the Amsterdam based Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (Niza) asking whether they are in a position to co-publish the book. If not, we inquired whether they would be able to provide the FXI with funds to defend the publisher and the book's author in court. Though this matter was raised again during a trip to Amsterdam in January, no response has ever been received from Niza.

After commencement of the lawsuit, the programme sent appeals for financial assistance to the World Press Freedom Committee, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, Niza (a reminder), International PEN and the Commonwealth Press Union. None of them have offered any help though the last group has provision for expert legal advice rather than direct financial assistance.


We are hopeful that funds will be secured either locally or internationally but the case will be handled more effectively once the Defense Fund is established.
http://www.ifj.org/.../Third%20progress%...202004.doc

[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

[Magda Hassan]

May or may not be useful. Mostly in German. The English bit at the end relates to the eventual disclosure of documents on the relation of Switzerland and the government of apartheid South Africa and the company ARMSCORP
http://www.apartheid-reparations.ch/docu...097-04.pdf

[Magda Hassan]

Two company names spring into view:[/FONT]

• Z-Squads Incorporated[/FONT]
  
• Adler Group[/FONT]
  

Do these names ring bells? Alarm bells?[/FONT]
At least Adler is mentioned in connection with Rainer Barschel as well, with three letters written over it: CIA.[/FONT]
If you try to find more about these companies, good luck. If you find something, let me know.[/FONT]

Carsten[/FONT]

I came across the Adler Group about 6 - 9 months ago and there is not a lot about them but what I found was very spooky. I can't recall what I was looking for at the time though.

[David Guyatt]

A most interesting thread. The "sanctioning" of South Africa proved to be a very useful event for many reasons, not least that a lot of black activity could, suddenly, take place, cloaked as it was from world view. This benefitted many.

Carsten, Project Hammer discusses, albeit very briefly as it wasn't my central drift, the so called SA "Hammer" assassination units. I have a SA government inquiry report about this in my archives. The problem is finding it now.

A SA journalist I was in contact with had, as I recall, fingered (or been told of) a former SA intell operative who was responsible for the Olaf Palme assassination. This gentleman was an associate of Riaan Stander and Rolf van Rooyen of Eastech Corp. They were, in turn, associated with all sorts of dark types.