TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 2

Subsection 39

398 Dawid Fourie was also responsible for region 4 (Angola, Zambia and Tanzania), taking it over in 1988 from Meerholtz. Christo Nel handled the intelligence function while Ian Strange (aka Rodney) was also involved in this region. In terms of region 5 (European and International), Joseph Niemoller jr. appears to have been coordinator until 1987, when he was suddenly withdrawn following the arrest of a number of individuals living in England on charges of plotting to kill ANC leaders. The intelligence function was performed by Eeben Barlow. Various CCB members co-ordinated region 7 (Zimbabwe) including Wouter Basson and Lafras Luitingh. Others involved in sub-management were Ferdi Barnard (for a brief period) and Alan Trowsdale. Region 8 (South West Africa) was headed by Roelf van Heerden (aka Roelf van der Westhuizen).

399 Joe Verster estimated that the CCB undertook between 170 and 200 projects. These included administrative arrangements like the setting up of a blue-line company or a pension plan. As there were some one hundred ‘aware’ members and therefore approximately one hundred businesses, at least half of all projects were not directly linked to offensive operations.

400 There were two types of members in the CCB – aware (‘die bewustelike buitekring’) and unaware (‘die onbewustelik buitekring’). The former were recruited from within the ranks of the security organs, mainly the SADF, and were required to set up blue-line covers. They were all required formally to resign from the SADF, or whoever their employer was, and sign a contract of employment with what was known as ‘Die Organisasie’. They operated from a part of Special Forces headquarters known as ‘die Gat’.

401 These aware members in turn hired ‘employees’ to work for them. These were the unaware members. In his appearance before the Commission, Joe Verster estimated that there were about one hundred aware members and some 150 unaware members.

402 Christo Nel described the second group as consisting of two types – those who thought they were connected to the government but were unsure of which part, and others who were totally ignorant. He went on, however, to suggest that there was still a third category – “international criminals … people who were usable for the type of work that was planned”²⁵. Donald Acheson (see the Lubowski case above), Peaches Gordon and Isgak Hardien, internal region 6 unaware operatives, were perhaps some of those he had in mind.

403 Region 6 was headed by the one-time head of the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit (BMRU), Brigadier Daniel ‘Staal’ Burger. It became fully operational on 1 January 1989. Its inner circle was comprised of other former BMRU members who were assigned to various sub-regions of South Africa. They were Abram ‘Slang’ van Zyl (western Cape), Calla Botha (Transvaal) and ‘Chappies’ Maree (Natal). Another region 6 member, after his re-deployment from Zimbabwe, was Ferdi Barnard. Region 6 operated under the designation of Project Choice.

404 The objective of the CCB was “the maximal disruption of the enemy”. A CCB planning document described disruption as having five dimensions: death, infiltration, bribery, compromise or blackmail, and destruction. In his testimony to the Commission, Christo Nel stated that, when he underwent induction training into the CCB in 1988, this was not the order of priorities. Killing was a goal, but the emphasis, he argued, was on bringing about the death of an opponent by indirect means rather by the organisation’s assassins themselves.

405 Nonetheless, the CCB did kill some opponents of the government and tried to kill others. There is evidence that the CCB was involved in the killings of Mr David Webster [JB00218/01GTSOW], Mr Anton Lubowski, Ms Dulcie September [CT03027/OUT], Mr Jacob ‘Boy’ Molekwane and Mr Matsela Polokela in Botswana, and Ms Tsitsi Chiliza [JBO5088/02PS] in Harare. (This last was an operation that went wrong: the intended target was Mr Jacob Zuma in Maputo.)

406 It also attempted, or conspired, to kill others. Amnesty applications have been filed by CCB operatives Joe Verster, Wouter Basson, ‘Staal’ Burger and ‘Slang’ van Zyl for the plots to kill Mr Dullah Omar and Mr Gavin Evans.

407 Other information available to the Commission has linked the CCB to the killings of Ms Florence Ribeiro, Dr Fabian Ribeiro [JB03488/02PS] and Mr Piet Ntuli [JB02306/ 01MPMOU], the attempted killings of Mr Godfrey Motsepe [JB00606/02/PS] in Brussels, Mr Jeremy Brickhill in Harare, Mr Albie Sachs in Maputo [KZN/JD/001/AM], Comrade Che Ogara (MK nom-de-guerre) in Botswana and Mr Frank Chikane [JB03725/01GTSOW]; the plans to kill Mr Joe Slovo in London in the mid-1980s, Mr Oliver Tambo in Harare in 1987, Ms Gwen Lister, Mr Daniel Tjongarero and Mr Hidipo Hamutenya in South West Africa, as well as Mr Jay Naidoo, Mr Roland White and Mr Kwenza Mhlaba in South Africa.

408 The CCB also participated in elimination missions with other security force elements, such as the security police and the more overt wing of Special Forces. One such joint mission was the attack on the ANC transit house in Phiring, Botswana in 1988 in which MK regional commander Patrick Vundla was killed.

409 Another operation in Botswana in 1988 went badly wrong. On 21 June 1988, a CCB group inside Botswana was intercepted by a Botswana police patrol and a shoot-out ensued. Two CCB members, Mr Johannes Basson and Mr Theodore Hermansen, were captured, and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in December 1988.

410 A major CCB operation was undertaken in South West Africa in 1989. As part of the South African government’s campaign against SWAPO in the run-up to the December 1989 election in South West Africa, every aware member was transferred from their region to shore up the work of the existing South West African CCB set-up. According to Christo Nel, “we were told, ‘Double up your production and you will get a production bonus’²⁶”. It was in this context that Mr Anton Lubowski was killed.

411 As is evident from the above, one aspect of the CCB’s modus operandi was the use of cash as an incentive to ‘produce’. Thus, like other hit-squad or counterinsurgency units such as Koevoet and C10, CCB members were provided with a positive inducement to undertake actions which could, and often did, result in a gross violation of another individual’s rights.

412 As stated above, however, killing was not the sum of the CCB’s activities. A great deal of time and effort were expended on disinformation campaigns designed to discredit opposition figures and sow confusion in the ranks. At the time that the CCB was being planned, the SADF also launched its Stratcom (Strategic Communications) programme as a vehicle for the deliberate spreading of disinformation about targets in the hope that this would at least create a sense of suspicion about them, if not result in their elimination.

413 The CCB was also heavily involved in campaigns of infrastructural disruption through sabotage. Targets of such operations were bridges, railway lines, oil containers, strategic military targets, offices and houses, especially those used to accommodate guerrillas in neighbouring states. Christo Nel told the Commission of one such operation in Botswana, in which Colonel Hekkies van Heerden of the ELMC placed a car bomb in a minibus and parked it in front of the house it was intended to destroy. The bomb was so powerful that it demolished three homes.

414 Another core activity was intelligence collection for operational purposes. There seem to have been only three experienced intelligence operatives amongst the aware members – Nel, Pete Stanton and Eeben Barlow. The CCB could only collect intelligence for specific operational purposes. Again according to Nel, one of its successful projects in this regard was a communications company set up in Maseru by the CCB and staffed by some black Special Forces operators. This firm sold and installed communications (telephone, fax, telex etc.) equipment in offices. One such contract was to a facility used by the ANC, which meant that all calls to and from this office were monitored by the CCB. The information so collected was used against MK structures particularly in the western Cape.

415 Another CCB concern was sanctions busting with a view to acquiring arms and technology. According to testimony in a court trial in Johannesburg in 1990, region 6 member Leon ‘Chappies’ Maree conceded that part of his CCB brief was to operate as a covert agent for the import of high-tech military equipment. He testified that he had undertaken a four-month trip to six European countries in early 1990, brokering ‘business’ deals for the acquisition of war materials for the SADF. Other information available to the Commission indicates that sanctions-busting activities formed an important component of some members’ activities.

416 The CCB engaged in a range of other miscellaneous activities, one of which was Project Apie, involving the nailing of a monkey foetus to a tree in the garden of Archbishop Tutu’s residence. Another was Project Crawler, involving the purchase of a so-called spy ship, the Margit Rye, from Denmark for use in information-gathering activities on South Africa’s enemies. It was purchased through a company headed by a CCB member, André Groenewald (aka Kobus Pienaar).

417 Project Direksie was an attempt to free South African agents Michael Smith, Kevin Woods, Barry Bawden, Philip Conjwayo and Rory Macguire from Chikarubi prison in Harare on the day they were due to appear in court. The plan was aborted at the last minute when the South Africans became aware that the Zimbabweans had advance information on the attempt. One of those involved in the escape attempt, Mr Denis Beahan, failed to get the message and was arrested and later sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.

418 Projects Imperial, Maagd and Maxi each involved the collection of information in other African countries.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE CCB WAS A CREATION OF THE SADF AND AN INTEGRAL PART OF SOUTH AFRICA’S COUNTER-INSURGENCY SYSTEM WHICH, IN THE COURSE OF ITS OPERA TIONS, PERPETRATED GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS, INCLUDING KILLINGS, AGAINST BOTH SOUTH AFRICAN AND NON-SOUTH AFRICAN CITIZENS. THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE ACTIVITIES OF THE CCB CONSTITUTED A SYSTEMATIC PATTERN OF ABUSE WHICH ENTAILED DELIBERATE PLANNING ON THE PART OF THE LEADERSHIP OF THE CCB AND THE SADF. THE COMMISSION FINDS THESE INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR MEMBERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE AFORESAID GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS.