TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 6

Subsection 6

LINKS WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONS

Links with the security forces

55. The evidence shows that the right wing enjoyed a doubled-edged relationship with the security forces.

56. On the one hand, both the security forces and right-wing groupings shared a ‘common enemy’ in the ANC/SACP alliance. Although members of the former SADF and SAP were, from 1984, prohibited by law from being members of the AWB and other right-wing organisations, many members of the police force were sympathetic to the right wing. Police and right-wingers often moved in the same circles, especially in small towns where white communities were small.

Moreover, many members of right-wing organisations had at some time undergone military training in the SADF and continued to receive support in the form of training, information and weapons. The AWB claimed on several occasions that their strength within the army and police ranged from between 40 and 60 per cent.

57.The Commission heard evidence that Military Intelligence structures were involved in the formation of Vekom and later the AV F. There are, of course, other possible explanations for this. It might have been a strategy to defuse militant ultra-right and rogue security force members and bring them into the fold of the negotiations process. Alternatively, the aim could have been to mobilise the right wing in order to create the impression that a military-style coup was on the agenda, thus either strengthening the NP’s bargaining position in the negotiations or as a prelude to a military-style coup.

58. The Committee received amnesty applications from security force members who supported the right wing and actively assisted them with training, information and weapons. Boereweerstandsbeweging (BWB) ‘general’, Mr Horst Klenz [AM 0316/96] testified how the Security Branch in towns like Cullinan provided weapons directly to the groups’ deputy leader (one Von Beenz), for use by the BWB’s approximately 100 active members.

59. On the other hand, right-wing organisations were themselves infiltrated by the Security Branch. According to intelligence documents before the Commission, the SAP ran a Stratcom project (‘Operation Cosmopolitan’) in the early 1990s. This aimed, inter alia, to utilise strategic intelligence to persuade the right wing to take part in negotiations and a peaceful settlement and to influence members of the SAP to accept and support the negotiations process.

60. Mr Roelof Venter, a security policeman who applied for amnesty for a vast array of violations, mostly in connection with the liberation movements, also admitted to acting against right-wingers between the early 1980s and 1994. Venter said he ‘questioned’ a number of right-wingers:

They talked easily without the necessity to use physical force, but we were in no doubt to use the same interrogation techniques against them as those used against the black activists, if necessary. (Pretoria hearing, February 1997.)

61. An unidentified security policeman applied for amnesty for several premeditated violations against right-wingers and right-wing organisations. In the late 1980s, he was instructed to infiltrate the right wing and sow divisions. He testified that he was involved in crimen injuria, defamation, invasion of privacy and other violations against AWB leader Eugene Te r re’blanche during 1988/89. This involved smear campaigns and 24-hour tapping of his telephones, leading to the exposure of his alleged affair with a Sunday newspaper journalist.

62. The same Security Branch policeman applied for amnesty for theft and a break-in at the AWB offices in Pretoria in 1989, when a number of documents were taken. He believes the information gained as a result helped the police (and government) to keep the right wing ‘under control’.

63. He also admitted to arson, damage to property, intimidation and conspiracy during the early 1990s, and carrying out actions in the name of the Wit Wolwe (‘White Wolves’) in Pretoria and Verwoerdburg. These actions targeted white activists such as members of the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) and the National Union of South African Students (Nusas) affiliates and involved the creation and distribution of Stratcom-style pamphlets in the name of the Wit Wolwe.

Links with the CCB

64. One of the earliest known right-wing violations seems to have been orchestrated by the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB). Applicant Leonard Michael Veen e n d a l [AM3675/96], who was involved with a number of right-wing groups, testified that he was a paid CCB member while at the same time carrying out actions with various right-wingers. Veenendal, together with another CCB member, a German right-winger and other right-wingers – most related to the BWB – were involved in the killing of an UNTAG guard in Namibia in 1989. Ve e n e n d a l escaped from custody, killing the police officer guarding them. He was refused amnesty [AC1998/002].