Special Report Transcript Episode 71, Section 5, Time 44:55

By 1980 South Africa was surrounded. The frontline states were on the side of the liberation movements. The Pretoria regime embarked on a programme of economic, political and military destabilization. Support for so-called rebel armies like RENAMO was central to that programme. // With respect to RENAMO, I did see some objectives. They were divided into long term objectives, medium term and short term. The long term objective was to overthrow the government of Mozambique and replace it with a government more sympathetic to South Africa. I think the word used was ‘more friendly,’ something like that. The medium term objective was to make the existing government of Mozambique more sympathetic to South Africa and the short term objective was a very, was just to do as much military and economic damage as possible. We would pay the senior members or RENAMO every month. We’d pay the president R800 a month and some of the other senior political leaders R500 a month. I would physically pay them the cash, obtain their signature, do all the bookwork, requisition the cash as required, do the reconciliation at the end. So all of that kind of financial bookkeeping. Then there was logistical work. There would every month be a resupply operation, supplying arms and various other things to RENAMO. It would happen monthly by drop, actually drop into Mozambique. I was responsible for putting together a lot of the material which went into those drops. The one I always remember, which was a bit intriguing, was to send in a ton of seed every month. So, I’d have to go buy the seed; it was ten kilos of tomato seed, ten kilos of lettuce seed; 10 kilos of whatever. We’d buy the seed; we’d have to buy envelopes which the seed could be put into as well. We’d package all of that. A lot of weaponry would be coming through as well and a variety of other things. They will all be assembled at a …. In Voortrekker hoogte, packed into boxes, put on palettes, and then parachutes put on top of them and then taken off to the airfield from which the planes would take off. It was coincidence, but you had a Reagon government, you had a Thatcher government and you had Botha coming in at about the same time. And that set us up for the eighties. And they obviously had a fairly sympathetic hearing in the sense that the United States was doing something similar with the Contras in Nicaragua, you know it was the same kind of strategy. // ‘Well he’s trying propaganda, I’m just telling the truth Sam’ // It was politically a lot easier to handle if it was possible to say that these were indigenous civil wars and so that was the message which was commonly put across, that this was simply a civil war. South Africa obviously wasn’t supporting the armies concerned and the mess that the country was in was all of its own making.

Notes: RENAMO soldiers; RENAMO leaders with Pik Botha; SA planes drop parcels over Mozambique; Reagon

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