Apartheid Atrocities Unravel In Basson Trial
The Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)
May 26, 2000
By Heather Hogan
Johannesburg - The trial of Wouter Basson, which began last year, has proved
the most sensational showcase of apartheid-era atrocities in South African
legal history.
The court has heard evidence of, among other things, how:
* In 1989, Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) member Abram "Slang" van Zyl
received a monkey foetus from Staal Burger, his regional manager, and hung
it in a tree outside the home of former Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Van Zyl denied that it was used to cast a spell.
* CCB operative Ferdie Barnard, Van Zyl and Van Zyl's operative Peaches
Gordon were supposed to assassinate Abdullah Omar, now the Minister of
Transport, in 1989 but Omar's irregular schedule and the fact that he seldom
returned home alone thwarted their plans.
* Pieter Botes, a former CCB member, testified that CCB managing director
Joe Verster gave him several bottles of organisms allegedly capable of
causing yellow fever and cholera and ordered him to contaminate the drinking
water of two refugee camps near Windhoek shortly before Namibia's first
democratic election in 1988.
* Johan Theron, a former military intelligence (MI) operative, and a "Mr K"
testified how they had dumped the bodies of "terrorists" into the sea off
the old South West African coast. Theron also testified that Basson gave him
poisoned beer to give to Eastern Cape taxi drivers to see if it worked.
* Jan Nieuwoudt, an MI lieutenant colonel, testified that after a South
African Police security branch informant was killed in a Swaziland
restaurant, he ordered one of his operatives to buy beer in Swaziland. The
beer was handed to Special Forces in Pretoria where it was treated with
poison and returned to Nieuwoudt. He gave it to an agent in Swaziland who
allegedly gave a can to African National Congress operative Knox Dhlamini.
Dhlamini allegedly died as a result. Nieuwoudt also revealed that MI used
both witchcraft and chemicals during interrogations.
* Jan Lourens, a mechanical engineer who worked under Basson, testified that
he had manufactured many strange devices for Basson, including screwdrivers,
walking sticks and umbrellas with poison applicators.
* "Mr Q", who used to manufacture gadgets for Basson, testified that he had
designed and manufactured an umbrella capable of injecting a victim through
four needles mounted on it. Basson allegedly wanted to test it on a baboon
but "Q" had forgotten to bring along the device's cocking mechanism. Basson
still allegedly tested its liquid on the unfortunate baboon held at
Roodeplaat Research Laboratory (RRL).
* Dr Danie Goosen, who resigned from the animal research laboratory at
Pretoria Academic hospital to set up RRL, disclosed during a project on
snake bites that Basson had discussed killing an enemy of the state with
mamba poison. He said mamba toxin was readily available and was tested on a
baboon. The mamba was later shot when it had outlived its purpose. Goosen
also described other toxicology experiments on animals that induced
uncontrollable bleeding in lab rats and heart failure in horses.
* Goosen said at RRL during the 1980s Basson often discussed ways to kill
then- prisoner Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo, then leader of the South
African Communist Party. Apparently some people would have liked Mandela to
develop cancer before being released.
* The former research director of Pretoria University's medical facility,
Daan Goosen, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the South
African Defence Force had tried to develop a bacterium that would infect and
kill only black people during the 1980s in addition to starting an
infertility project meant to reduce the number of black South Africans.
* Dr Mike Odendaal, who collected several dangerous biological organisms,
said Dr Andre Immelman, the former managing director of RRL, gave him a
small bottle of blood infected with HIV taken from a man who had died of
Aids. Odendaal freeze-dried it for Basson before handing it back to
Immelman. It was allegedly meant to be used on a political opponent.
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