Andrew
Maykuth Online
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a firm believer in apartheid, |
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa - According to the plan of the shadowy group called "Die Volk," South Africa's white revolution was to have happened something like this:
In the approach to elections in 1999, a corps of elite Afrikaner commandos would take over South Africa's military, massacring black troops and poisoning the water supplies in black townships. The commandos would hijack submarines and fire missiles into black suburbs near Cape Town. As black townships erupted in tribal warfare, whites would step into the anarchy and seize control of the government they lost in 1994.
It was a preposterous notion, but it offers a glimpse into the murky world of South Africa's white separatists, who still flourish on the fringes seven years after the end of apartheid when they were largely discredited.
The plan went awry when the zealots who imagined themselves the saviors of white South Africa decided to steal the weapons they needed. They hijacked an army munitions truck on a rural highway running through the tawny grasslands around Bloemfontein, killing the black driver and guard. Within a day, police began rounding them up, and their scheme was unmasked.
"They really believed this plan, as far-fetched as it may be," said Daniel Pretorius, a prosecutor in the Bloemfontein High Court, where four men are now on trial this month for murder and theft in the 1998 hijacking.
South Africa never came close to anarchy before the peaceful 1999 elections, when President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress won nearly two-thirds of the vote.
But some say South Africa is more tense now than it was in the warm afterglow of Nelson Mandela's 1994 election, and the fact that a few extremists could nearly pull off an audacious military weapons theft suggests a larger unseen mass waiting to exploit the nation's raw racial divisions.
"The right-wing groups are still out there," Pretorius said. "It's still going on. They're not as active as they once were, but they still believe the same. That racism - I don't think we'll ever close the gap in my life."
Two weeks before the June 1, 1998, hijacking of the truck containing nearly 200,000 rounds of ammunition, the same group broke into the Tempe Army Base in Bloemfontein and stole 117 weapons, including machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and night-vision equipment. "In 34 years, I've never come across something like this," said Paul de Kock, the director of detectives in Free State province. "People came right into a military base and stole weapons. You must have people in the base to allow the space for that."
Although one of the men charged was an army sergeant, many believe that the raid's masterminds - who they think include officers - escaped prosecution. The speculation about who was behind the theft runs deep among black members of the South African National Defense Force.
"The problem is how can we trust our leaders in the SANDF?" said Pvt. Diphapang Potsane, a leader of the soldiers' union who is observing the trial. "Most of the high leaders are white." But the prosecution believes that the weapons plot was a homegrown conspiracy, a misguided attempt to fulfill calls from white-separatist leaders to prepare for the coming anarchy.
The central figure in the trial is Marius Swanepoel, 45, an electrician and former member of the ultraright Afrikaner Resistance Movement who lived outside Bloemfontein. In 1998, he was introduced to Johan van Heerden, 73, a dairy farmer with rigid religious beliefs - he regards "natives" as "heathens" and says the Catholic Church is headed by Satan. "I am a very firm believer in apartheid," van Heerden said.
Swanepoel told van Heerden he represented a group called Die Volk - "the people" or "the nation" in Afrikaans, the language of the descendants of South Africa's Dutch settlers. "He told me he had seven military groups under his control and they intended to take over the country in due course," van Heerden said.
Van Heerden, who testified under subpoena but was not charged, said Swanepoel described an elaborate plan to take over by inciting warfare between rival black groups, after which white commandos would overwhelm the country.
Swanepoel's message appealed to some younger men in the community, who shared his fear that white farmers were being targeted for murders by leftists and that the black-led government threatened Afrikaner interests. Several joined Die Volk, including van Heerden's son-in-law, Petrus du Preez, and du Preez's brother, Hendrik, a sergeant at Tempe Army Base.
"They were firmly under the opinion there was going to be a war and they would fight for their country, but they were misguided by Swanepoel," said van Heerden.
He said he was unaware of the plan to steal weapons until it was too late. "I told them leave this alone, it's red hot," van Heerden said. "But they were brainwashed by Swanepoel."
The mission was remarkably well-organized. On a Saturday just before sundown, du Preez positioned an army truck by the weapons warehouse. He and his accomplices cut open the compartments with a gas torch, loaded the vehicle, then drove it out of the base through a little-used gate. They painted revolutionary graffiti on the warehouse to mislead police, who initially thought the job was done by black leftist elements.
Emboldened by their success, the thieves two weeks later intercepted an army truck carrying 200,000 rounds of ammunition near Bloemfontein. They trussed up the two black infantrymen in the truck, Michael Leisanyane and Gilmore van Wyk, and stuffed them into the trunks of their cars.
That night, over soup and sandwiches at van Heerden's farm, they discussed what to do with their hostages. Van Heerden said some of the men wanted to release them, but Swanepoel insisted they could identify the thieves and had to be gotten rid of. "It was obvious to me they were going to kill them," said van Heerden.
Leisanyane and van Wyk were taken to a bridge and dropped 40 feet into the Modder River. They drowned, according to the autopsies.
This time the police were not misled. Tipped off by neighbors and informants at the base, they found the stolen ammunition stashed in a water tank on a farm. Petrus du Preez, believing that one of the soldiers had survived, confessed. "They basically told us everything," said Capt. Jurgens Kruger, the detective who put together the case. Police recovered most of the weapons, although 15 assault rifles are still missing.
Swanepoel now blames the du Preez brothers, and they blame him, for throwing the soldiers into the river. Swanepoel said he was acting as a police informer at the time of the crime, but police deny it. They all face life in prison. A fourth defendant, Nicolaas Kirsten, is charged only with theft. Two other participants fled the country.
"I just want justice to be done," said Selina Leisanyane, 28, the driver's widow, whose daughter was born after his death. She sits quietly in the courtroom each day, struggling to comprehend the testimony in Afrikaans. "They must be in jail for what they have done."
None of Die Volk's national officers were charged; the leader is identified as former apartheid police operative Johan Niemoller. "We don't have enough evidence to charge him," said de Kock. "But the case is still under investigation."
Van Heerden, the aging farmer, said he and his family now understood the futility of whites resuming control through force. "I don't see how it can work," he said. "We are totally outnumbered. We are robbed of the authority we had, no army, no air force."
Still, the struggle on a spiritual level is not over. "The rainbow nation is what Lucifer wants," said van Heerden. "But he won't have it as long as there are a few hard-liners around."