Craig Williamson

Craig Michael Williamson (born 1949, Johannesburg), was a former South African police major, who was exposed as a spy in 1980, and was involved in a series of state-sponsored overseas bombings, burglaries, kidnappings, assassinations and propaganda during the apartheid era.

South African "superspy"

Infiltration

In the late 1970s, Craig Williamson had inveigled Lars Eriksson, director of the International University Exchange Fund (IUEF) in Geneva, into employing him as deputy director and help in the award of IUEF scholarships to African students. He was thus able to infiltrate the banned African National Congress (ANC) and, at the same time, make high-level contacts in Sweden which provided most of the funding for the IUEF. Williamson's networking through prime minister Olof Palme's office in Stockholm put him in touch with a number of Palme's close associates including Pan Am Flight 103 victim, Bernt Carlsson, who had become secretary-general of the Socialist International in 1976 and was based in London until 1983.^[1]

Dirty tricks

The same source accused Williamson of syphoning off IUEF funds to establish a dirty tricks operation in Pretoria known as "Long Reach" in order to target apartheid's opponents both in South Africa and abroad. This dirty tricks operation also involved arms trafficking.^{[citation needed]}

Counter-intelligence

Again using IUEF funds, Williamson set up the South African News Agency to recruit and use journalists for apartheid South African counter-intelligence purposes.^[2]

Bombing and burglary

PAC office in London

In 1982, a burglary took place at the Pan Africanist Congress office in London. Two suspects were arrested. One of them, a Swedish journalist, Bertil Wedin, was eventually acquitted by an English court. Wedin admitted, however, that he was working for South African intelligence and that he had been recruited by Craig Williamson.^{[citation needed]} The other suspect, SADF Sgt Joseph Klue had diplomatic immunity as a member of staff at the SA embassy in London and was ordered to leave the UK.

ANC office in London

Williamson applied for amnesty in 1995 from SA's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for bombing the London office of the ANC in March 1982. In the British House of Commons in June 1995, Peter Hain MP asked through the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, that the British police should interview and consider extraditing Williamson to stand trial for the London bombing.^[3] The Home Secretary turned down Hain's request. Amnesty was eventually granted by the TRC to Williamson and seven others on 15 October 1999.^[4] Following the TRC hearing, South African lawyer Anton Alberts commented to the "woza" news agency: "If you look at the Lockerbie disaster - this is very similar. I think Britain would like to see these guys are prosecuted in England even though they get amnesty here."

ANC office in Stockholm

In 1986, the ANC office in Stockholm was blown up. Williamson and Wedin were accused by a number of sources, but no charges were brought against them.

Kidnapping and assassination

Ruth First

Williamson ordered the assassination of Ruth First, who was an exiled campaigner for the Anti-Apartheid Movement, close friend of Sweden's prime minister, Olof Palme, and the ANC author of a pioneering study of Namibia. She was also the wife of the South African Communist Party's leader, Joe Slovo. She was killed by a letter-bomb in Maputo, Mozambique on 18 August 1982.^[5]

Mozambique

In January 1984, minutes of the apartheid State Security Council, chaired by President P. W. Botha, recorded Craig Williamson as plotting the overthrow of the government in Mozambique^[6]

Marius Schoon

Williamson addressed a letter-bomb to exiled anti-apartheid activist, Marius Schoon, in Angola but killed Schoon's wife Jeanette and daughter Katryn on 28 June 1984. In June 2000, TRC amnesty for this killing and that of Ruth First was granted to Williamson.^[7]

Other incidents possibly linked to Williamson

• On 21 February 1986, prime minister Olof Palme addressed the Swedish People's Parliament against Apartheid in Stockholm. A week later, Palme was shot and killed after attending the cinema with his wife. The subsequent Stockholm police investigation into the murder was criticised for its lassitude and incompetence for not quickly solving the crime. Five days after Palme's murder, Swedish journalist Per Wästberg reported twice to the Swedish police that apartheid South Africa must have been involved, but no action was taken by the police. Ten years later, Williamson was named in a South African court for Palme's murder, as were three others: Anthony White, Roy Allen and Bertil Wedin.^{[citation needed]} However, no South Africans were ever charged with the Palme assassination (nor was anyone else, save for Christer Pettersson, who was acquitted).
• In 1987, plans for kidnapping the entire ANC leadership in London were uncovered. The thwarted operation was generally attributed to South African intelligence. Two Norwegians with a mercenary background and a British national were initially arrested, but never charged - a fact that at the time gave rise to newspaper allegations of possible involvement by British intelligence.^{[citation needed]}
• On 4 February 1988, the ANC representative in Brussels, Godfrey Motsepe, narrowly escaped an assassin's bullet.^{[citation needed]}
• On 29 March 1988, the ANC representative in Paris, Dulcie September, was shot and killed. Williamson's protégé – former SADF Sgt Joseph Klue – and South African spy, Dirk Stoffberg, were in the frame^{[citation needed]} for both the Brussels and Paris shootings.

Propaganda

Williamson was one of the main collaborators with Peter Worthington in the pro-apartheid video The ANC method - violence which was distributed by Citizens for foreign aid reform throughout Canada in 1988.

In the summer of 1988 the US-produced film Red Scorpion was made on location in South-West Africa (Namibia). South Africa helped finance the movie and the SADF provided trucks, equipment as well as extras. The action-packed movie was a sympathetic portrayal of an anti-communist guerrilla commander loosely based on Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA – the Angolan rebel movement – supported by both Washington and Pretoria. The film's producer, Jack Abramoff, was also head of the International Freedom Foundation (IFF). Established in Washington in 1986 as a conservative think-tank, the IFF was in fact part of an elaborate intelligence gathering operation and, according to Craig Williamson, was designed to be an instrument for political warfare against apartheid's foes. South Africa spent up to $1.5million a year – until funding was withdrawn in 1992 – to underwrite Operation Babushka, the code-name by which the IFF project was known.

An article about the "enigma" Craig Williamson in the SA Sunday Times of 20 September 1998 entitled "The spy who never came in from the cold" concluded with the Williamson dictum:

"I respect a person who's willing to die for his country, but I admire a person who is prepared to kill for his country"

In a television interview early in August 2001, Williamson told the BBC's Tim Sebastian that the actions he took during the apartheid era had to be seen against the background of the Cold War and were in support of the West. The NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999, he said, killed far more civilians than his dirty tricks brigade ever did.

References

External links

• Olof Palme and Williamson's exposure as SA spy
• TRC amnesty decision
• Ruth First
• Amnesty for the murders of Ruth First and Marius Schoon's wife and daughter
• Olof Palme addresses the Swedish People's Parliament against Apartheid
• Murder of ANC representative in Paris
• Propaganda video
• South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia
• Warfare against apartheid's foes
• Eulogy for Bernt Carlsson

See also

• Civil Cooperation Bureau
• Executive Outcomes
• Dag Hammarskjöld
• Lothar Neethling