Michael Schmidt
DEATH
FLIGHT
Apartheid’s secret doctrine of disappearance
TAFELBERG
To the families of the hundreds
of men – and one woman –
who were ‘disappeared’
under Operation Dual
from 12 July 1979 to 12 December 1987
Style Note: Translations from the original French, Afrikaans, Portuguese, or other language sources are by the author. I have attempted to accurately reflect characters’ correct ranks at the relevant periods under discussion and to indicate where these changed as they were promoted; I have, however, continued using the ranks of pseudo-operators after they went ‘civilian’ so as to indicate their hierarchy. Lastly, contemporary geographic names are used throughout. For example, South West Africa and Rhodesia only become Namibia and Zimbabwe, respectively, after independence. This may conflict with current Namibian and Zimbabwean sensibilities but is historically accurate. The airfield codes in South West Africa (which all changed on independence) are cited as per the pilots’ logbooks.
List of abbreviations
ANCAfrican National Congress
AZAPOAzanian People’s Organisation
BOSSBureau of State Security
BSAPBritish South Africa Police
CBWchemical and biological warfare
CCBCivil Cooperation Bureau
CIACentral Intelligence Agency
CICCoordinating Intelligence Committee
CIOCentral Intelligence Organisation
ConCourtConstitutional Court
CSIChief of Staff Intelligence
D40Delta 40
DSTDirectorate of Special Tasks
EMLCElektroniese, Meganiese, Landboukundige en Chemiese Ingenieursvaardighede
EOExecutive Outcomes
FAFforward airfields
FAPLAPeople’s Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola
FBIFederal Bureau of Investigation
FNLANational Front for the Liberation of Angola
FPLMPeople’s Forces of Liberation of Mozambique
FRELIMOMozambique Liberation Front
IFPInkatha Freedom Party
IWBIrregular Warfare Branch
JMCsJoint Management Centres
KIKCo-ordinating Intelligence Committee
MIMilitary Intelligence
MKuMkhonto we Sizwe
MPLAPeople’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola
NISNational Intelligence Service
NPANational Prosecuting Authority
NSMSNational Security Management System
PACPan Africanist Congress
PCLUPriority Crimes Litigation Unit
PLANPeoples’ Liberation Army of Namibia
RARRhodesian African Rifles
RENAMOMozambican National Resistance
RLIRhodesian Light Infantry
SAAFSouth African Air Force
SACPSouth African Communist Party
SADFSouth African Defence Force
SANDFSouth African National Defence Force
SAPSouth African Police
SASSpecial Air Service
SBSpecial Branch
SFSpecial Forces
SPOSection of Pseudo-Operations
SSCState Security Council
SWAPOSouth West African People’s Organisation
SWAPOLSouth West African Police
SWATFSouth West Africa Territorial Force
TRCTruth and Reconciliation Commission
TREWITSTeen-Rewolusionêre Inligtingstaakspan
UANCUnited African National Council
UDFUnited Democratic Front
UNUnited Nations
UNITANational Union for the Total Independence of Angola
USUnited States
ZANLAZimbabwe African National Liberation Army
ZANUZimbabwean African National Union
ZAPUZimbabwe African People’s Union
ZCIOZimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation
ZIPRAZimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army
ZSOUimbabwe Special Operations Unit
Foreword by Nkosinathi Biko
This book will make your stomach turn. Do not avert your eyes.
Our efforts to understand and document exactly how wide the footprint of apartheid’s atrocities stretched, how far its violence travelled within and beyond our borders, have not gone far enough. Death Flight shines a much-needed light on some of the darkest corners of a regime waging a desperate and dirty fight against the inevitable. It is the first detailed exploration of the horrendous practice of flinging murdered prisoners into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
By following the thread of apartheid’s violence into Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Angola, Swaziland, and Zambia, Death Flight elucidates the transnational nature of this crime against humanity. In so doing, it raises fascinating questions about the role of international law in the attainment of hitherto evasive justice.
The general callousness with which apartheid’s henchmen treated human life is an assault on one’s senses. In the process, the book demolishes the supremacist argument central to apartheid, that at its core lay a desire to bring enlightenment to a ‘backward’ people.
I found it disturbing that most of the death flight victims in the book could not be identified because the interviewees chose ‘not to remember’ details. It is unimaginable that a system ostensibly operating on the basis of security intelligence would have disposed of people without knowledge of the risk (real or imagined) that they presented and, most importantly, without knowing their identities – the basic construct of the world of intelligence.
One hopes that the names that did make it into the book will bring some closure to many a family who, to date, may have had little idea of what happened to their beloved.
And for those whose identities remain unverified, one hopes that, by turning the light on this hitherto ‘concealed’ class of victims, Death Flight will invite further scholarship and activism probing this issue. It appears that this important task escaped even the TRC.
Adding to the contemporary relevance of the book is the disturbing revelation of a covert, post-TRC process of exemption for perpetrators, as well as an inexplicable (if not unconstitutional) change to the policy of the National Prosecuting Authority. One hopes that this may provide impetus for the wheels of justice to once again start turning.
This part of the book resonates with the recent progressive judgment handed down in the Ahmed Timol matter by Judge Billy Mothle. The case has re-energised the efforts of many families in South Africa seeking justice for the unresolved political killings of their loved ones. The court proceedings, aimed