THE INTERNATIONALISTS: THE INTERNATIONAL COVERT SACP-ANC BRIGADE: COMMENTS BY BRIG. HENNIE HEYMANS

THE INTERNATIONALISTS: THE INTERNATIONAL COVERT SACPANC BRIGADE: COMMENTS BY BRIG. HENNIE HEYMANS:

Taking a leaf from history (and from Uys Krige and Roy Campbell’s poetry) our attention turns to Spain during the period 1936 - 1938. The following is interesting parallel between Spain’s conventional war and our own revolutionary war (1961 – 1994). The method is more or less the same: “The International Brigades (Spanish: Brigadas Internacionales) were paramilitary units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish

So, in a sense we in Special Branch had external, albeit covert, opponents in the International Brigade. This made our task a bit more difficult but we succeeded in arresting quite a few of them, as an example just think of Mr. Moumbaris, Mr. De Jonge and Mrs. Helene Pastoors. (She is mentioned in Gen. Van der Merwe’s article and played an active part in the Church Street Bomb.) Looking back at the past, it is my understanding that the Intelligence Section of the Special Branch of the South African Police was up to date with most the South African members of the SACP-ANC’s covert operatives.

As far as African members were concerned the Security Branch knew who had left the country to undergo military training. One of the conduits to leave the RSA was controlled by the Security Branch. So, in spite of the cell system and various other precautions we knew who had left for training, etc. The irony is that some of our own members were also under cover in various places inside and outside the country. Askari’s and agents who returned from training helped us to fill in the gaps. We knew the real names as well as their nome de geurre’s. (From the French, literally “war name’). Consequently “we” at Security Branch HQ knew what was going on. The SACP-ANC realized this. They had to fall back on plan “B”. Plan “B” entailed the recruitment of foreign, mainly white, operatives, people who were totally unknown to the SA Police. So, our opponents were forced to rely more and more on unknown foreign, usually Moscow communist aligned persons, to carry out local missions.

Due to the “Simons Town”-agreement the Security Branch could only operate in South Africa and in Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana and in Mozambique. However, in spite of the agreement, RS-agents of our covert intelligence section (of which Craig Williamson was a member) was ideally placed in Switzerland and various other places across the globe reporting to Pretoria what was going on.

These internationally recruited people had excellent cover, they were academics, clergy, researchers, students, newspapermen, adventurers and not necessarily committed communists per se. They could openly or under cover enter South Africa to do surveillance, to plan or to execute deeds of terror. They could for e.g. liaise without arising suspicion with other academics in the socalled Front-Line States and in the rest of the world. (Tongue in the cheek: We could not watch everybody in the world!)

Perspective From 1980 - 1981 until the Nkomati Accord was signed in mid-1984 Joe Slovo and his team (including his wife Ruth First) were operating from Maputo with approval of the Mozambique government, which is where and when Passtoors joined them. After the Nkomati Accord they had to operate more clandestinely (even from SNASP) and so Swaziland, Lesotho and SA came more into the picture. Consequently, the Security Branch had to extend their operations over the border. The SA Security Forces are constantly vilified for attacking people apparently working in non-military positions such as academics or teachers or those assisting refugees etc. They apparently see no contradiction when people such as Passtoors admit openly to having operated in SA under cover as an academic.

The reality is that these people were engaged in a covert terrorist war against SA and both open and covert operations against them were in a response to their actions and in defence of SA. ANC

4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Brigades – accessed 10 May 2017.

apologists give much prominence to how Col. Craig Williamson is supposed to be racist and evil and not to feel anything for the people who died as a result of operations he was involved in, but they don't give any attention to the death and destruction caused by the ANC.

I was at the scene of the Church Street Bomb explosion. It was a ghastly scene of senseless carnage. I was shocked.

Cost effective The Security Branch of the South African Police with a stringent budget was a very cost-effective security and intelligence organisation. The Security Branch had about 3 000 men and about 500 RS-agents - not taking into account various informers etc. One has also had to take into account that in South West Africa the Security Branch had Operation “K”: intelligence gathering and actual fighting against PLAN-soldiers SWAPO. The war in SWA was no picnic as Plan-fighters were a good match for the SAP and the SADF.

We now turn and take a look at a lady named Hélène Passtoors.

Hélène Passtoors

Hélène Passtoors, a Belgian national was born on 9 August 1942 in the Netherlands (from a BelgianDutch family). She immersed herself in the struggles of people other than her own for the cause of peace, freedom equality and justice. At the time of her involvement in the South African liberation struggle, she held dual nationality, Belgian and Dutch. Following a subsequent Dutch change in law, against dual nationality, Passtoors retained her Belgian nationality. Passtoors currently resides in Belgium.

Passtoors was living in Mozambique and teaching at the Eduardo Mondlane University when she was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), special operations, by the late Joe Slovo in 1981.5 Between 1981 and 1985, she participated in highly secretive special operations under the immediate command of Slovo, with Oliver Tambo as the Commander of Special Operations. She performed reconnaissance and communications missions throughout South Africa, looking for potential targets, among other things, the strategic coal export/oil import lines, South Africa Defence Force and police targets, and a Renamo training base in Limpopo. Based first in Maputo, then Swaziland and finally Johannesburg, she transported weapons, established arms caches and delivered funds and other necessities. While being enrolled at the University of Witwatersrand for her PhD, she continued with reconnaissance and liaison tasks, and set up communications for units that were to be settled inside the country. Passtoors was involved in actual operations. She was highly regarded in the military structures of the ANC, which operated under extremely difficult conditions.

In June 1985, she was arrested and kept for eight months in solitary confinement in John Vorster Square, where she was severely tortured and poisoned during the interrogations, to the point where she became epileptic. In May 1986, she was convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. In 1989, she was released, following negotiations between the Belgian and South African Governments. The Belgian Government stood by her during her imprisonment and even assisted Passtoors to communicate with her children during her incarceration.

While in prison in South Africa, she was bestowed with the European Woman of the Year Award in 1988. Thereafter, she worked for the ANC office in Brussels and focused on international solidarity against apartheid. She was also involved in preparing the African National Congress (ANC) language policy.

5 Personally, I have always maintained the MK was the armed wing of the SACP and not of the ANC per se. From its inception, it was controlled by communists - HBH.