By Norm Dixon
South Africa's last apartheid-era state president, F.W. de Klerk, was handed a report almost 18 months before the historic April 1994 election that spelled out the apartheid military's role in the so-called "Third Force", a shadowy alliance of state agents and members of the Inkatha Freedom Party responsible for widespread acts of random terror.
The violence followed the liberation movement's unbanning in 1990 and continued until the election. Instead of taking action against the perpetrators, de Klerk appointed senior defence force officers named in the report to investigate the charges it contained!
Details of the elusive Steyn Report finally saw the light of day when documents supplied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) were leaked in mid-January.
The Steyn Report had been hidden since December 1992 when Pierre Steyn, then defence force chief of staff, presented his findings to de Klerk. De Klerk refused to reveal details of the report and denied the existence of a written version.
Upon coming to power, the ANC's Nelson Mandela also chose to conceal the contents of the report, fearing it would harm "reconciliation".
De Klerk appointed Steyn to investigate the military's role in political violence after the Goldstone Commission — a body charged with investigating the Third Force — raided the headquarters of the Directorate of Covert Collection, a part of Military Intelligence, in November 1992.
The TRC revealed that Steyn had indeed presented a written "staff report" to de Klerk setting out those sections of the military and individual officers involved in "unlawful" or "unauthorised" activities. Steyn's report, a summary of which was published in the January 31 Weekly Mail and Guardian, revealed:
- the collusion of the SADF's elite reconnaissance units with the intelligence service of the state-owned railways, in random violence on Johannesburg's commuter trains in which hundreds of black workers lost their lives;
- that the SADF's medical battalion supplied poisons and chemicals for hit squad operations against "enemies of the state";
- covert operations in neighbouring African countries, including the secret stockpiling of weapons in Kenya, Zambia, Mauritius and other unidentified countries to be used by the SADF covert forces to destabilise those countries. Arms were also hidden in game parks inside South Africa. The SADF also orchestrated coups in the "independent" bantustans;
- that military agents armed and trained terrorists of the Mozambican RENAMO as well as death squads of the Inkatha Freedom Party;
- SADF participation in illegal smuggling and trading in arms, drugs, ivory and rhino horn;
Steyn recommended that General Kat Liebenberg, then chief of the SADF, General George Meiring, then chief of the army, and General Joffel van der Westhuizen, then chief of military intelligence, be "asked to take early retirement or forcibly retired if necessary".
De Klerk instead asked all three to compile a list of military personnel who should be removed from service. Soon after, de Klerk placed 23 senior SADF officers on compulsory retirement or leave. Needless to say, Liebenberg, Meiring and Van der Westhuizen were not among them. Soon after, 15 of the 23 were reinstated.
De Klerk refused to outline the reasons for the soldiers' retirement and continued to deny the existence of the "Third Force" despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
TRC deputy chairperson Alex Boraine told the January 17 Weekly Mail and Guardian that it was "extraordinary" that the three generals Steyn wanted investigated had been asked by de Klerk to identify Third Force operatives.