An Obvious Plant: Craig Williamson’s Role in Sabotaging the Anti-Apartheid Struggle

Abstract

This article examines the career of the South African undercover agent Craig Williamson in the 1970s and 1980s, arguing that the violent acts of men like Williamson must be analysed in terms of the broader strategic aims of the Security Police in the maintenance of apartheid. This means, first, that we must look beyond the smokescreen of Williamson’s notoriety and begin to see Williamson as he was – an operative, working alongside many others, within a vast repressive apparatus. Second, we must analyse the entirety of Williamson’s career and not only the crimes for which he is most infamous. Most of Williamson’s career was spent not as a murderer but as an undercover agent, sabotaging the anti-apartheid struggle through the control and misappropriation of movement funds and through subtle interventions at the ideological level. Williamson’s contributions to counter-insurgency strategy and organisational sabotage are significant in and of themselves and must be analysed by scholars. In this vein, this article offers a glimpse into the parallel and overlapping worlds of the African National Congress (ANC) underground in Botswana and Craig Williamson’s time in Geneva working undercover as the deputy director of the International University Exchange Fund (IUEF).

Keywords:

• intelligence
• counter-insurgency
• apartheid
• security police
• espionage
• anti-apartheid

Acknowledgements

This article draws on my doctoral research, which was supported by a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship. The original draft of this article was written while working as a visiting scholar at Dalhousie University, under the supervision of Dr Gary Kynoch. The book-length version of this story, Parallel Lives: Apartheid Spies & the Revolutionary Underground, is due out in 2024, published by Wits University Press.

Notes

1 For more on the broader infrastructure of state repression, see: J. Sanders, Apartheid’s Friends: The Rise and Fall of South Africa’s Secret Service (London, John Murray, 2006); K. A. O’Brien, The South African Intelligence Services: From Apartheid to Democracy, 1948–2005, Studies in Intelligence Series (Abingdon, Routledge, 2011).

2 Craig Williamson’s prison ‘autobiography’ written 10 October 1996, obtained from the personal archives of Terry Bell in Muizenburg, South Africa. There are rumours that this arrest was related to the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme. However, this is not substantiated, either by Williamson’s written statement for the Angolans, nor by Williamson himself. The charges were not political, but rather related to Williamson’s business dealings in Angola.

3 Author’s interview with Craig Williamson, Johannesburg, 27 March 2019.

4 ‘Combined Summons Filed Against the Minister of Safety & Security and Craig Williamson by Marius Schoon, 18 August 1995’. Obtained from the law office of Karien Norval, attorney for the Schoon family.

5 ‘Craig Williamson Application for Amnesty, 14 January 1997’, p. 5. Obtained from the law office of Karien Norval, attorney for the Schoon family.

6 South African Press Association, ‘Amnesty Judge Extends Condolences to Marius Schoon’s Son’, 2 March 1999, available at https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/1999/9903/s990302a.htm, retrieved 23 April 2024.

7 ‘Affidavit to Appeal Williamson’s Amnesty, Submitted by Sherry McLean, 3 November 2000’. Obtained from the law office of Karien Norval, attorney for the Schoon family.

8 Roughly US$50,000 at 2000 values.

9 ‘Return: Execution of Writ of Execution to the High Court, Johannesburg, 23 January 2007’. Obtained from the law office of Karien Norval, attorney for the Schoon family.

10 Interview with Craig Williamson.

11 J. Ancer, Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson (Johannesburg, Jacana, 2017). See also: J. Ancer, Betrayal: The Secret Lives of Apartheid Spies (Johannesburg, Tafelberg, 2019).

12 Jonathan Ancer assisted me extensively during my research period, including through multiple meetings.

13 As explained to me by Hennie Heymans, a retired Security Police officer (and colleague of Williamson) during an informal meeting, 23 April 2019.

14 While many of these activists eventually became members (or fellow travellers) of the ANC, their stories are not generally captured in detail in the broader literature on the ANC in exile and the armed struggle. T. Simpson, Umkhonto We Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle (Cape Town, Penguin Books, 2016); H. MacMillan, The Lusaka Years: The ANC in Exile in Zambia, 1963–1994 (Auckland Park, Jacana Media, 2013); S. Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990 (London, Hurst, 2012). The bulk of the literature on white radicals tends to come in the form of memoirs or fictional accounts, such as: G. Moss, The New Radicals: A Generational Memoir of the 1970s (Johannesburg, Jacana, 2014); B. Breytenbach, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist (London, Faber, 1984); J. Seidman, Drawn Lines: An Autobiography by Judy Seidman (Scotts Valley, CreateSpace, 2017); N. Gordimer, The Late Bourgeois World (New York, Viking Press, 1966).

15 See, for example, Chapter 14, ‘Suspicions’, in Ancer, Spy.

16 Ancer’s research did not engage as extensively with these archival sources and does not draw on the IUEF material, now housed in the Rigsarkivet (National Archives of Denmark), in Copenhagen. Accessing the IUEF files requires special clearance, which I obtained. These files form the bulk of the archival source material for this article. Another aspect of my original archival research is connected to the files of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) housed in the British National Archives. For more on the story contained in the FCO files, see: B. Keniston, ‘No Asylum from Her Majesty: The British FCO and Complicity with Apartheid’, South African Historical Journal, 73, 4 (2021), pp. 859–77.

17 University of the Witwatersrand Historical Papers Archive (hereafter Wits Historical Papers), AK2306, ‘Evidence Given by Craig Michael Williamson and Karl Zachary Edwards in Various Trials’, File 2, ‘State vs. G.J.E. Berger and D. Pilay, 1981’, ‘Craig Williamson’s testimony (February 1981) in the State vs. Berger Trial’, p. 233.

18 Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen, Denmark, 10377, AI, Box 294, IUEF Director’s Office Files 1974–1980, ‘Lars-Gunnar Eriksson memo on a “special fund”‘, 19 August 1976.

19 Rigsarkivet, 10377, AI, Box 300, IUEF Director’s Office Files 1974–1980, ‘Strictly Confidential memo from Lars-Gunnar Eriksson’, 11 February 1976.

20 J. Dlamini, The Terrorist Album: Apartheid’s Insurgents, Collaborators, and the Security Police (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2020), p. 161.

21 Ibid., p. 162.

22 Wits Historical Papers, A3104, Papers of Tom Lodge, Box E, ‘Trials and Similar Materials’, Folder E4, ‘State vs Barbara Hogan’, p. 5.

23 Interview with Craig Williamson.

24 Dlamini, The Terrorist Album, p. 153.

25 Wits Historical Papers, AD 1757, ‘Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Espionage Activities of the South African Government in the International University Exchange Fund’, 1980, p. 11. This Commission was convened by the IUEF.

26 Ibid.

27 Rigsarkivet, 10377, DI, Box 767, IUEF Directorate Papers, 1976–1980, ‘Memo to All Staff from the Director, Lars-Gunnar Eriksson’, 27 June 1978.

28 Marius Schoon was part of a scheme to blow up a police station in Johannesburg, but was effectively entrapped by an undercover policeman and arrested immediately upon arrival at the station, prior to taking any action.

29 For more on the Schoons’ early relationship, see: Wits Historical Papers, A19.05.01, ‘Marius Schoon Interview Transcript’; J. Curtis, A South African Saga: A Political Odyssey (Braddon, T.W. Campbell, 2006). In addition, the full story is contained in my upcoming book, Parallel Lives: Apartheid Spies & the Revolutionary Underground (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, forthcoming).

30 A banning order was a five-year long restriction on radical opponents of apartheid, which blocked people from any form of participation in public life, politics, education or workplaces, and especially forbid any contact with other banned people.

31 Curtis, A South African Saga, p. 122.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Author’s interview with Michael Hubbard, Birmingham, 4 November 2018.

35 Author’s interview with Heinz Klug, Madison, Wisconsin, 7 September 2018.

36 As conveyed to the author through interviews with ex-students (Wilhelminah and Salome) and teaching colleagues (Jeff Ramsay and Gary Wills) of the Schoons during a research trip to Botswana in June 2019. A more detailed account of this period is contained in both my dissertation and forthcoming book. See W. Keniston, ‘Cover Stories and Undercover Stories: Apartheid South Africa, 1969-1984’ (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois, August 2021); Keniston, Parallel Lives.

37 Curtis, A South African Saga, p. 135.

38 This was a repeated refrain in multiple interviews that I conducted with comrades of the Schoons, who lived in Botswana during this period, such as Klug, Judy Siedman and Mike Khan.

39 Interview with Heinz Klug. All white South African men (such as Klug) were conscripted into military service during apartheid and could request deferment of service for education purposes at the discretion of the authorities.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 Interview with Craig Williamson.

48 Rigsarkivet, 10377, AI, Box 295, IUEF Director’s Office Files, 1974–1980, ‘Clandestine Funds Accounting Sheet’, n.d.

49 Charles is almost certainly Karl Edwards. Paul is likely Paul Assmussen.

50 An affidavit from Cedric de Beer is my principal source for the EDA story. See: Wits Historical Papers, A3104, Papers of Tom Lodge, Box E, ‘Trials and Similar Materials’, Folder E4, ‘State vs Barbara Hogan’, Cedric de Beer Affidavit, pp. 6–7.

51 Interview with Craig Williamson.

52 Rigsarkivet, 10377, AI, Box 295, IUEF Director’s Office Files, 1974–1980, ‘Strictly Confidential Memo on Means of Illegally Getting Funds into South Africa’, by Craig Williamson, 17 May 1978.

53 Ibid.

54 Rigsarkivet, 10377, AI, Box 300, IUEF Director’s Office Files, 1974–1980, ‘Re: Southern Futures Vaduz Transactions’, 19 May 1978.

55 Rigsarkivet, 10377, AI, Box 300, IUEF Director’s Office Files, 1974–1980, ‘Lars-Gunnar Strictly Confidential Memo’, 13 November 1978.

56 Interview with Craig Williamson.

57 Interview with Craig Williamson. While Williamson and Brandrup clearly knew one another and Brandrup definitely travelled to South Africa, the veracity of Williamson’s story about bringing him to Daisy Farm is disputed by many people and for multiple reasons. Steen Christensen, for example, does not believe Williamson’s version of this story at all (personal communication, March 2021).

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 South African Press Association, ‘Policemen Had a Dungeon to Imprison Slovo, TRC hears’, 22 September 1998, available at https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/1998/9809/s980922b.htm, accessed 5 May 2020.

61 Personal communication with Henrik Thomsen, a Danish journalist who has written extensively about Williamson’s exploits, March 2021. For Thomsen’s writing, see: H. Thomsen, ‘Superspionen fra Sydafrika suges dybere ind i sagen om Palme-mordet’, Jyllands-Posten, 5 November 2018, available at https://jyllands-posten.dk/international/ECE10966117/superspionen-fra-sydafrika-suges-dybere-ind-i-sagen-om-palmemordet, accessed 22 November 2023.

62 Interview with Craig Williamson.

63 Craig Williamson autobiographical statement while in an Angolan gaol, document held in a private archive.

64 Ibid.

65 ANC Archives, Fort Hare University, Alice, South Africa. ANC London Mission Records, Box 0004, ‘Letter to the ANC from Craig Williamson’, 24 May 1977.

66 ANC Archives. ANC London Mission Records, Box 0004, ‘Letter to the ANC from Craig Williamson’, 21 October 1978.

67 ANC Archives. ANC London Mission Records, Box 0004, ‘Letter of Recommendation for Ingrid Williamson from the ANC’, 16 November 1978.

68 Sanders, Apartheid’s Friends, p. 139.

69 Rigsarkivet, 10377, AI, Box 298, IUEF Director’s Office Files 1974–1980, Craig Williamson report on ‘Discussions with Friends in Gaborone’, 10 February 1978.

70 The contentious issues related to political and ideological ‘discipline’ within MK camps are captured in: S. Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960–1990 (London, Hurst, 2012); P. Trewhela, Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO (Auckland Park, South Africa, Jacana, 2010).

71 Author’s interviews with Glenn Moss, Cape Town, 10 June 2016 and 9 March 2019.

72 Ibid.

73 Wits Historical Papers, A3104, Cedric de Beer Affidavit, pp. 6–7.

74 Ibid., p. 7.

75 Interview with Heinz Klug.

76 Ibid.

77 Author’s interview with Barry Gilder, Johannesburg, June 2019. For more of Gilder’s view, see his memoir: B. Gilder, Songs and Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance (London, Hurst & Co., 2012).

78 Wits Historical Papers, AK2306, ‘Evidence Given by Craig Michael Williamson and Karl Zachary Edwards in Various Trials’, file 6, ‘Biography Information on C.M. Williamson and K.Z. Edwards’, p. 9.

79 Interview with Glenn Moss, 9 March 2019.

80 Author’s interview with Judy Seidman, Johannesburg, 10 February 2019.

81 ‘Our Man in Moscow’, Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 27 January 1980.

82 The comrades of the Schoons who were arrested, detained and tortured from 1980 to 1982 included Barbara Hogan, Alan Fine, Guy Berger, Devan Pillay and Auret van Heerden. While all survived, all but Alan Fine were indicted and sentenced to multiple years in prison. In addition, during this same period, Neil Aggett, a white radical trade unionist, was murdered in detention.