By Keith Gottschalk, University of The Western Cape — The Conversation, 3 November 2021
A raft of confessions have been published in the past three decades chronicling the stories of white men in uniform who plied their trade as apartheid heavies and enforcers. The brutality they dispensed — killings, assassinations, torture, beatings — also came to light in two commissions: The Goldstone Commission, which exposed the dirty tricks campaign of the apartheid-era South African Defence Force; and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established to help South Africa deal with its violent past.
A new book, Confessions of a StratCom Hitman, has been written by Paul Erasmus who left the police in 1993. He served during the most brutal years of the apartheid regime, and prior to the book had already testified to the Goldstone Commission and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The book covers new revelations relating to both the Special Branch — the notorious police unit that targeted anti-apartheid activists — and Stratcom, the strategic communications section of the National Security Management System.
One theme of interest is the revelation that the rise of the Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging (AWB), a racist militia of far right-wing Afrikaner nationalists, from 1987 caused serious schisms in both the Special Branch and in the uniform and detective branches of the police force, leading to factionalism and some police refusing orders to fire on AWB members attacking others.
Erasmus reveals the line of command on parcel bombs used to assassinate leading South African activists who had fled abroad. He writes that every parcel bomb required individual permission from the Minister of Police. These included those that killed Ruth First, a communist intellectual, and Jenny Curtis, a former leader of the anti-apartheid National Union of South African Students.
Stratcom routinely fabricated smears against Winnie Mandela, for instance claiming that she smoked marijuana and was an alcoholic. The book also provides evidence of a Special Branch culture preferring casual lawlessness to prosecutions or legal repression.
Erasmus writes that his work and what he witnessed caused him depression, nightmares, heavy drinking, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the loss of 49 kgs in weight. He estimates he committed 500 crimes during 80 incidents. The author died earlier this year, aged 65. Confessions of a StratCom Hitman is published by Jacana. This article has been republished under Creative Commons licence.