Craig Williamson

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Craig Michael Williamson (born April 23, 1949 in Johannesburg ) is a former major in the South African police force during the apartheid period . At times he worked as a " mole ". He is responsible for numerous political murders and other crimes and was known as apartheid superspy (" apartheid superspy ").

Life

Youth and beginning work as a spy

Williamson attended St. John's College , Johannesburg, where he graduated in 1967. From 1971 he was a member of a secret unit of the South African police. In 1972 he became a student at Witwatersrand University , where he was allegedly opposed to apartheid but spied on opposition students. In 1974 he was elected to the Students' Representatives Council . In 1975 he moved to Cape Town , where he was responsible for the finances of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). In the same year he became Vice President of NUSAS.

Activity abroad

In 1976 he staged an escape to Botswana , where he met the Swede Lars Eriksson, who ran the International University Exchange Fund (IUEF) in Geneva . He moved to Geneva and soon became IUEF Vice President, so that, among other things, he was responsible for selecting African students for scholarships. This enabled him to make contact with students who belonged to the opposition African National Congress (ANC). At the same time he received first-hand information about the intensive Swedish support for the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa . The IUEF was set up to help Latin American and South African students in exile after they had left their country for political reasons. He worked closely with confidants of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme , such as Bernt Carlsson , who was General Secretary of the Socialist International from 1976 . Sweden was one of the most important supporters of the ANC at the time. With the help of IUEF money, a program was set up on Daisy Farm 50 kilometers southwest of Pretoria that promoted the training of South African security forces instead of being used to train opposition white students. In 1978 Williamson succeeded in convincing the Swedish government not to support the ANC rivals Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and Black Consciousness Movement any more financially.

Return to South Africa

In 1980 Williamson was exposed by a defector from the South African State Security Council . Williamson tried to "turn around" Eriksson through blackmail but had to leave the IUEF and return to South Africa. From then on he headed the military part of the security police there.

In 1982 the PAC's London headquarters office was broken into. One of the two burglars, the Swedish journalist Bertil Wedin, said he was hired by Williamson. He was acquitted. The other burglar was the South African diplomat and sergeant in the South African Army , Joseph Klue, who then had to leave the United Kingdom .

In March 1982, Williamsons instigated a bomb attack on the ANC office in London. In 1982 Williamson ordered the murder of the opposition South African Ruth First in Maputo, Mozambique, by Jerry Raven. She was the wife of Joe Slovo , the chairman of the South African Communist Party . She was close to Olof Palme and died on August 18, 1982 in a letter bomb at Eduardo Mondlane University . Williamson sent a letter bomb to the opposition activist and former fellow student Marius Schoon, who lived in exile in Angolan in Lubango . She killed Schoon's wife Jeanette and daughter Katryn on June 28, 1984.

In 1985 Williamson co-founded the South African state-directed campaign Long Reach (roughly: "Long Arm"). Their headquarters was the Daisy Farm. The aim was to infiltrate the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and abroad. Other crimes have been linked to Williamson, including the 1986 Stockholm murder of Olof Palme. Williamson lived 300 meters from the crime scene on the night of the murder. But he was not charged. He was accused by Eugene de Kock and Dirk Coetzee , themselves South African secret police and convicted murderers, whose extensive statements could otherwise be confirmed. Occasionally Williamson was also associated with the Lockerbie attack in 1988, as Bernt Carlsson was on board the blown airplane. In 1986 the ANC office in Stockholm was blown up. Williamson is considered a possible culprit.

Williamson was involved in a number of South African government propaganda campaigns. He worked with Peter Worthington on the pro-apartheid video The ANC Method - Violence , which was broadcast in Canada . In 1988, with Williamson's help, the American feature film Red Scorpion was shot in what was then South West Africa . The producer Jack Abramoff was also director of the International Freedom Foundation (IFF), which was founded in 1986 in Washington, DC and, according to Williamson, should be "an instrument of political warfare against the enemies of apartheid". Williamson was responsible for the IFF in South Africa.

In 1987 Williamson tried to get the parliamentary seat of the ruling National Party in the liberal constituency of Bryanston in northern Johannesburg. But he lost to the candidate of the Progressive Federal Party . However, Williamson became a member of the President's Council that same year and remained so until 1991.

After the end of apartheid

In 1995 Williamson asked the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for an amnesty for the murders of First and the Schoons and the attack on the ANC office in London . According to extensive statements, it was granted in June 2000 because, according to the TRC, they were politically motivated. Protests broke out after the amnesty was announced.

1996 lived Williamson diamond merchant in Angola's Luanda .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Portraits of victims and perpetrators during the TRC negotiations (PDF; 1.2 MB; English), accessed on August 16, 2012
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Belinda Beresford: Craig Williamson Apartheid Careerist . In: Mail & Guardian , May 29, 2000, accessed on August 16, 2012
  3. ^ SAIRR : Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1981 . Johannesburg 1982, p. 80
  4. ↑ Interview by Tor Sellström with Gora Ebrahim, PAC, on July 22, 1995 in Harare (English), accessed on August 16, 2012
  5. ↑ Report at fecl.com (English), accessed on August 16, 2012
  6. ↑ Ruth First bomb maker tells TRC he was following orders. Pretoria September 25 1998 - SAPA. on justice.gov.za (English)
  7. ↑ a b c d Erich Wiedemann: The apartheid crocodiles . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1996 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Report at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on August 16, 2012
  9. ^ Interview with Allister Sparks at democracynow.com (English), accessed on August 17, 2012
  10. ↑ Victoria Brittain: Outrage over amnesty for apartheid killer . In: The Guardian , June 13, 2000, accessed August 16, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Williamson, Craig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Williamson, Craig Michael (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African secret agent during apartheid
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg