Warfare by Other Means: South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, by Peter Stiff, Galago Publishing Pty Ltd (1 Oct 2001)
This title deals with the total onslaught of the last years of the apartheid era. It tells of assassinations inside and outside of South Africa sanctioned by the State Security Council, and deals with the ruthless killings of friend and foe alike. It also includes the untold story of how South Africa nearly lapsed into civil war in April 1994, and much more. Most of it comes straight from the mouths of those involved.
This wide ranging title deals with everything you didn't know about the total onslaught of the last years of the apartheid era. It tells of assassinations inside and outside of South Africa sanctioned by the State Security Council. It deals with the ruthless killings of friend and foe alike. It deals with the untold story of how South Africa nearly toppled over the brink into civil war in April 1994, and much more. "Warfare By Other Means" is not an apologia - it is a history, much of it oral and straight from the mouths of those involved. It tells of the actions of the SADF, performed within South Africa with the authority of the National Party Government through the State Security Council, during the "total onslaught" years. It tells how it joined a disastrous attempt by Colonel Mike Hoare's mercenaries to overthrow the Renee regime in the Seychelles because it was "an anti-communist coup going begging" and "it was a shame to waste it". How it secretly paid millions of rands in ransom to secure the release of captured mercenaries who had been sentenced to death. How it deliberately foiled future coups attempts because, to the envy of the CIA and MI6 and the chagrin of the Soviets, it had amazingly managed to take over the Seychelles intelligence services through an SADF front company, Longreach. Having failed to convert General Holomisa's Transkei into its Eastern Cape bastion, it turned next to the Ciskei. How it seized the opportunity to introduce a front company IR-CIS to take over its intelligence functions when Brigadier "Oupa" Gqozo overthrew President Lennox Sebe in a coup. How IR-CIS played a pivotal role in several violent attempts to overthrow General Holomisa in Transkei. How it inveigled the discharge of all the black senior officers in the Ciskei Defence Force on trumped up charges of disloyalty. How it organised their replacement with white serving SADF officers. It explains the roles played by surrogates like the Witdoekes in the Cape Flats, the Ama-Afrika in the Eastern Cape, the Iliso Lomzi in Transkei, the African Democratic Movement in Ciskei, Inkhata in KwaZulu-Natal and more, in combatting the "total onslaught". It tells of a great variety of Military Intelligence front organisations. Dynamic Teaching CC was used to inculcate blacks with an anti-communist attitude and to portray the ANC and its associates as the anti-Christ. "Veterans for Victory" was formed to infiltrate and "destroy" the End Conscription Campaign seen as a serious threat to the SADF. Right-wing churches were cultivated and covertly funded when it suited the SADF's purpose. It tells how Project Barnacle, an adjunct to Special Forces, destroyed the strike jets of the Air Force of Zimbabwe. How it assassinated perceived enemies of the State. It deals with the establishment of the infamous Project Coast as a biological/chemical warfare unit. It tells how the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) succeeded Project Barnacle. How personnel of both used Project Coast's toxins to ruthlessly poison prisoners and even its own black operators if they were suspected of disloyalty. How they disposed of the bodies by dumping them from an aircraft out at sea. It deals with a swathe of assassinations, destruction and mayhem committed at home and abroad. How anthrax letters were mailed to enemies of the State. It explains how the CCB itself was uncovered after the media began to explore the drive-by shootings of Dr. David Webster in South Africa and Advocate Anton Lubowski in Namibia. It details the murderous subversive activities of a diversity of right-wing organisations, like Eugene Terre'blance's AWB and General Constand Viljoen's Afrikaner Volksfront, who with the probable early backing of the SADF, almost toppled South Africa over the brink into Civil War before the first democratic election in April 1994.
