Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

After joining the army, he gave up gynaecology for cardiology. Kashiefa Ajam speaks to the mandubbed Dr Death – who spearheaded apartheid South Africa’s biological warfare programme

It’s a warm autumn day in Cape Town but inside Dr Wouter Basson’s consulting rooms it is chilly. One wonders whether it may be a taste of what is to come next. But it’s not. Colourful pictures adorn the walls of his rooms in Durbanville Cape Town. Basson comes come out to greet me – he has a pleasant smile and a surprisingly loose handshake. He leads me to his office.

“Sit down. I will turn off the aircon,” he says as he notices I can’t control my shiver.

Dressed in what looks like an expensive suit, Basson leans back in his chair. His desk is covered with patients’ files. His phone suddenly interrupts the niceties and he speaks for about a minute.

In the meantime my mind goes blank and I forget which questions to ask. I page through my notebook but the questions are not there. Basson is now off the phone.

“How much time do you have?” I ask him. He says about 30 minutes. He is scheduled to perform surgery later.

I start by asking him who Wouter Basson really is. Is he really the monster that the media has made him out to be?

“No. I am not a monster. Anyone who knows me will tell you that. Yes there is this perception out there but it is all lies,” he says while giggling.

Basson, a son of a policeman, was born in Cape Town. His family had to leave the Mother City because his father was transferred to Pretoria.

“I never wanted to leave Cape Town – I went kicking and screaming. Children have to do what their parents tell them to do. Nevertheless, I had a happy childhood.”

After high school, he studied medicine at the University of Pretoria. He wanted to specialise in gynaecology. But that dream faded fast.

“I went to the army in 1975. My father arranged that I work as a cardiac specialist at its Military Hospital. I never specialised in gynaecology – cardiology kind of stuck. Afterward I went to study in London and thereafter I became involved in the then-government’s biological warfare programme. I was in charge of research and development.”

In May 2000, Johan Theron, a former information officer of South Africa's apartheid government's Special Forces confessed in a packed courtroom how he was involved in the deaths of more than 200 anti-apartheid political prisoners between 1979 and 1987. He said he was following orders given to him by his superior, Basson.

According to Crimelibrary.com, Theron claimed Basson told him to tie up three prisoners to a tree overnight and smear their bodies with jelly-like lethal toxins. The primary aim was to test the toxic agent to see if it was capable of causing death. But the men did not die as easily as he expected.

He claimed Basson readily supplied him with the lethal drugs, which he used on the majority of his victims.

And it was Theron's testimony and confession which was a critical part of Basson’s trial for alleged human rights abuses. He was implicated not only in supplying the drugs used to kill anti-apartheid political prisoners, but also in administering them himself.

News reports have said that Basson was thought to have been involved in around 24 “death flights” between 1979 and 1987. These were where prisoners – most of them SWAPO guerrillas captured during the war in Namibia were loaded on to a plane, given paralysing drugs and then tossed out of the aircraft thousands of feet above the chilly Atlantic Ocean off the Namibian coast.

In October 1999, Basson was put on trial for the attempted murder of the three men thrown from the plane, as described by Theron. He also faced 63 more charges including, murder, fraud, embezzlement, drug possession and trafficking.

And so Basson became known as Dr Death, a name given to him by the Sunday Times and one still used by the media today – even after the court found him not guilty.

“It is so stupid. It does irritate me a lot but it doesn’t bother me that much. I have asked them to stop and they refused. I could take action against them but I hate court procedures.

“The trial was a very stressful time for me and my family. I exercised a lot during that time, I think I was more fit than all the prosecutors put together.

“But I still maintain that I never did anything that was unethical. It was not unethical under the then-government. There is no proof. A competent judge gave his verdict. Why can’t people accept that?”

Basson describes the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings as “strange and unbalanced”.

“The TRC was a one-sided situation. There was never any kind of debate. How can we move forward without engaging with each other? There were many witnesses, but we were never got to cross-examine those witness.

“But during my court case, we did get that opportunity – and they fell apart, each and every one of them.”

He says despite the not-guilty verdict, the media continued to persecute him.

“The media is such a powerful institution. They made me out to be some weird monster. We live in such troubled times and people love this so they can get their minds off their own problems.”

Last year it emerged that the South African National Defence Force was still paying Basson about R50 000 a month despite suspending him from his job. At the time the SANDF refused to comment.

But Basson explains exactly what had happened and why he was still getting paid for doing nothing.

“It was June 1999, just months before the general elections. The SANDF – well I think it was actually the ANC – who decided to suspend me.

“They just wanted to make a political statement at that time. I even signed a contract which stated that I would be suspended with pay. Yes I am still getting paid, for doing sweet nothing.

“Who am I to argue? What would you do?” he asked. “Would you say no thank you I don’t want the money? I don’t think you would!

“The day after the court case concluded, I went straight back to the Military Hospital, ready and able to work again. I thought the suspension had now been lifted. It was not.

“I went there every day for a month, then once a week, then once a month. Nothing happened. But just the other day, I was told that it is now finally being sorted out. I am hopeful.”

Basson has been practising as a cardiologist privately from his Durbanville. Cape Town, rooms for two years and has helped over 4 000 patients in that time. He also has patients at three hospitals in both Cape Town and Pretoria.

“I do not believe that I am one of the best cardiologists in the country, but I am great. I would love to work for the defence force again because I think I am the best that they will ever have.

“And I also think I can make a valuable contribution to the operation.”

Earlier this year, complaints were lodged with the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) about Basson's role in Project Coast, a top-secret programme which included attempts to develop bacteria capable of killing black people or make them infertile. The complaints were lodged by Professor Lesley London of the Health and Human Rights Project at the University of Cape Town and Dr Ralph Mgijima, former superintendent in the Gauteng health department.

“Medicine is my life and I intend to keep practicing. I will defend myself. They (the HPCSA) have set down two weeks in June for the hearings. We’ll see what happens.”

Basson says that this is probably the last interview he will give to the media and now just wants to be left alone.

“I have been defending myself since 1992. I need a rest now. I have been stuck in this defensive mode for such a long time, I want it to stop. I need to grow, but I can’t do that if I’m not left alone,” he says.