I have just finished reading a book whose title is so much scaring. The title is “Kill Zuma by any means necessary” authored by Gayton McKenzie. It was first published in 2017. In the forward page, the author admits that this is a book that may be found scaring to others. He states “this is a book many people may not understand at first glance. When I first uploaded the cover to Twitter, I was inundated with messages from people wondering if I was advocating for the murder of our nation’s president”. He says he admires and respects Jacob Zuma and he is not ashamed to declare that, despite knowing only too well that such a view must seem wildly out of sync with the mood of the times and the prevailing popular opinion. He says obviously advocating for the murder of Zuma has been the last thing on his mind. He explains that once readers realize that this is a book about why and how various agencies and the interests they represent have identified Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma as their enemy, it will open their eyes to some of the deepest truths about South Africa that they have probably never thought about. The frightening title of the book derives from something else.
When I reached the middle of the book or a quarter of it, I came across the name Craig Williamson. Something clicked in my mind and I paused for a while. Those were the names familiar to me. After some seconds I continued reading and the paragraph led me to what I knew about the name. That is what influenced my decision to write this article. Williamson was South Africa’s super spy who spent much of his time travelling Overseas and the Frontline States infiltrating the African National Congress (ANC).
The first time I heard of this name was when there was a court case in South Africa involving a member of the ANC who had been arrested while on a sabotage mission. The accused was a gentleman who previously stayed in Botswana interacting with Williamson. Newspaper reports said at the time that Craig Williamson was called in as state witness. He introduced himself to the court as a member of the South African police. The accused knew him and was terribly shocked knowing that he and other ANC colleagues in Gaborone had been mingling with the witness thinking that he was one of them. He had joined the ANC and participated in major decisions the organization reached in a bid to topple the apartheid regime. But he was not the anti-apartheid activist his friends in the ANC thought he was. He turned out to be a major in the South African police. He had inveigled himself into the heart of the ANC to direct a series of sponsored overseas bombing trips. At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Williamson was linked to a parcel bomb that killed Ruth First in Mozambique and the bomb that killed Jeanette Schoon and her six-year-old daughter in Angola. The TRC granted him amnesty for those crimes.
Because of his ability to infiltrate the ANC, several people were either assassinated, kidnapped, properties bombed and propaganda warfare reaching high level. He reached all areas the apartheid regime wanted him to. They had the money to spend and patience to achieve their goals when it meant travelling the length and width of the world. Nothing in the book is mentioned specifically about Craig Williamson’s role in Botswana. However, this country was not spared. But it may be recalled that before the 1985 raid on Gaborone by the apartheid commandoes, Craig Williamson had been mingling with members of the ANC as if he was their genuine member when in-fact he was a major in the South African Police. He even attended several events at the University of Botswana.
Around the same time but before the raid on Gaborone, David Nkadimeng of the ANC was killed by a car bomb blast near North Side Primary School in Gaborone, His remains were found scattered all over the vicinity even on top of trees. Net Serache’s house at Ginger in Gaborone was reduced to rubbles by a powerful bomb blast. He escaped the blast because he was not home at the time. The bombing forced him to leave Botswana to go and stay in Zambia. Besides being an ANC activist, Nat was a correspondent for the BBC in Gaborone. A powerful bomb blast killed four people in front of the gates of Deborah Retieth Memorial Hospital in Mochudi. It is uncertain whether or not Craig Williamson was behind those bombings as well. But the interesting thing is that they took place after he had left the ANC and returned to his police duties in South Africa.
Equally amazing was the disappearance from Mochudi of Oupa Leshoro who used to play for Mochudi Rovers. His disappearance caused unease within the refugee community in the village. It was not clear as to whether or not he voluntarily left Mochudi or was kidnapped by agents of the South African Police. He was a very good midfield player. He was not a regular goal scorer but he was a fantastic passer of the ball. He had what footballers call defense-splitting passes. He was soft spoken and highly obedient. We never discussed politics when we were together. The little that a few colleagues at Rovers knew about him was that he had been to Nigeria before he came to stay in Mochudi. Nobody in the Rovers knew the sort of a thing he went through in Nigeria. He kept it to himself.
He was more closer to me than anybody in the Rovers camp. As a team-mate, he used to visit me when I was stationed in Mahalapye. He would stay for two or three days and then left. He would not even tell me his destination when he left. My assumption was always that he was returning to Mochudi and those in Mochudi would similarly assume that he was with me in Mahalapye when they did not see him. His last visit to Mahalapye was in 1980 when he stayed for four days. I was not aware of his disappearance until two officers of the Special Branch Police, Egar Mabutho and another known to us only as Screw told me that he went back to South Africa through the Sikwane border post. They did not know whether he was alone or accompanied. They could not say if he was a genuine refugee or if he was also spying for the apartheid regime like Williamson did.
The Botwana security police were obviously investigating Oupa Leshoro’s disappearance because it was something of great concern to them. However, the outcome of their investigations has never been made public. The reason for telling me was because they feared for my life and wanted to make precautionary measures for my safety in case agents of the apartheid regime tried to bomb the house I was staying in at Mahalapye. But there was nothing harmful the boy would have said to the South Africans about any football player at Rovers if he had been the regime’s spy. Throughout his stay in Mochudi, Oupa Leshoro was a reserved person. Never at any particular day would he discuss either local or South African political situation. When with locals, he discussed football only. None of the members of the refugee community ever suspected him of spying on them. He would have been in serious trouble.
People suspected of spying for the apartheid regime were subjected to torture by their fellow South African refugees. One day in the 1980s, a group of ANC and Black Consciousness Movement {BCM) stripped naked a suspect and tortured him by means of a hot iron on his bare buttocks near Molefi Secondary School in Mochudi. The story to that effect was carried months later in the Drum magazine after the victim had returned to South Africa secretly. Torturing of suspected spies in the ANC was a common feature within the organization itself especially in Angola where they had a detention camp. It was talked about at length at the TRC with several senior ANC leaders implicated. Since Oupa Leshoro disappeared, nothing has been heard of him.
