10

 

Divide and rule

Eugene remembers the sense of feeling dirty all too well. He calls it ‘contamination’. After an operation like the one in Swaziland or the one in which Japie Maponya was murdered, he would strip off his clothes before setting foot in his house. Sometimes, he would cut up and burn his work clothes, destroy everything but his Hi-Tec boots. Work clothes were never washed with his wife and children’s clothes – they were always kept separate.

I wanted to know what he thought about in the middle of an operation. He explained that he could shut himself off completely from his surroundings and focus on the task at hand. He would answer a question without it registering, accept a beer he was offered robotically; he was not entirely present. His brain would ‘empty’; sometimes, he couldn’t even talk to the men around him. This feeling of isolation started before an operation and could last for up to two days after it. Then he would recall the events and replay them, over and over, in his mind’s eye, like a film. Frame by frame.

His answer to my asking why he did this: ‘The enemy has his script and you have yours. I always tried to do everything perfectly. In South West Africa this must have had a negative influence on my health. You do and give your very best, but during an operation nothing goes exactly as you want it to. This taught me to reevaluate everything, and I mean everything: first your performance, and then every other facet of the operation. From deployment to withdrawal, from medical to cover, even the colour of the vehicles we used in neighbouring states and which vehicles were most common in that state. Nothing was left to chance. I also watched my men’s behaviour for a few days after the operation for any negative reactions and other aspects that were atypical of their normal daily routine.’

Eugene de Kock during a visit to Oshakati and his former unit Koevoet in 1987.

According to criminologist Professor Anna van der Hoven, who gave evidence for mitigation of sentence in Eugene’s criminal trial, he felt mentally exhausted after an operation and had to reevaluate his value system. He experienced guilt and inner conflict if a life had to be taken, but he also believed that he had to look after himself.1

Eugene told me how one day someone from the Security Branch asked him how he managed to do what he did and still function so normally. When he thought about this, he realised that all the violence and death was like a very thick, transparent door. Once the door had slammed shut behind him, there was no going back. Ever. He left everyone, including his wife and children, on the other side. He could still see everyone on the other side, and they could see him. They thought he was okay – he looked normal, but knew he wasn’t. He knew that if he turned around and looked behind him, he’d see nothing but blood, loss and destruction.

This is the price you pay for the loss of innocence.

‘Even my wife did not know me completely,’ he said.

I asked Eugene about his wife and children. He was always very private about this.

‘I married late in life, at 36 only. Audrey and I were married in 1986 in Pretoria. She was only 22 … a beautiful woman, the second great love of my life. She wasn’t just all pretty and innocent, you know. She was part of a large group of policewomen who worked at head office and Charmaine Gale, the former high jumper, was one of her friends.’

‘You know, I’ve just remembered something,’ he said. I watched him go back in time. ‘I have no dress sense. Audrey couldn’t handle this and always picked my clothes.’

They lived in Pretoria: ‘After my wedding I bought a flat in Pretoria North, in Burger Street, while Audrey and I were on the waiting list for one of the Lynnwood police houses. When I finally got a house, of course it was the dirtiest, worst one of the lot. It didn’t even have a fence. I fixed everything up myself. The same happened at Vlakplaas. When I took over in 1985, Vlakplaas was valued at R94 000. There was no electricity, proper water supply, toilets or entertainment area. A team of workers transformed the place into a paradise. It became a microcosm, later, with a workshop and its own motor mechanic. In 1993 the farm was valued at R5,5 million.’

Eugene and Audrey have two sons, Eugene and Michael, both of whom are now in their twenties. He regularly took the boys with him to Vlakplaas. Journalist and writer Jim Hooper, Eugene’s good friend, remembers how he always insisted that the boys address the black Vlakplaas operatives as Oom (Uncle): ‘I was a regular visitor to Vlakplaas. At the weekly braais for Security Branch members from around the country, Eugene would take a quiet delight in introducing me as “an American journalist” – anathema to anyone in the SAP or SADF – and watching them whiten and choke on their beers.’

Eugene sent his wife and sons out of the country before he was charged in 1995. He had already realised how things were likely to turn out for him. He last held his sons in his arms when they were four and seven years old.

He wanted to protect them. ‘I did this for two reasons. Firstly, the media would destroy my family. And secondly, the children are not the father. My sons were innocent. They had to go. I knew, for the generals it would be a matter of: talk, and there will be harm. And for the ANC: if you don’t talk, there will be harm.’

‘Audrey and I divorced just after they left the country. She was still so young … that’s why I divorced her. I wanted her to have a second chance, make a new start. She started at the bottom in a foreign country and has worked her way up to management level. She is an excellent mother to our sons, the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove.’

How does one reconcile being a soldier – an assassin for the state – with everyday family life? Eugene told me it became difficult to listen when people spoke about run-of-the-mill problems, like the milk that had gone sour or the child who was struggling at school – these matters were no longer part of his frame of reference.

In many respects the De Kock family lived an extraordinary life. Not even going out for a meal was straightforward: ‘normal’ for Eugene meant carrying a concealed weapon and watching not only the whole restaurant but also the waiter for the slightest hint of trouble. He would even ask for their cold drinks to be brought sealed to the table. One former operative claims that Eugene became paranoid at Vlakplaas, constantly looking over his shoulder, suspicious of everyone.

It’s been years since he was last in contact with his family. ‘We used to keep in touch through letters and phone calls. Later, they broke contact.’

Does he expect to see them after his release? ‘The boys are adults now – it will depend on them whether they want to see me again.’

During one of my visits to Pretoria Central, we sat opposite each other, each of us with a Tex in our hands and a shared bottle of mango juice on the prison bench. We talked about his memories of Vlakplaas, his recollections rising, coming to rest just beneath his skin. He leaned back, his voice growing softer, eyes hidden behind the glasses.

An hour at a time is very little, too little time really for a coherent conversation. But that’s how we did it, Sunday after Sunday, month in and month out.

The more time I spent with him, the more he opened up to me. I asked difficult questions that day. Questions about emotions, what motivated him, decisions he had made. Without saying it in so many words, I wanted to understand where things started to go wrong for Eugene de Kock. Had he lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong on one specific occasion, in one particular moment? Or had it happened progressively?

To grasp this I had to listen – without judgement – to him, as well as to those who worked with him most closely.

‘Go and talk to everyone,’ he said. ‘Don’t write only good stories about me. Write everything.’

So began my conversations with the ‘voices of the past’. Larry Hanton was once again invaluable, helping me to arrange meetings with former Vlakplaas operatives and other colleagues in the police. Over three years, countless discussions took place over lunches and coffee, beer, Red Heart rum and whisky sessions. Each encounter presented an opportunity for ‘storytime’ – whether it be at the Kia-Ora Backpackers Lodge in the Pretoria city centre, the International Police Association (IPA) in Arcadia, a suburban veranda, the Blikkantien at the Voortrekker Monument, Quay Four at the V&A Waterfront, Villains Pub in Durban, a Mugg & Bean somewhere, or a pigeon club at Boknes.

No one’s recollections were there for the taking: the stories surfaced in fits and starts from the windblown paths of memory. The more comfortable they became with me, the more easily our conversations flowed. Yet I realised there were many stories I would never hear all the details of; I also did not want to.

Because most of the former Vlakplaas operatives were prepared to testify against Eugene in exchange for indemnity from prosecution and imprisonment for offences ranging from kidnapping, malicious damage to property and torture to murder and conspiracy to murder, they lived reasonably good lives after Vlakplaas. They had seemingly found ways to adapt to the new South Africa.

They ranged in age from the early fifties to almost 70. The operatives were outdoor people, men who got things done. They still worked, or had active lifestyles – although they mentioned that a few of the guys had ‘fallen off the wagon’.

I spoke mostly with Johnny, Neil and Greg. To protect their families and jobs, they chose to use pseudonyms. As time passed, however, I won the confidence of some operatives who allowed me to use their real names.

‘What was it like to work with Eugene at Vlakplaas?’ I asked them.

‘If you wanted to see Gene angry, you only had to drink on the job,’ said Neil. He leaned back, took a swig of beer and laughed into his beard. ‘The guys didn’t like it, but it was one of his rules. After hours you could do what you wanted.

‘We didn’t have fixed working hours at Vlakplaas. For the most part we’d be busy for three weeks at a time on an operation somewhere in southern Africa, then we’d spend another week on the farm doing administration. All in a day’s work. It must have been hard for the wives. On many nights we came home late and very drunk.’

Those were wild, rough times. Eugene joined in, especially in the early years. Shortly after he began working at Vlakplaas in 1983, he shared a flat on the corner of Schubart and Pretorius streets in central Pretoria with Vlakplaas colleague Riaan ‘Balletjies’ Bellingan. Bellingan told me their rent was R90 per month and they’d bought a double-door Bosch fridge that he still uses today. Ouboet, as he called Eugene, had a preference for Grolsch beer, he recalled. In those years, Lukas Kilino, the former Angolan soldier who had fought at Eugene’s side at Koevoet, often stayed with them.

Bellingan still eats lots of garlic and drinks Red Heart and Coke, as he and Eugene had done all those years ago. ‘We were fucking naughty and fucking happy then.’ He also remembered that in those days Eugene had outlined, for him, the important things in life: ‘There are three things that count – rum, a good steak and a good screw.’

However, in the work environment Eugene did not trust people easily – not even his friends. After his appointment as commanding officer of Vlakplaas, his modus operandi was divide and rule, said Johnny, a neatly groomed man in a trademark cap. ‘That’s just how he was.’

Top: The final gathering of Vlakplaas members took place on the Natal coast. To the left of Eugene is his colleague Chappies Klopper and to his right Dawid ‘Duiwel’ Brits.

Top: The Vlakplaas operative Riaan ‘Balletjies’ Bellingan during an askari training session.

Bellingan also shed light on this aspect in his submission to the TRC. ‘He distrusted everyone. It was normal for him to say, “Riaan, I don’t know if those guys are telling the truth, you go and investigate.” He would do the same thing when I was doing something. He would send some guys to go along with me and say: “Who says Balletjies is telling the truth?” He always distrusted everyone, it was ops normal for him, to use some military terminology …

‘You know what Colonel De Kock would do … perhaps he kept it compartmentalised to prevent leaks, but he would take me to one side and say: “Riaan, go down to Cape Town and do this and that.” Then he would also talk to Mbelo and the askaris individually on the side. So you had no idea what he told them, he would just say to you, here are two weapons … You never knew what he had told the other guys and so he kept you off balance … [Sometimes] Eugene could be paranoids [sic] … also with white members.’2

Bellingan testified further that Eugene constantly had to keep the operatives in check. ‘The moment the guys enjoyed working in a certain area, they went back to Pretoria and wrote colourful reports – because there was a girl or a good drinking hole there – and old Eugene was always paranoids [sic] about this. He always said, surely the man is not on the road [working], is it because there’s a girlfriend?’3

Criminologist Professor Anna van der Hoven wrote that Eugene described the intelligence world as a ‘paranoid underworld in which as a member you are consumed, used and abused. It is a world in which you have no friends. You have to distrust people to survive and must constantly be cautious of false information.’4

Eugene did not have many friends, Johnny told me, his holster lying unobtrusively on the chair next to him. ‘His actions were always calculated. He always emphasised that people’s first impressions of you as a person were extremely important. He bought people and friends with money or by doing things for them. It was just a question of time until he had them in his pocket. Right up to the generals. Then they were compromised.’

In the Vlakplaas underworld, ego, money and testosterone became a deadly cocktail. As Johnny put it: ‘We were untouchable. We literally did exactly what we wanted.’

According to Johnny, Eugene always had to be in control. He told of the time when Eugene broke his leg during an operation in Botswana. Eugene was beside himself and wanted to postpone the operation. It couldn’t wait, so his men went in and handled it successfully. He could not handle the fact that they were able to execute an operation without his direct involvement.

When and how did things start going wrong for Eugene? I asked time and again. What was the seed of his moral decline? Was it post-traumatic stress disorder that crept up on him, the disorder he developed during his time at Koevoet but was never treated for?

‘No, it wasn’t the time at Koevoet,’ reckoned Greg, a quiet man with impeccable manners. ‘At Vlakplaas Eugene became obsessed with power. It all started with the money, the false claims. That was when things went off the rails.’

Greg’s answer made me think twice. Eugene was supposedly the one with the strong morality, the rigid black-and-white outlook on life. His conflict with Colonel Hans Dreyer at Koevoet was precisely because he’d opposed the misuse of money from the SAP’s secret funds for private purposes.

From April 1985, the funding of covert operations – including those of Section C1 at Vlakplaas – were regulated by the South African Police Special Account Act 74 of 1985.5 This clearly made a great deal of money available for false claims about which no questions were ever asked.

I again turn to Hennie Heymans. ‘Yes, you need to bear in mind that in covert units, three things are important: the unit and everything it did had to be highly secret, untraceable and easily repudiated [deniable],’ he explained.

As commanding officer of Vlakplaas, Eugene thus had unlimited funds at his disposal. This was common knowledge among members of the Security Branch.6 Submitting false claims to generate funds was not unusual.

In his application for presidential pardon, Eugene wrote: ‘All improvements to Vlakplaas were … financed through false claims. We entertained regularly at Vlakplaas – often ministers, generals and other high-ranking officers. We were equipped with ice machines and pool tables. Astronomical amounts were paid out in false claims. Eventually, it led to much foolishness and we started to draw up false claims in my favour and in favour of other Vlakplaas operatives.’7

According to Eugene, he and other Vlakplaas operatives, acting on the request of Section C1’s finance department head, submitted a large number of false claims for fictitious informants. However, they never received any part of the proceeds of these claims.

It was also common knowledge that claims by Vlakplaas for the payment of informants were always processed rapidly. ‘Several other security branches then started submitting their claims for informers through us,’ Eugene said.8

One of my last encounters with a few former Vlakplaas operatives took place in 2014 at the Mugg & Bean in the Irene Village Mall in Pretoria. Five of us sat talking in the watery winter sun, clasping cappuccinos. I studied the four faces around me. Despite sun damage, crow’s feet and a look of vigilance, their faces also exuded something akin to youthfulness, almost a boyishness. There was plenty of laughter. The apartheid era was a lifetime away.

‘At one stage we knew what we were doing, and how we were doing it, was wrong,’ said one. ‘One day towards the end Balletjies and I said to each other, yes, they will still finger us as the white askaris. That one, the one sitting there in the corner, and him also – it was them …’