The Spy Apartheid Used Against Resistance | DOCUMENTARY

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:02]It's a soldier's job to kill when he's threatened and when the system that he's defending is threatened. That is the response.

[00:00:10]If the enemy is trying to kill you or trying to kill people that you are defending, your job is to kill him.

[00:00:18]>> The South African Communist or ANC was a legitimate target as far as we were concerned. The idea was the psychological destabilizing of the organization as well as the disruption of the practical logistical infrastructure and organization.

[00:00:38]We believed we were doing good.

[00:00:40]We believed that we were doing right. We believed that we were justified. That the moral high ground was ours.

[00:00:47]>> In the 1970s, anti-apartheid activists risked everything for freedom. They trusted each other completely. Every secret, every plan, every hope.

[00:00:59]And among them, he was invisible.

[00:01:02]He didn't shout. He didn't lead. He listened. He observed. He smiled when they laughed.

[00:01:09]He nodded when they spoke.

[00:01:11]No one suspected that every detail he learned was quietly slipping through the cracks into someone else's hands.

[00:01:20]Who he was and what he was capable of, they would only discover too late.

[00:01:28]>> Until these organizations are totally destroyed, they will always be active.

[00:01:33]>> [music] >> It was my job to carry out operations against the ANC.

[00:01:39]I was an officer in the security forces. The security forces I was in a particular section, the role of which was to carry out counter-revolutionary actions against the ANC and other organizations. I did my job.

[00:01:57]>> He believed, and this was really interesting to me, that he understood pushing down the the Black Consciousness Movement. He understood and and moving He got this organization in Europe that was sending money to support the Black Consciousness Movement. He got them to stop supporting the Black Consciousness Movement and start supporting the ANC.

[00:02:17]And he thought that that was really one of his best accomplishments of his life's work.

[00:02:23]Because he felt like the Black Consciousness Movement, we don't know how to handle it. It could lead to anything. If we have a widespread change in thinking amongst the black population and an unknown rebellion in various directions, we don't know how to handle that. But we have a very strong military and we're ready to fight a war.

[00:02:43]So if we can push everybody into the war, then we'll fight them.

[00:02:52]>> As part of your research, you interviewed some of Williamson's former schoolmates. What did his former classmates have to say about him?

[00:02:59]>> Well, they didn't have very good things to say about him. Um I mean, these are memories that are more than 50 years old.

[00:03:06]Um but he he he had an impact even then. And um it was quite difficult to track down these people.

[00:03:14]I think for various reasons, but eventually I tracked down down somebody who was in in his boarding house.

[00:03:20]And he remembers Williamson as a bully, um somebody who who had no real impact at school other than being a bully. Um and then I went and and these were very similar stories that I heard from from people who were at school with him.

[00:03:35]Um and then I went to the St. John's archive and I started going through the old Johannian, which is the magazines from St. John's, which is where Williamson was at school. And there was no trace of him in in these archives until I got to 1966.

[00:03:50]Um and I I had this this impression of Williamson just going through school unnoticed um, until 1966 I found this record that talked about an election which coincided with the general election in the country. And Williamson had represented a very far right-wing splinter group called the Republican Party and he had won this election. And it was it was a right-wing group in the heart of Helen Suzman's, you know, liberal progressive Federal Party constituency and uh that seemed to tell a lot. That seemed to be quite instructive of of what Williamson was like.

[00:04:29]>> Okay, he's a white supremacist, you could say, but not not in a way that you might imagine like a shrieking race hater.

[00:04:37]That's not how he presents himself. He He wants to present himself as like calm, rational, and that he's doing a job. He also never tries to say that apartheid at the ideological level, he doesn't try to say that it was good. He tries to say my job was to keep apartheid going.

[00:04:56]That apartheid lasted so long because of the security services. Because we were willing to do the work that we did, we kept the system going for a longer time.

[00:05:06]Uh, he hated communism. He's very open about he absolutely hated communism.

[00:05:12]And he imagined that it would be in the best interest for the apartheid state if if they could push the entire movement against apartheid and call all of them communists. He called it the the Moscow line. If we can prove that the whole movement is adopting the Moscow line he knew that if the South African government wanted to get support from overseas and they want to talk about the master race or something like that uh, it wasn't going to go very well. But if they talked about fighting communism, they could get different kinds of support.

[00:05:46]So he imagined that fighting communism would be in the best interests.

[00:05:50]>> Why and how was Williamson recruited as a spy?

[00:05:54]>> The how is quite easy in in that I think he'd gone into the police after school.

[00:05:59]Most people you had to do sort of white men had to do compulsory military service.

[00:06:05]Um but you could go into the police as an alternative and he went into the police and uh I think they saw him as an English-speaking person who um was going to go to Wits and that he would be quite easy um it would be easy for him to infiltrate uh the student movement. Um how they did it they just approached him and uh and they offered it they uh put this to him and it took him about a minute to say yes.

[00:06:36]So, yes, I think they identified that he was quite clever, quite shrewd and that he sort of vaguely fitted what they might thought would be a you know, a profile of a left-wing English-speaking person.

[00:06:52]Um he wasn't didn't quite fit that profile though.

[00:06:55]>> He moved unnoticed among them.

[00:06:58]Trusted, welcomed, even admired.

[00:07:00]>> How did he manage to infiltrate the student movement that was engaged in the fight against apartheid?

[00:07:07]>> Um I think at that time there was a sense of paranoia. So, people were suspicious of spies and they were questions that had been raised because he'd been in the police and because he didn't quite fit the mold of a typical lefty.

[00:07:21]Um he was quite he was big and he was almost like a rugger bugger rather than a sort of Marxist spouting lefty. But he he managed to to infiltrate because I think at that time nobody knew who was the spy and who wasn't. It was a time of deep paranoia. So, there were allegations flying around about who was a spy and you could never really prove it.

[00:07:46]Um so I think some people were cautious and kept him at arms distance. But also he made himself very valuable in the student movement. He He He knew about finances, he knew about administration, he knew about all organization. And so he was quite an effective person in NUSAS, which was the student movement he infiltrated. He NUSAS was virtually bankrupt at the at that time and he had nursed it back to financial health and he was quite a solid organizing person and in the left there weren't too many of those people who were prepared to get their hands dirty doing that kind of the grunt work.

[00:08:24]And I think also the people gave him the benefit of the doubt. And um you know because he was a a plant in the sense that um he was there not to kind of um you know if there would have been a meeting and somebody said something, um he wouldn't pass this information on to the the police for that person to be arrested. He He was there to give information if if for the long term. So there was no consequences of him being there that they could see. The students didn't realize that um if they had a meeting and they said something that that the police would be there the next day. So they couldn't pin anything on him. But he was busy giving information about their strategies and and and how to disrupt um what they were doing.

[00:09:43]>> He had learned everything he needed, every routine, every schedule, every habit, and then he struck.

[00:09:51]Ruth first, journalist, activist, mother, opened a package that would change everything. It was meant to be ordinary, harmless, but in an instant, the room exploded in chaos. The world would never see it coming.

[00:10:09]>> Well, Ruth I met Ruth in when I joined the Communist Party.

[00:10:14]She was a journalist, did a lot of work in South Africa.

[00:10:18]And um she was killed by a letter bomb.

[00:10:24]Craig Williamson had planted a letter bomb. She was a lecturer at University of Maputo.

[00:10:30]And um one day, I think it was meant for Joe Slovo, her husband, but it got her. She died immediately.

[00:10:39]And he's free. He's actually quite I think this guy is a farmer now. I saw him on SABC.

[00:10:47]He's got a big farm outside Johannesburg.

[00:10:49]And he said it was a loop when Ruth's daughter was on SABC and interviewing him, said, "Why did you kill my mother?" He said it was a loop.

[00:10:59]It's a government loop. Everybody did a little something. You can't blame convict one particular person.

[00:11:06]So, that's how he got out of it. He walked out of the He walked out of the debate. He walked out of On television, he just walked out of the room.

[00:11:13]>> The meeting with him was I just wanted to get a sense of him, and I wanted to sort of look him in the eye, and just see whether he had remorse. Um so, my impression of him was of somebody who doesn't have remorse, who sticks to the script. And he has, I mean, in his, you know, whatever you say about him, he's been consistent about his story, you know, throughout the years. He believes that what he did was right.

[00:11:44]>> One life gone, and he would not stop.

[00:11:48]>> Um And while, you know, Williamson was responsible for the for the death of Ruth First, he he was also responsible for the death of Jenny Curtis and her daughter Katrine. Um The the Curtis family is in fact a very interesting family in in the South African liberation struggle. Um Jack Curtis and and his wife Joyce Curtis were very involved in in politics and progressive politics in in I'd imagine it was about the the '50s and '60s.

[00:12:23]And Jeanette and her older brother Neville were very involved in in New Sas. I think Neville was the president and Jeanette was the the vice president. And so they were involved as student leaders. And then Jeanette became quite involved in the trade union movement and was responsible for helping to set up the trade union movement in South Africa.

[00:12:49]And she was Neville was hounded by the police. He was banned. She was also detained and eventually banned. And Neville eventually escaped and he he went to off to Australia and he went to Tasmania eventually. Um Jeanette's was then banned and and it was at this time that she met Marius Schoon who had come out of prison for planting a bomb at a police station.

[00:13:14]And the two of them got together and got involved and they got married, but they were both banned people. So their actual marriage was you know, at that time two banned people couldn't be together. So their marriage that actual wedding ceremony was illegal. And they then also smuggled themselves out of the country where they went into Botswana and they continued to work for the ANC. She was also involved in the South African Congress of Trade Unions SACHTU.

[00:13:44]And when they were in Botswana, they had two children, uh Katryn and Fritz. And um after a couple of years of of them they were still involved in in propaganda work for the ANC and research.

[00:13:59]Um they got information that their lives were in danger and the advice from the ANC was to go to Angola. And they did go to Angola. Um and they went to the university uh um and it was in on on one of these days that a bomb a parcel bomb was sent. And um uh um Marius had stayed behind or he had gone to the capital and uh Jeanette opened the bomb and it killed her and her daughter.

[00:14:31]Fritz was there but miraculously wasn't killed. He was two and a half at the time but he witnessed his his mother and his his sister um being blown to bits.

[00:14:43]>> Marius [music] Schoon in 1984 Williamson sent a parcel bomb to his home in Lubango in Angola.

[00:14:52]Marius wasn't home and his wife Jenny opened the parcel.

[00:14:57]She and their 8-year-old daughter Katryn were blown to pieces.

[00:15:02]Their 2-year-old son Fritz was in the room but survived the blast.

[00:15:10]>> Uh Fritzy sat on my lap holding onto me like a little monkey.

[00:15:15]And he didn't say a word.

[00:15:18]He didn't say a word.

[00:15:21]And then he said to me "I thought the enemy had killed you as well."

[00:15:29]And then just as we were getting into the bunker, the airport is quite a way out of Lebombo.

[00:15:36]He said something else to me. He said, "The enemy didn't kill Jenny. They just broke her in pieces."

[00:15:44]And that was Those were the only two sentences he said for about a day and a half. I thought the child was never going to speak again.

[00:15:52]Then I was taken into the flat.

[00:15:55]One wall was blood floor to ceiling. The pieces of flesh on the floor.

[00:16:03]Uh it was not at all a pleasant sight.

[00:16:08]>> What was Williamson's suspected involvement in Steve Biko's murder?

[00:16:12]>> What he has said is that um he um when when Steve Biko had come to the Western Cape um and there was talks about Biko being smuggled out of the country to go and meet with Oliver Tambo and for the ANC and the Black Consciousness Movement to try and find some common ground.

[00:16:30]He had told He had found out about this meeting that was taking place and the suspicion is that he had alerted the authorities to um the fact that that that Biko was um in the Western Cape and was on his way back to the the the Eastern Cape when he was uh um found at a roadblock. So it's it's not really clear whether um that led to them capturing um Steve Biko, but um he certainly passed on information about the meetings between Oliver Tambo and um and Steve Biko and the IUF was one of the organizations that was trying to to uh set up this meeting. So there are question marks about involvement in in in speak because the >> March 1982, a bomb rips through the ANC offices in London.

[00:17:25]South African involvement is immediately suspected, but denied by Minister of Police, Louis Le Grange.

[00:17:45]Louis Le Grange lied.

[00:17:47]At the time of the bombing, a group of security policemen were assembled in London.

[00:17:53]Amongst them, Craig Williamson, Vic McPherson, Peter Castleton, Eugene de Kock.

[00:18:10]>> Lives were stolen. Families were shattered.

[00:18:14]Who knew about the operations you conducted?

[00:18:19]I'd like you to ask the my superiors and my political superiors and the political leaders of the country at the time who knew what I and others were doing.

[00:18:32]>> Did they know?

[00:18:34]>> Of course they knew.

[00:18:36]>> Have you ever met Williamson?

[00:18:38]>> Yes, he stayed in our house when we were teaching in Molepolole in Botswana. He stayed there for either two or three nights.

[00:18:45]He's got a very good mind.

[00:18:48]He's quite convivial company, but I was never able to find out what was going on either in his head or in his heart.

[00:18:58]>> When you carry out operations and you are congratulated, decorated, honored, and given all the accolades of a successful officer in the in the struggle against communism and insurgency and counterrevolution.

[00:19:16]Uh you believe that the people who honoring you know what you did to be honored for.

[00:19:25]>> The way I would like to see Williamson best is through the sights of my K.

[00:19:31]I will also see him in court room when we bring the civil action.

[00:19:35]I will decide whether I when we oppose the amnesty hearing.

[00:19:40]Uh whether I will be present when he gives evidence.

[00:19:44]>> I think part of healing ourselves will be to admit what we did to each other.

[00:19:51]And that's not only what we did to the ANC, it's what the ANC did to other people.

[00:19:58]>> But coming to terms with things doesn't mean that you forget them, and it doesn't mean that one says to somebody appearing in front of the commission, ah, so you've said you did it.

[00:20:10]That's grand.

[00:20:11]Let's shake hands go and have a drink together.

[00:20:15]I won't behave like that.

[00:20:18]>> And I did ask him what it was like uh what he felt when he turned onto the Ruth First Freeway.

[00:20:25]Um yeah.

[00:20:27]>> What was his answer?

[00:20:29]>> He just went bright red and then he he he he uh said that um Ruth First uh and Marius Goon and Jeanette Schoon um they knew the risks involved. So, he didn't really answer the question, but he said, you know, they knew the risks involved. They were part of the ANC and he was just doing his job, but he did go bright red.

[00:20:56]>> What was Williamson's demeanor during the TRC, and did he take responsibility for his crimes?

[00:21:03]>> I don't think he did. I think that he came there not to tell the story, not to confess, but because it was a way out of his legal problems. And he said so much he said as much before he went to the TRC.

[00:21:21]So I think he was there to try to justify what he did. And his justification was this was a war.

[00:21:31]I was on the one side of the war. It was I was a patriot protecting the country from the communists.

[00:21:38]So I don't believe that he went to the TRC to divulge the whole truth.

[00:21:43]And I think he was quite smug and arrogant.

[00:21:50]And the the photograph on the on the front cover of the book is from taken from the TRC. And I think that speaks quite quite a you know a lot about his attitude.

[00:22:00]>> A life dedicated to infiltrating enemy lines. His job during apartheid was to blend into organizations like the ANC and the National Union of South African Students gathering information and feeding it back to the apartheid state.

[00:22:14]>> Over years the threat increased and state reaction increased.

[00:22:21]And we got to a situation where we were basically in a in a civil war.

[00:22:28]The revolutionary enemy um was not only threatening the stability of the state. I mean we've all heard the evidence of the situation in the Eastern Cape at that time.

[00:22:43]We got to the situation that uh the goal was to eliminate the enemy.

[00:22:53]And the enemy was clearly defined.

[00:22:58]And the enemy were trying to eliminate us.

[00:23:02]>> Williamson told the court that he applied for and was granted amnesty at the TRC on three separate incidents. His argument, [music] he has been honest and forthright about all transgressions during the time of apartheid. Why would he lie now?

[00:23:17]>> Now, that personality >> [clears throat] >> of living through lies.

[00:23:25]Is this what is happening today in court?

[00:23:30]No, my lady.

[00:23:31]Uh So, today for the first time you're telling the truth?

[00:23:38]>> I think I told my I think I told the truth during the amnesty hearings.

[00:23:43]>> I want to put it to you that your evidence to deny the version of Mr. Van Jaarsveld is part and parcel of your pattern of deception and lies. You are a fundamentally dishonest man.

[00:24:05]Do you have any comment on that?

[00:24:07]>> I have no comment, Mr. Chairman.

[00:24:09]>> Thank you, my lady.

[00:24:09]>> But to deny it.

[00:24:10]>> Earlier on, Billy, you talked about Craig Williamson's amnesty. So, do you think individuals like him should have been denied amnesty for the deadly actions that they took in defending apartheid?

[00:24:23]>> Yeah, I think he should have been denied amnesty. I can say that really clearly now.