The chief spook who wanted to rule the roost

AFRIKANERS, like our black compatriots, have quite a strong tradition that one should not speak bad words about the dead, at least not too soon after their demise. Most of us have been to funerals of nasty people where they were described as loving and wonderful.

But my eyes widened when I saw the reflections on Niël Barnard on Network24. It was a hagiography on steroids, and somewhat more than one can stomach. And my eyebrows weren't the only ones to be raised.

The authors are the seasoned ex-journalist Jan-Jan Joubert and Johan Mostert, a former colleague of Barnard. They describe Barnard as the “leading reformer" who started “the negotiations for a peaceful transition to a constitutional democracy".

I first came across Barnard face to face when he testified against me in court in 1989. He ensured that the case was held in camera, which means the proceedings were secret and no testimony or the findings of the court could ever be made public.

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A prosecutor told me years later that Barnard himself brought the criminal charge and the subsequent court case against me. He wanted me, then the editor of the print Vrye Weekblad, locked up for a long time.

It is probably safe to report today, 36 years later, that Barnard told the court that the ANC, including Nelson Mandela who was still in prison at the time, was a dangerous, communist and revolutionary movement that wanted to take over South Africa and transform it into a Marxist state, a kind of satellite state of the Soviet Union. And this was the organisation for which I supposedly made propaganda. Sis, you traitor!

What neither I nor the court knew at the time, of course, was that Barnard himself had already been visiting Mandela in prison and negotiating with him almost weekly for months.

Years later, in an in-depth interview, Barnard told me of the high regard he had already had for Mandela by then and the trusting relationship they had developed. He spoke in detail of how he made Mandela a proper suit of clothes for his first meeting with then president PW Botha and how, to Mandela's dismay, he knelt in front of Mandela to tie his shoelaces. He also told how much compassion he had for the “old man" and how he protected him from the bad publicity caused by his then wife Winnie's misconduct.

Are you a communist?

Barnard told me that the question Botha wanted answered was whether Mandela was still a communist and whether he wanted to continue the armed struggle if he were to be released. According to Barnard, he told Botha that Mandela was no communist.

So, Barnard was lying  to the court in my court case.

When I asked him at one of our several later (quite cordial) meetings if he remembered what he had said in his testimony in my court case, Barnard grinned and said: “I did what I had to do, old Max, and you did what you had to do. That's how it works."

In one of my interviews I asked Barnard if he, as head of intelligence, agreed with PW Botha, Magnus Malan and the other generals' grand theory that the Soviet Union was a real threat to South Africa which justified the war on neighbouring states. He said his message to them throughout was that the threat was internal rather than from a foreign power.

One of the apartheid era's superdiplomats, UN ambassador and head of the SABC Riaan “Koedoe" Eksteen recounted how in 1987 he had taken part in a brainstorming session of the Afrikaner-Broederbond about the possible release of Mandela. His own position, and that of his minister at the time, Pik Botha, was that he should soon be released.

Eksteen said Barnard stood up at the meeting and “shot to pieces" Eksteen's view. According to Eksteen, Barnard said: “Clearly Mr. Eksteen does not know and realise what a dangerous person Mandela is. To release him will only cause a revolution."

In 2015, Eksteen wrote on Network24 after a just published book by Barnard: “I have rarely, if ever, read a book as self-centred and self-satisfied as this one. Sometimes it's just too much to take – it just goes on and on! His arrogance knows no limits. "

Unbounded swagger

“But the persistent egotistical nature of the book stands in stark contrast to what Barnard himself proclaims in the book: ‘It is part of espionage ethics not to talk about your work.' Talking is wrong, but bragging and blustering apparently is in order."

Fanie Cloete, the former academic who played a central role in the team of minister of constitutional planning Chris Heunis, who insisted on fundamental reform in the 1980s, gives his own view of Barnard elsewhere in this issue.

He wrote on Facebook earlier this week: “His legacy is very questionable. He made several alleged constructive contributions to this political transition, but it is an open question whether he did not also do a lot of damage to SA with his actions during this process. For example, until the writing of the current constitution, he was in principle sceptical about so-called political power sharing in SA, and openly and explicitly advocated an independent white homeland."

Cloete says Barnard “had a very strong personality with an impressive and even intimidating appearance, style and demeanour. He was well read, eloquent and very logical and persuasive in his rhetoric. However, he was ambitious, rigid, tolerated no difference of opinion or opposition, and ruled his National Intelligence Service with an iron fist. As a person, Niël Barnard was one of the most egotistical and condescending personalities I have ever come across."

Cloete and other colleagues from that time all say that Barnard was determined to handle the discussions with Mandela on his own and without the knowledge of the cabinet. He blocked Mandela's requests to meet with Pik Botha and Chris Heunis.

Barnard, who was unwaveringly trusted by PW, wanted to be the only bull in the pen.

Weep for Gaza 

All of humanity must breathe a sigh of relief that the massacre in Gaza is finally coming to an end – if the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel holds and is respected.

Can the world now shift its attention to the other theatre of human carnage, the civil war in Sudan? Reliable information is scarce, but researchers believe that more than 60 000 people have already died in this conflict, while millions have been displaced and a great famine is raging.

The ceasefire in Gaza comes close on the heels of a reliable analysis by, among others, academics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Yale University who found that about 40% more people in Gaza than the recorded figure of about 46 000 had died in Israel's attacks.

The researchers used the recognised “capture-recapture analysis" which has been proven to be credible in other mass conflicts. The study has just been published in the medical journal The Lancet.  

The statistics in Gaza since Hamas' bloody attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, are absolutely horrifying. Israel and its apologists have constantly questioned the information from the authorities in Gaza, but now it is clear that the devastation was much worse.

Israel detonated more than 85 000 tons of bombs and rockets in 468 days on the tiny Gaza Strip. Almost every school, university, clinic and hospital as well as most homes and apartment buildings have been reduced to rubble.

According to the official figures, which now clearly appear to be underestimated, 47 000 people out of a population of 2,2 million were killed with another 11 000 missing and presumed dead and buried under the debris. More than 18 000 of them were children. Thousands of children were orphaned.

Some 111 000 people were wounded or injured, of whom 22 500 had life-changing injuries. By December last year, around 4 500 people had to have arms or legs amputated.

This means more than one in every 50 Gazans were killed and more than one in 20 were wounded. More than 1,9 million Gazans are homeless and 2,2 million are suffering from acute food insecurity,Al Jazeera reports here. 

On October 7, 2023, Hamas killed about 1 100 Israeli civilians and soldiers and took 240 hostage, of whom 96 are still being held, although at least 30 are believed to be dead. Hopefully the surviving hostages will be released in the next day or two and return to their loved ones.

And hopefully the roughly 10 000 Palestinians from Gaza who are held in Israeli prisons, many of them younger than 16, will now also be reunited with their families – if their families are still alive.

I'm glad the war is over, for now.

But when I think about the damage that the trauma of the last 468 days has done to the mental health of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, especially children, I get downright depressed.

Who will rebuild Gaza, and how will they do it? Who is going to look after 2 million people's mental health?

How can Israel and Zionists anywhere think they have won the war?

♦ VWB ♦

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