S. African Whites Dissent Cautiously (1976)

The Anne Frank House (Amsterdam) where documents were sorted and 
collated in the basement for further research

                 

By Robin Wright

Special to the Washington Post

Monday, August 2, 1976

      JOHANNESBURG - South Africa’s racial violence in June revealed as much about white opposition as it did about black dissent: significant white anti-government militancy barely exists inside the country, despite the increasingly loud calls for change by white South Africans.

     Only once did whited take advantage of the turmoil to express sympathy with the black rioters – when students from the University of Witwatersrand briefly paraded through downtown Johannesburg.

     The reasons are related to a crackdown by efficient South African security police over the past year, according to a liberal white politician. Police have all but squashed the small but militant white anti-government factions through a series of arrests, detentions and trials of dissidents.

     Only one militant white group has recently reemerged with any force – and only after changing tactics from a radical and “romantic” plot aimed at overthrowing the government to a more sophisticated campaign to discredit “establishment supporters” of the government.

     That group is Okhela, believed to be the most clandestine white group operating within South Africa. Its most recent “coup” was an expose, entitled The Oil Conspiracy that documented how multinational companies based in South Africa allegedly broke sanctions by supplying oil to Rhodesia. It was published late last month by the United Church of Christ’s Centre for Social Action.

     Supported by letters, internal memoranda and invoices, the report outlined a complex scheme allegedly operated mainly through the Mobil Oil branch in South Africa for 10 years, “whereby it has sold oil products to Rhodesia through an agreed chain of intermediary South African companies, most of which are in fact bogus”.

     Mobil headquarters in New York vigorously denied the allegations.

     The report also claimed that Shell, Caltex, BP and Total oil companies set up similar procedures to get other oil products into Rhodesia. The embarrassing to South Africa was the charge that a government-owned corporation, Sasol, actively assisted in the manoeuvring.

     The document itself is not as significant as the implications of its leak by Okhela, according to as South African political commentator. “Everyone knew that Rhodesia had to be getting its petrol supplies from South Africa – it was just a question of who was doing it and how”, the commentator said.

     “What is more interesting ids that Okhela managed to penetrate that organization and purloin the highly secret documents. It took a good deal of investigation and legwork to put that together.”

     The report also indicates that Okhela – formerly known as Atlas – has surfaced again after being threatened with oblivion and public ridicule just eight months ago.

       The dissident white group appeared to be finished after the arrest last year of white Afrikaans poet and Okhela co-founder Breyten Breytenbach during a trip to South Africa from exile in Europe to recruit and organize white opposition.

     During his subsequent trial on charges under the Terrorism Act and Suppression of Communism Act Breytenbach admitted that in Paris he had been involved in training South African exiles in espionage and sabotage with the goal of overthrowing the South African government. He said Okhela was the “white wing” of the banned African National Congress, a black South African movement head quartered in London.

     But the overall impression left was that Okhela was made up of “romantic idealists who were unrealistic and ill-prepared to put their plans into action”, said a self-described socialist who knew the individuals charged. “Breytenbach made all white underground efforts look ridiculous”.

     The near-fatal blow to the organization came at the end of the trial when Breytenbach pleaded guilty to 11 counts of terrorism and apologized to the government: “I am sorry for the ridiculous and stupid things I have done”.

     He went as far as to apologise to Prime Minister John Vorster for an insulting poem he had written and thanked the police for their humane treatment. He was sentenced to nine years in jail.

     The episode caused a severe backlash both among blacks and white liberals. Madikwe Manthatha of the South African Council of Churches said “this case will undoubtedly heighten disillusionment of blacks with whites.”

     The security police provided further embarrassment by revealing that they had Breytenbach under surveillance throughout his trip, arresting him only minutes before his departure and thus netting several other persons he contacted. “The trial proved the police have a grip on the opposition,” a white reporter commented.

     The government has since passed a stiff new Internal Security Act that allows for detention of any suspected person dissident for up to a year without recourse to legal council, bail or the courts.

     Okhela thus appears to be the main avenue to white militancy here. Yet, extensive interviewing among anti-government whites did not turn up a single person who could claim knowledge of Okhela. Most, however, expressed surprise about the extensive work on the “Oil Conspiracy Report”

     “If they are legitimate, it opens up a whole new field for ‘dissidence’” a liberal white editorial writer commented. “It’ll be hard to catch them and the damage could prove to be far more devastating to the government in the long run. But it’ll still be bloody hard to keep it from the cops”