apartheid guns and money: a tale of profit

our publishers:

In forging its future, a new generation of South Africans need to grapple with the baffling silence regarding apartheid-era economic crime and ask difficult questions about of those who profited from it. This book provides the evidence and motivation.

South Africa remains a deeply unequal society battling the legacy of apartheid and the persistence of corrupt networks that seek to ‘capture’ its democratically elected leaders. In Apartheid Guns and Money, Hennie van Vuuren argues that, in the absence of accountability, corrupt networks of the past stay in business. Rather than face justice, they invite members of the new elite to the table. In over 600 pages, this meticulously researched book finally lifts the lid on some of the darkest secrets of apartheid’s economic crimes, weaving together a treasure trove of newly declassified documents and eyewitness accounts.

This book is an exposé of the machinery created in defence of apartheid,  sanctions-busting, and the people who profited from it: heads of states, arms dealers, aristocrats, plutocrats, senators, bankers, spies, journalists and members of secret lobby groups. In creating the apartheid arms money machine they were complicit in a crime against humanity. Whistle-blowers were assassinated and ordinary people suffered. Finally, this network of profit is revealed.

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now available outside of South Africa!

As of 1 November 2018, ‘Apartheid Guns and Money: a tale of profit’ is available for purchase in the United Kingdom. This is the first time the book is accessible outside of South Africa. If you are in the UK and would like to purchase a copy of the book, please get in touch with Hurst Publishers.

reviews

read what others have to say

“In probing this troubled and quiet past, van Vuuren productively ruptures a comfortable separation between the apartheid era and contemporary South Africa. ‘The current struggle against corruption in South Africa,” he concludes, “is undermined by a basic lack of appreciation of the nature of that corruption and the criminal networks that facilitate it—namely, that they are continuities of a profoundly corrupt system that predates the first democratic election.'”

~Andrew Offenberger, Assistant Professor of History at Miami University

 

“It’s not very often that a book really reshapes our perception of an issue, but Hennie van Vuuren’s “Apartheid, Guns and Money: a tale of profit” is one. It is a massive work: over 600 pages and the result of a decade of meticulous, painstaking work.”

~ Martin Plaut (School of Advanced Study), The Conversation

 

“When secretive evil deeds are covered in darkness they prosper. From apartheid-era asset stripping they have probably mutated and continue to influence our democratic dispensation. This work shines a light, revealing many uncomfortable truths. It provides important lessons on unfinished business and the need for us now more than ever to find pathways to integrity. These are essential elements for achieving social justice.”

~ Thuli Madonsela, Former Public Protector

“Apartheid Guns and Money… is probably the single most important book that has been written about South Africa for the last 20 years.”

~ Professor Achille Mbembe, WiSER, author of ‘On the Postcolony’

“A brilliant urgent account of our history. Go out and get Apartheid Guns and Money…once you start, you won’t stop until the last page.”

~ Redi Thlabi, broadcaster and award-winning author of ‘Endings and Beginnings’ and ‘Khwezi’

“This important book seeks to uncover one of the key secrets of the last decades of the apartheid era, how the National Party government sought to defeat the international arms embargo. It serves as a timely reminder that the founding values of our new Constitution, that government must be accountable, responsive and open, were a rejection of the clandestine and authoritarian apartheid government, and are key to building a democracy that serves the people.”

~ Justice Kate O’Regan, former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and current Director of the Bonavero Institution of Human Rights, Oxford University

 

“By the time you get to the last page of Hennie van Vuuren’s excellent new book, you’ll hopefully understand why South Africans have such little appetite for the past. For, as van Vuuren shows in this passionate and meticulously researched book, ours is an undigested and perhaps indigestible history; that is, we have yet to tuck into the history of endemic corruption and economic crimes at the heart of apartheid and its non-racial successor. But were we to try and take this ugly history in, we would soon discover that it is inedible. This is for the simple reason that its mix of ingredients challenges some of the most comforting stories South Africans have been telling themselves…in Apartheid Guns and Money, van Vuuren and his team of researchers have written a book that, in typical South African fashion, will make for both depressing and hopeful reading: depressing because of the brilliant ways in which the book lays bare the scope and scale of economic crimes at the heart of apartheid (which van Vuuren rightly describes as a criminal economy); hopeful because, as van Vuuren shows so well, the struggle against corruption is indeed a human rights struggle and that, as we know from South Africa’s own history, it can be won. But it must be fought for.”

~ Jacob Dlamini, author of ‘Askari’ and Associate Professor of History at Princeton University

“In this brilliant, revelatory book van Vuuren forensically reveals the systemic corruption of apartheid and the collusion between the state, local and foreign businesses and governments at its core. This dark chapter in our history is essential to understand and progress beyond the current spiral of corruption, collusion and state capture that bedevils our young democracy. It lays bare the roots of the criminality at the heart of our politics and business, explaining how events ranging from the Arms Deal, Marikana and the Gupta phenomenon are possible, perhaps even inevitable. It illustrates that corruption and deceit know no racial, ideological or national boundaries. It argues compellingly that in our fraught country, and world, democracy demands daily struggle.This is a crucial book at a vital time in our history. It is a must read!”

~ Andrew Feinstein, former ANC MP, author of ‘After the Party’ and ‘The Shadow World’, Executive Director of Corruption Watch UK

“A labour of political passion, this admirably well-researched book is a must-read. Its most important achievement is to show that illicit trade does not occur in some parallel realm detached from corporate boardrooms and governments; it is stitched into the fabric of statecraft and the exercise of power.”

~ Jonny Steinberg, author and Professor of African Studies, Oxford University

“R2K salutes the research team of Open Secrets South Africa for their commitment in unearthing the truth. We are very proud to call them comrades! Ongazi Makazi!” 

~ Statement by the Right2Know Campaign

“Apartheid Guns and Money, for my money, should be on the list of prescribed books for high school students in Grades 11 and 12 as well as university students, especially those majoring in political science, economics and forensic investigations.” 

~ Kim Helfrich, DefenceWeb

in the media

Apartheid Guns and Money has garnered significant public and media interest both within and outside of South Africa

België weigert witwasconstructies KBC tijdens apartheid te onderzoeken

Stef Arends |

Orig jaar dienden twee Zuid-Afrikaanse ngo’s klacht in tegen KBC Groep. Die bank voerde grootschalige witwasoperaties uit ten tijde van het apartheidsregime, en zorgde daarmee dat een internationaal wapenembargo decennialang kon worden omzeild. Het OESO-contactpunt voor ethisch internationaal ondernemen weigert de klacht echter in behandeling te nemen. De apartheid zou te lang geleden zijn, en het zou ‘te moeilijk zijn voor KBC om de bewijzen te weerleggen’.

De Zuid-Afrikaanse ngo Open Secrets en het Centre for Applied Legal studies (CALS) van Wits University in Johannesburg, klaagden KBC Groep in april 2018 aan voor het schenden van de OESO-gedragsrichtlijn voor multinationals.

Kredietbank  -  nu KBC  -  waste tussen 1977 en 1994 namelijk miljarden dollars wit voor het Zuid-Afrikaanse apartheidsregime. De overleden Belgische topindustrieel André Vlerick speelde daarin een sleutelrol.

Een systeem van holdingmaatschappijen en honderden anonieme bankrekeningen stelde het regime in staat om overal ter wereld wapens te bestellen, zonder dat de transacties konden worden getraceerd. Zo kon het wapenembargo van de VN Veiligheidsraad omzeild worden.

Read more here

NGOs disappointed with decision not to probe apartheid banks

ENCA | JOHANNESBURG

Two NGO’s say they are disappointed with a decision not to investigate banks for allegedly supporting the apartheid government.

The Center for Applied Legal Studies and Open Secrets submitted a complaint about the role of European banks during apartheid.

Tumelo Matlawa from the centre for applied legal studies says they have evidence that the banks enabled a money-laundering scheme using shell companies to help the apartheid government buy weapons.

“Essentially we work to hold corporations accountable for human rights violations, apartheid is one of the biggest human rights violations in history,” Matlawa.

“We are trying to hold corporations that were complacent in this, benefited from this and profited from this.”

 

Thales, the company which forever sullied the memory of the wise sage of Greece

Greg Nicolson | Daily Maverick

Arms company Thales, accused of bribing former president Jacob Zuma, argued on Tuesday that the charges against it are invalid and must be set aside.

In Apartheid, Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit, Hennie van Vuuren describes the relationship between French arms company Thomson-CSF and the apartheid government. The state needed weapons to maintain white rule and the company was happy to breach international sanctions to turn a profit.

“This long-term relationship with the apartheid regime did not preclude Thomson-CSF from quickly doing business with a democratic government in South Africa,” reads the report from the People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime, which includes some of Van Vuuren’s work with Open Secrets.

In 2005, Judge Hillary Squires found that Thomson-CSF had agreed to pay Jacob Zuma R500,000 a year through proxies to protect the company from investigations into the R2.6-billion contract it won in the multibillion-rand arms deal and promote its business interests in South Africa. Squires convicted Zuma’s former financial adviser Schabir Shaik for corruption for his role as a middleman.

After marathon legal battles, Zuma and the French arms company, now called Thales, were charged in 2018 but are still fighting to avoid trial, with the Pietermaritzburg High Court currently hearing stay-of-prosecution applications from both Zuma and Thales.

Read full article here

Bank at heart of Gambian tyranny

Hennie van Vuuren | Khadija Sharife | Mark Anderson

Yahya Jammeh once said he would rule the Gambia for “one billion years”. His rule proved somewhat shorter — he lost the presidential elections in 2017 after 22 years in power.

Since then, a massive clean-up of Gambian institutions has begun. But the cost of his rule has been dear.
It will be generations before Gambians can fully recover.  His was a dictatorship, in which the currency of power was his alone, but the profiteering was happily assisted by an assortment of nefarious characters.

Through the army, led by General Sulayman Badjie and Jammeh’s own private mercenaries, the Jungulars, he ruled by torturing and imprisoning political opponents and human rights activists, murdering journalists and depriving and dispossessing citizens of their right to exist.

This week, a six-month investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), titled Gambia’s Great Heist, has revealed how, with the aid of people like an alleged Hezbollah financier Mohammed Bazzi, at least $1-billion was siphoned from the country.

But buried within the thousands of documents obtained by the project documenting Jammeh’s 22-year rule lies another integral but hidden roleplayer: Western bankers.

Read more here

Auditor General drawn into Armscor’s R8bn covert-deal battle

Jessica Bezuidenhout | The Daily Maverick | 18 January 2019

An international arms trader, in relentless pursuit of alleged unpaid commission going back to the 1980s, now wants the Auditor General of South Africa to release apartheid-era records to boost his civil claim against the state arms procurement agency in Portugal.

The Auditor General of South Africa faces a High Court application to produce records relating to Armscor’s controversial acquisition of 50 Puma helicopters from a French armaments company more than 30 years ago.

This apartheid-era transaction has haunted the state-owned entity for decades – it is highly contentious, having been billed as an unlawful, sanctions-busting deal by the current Armscor in its fight-back against an R8-billion civil claim in Portugal.

Details of the covert deal are meticulously presented in Apartheid Guns and Money: A tale of Profit, the 2017 book by Open Secrets director, Hennie van Vuuren, whose organisation subsequently exposed alleged efforts to lobby former President Jacob Zuma for political assistance in 2010.

Now, Jorge Pinhol, the Portuguese arms trader who says he facilitated the deal before allegedly being duped out of his commission, wants access to confidential South African government records via the Auditor-General having had no luck with soft approaches for assistance over a two-year period

 

Read the full article here

A message to Armscor: Come clean about apartheid secrets and help save R8bn

A large shipment of 50 ‘Super Puma’ helicopter ‘kits’, sent to South Africa from French arms company Aerospatiale via Portugal, was typical of apartheid-era covert sanctions-busting deals. Now that news has broken that a Portuguese arms trader wants his R8bn commission for the deal, isn’t it about time to free the apartheid archive, open the window into a sordid and criminal past and help dismantle the shadowy networks that facilitate international economic crimes?

Last week news broke that a Portuguese arms trader who helped the apartheid regime violate United Nations weapons sanctions has approached South Africa’s courts as part of his strategy to claim commission on the deal. Jorge Pinhol wants a staggering R8-billion ($600-million) from state-owned arms company Armscor. He claims this is the value of the 10% commission that Armscor allegedly failed to pay him for facilitating a covert deal to procure helicopters for the South African Air Force in the late 1980s.

The application in the Pretoria High Court by Pinhol’s company Beverly Securities Limited (BSL) seeks to compel the Auditor-General to disclose apartheid-era records that Pinhol’s international lawyers allege provide evidence of Armscor’s agreement to pay Pinhol for the illicit deal.

It is just the latest in a range of tactics used by Pinhol’s expensive legal team, funded by billionaire Canadian John Risley.

Read the full article here

How apartheid poisoned the world

Peter Hain | The Spectator | 15 December 2018

Most people would claim to abhor apartheid, but London, Washington, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv were all in on the act.

Around 1970 I was labelled ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ by white South Africa’s newspapers for leading militant anti-apartheid protests which stopped all-white sports tours to Britain. And a year ago when, under parliamentary privilege in the House of Lords, I exposed looting, corruption and money-laundering by former President Zuma and his cronies the Gupta brothers, some jaundiced white South Africans again attacked me — this time for having helped deliver ‘corrupt black majority rule’.
They should read Hennie van Vuuren’s fine book, which tellingly concludes:

The current struggle against [Jacob Zuma-inspired] corruption in South Africa is undermined by a basic lack of appreciation of the nature of that corruption and the criminal networks that facilitate it — namely, that they are continuities of a profoundly corrupt system that predates the first democratic election [of Mandela].

In other words, Zuma and friends merely continued where the apartheid state had left off.

Van Vuuren’s monumental work is a gripping story of conspiracy, assassination, bribery and two-faced global dishonesty from London to Washington, from Paris to Pretoria, from Moscow to Beijing, from Buenos Aires to Tel Aviv.

Read more.

SABC News – Morning Live

graphics

this book is accompanied by a series of graphics, the treasure maps that help explain much of the content of the book. they were designed by Gaelen Pinnock of Scarlet Studios. kindly attribute the publication if posted elsewhere.

taking action

we believe in research that leads to action. our investigations are therefore closely linked to our law and advocacy work, so that we can hold private sector actors and institutions accountable for the economic crimes we uncover.