While researching Apartheid Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit, Open Secrets collected approximately 40,000 archival documents from 25 archives in seven countries containing damning details of the individuals and corporations that propped up apartheid and profited in return. Many of these documents were kept secret until now, and most remain hidden despite South Africa’s transition to democracy. In line with our belief that this information should be available to be scrutinised by the public, we released this series of articles on Daily Maverick and News24 which looked at the documents that informed the book.
declassified:
apartheid profits
1. Who funded the National Party?
In the first article of the series, we look at a few of the corporations that bankrolled the National Party.
In this article we zoom in on Naspers – the media giant whose top management described it as the “tap root of the National Party”
3. The Sanction Busters' Toolkit
Here we unpack some of the ways that the private sector colluded with the apartheid government to bust sanctions.
4. Nuclear bunkers and Swiss bankers
In this piece, we outline the complicity of Swiss banks with the apartheid regime.
5. André Vlerick, banker and bigot
Here we profile the Belgian banker, André Vlerick, who was central to Pretoria’s relationship with one of its staunchest arms sanctions busting allies: Kredietbank.
Here we take a look at the apartheid-era global money-laundering system managed by Kredietbank Luxembourg.
7. Pretoria’s beehive in Paris
Here we reveal Armscor’s secret sanctions-busting office in Paris, and the close relationship between French and apartheid military intelligence.
8. Who killed Dulcie September?
In this article we ask, who killed anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September, and why?
9. Behind the Iron Curtain
In this instalment we take a look behind the Iron Curtain and discover that during the Cold War, all was not as it seemed.
Here we take a look at how a former United States senator sought to become a paid apartheid propagandist.
11. American guns
Here we take a look at the shadowy world of illegal arms dealing between the US and apartheid South Africa.
12. Tiny Rowland, a very British spy?
We turn to British businessman Tiny Rowland, and another of Pretoria’s international allies: Margaret Thatcher’s United Kingdom.
13. Le Cercle, the phantom profiteers
We examine British imperialist and insider Julian Amery, and the secretive network he led that supported apartheid South Africa.
In this article we reveal an uncomfortable truth about the People’s Republic of China’s support for the apartheid government.
15. Singapore – Pretoria’s gateway to Asia
We unpack the diplomatic and military intelligence links between the apartheid regime and Singapore.
16. German U-boats
In this article we explore the military and intelligence ties between South Africa and West Germany, both during and after apartheid.
17. The triple coup
We reveal a bizarre plan hatched in the 1980s by the South African and Argentinian militaries to engineer a trio of coup d’états.
Here we take a look at the close friendship between Augusto Pinochet’s brutal regime in Chile and apartheid South Africa.
19. Ties to Tel Aviv
In this article, we explore the close ties between the highly militarised pariah states of Israel and apartheid South Africa.
20. A president, a billionaire, and the bounty hunters
In this final piece of the series, we show how a group of individuals have continued to seek to profit today from the crimes of the past.
