Mordet på Olof Palme - 28 februari 1986

The misdeeds of the right wing in South Africa are shrouded in mystery. To be certain, there was a small cabal of men in the right wing who committed crimes against blacks in the name of fighting communism. During the apartheid era, right-wing misadventures ranged from the alleged theft of nuclear weapons to the torture and killing of Marxist ANC activist Stephen Biko.
The disclosure of one of those right-wing crimes occurred when Gen. Christoffel van der Westhuizen, the former chief of South Africa's military intelligence branch, stood trial before the TRC for ordering the execution of a black campaigner against apartheid.

Nyameka Goniwe, the widow of the man van der Westhuizen had ordered to be killed, spoke of finding her husband's scorched body lying on a bleak prairie. At a break in the TRC proceedings, van der Westhuizen approached Ms. Goniwe and said, "Don't blame me for what happened."

"I understand," she replied to the general. "But where was your heart?"

Matthew Goniwe was 38 years old when he died. He was a point man for the United Democratic Front, the legal arm of the African National Congress. As part of its operations to discredit and harass Goniwe, he was fired from his job teaching mathematics and jailed for three years. The South African army even sent helicopters equipped with loudspeakers into the townships where Goniwe lived to broadcast propaganda messages against him.

The testimony of van der Westhuizen before the TRC was groundbreaking. It provided the first evidence that there existed under the apartheid government a covert military unit tasked with the termination of anti-apartheid activists. Goniwe's case clearly demonstrated that the chain of command for terminations went from the cabinet-level State Security Council of the ruling apartheid government down through the generals and finally to their officially-sanctioned secret hit squads.

Termination with extreme prejudice

Wider reaching yet were the assassinations of more than 200 anti-apartheid activists overseas by the shadowy Civil Cooperation Bureau, or CCB. Operating with a global reach, the CCB set up front companies in Western Europe to beat U.N. anti-apartheid sanctions -- even managing to import sensitive materials needed to build several atomic bombs. Assassination, however, was what it did best.


Nelson and Winnie Mandela alongside KGB colonel and then-South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo, giving communist salute in front of Soviet flag.

One particular assassination of note is subject to great debate even now. On the day Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa in 1994, Sweden sent a team of intelligence experts to gather evidence of what they believe was the murder of Prime Minister Olaf Palme by the Civil Cooperation Bureau. The man accused of killing Palme on Feb. 28, 1986, is a Swedish man named Christer Pettersson. Pettersson was identified at the scene of the murder by Palme's wife Lisbet -- who claimed he shot her husband. Pettersson, now 50 years old, was convicted of murder in 1989. Four months later, however, Pettersson was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Strangely, Pettersson was the victim of an assassination attempt himself last year.


A Stockholm police spokesman contacted by WorldNetDaily said, "Christer Pettersson was attacked by a man aged about 35 and under the influence of alcohol. The attacker stabbed Mr. Pettersson multiple times with a knife. He was suffering from heavy hemorrhaging after suffering several stab wounds to the chest. As far as I know, he was admitted to the hospital and was in serious condition. Yet he survived."

"This is the classic CCB method of assassination -- recruiting a committed foreigner to carry out the termination, then either kill off or jail or discredit the recruited assassin," said Garth Volk, a South African policeman with the intelligence branch.

"No one is putting together all the pieces. First, Olaf Palme, a top European ANC supporter, was murdered. Second, the links to the European Union elite and the ANC are very old and very strong. Third, how could Pettersson have been identified at the scene by Palme's wife, convicted in court and then acquitted? Fourth, why did the Swedish intelligence people come to South Africa on the day Mandela was inaugurated to conduct further investigation? Fifth, why has Pettersson been the victim of a murder attempt on his life? ... The CCB allowed too much circumstantial evidence to surface and one day some brave soul will put all the pieces together."