You probably want to laugh at the Doctor Evil-themed picture of Craig Williamson that you see above, but that smile will be gone when you read about the details of the man dubbed the apartheid regime’s “super spy”.

Whilst many of the atrocities committed by Craig have been known for quite some time, a new book by Jonathan Ancer, Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson, brings this controversial figure into the limelight once again.

He certainly deserves the title, somehow managing to infiltrate the likes of the “National Union of South African Students [Nusas], the International University Exchange Fund in Geneva, the ANC in exile and even, according to his handler Johan Coetzee, the KGB”.

The Sunday Times reports:

For many of the anti-apartheid activists he had worked with, Williamson’s unveiling was a shocking betrayal. For others it came as a less of a surprise. Within Nusas there had always been those who found something a bit off about the former St John’s boy who had been in the police before he joined the student movement. He claimed that this was simply a convenient means to avoid military service and, if anything, had shown him the brutality of the system and turned him against it.

While the information that Williamson gave to his handlers about the student movement and the ANC led to arrests, detention and torture, it was for what he did after his cover was blown by The Guardian in 1980 that he applied for amnesty to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In 1982 he orchestrated the bombing of the ANC’s headquarters in London. In 1982 he sent the letter bomb that killed Ruth First [above right] in Maputo. In 1984 he sent a similar bomb that killed Jeanette Schoon and her six-year-old-daughter, Katryn, in their flat in Lubango, Angola. Her two-year-old son Fritz narrowly escaped injury but was forever traumatised by the events, as was her husband Marius, who spent the rest of his life searching for justice for the deaths of his wife and daughter.

Williamson said he was upset by the death of Katryn but, within the context of the war he fought against the ANC as a soldier, Schoon and First were legitimate targets for assassination.

Ancer’s book paints a picture of someone who was unpopular right from his school days, yet somehow managed to infiltrate and do much harm to the ANC liberation struggle during the 1980s in particular.

An old Mail & Guardian story with what happened post-apartheid:

Williamson, who was a senior security force officer, was given amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for his role in ordering and organising the assassination.

He was also pardoned for his involvement in a string of other attempted and successful political murders, including the letter bomb that killed Ruth First and the bomb that blew off the forearm of Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs.

The amnesty meant that Williamson could not be prosecuted or sued for his crimes.

One might forgive, but one should also never forget.

[sources:sundaytimes&mg]