Spy scandal spotlights Simonstown strategy

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South African forces have raided Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, and Mozambique THE ARREST in January of a senior South African military official, Dieter Gerhardt, could have repercussions reaching to the British and American governments, which are involved in secret naval plans about the strategic Simonstown base.

Gerhardt is being held under the Internal Security Act, and is alleged to have leaked top secret information to the Soviet Union in exchange for sums of money totalling R250,000 (approx. £160,000).

As head of South Africa's largest naval repair and construction facility - the former British base of Simonstown. - Gerhardt had access to highly sensitive military information, including details of the recent stem-to-stern refitting of South African submarines, and maritime defences.

But Gerhardt's high-flying career in the trusted circles of the South African military establishment had also given him access to secret information on the army and airforce.

•And while he awaits trial, a top-level review of plans, projects and security measures has begun, with scrutiny extending beyond Simonstown to Defence HQ itself.

According to the Rand Daily Mail, among the things affected could be:

•• Detailed contingency plans covering everything nlano anunnina nunmithina from an Indian Ocean crisis and the arrival of a Western task force to an attempted invasion of S.Africa;

• Plans for large-scale national or regional mobilisation;

• Ton secret parles and cyphers;

• South Africa's preparedness programme in -of a nuclear conflict;

• Weapons projects, which could range from the manufacture of shipkilling rockets to the development of nuclear devices, if any of the latter are envisaged; . • Joint weapons-development ventures with overseas countries, if any;

• Secret 'understandings' , if any, with other countries There plainly are many, potentially embarrassing. "secret understandings', while the reference to nuclear weapons again tends to confirm that South Africa now has its own.

The apartheid _govern: ment has repeatedly urged the imperialist powers to use Simonstown and develop it as an answer to 'Soviet naval expansion'. The dockyard is seen as a keystone in the proposed South Atlantic Treaty Organisation, projected (before the Malvinas war) to embrace South Africa. and the military juntas in Argentina and Chile, with the active involvement of Britain and the USA.

The Pretoria government is thus seen as a lynchpin of imperialist strategy to contain the Soviet Union, as well as a policeman over the exploited masses of black Africa.

It is for this reason that Ronald Reagan's government has sought and secured an agreement tor the installation of US Cruise missiles in Shuth Africa #AAN tILAWW LLA TrAnAr • DATTTTT The missiles' range of 1,600 miles threatens targets far into black Africa. This makes it an academic question whether or not the apartheid rulers have stocks of nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the past year has seen a marked escalation of South African efforts to destabilise the nationalist regimes of Angola, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

In a series of incidents:

• 3 white South African soldiers were shot dead on an 'unauthorised' mission in Zimbabwe.

• Seized documents revealed SA backing for the so-called 'Mozambiqu National Resistance Move ment' • S.Africa was accusec of assisting forces of the 'Lesotho Liberation Army' attacking rural targets.

• Leading ANC member Ruth First was assassinated by a parcel bomb in Maputo • A car bomb in Swaziland killed another ANC leader, while in Lesotho a man caught planting a car bomb admitted being trained by South Africa.

• South African troops raided Lesotho, killing 42 men, women and children.

• Two major incursions and over 130 raids by S.A. troops into Angola as part of the war against SWAPO guerillas fighting for the liberation of Namibia.

• A S.African raid into Mozambique.

Behind these bare, summary facts lies a daily escalating war on four fronts being waged by the Pretoria government with the objective of keeping Southern Africa under the firm and exploitative grip of

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by HE Sloan