FBIS4-23425
"drafr108_c_94011"
FBIS-AFR-94-108
Daily Report
5 Jun 1994
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
Failed Attempt To Assassinate Mandela Reported
Failed Attempt To Assassinate Mandela Reported
MB0506091894 Johannesburg CITY PRESS in English 5 Jun 94 pp
1-2
MB0506091894
Johannesburg CITY PRESS
English
BFN
["Exclusive" report by Elias Maluleke]
[Text] CITY PRESS can today reveal how a rightwing plot
using German neo-Nazi mercenaries to assassinate President
Nelson Mandela at his inauguration ceremony at the Union
Buildings in Pretoria was thwarted. A shoot-out between three
heavily armed German nationals and police near Pretoria in March
led to the dismantling of the plot to bring thousands of
neo-Nazi mercenaries into South Africa to kill Mandela and turn
the country into a bloodbath.
An estimated 2,500 of these mercenaries, who are paid 1,000
German marks (about 2,200) a week, are still in South Africa.
The assassination was to have been carried out with mortar
bombs fired from a hilltop near the Union Buildings and from the
south side of the building from a hill near the University of
South Africa while Mandela addressed the nation. Local
rightwingers and the German neo-Nazis also planned to set off a
powerful 500kg car-bomb in the Pretoria city centre and another
at Jan Smuts Airport on that day.
CITY PRESS was this week able to piece together the aborted
plot -- which has been kept under wraps by the authorities.
Police spokesman Captain Dave Harrington, however, confirmed
that police knew of the planned assassination but said it could
not be substantiated at the time. Harrington said police also
had information that rightwingers "with bombs" had been spotted
hiding in bushes on the hilltop near the Union Buildings on the
day of the President's inauguration -- but a police search
failed to find them.
The plot might very well have succeeded but for two things:
-- The revelation of heavily-armed German nationals in South
Africa after a shootout between two young police constables east
of Pretoria and three men in a car led to the wounding of both
constables, Juan van Schalkwyk and Danie Pretorius, and the
death of one of the mercenaries.
-- Women aligned to rightwingers involved in the plot
informed a SADF [South African Defense Force] Commando Unit,
which passed the information on to Military Intelligence and the
police.
The informants are also believed to have supplied the names
of rightwingers who were allegedly involved in the bomb blasts
that rocked the Reef shortly before the elections. It was this
information that led to the joint police and military forces
swoop on the bomb suspects, CITY PRESS was informed.
The three Germans involved in the shootout last March had
been keeping a low profile in Tierpoort when the two young
constables followed them. The three were travelling in a white
Opel Record car -- later found to be registered in a dead man's
name. They led the constables into a trap and opened fire on
them with AK-47s. The policemen's lives were saved by
bullet-proof vests but both were wounded, one seriously.
The body of the one of the Germans, Thomas Franz Kunst (32),
was later found in the bush with nightsight binoculars, an AK-47
with a silencer and 200 AK-47 rounds strapped to his body. Two
hours later a second German, Stephan Rays (26), was arrested in
the bush. Later a third suspect, Horst Klenz (57), was
arrested. Klenz, also known as Heinrich Siems and Kluger, is
wanted in Namibia in connection with the murders in 1989 of a
policeman and a security guard -- who were killed in a bomb
blast during the assisted escape of rightwingers Leonard
Veenendal and Darryl Stopforth from a Namibian prison.
CITY PRESS learned that after the information was received
from "women", police and military forces blockaded part of
Donkerhoek in Pretoria East last month, arrested several members
of the AWB [Afrikaner Resistance Movement] and other rightwing
groups in connection with the bomb blasts and recovered an arms
cache.
The police also raided a "safe house" used by German
neo-Nazis where they found a large quantity of arms and
explosives and documents relating to terror attacks.
Some of the would-be assassins are believed to have used the
Donkerhoek premises of Radio Pretoria for meetings. The radio
station interviewed two of the neo-Nazis and described them as
"patriotic" foreigners who were risking their lives for the
"volk" [Afrikaners].