FBIS4-46340 "jptot024__l94017"
JPRS-TOT-94-024-L JPRS Terrorism
FOUO 05 June 1994 AFRICA SOUTH AFRICA

Paper Reports Failed Attempt To Assassinate Mandela

Paper Reports Failed Attempt To Assassinate Mandela MB0506091894 Johannesburg CITY PRESS in English 05 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].