White In Mozambique, But Did He Assassinate Palme?

[Stephen B. Kennedy-IV]

01 Oct 96

White In Mozambique, But Did He Assassinate Palme?

From Paul Fauvet; PANA Correspondent

MAPUTO, Mozambique (PANA) - The man named by a South African police
defector Dirk Coetzee as the assassin of Swedish Prime Minister Olof
Palme is living in Beira and working for a company called Transport
Commodity Trading (TCT).

Anthony James White's presence in Beira is far from clandestine: in
1994 he was among representatives of timber companies who protested
loudly at attempts by the former rebel movement, Renamo, to extort
money from businesses working in hardwood forests under Renamo
control.

Tuesday's issue of the independent newsheet, Mediafax, cites
anonymous South African sources as saying that White was involved in
contraband operations in the 1980s, and was linked to both the South
African and the Mozambican security services.

The paper says that its sources seemed afraid of White. The sources
contated by the well-informed Mediafax in Beira and in Pretoria
warned:"Be careful with him".

The notorious South African spy Craig Williamson, whom the apartheid
regime boasted infiltrated the upper echelons of the liberation
movement, the ANC, admits that he worked with White in a company
called "Longreach".

But the word "Longreach" seems to have very sinister connotations.
For Coetzee, and his successor at the head of the South African
police Vlakplaas death squad, Eugene de Kock, what really existed
was "Operation Longreach", a plan to assassinate the outspokenly
anti-apartheid Swedish Premier (and perhaps other foreign leaders
too - less than eight months after Palme's death in February 1986,
Mozambican President Samora Machel died in a mysterious plane crash
on South African soil).

Mediafax writes that Williamson had a "dual relationship" with
Mozambique. He claimed to have acted as a channel between the
Mozambican and South African governments in the late 1980s, but also
had a business link with TCT, widely viewed as a company set up by
the now defunct Mozambican Security Service, SNASP.

Former Security Minister Mariano Matsinhe, however, denied
Williamson's boast. He told Mediafax that he never needed to use a
lower level figure like Williamson when he could go directly to much
higher figures in the apartheid military apparatus.

"I had a direct channel with the South African army", he said. 'I
didn't need any liaison officer. My contact was Gen (Jannie)
Geldenhuis".

Matsinhe claimed that he knew Willimason through TCT, and believed
that he was also involved in the Mozambican fisheries sector.
(Williamson has cofirmed to the Swedish paper, Aftonbladet, that he
had interests in lobster fishing south of Beira).

Asked whether he knew White, Matsinhe said "there's a White in
Beira. I think he's managing a sector of TCT". He is. White runs a
TCT sawmill on the outskirts of Beira.

Matsinhe denied that TCT was a company run by Mozambican security.
But he admitted it was set up by Filipe Franco, a Mozambican with
known security links.

Matsinhe said he believed that Franco is currently in Angola. That
is also where Williamson is.

Apart from its Beira operations, TCT also has an office in Maputo.
On Monday it was locked up with no sign of life.
The Mozzambique news agency, AIM, has been unable to contact TCT in
Beira, because many of Beira's phone numbers still have no contact
with Maputo following the collapse of the telecommunication
company's parabolic antenna at the Beira earth station in
mid-September.

But the French news agency, AFP, managed to speak to White from
Harare: He categorically denied any involvement in the Palme
assassination.

Apparently de Kock, who started the latest round of investigations
into the Palme murder by naming Williamson as the man who
masterminded it, does not agree with Coetzee that it was White who
pulled the trigger.

In the daily Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, of Monday, another
South African death squad member, Peter Casselton, said he had
spoken personally with de Kock in prison on Sunday, and de Kock
excluded White from operation Longreach.

He did, however, link White and Williamson in the smuggling of 84
tonnes of ivory from Burundi in the early 1980s, and in the
trafficking of rhinoceros horns in South Africa itself.

Meanwhile, it seems that the Swedish authorities themselves are not
taking Coetzee's denunciation seriously enough to press the
Mozambican government into taking any action. As of Monday afternoon
there had been no official Swedish contact with the office of the
Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi.

[Nicholas Hill]

In an interview on SABC 3, Thursday 04 October 1996, White deined any
involvement in the asassination of Olof Palme. He also claimed that he
had, until recently, heard nothing about the alleged South African
involvement in the murder of this staunch apatrheid opponent.

Moreover, White offered to travel and testify in Sweden or South Africa,
should he be requested to do so. He also agreed to co-operate with the
Mozamibe Authorities.

He complained, bitterly, that he and the staff of the saw mill that he
operates, were being restricted, by the media attention, in carrying out
their work.

How much of this the public believes, is unsure.

As a Swede who has grown up in South Africa, I have to admit that the
recent revelations have shaken me, terribly. Anyone who has ever met a
Swede will know how close this issue has been to their hearts. To think
that South Africa had any involvement in this all had never, ever occured
to anyone.

However, even I, a 23 year old office worker, knows far to well what the
former South African regime was capable of. I do not beleive that it is
much of a secret that a theory exists concerning the the aircraft crash
that took the life of Samora Machel. I have heard it reported that the
South African intelligence services constructed a dummy runway and
installed a small radio transmitter that made the pilot of the ill-fated
plane believe that he was landing at a bona fide runway, some kilometres
away.

Having spoken with relatives in Sweden, and having read up as much as I
could have possibly done, concerning the death of the dearly loved Palme, I
have been led to beleive that the Swedish authorities do not, as yet,
regard the allegations concerning the ZA involvement in this terrible act
as concrete enough to follow this as a serious lead.

I do not claim to understand how certain country's intelligence services
work. In fact, I know bugger all about such things. I live a really
normal and mundane urban life. However, having travelled to Sweden
regularly (I also read towards part of my degree there, living in Lund for
2 years) I do know that the Swedish government and the police, especially,
are somewhat of a joke.

Don't get me wrong, I love my country. But Sweden lacks passion - in that
nothing goes wrong, ever. What experience does Söps (Swedish Police Force)
having in dealing with matters of this nature ? It is no secret that this
case has remained unsolved for more than ten years. A multitude of
theories have been put forward. Suspects rounded up ...

I just wish that they would somehow clear this matter up and that the truth
be revealed. I sincerely hope that South Africa had nothing to do with the
case, at all, as I am growing increasingly embarrassed to refer to myself
as a proud citizen of this remarkable country.

Nicholas Svennson Hill

Stephen B. Kennedy-IV <sbke...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<52srji$2...@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>...

ETC ....