Magnus Malan: Another chapter in apartheid’s vile history
Magnus Malan, the ultimate verkrampte, is back from the dead and worse than ever
General Magnus Malan was a trusted ally of PW Botha — apartheid’s "Groot Krokodil".As defence minister in the 1980s he was overlord of a huge war machine that invaded neighbouring states and patrolled the townships in a bid to keep the teetering system of racial discrimination alive.It was a corrupt empire of dodgy front companies, cross-border hits on houses suspected of being ANC accommodation, hit squads and men in white coats developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.At one point the drug Mandrax was manufactured and distributed so Malan’s agents could infiltrate the underworld. The line between legality and illegality was blurred, to put it mildly.Malan was a staunch opponent of change — a verkrampte, to use the language of the time — and, legend has it, confronted FW de Klerk with "What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" when De Klerk told members of his cabinet that he was about to unban the ANC and release Nelson Mandela from prison.Malan died in 2007 and was the...
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