A grim, remorseless confession
IN CRADOCK, a red and white Volkswagen Kombi filled with union members came to a stop at a police roadblock. Back in 1981 such roadblocks were routine, but what the delegation of National Automobile and Allied Workers Union members didn’t know as the police rummaged through their belongings was that there had been a tip-off.
That lead had come from their own, and it was part of a bizarre operation. Before the Kombi had left Port Elizabeth, to attend a congress in Harare, Zimbabwe, police security branch members had poured marijuana through air vents into the engine compartment. They had orders that the vehicle was not to make it to Harare. The plan was to phone ahead to a local police station, get the vehicle pulled over and get the occupants arrested for transporting a hallucinogenic. It didn’t work out like that.
The local police in Cradock failed to notice the strong smell of marijuana percolating from the engine compartment. In a panic, a call was placed to the commander of the C1 counter intelligence unit, Captain Dirk Coetzee. The world would later know
