The Lost Boys of Bird Island: A shocking exposé from within the heart of the NP government

by Mark Minnie

  After composing himself somewhat, he admitted to me that he had been ‘a great friend’ of Wiley’s, that he had travelled to Bird Island ‘where Wiley was doing experiments’, and that he had met Allen. Malan went on to volunteer the fact that he had been asked about Allen’s paedophilia by someone once before. He said that his response had been, ‘What is a paedophile?’ And that was the end of the discussion.

  About a year before my interview with Malan, a former police detective had told me that it should have come as no surprise that Wiley’s death was never properly investigated. According to him, a well-known and highly controversial senior police officer – who later advanced to within an inch of the commissioner’s chair, but eventually retired with the rank of lieutenant general – had also been a visitor to Bird Island.

  Contributing to the success of the cover-up was the fact that some of the original state documents and files on the case were apparently among the countless papers deliberately destroyed in the run-up to the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Many of those precious historical records were incinerated in Iscor’s furnaces in Pretoria on the orders of General Johan le Roux, the chief of the Security Branch. This probably meant that any high-profile island trippers who were still alive were not lying awake at night trembling in fear of exposure.

  Once again, the case went cold.

  Then Malan died in 2011, and my memories of the case came flooding back. I was no longer working as a journalist, but I could not help hoping that another reporter had established the whole truth – and would report it. But that did not happen.

  However, Chris Barron did allude to the case in his obituary on Malan, published in the Sunday Times on 24 July 2011. The obit was headlined ‘Vile, venal enemy of the people’ and carried this subhead: ‘Magnus Malan was a scowling bully who treated the armed forces as his fiefdom.’ The obit read:

  Magnus Malan, who has died in Cape Town at the age of 81, was for 10 years arguably the most powerful man in South Africa.

  PW Botha might have been the president, but Malan was the man he listened to.

  Malan, who was Botha’s most trusted general before becoming his defence minister in 1980, told him that South Africa faced a ‘total onslaught’. Borrowing heavily from books he had read and passed on to Botha about the British experience in Malaya and the French experience in Algeria, Malan told him the only response that stood a chance against this was a ‘total national strategy’.

  This involved handing power over every facet of life in the country – social, political and economic – to the military. This power was exercised through the National Security Management System, which brought policing, intelligence and civic affairs under the control of Malan’s generals and later the State Security Council, which incorporated a few cabinet ministers whom the generals listened to when it suited them.

  The State Security Council generally met just before meetings of the cabinet. There was never any doubt about who called the shots. It was not those in the cabinet room. The power relationship was amply demonstrated when the SADF launched its murderous raids on ANC bases in neighbouring states. Minister of foreign affairs Pik Botha was often informed, if not after the fact, then too late for him to object.

  Malan, wrote Barron, was contemptuous when Pik Botha discovered that the SADF was continuing to support the Mozambican rebel group Renamo in defiance of the peace treaty South Africa signed with Samora Machel in 1984:

  Supposedly central to Malan’s total strategy was winning the hearts and minds of the black population, something only the military could do, he believed. Ideally, this involved building houses, schools and hospitals. The revolution was about ‘getting a roof over your head, having food to eat, having education for your children, having a job to do and medical services’, he said.

  But when the townships went up in flames, it was Malan who sent in the army, with guns rather than spades and trowels. And it was Malan who had set up the CCB, a secret SADF hit squad, and among the assassinations he had authorised were those of University of Witwatersrand academic David Webster and Namibian lawyer Anton Lubowski. The obit continues:

  He also authorised Project Coast, which involved giving Dr Wouter Basson hundreds of millions of Rands to develop a chemical and biological warfare capacity. Drugs were tested on Swapo [South West African People’s Organisation] captives, who were then dropped into the Atlantic from army helicopters.

  Malan’s real power, said Barron, was his control of a seemingly bottomless secret SADF account, which cost the taxpayer between R4 billion and R10 billion a year:

  Parliament had no oversight over how it was spent. Indeed, parliament, and the governing party itself, had little knowledge and less control over anything that Malan and his ‘securocrats’ got up to. In the name of ‘total strategy’, he presided over a system of corruption on a truly epic scale. By the time the auditor-general was granted access to the relevant documents in 1991, most of them had been shredded. How much was stolen, by whom and where it ended up will probably never be known.

  The Attorney General found that, between 1988 and 1990 alone, R12.5 million had been spent on unauthorised CCB projects, much of it doled out to agents in great wads of cash to do with as they pleased. But Malan didn’t stop spending:

  Even after FW de Klerk supposedly shut down the CCB in 1990, Malan continued making unauthorised payments to operatives, R9 million, for example, in just one three-month period.

  After the 1977 arms embargo, Malan boosted the capacity of domestic arms manufacturer Armscor with money from his secret fund. By 1985, it was South Africa’s largest exporter of manufactured goods. It used 1 500 private-sector subcontractors, making fortunes for favoured businesses and individuals. Untold billions from the secret fund were spent on South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme.

  Hundreds of millions from the fund had gone into training and arming Inkatha hit squads to kill those aligned to the ANC and the United Democratic Front.

  In 1995, Malan and 19 of his generals2 were charged with the 1987 massacre of 13 people in the KwaZulu-Natal township of KwaMakhutha by these hit squads. The high court ruled that the prosecution had not proven a link between the killings and Malan and his generals.

  Barron went on to describe how Malan

  regarded the resources of the SADF as his to dispose of as and when he liked. He arranged for a Puma helicopter to pick him and his sons up and fly them to Namibia for a spot of hunting.

  He had also used military helicopters and other equipment to go on fishing trips with fellow cabinet minister John Wiley and a mutual business friend, Dave Allen, to Bird Island near Port Elizabeth.

  Two coloured boys were said to have been sexually assaulted on one of these trips. In 1987, Allen was arrested for paedophilia and committed suicide. Wiley shot himself soon after.

  Malan found his star waning when PW Botha resigned in 1989. In 1990, FW De Klerk packed Malan off to the Department of Water Affairs, where he sank without trace, emerging in 1993 only long enough to accept De Klerk’s suggestion that he resign rather than be fired:

  He [Malan] regarded De Klerk with contempt. The feeling was mutual.

  Malan, who died of a heart attack, is survived by his wife, Margot, two sons and a daughter.

  The reference in Barron’s obituary to Malan going on trips to Bird Island so incensed an intelligence agent and retired SADF colonel by the name of Maritz Spaarwater that he wrote a lengthy – and impassioned defence – of Malan. In a letter to the editor, Spaarwater, who later authored a book titled A Spook’s Progress, stated:

  . . . I would never have thought that Chris Barron, whose incisive interviews in your newspaper I try never to miss, would be capable of producing such an ill-considered, dishonest and vindictive article, for whatever reason overflowing with his personal resentment and vitriol, and that in an apparent obituary.

  The most unspeakable of Barron’s innuendo is to my mind his scandalously gratuitous attempt to associate Malan with t
he alleged paedophilia of John Wiley and Dave Allen. Is dubious journalistic ethics the sole prerogative of News of the World reporters? I and many other life-long readers of the Sunday Times will find you seriously amiss if you do not publish an apology or preferably a retraction of Barron’s truly despicable article.

  The piece was signed ‘Maritz Spaarwater, Col (retd) SADF’. A shortened version of his letter was published by the Sunday Times on 31 July.

  Once again it looked like the proverbial can of worms had been opened. But no exposures followed. Nothing – until 2016, when the publisher of this book located me while I was in Hong Kong and shared the news that the investigating officer in the Allen case had decided to write his story.

  This was something that I had never expected. By then I had mentally archived the Wiley story in the drawer containing the unfortunately unfinished reports that many journalists have to live with. Stories like those have a way of lingering in one’s journalistic subconscious, prodding it ever so often with questions about how much more one could or should have done to ensure justice for victims. In the case of the Wiley story, I always felt that I could have done more.

  The news that the cop had a story to tell gave me a second chance to explore my own unfinished story. I was inspired to start asking questions again, and to look at it with fresh eyes. Most of all, I wanted to obtain further corroboration of the identities of the ministers who had visited Bird Island together.

  In the process, I managed to trace a couple of people who were able to recall some of the flight arrangements for certain cabinet ministers travelling to Bird Island. In October 2017, one of these individuals wrote to me as follows.

  In early 1986, a tasking was received by 16 Sqn Command Post from Air Force Command Post at HQ (Pretoria) to ferry three (3) VIP passengers to Bird Island by PUMA helicopter. The movement of any VIP could only be authorised by the said AF Command Post. Normal State Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) require a VIP protection team to collect such passengers from the civilian side of an airport, move them by vehicle to the AFB/Squadron HQ where they would embark the helicopter(s) and be ferried to wherever the mission tasking had dictated.

  On that particular day, the tasking specified to position the helicopter at the commercial airport at PE, land on the said flight-line in close proximity to the incoming SAA flight and collect the VIP passengers. As this request would expose the transfer of the VIP party to scrutiny during a sensitive political period, the aircraft commander protested but was briefed to comply as the instruction had been issued by the VIP party.

  The VIP passengers arrived by commercial flight from Johannesburg and the helicopter landed next to the SAA Boeing. The 3 VIPs who hurried to the helicopter were MM, JW and [a Third Minister]3. They each carried their hand luggage and fishing rods with them. They were ferried across to Bird Island and the Puma returned to base. The said VIP party were picked up again five days later.

  Some months earlier, in March 2017, I had tried to find out whether the names of passengers to Bird Island had been recorded on South African Air Force (SAFF) flight logs. An individual who made inquiries on my behalf wrote back to inform me that ‘all instructions communicated via SAAF HQ would only state something to the effect of: “Passengers, VIP x 5”. The name lists of such passengers would be kept by SAAF HQ.’

  When I asked whether the logs could be obtained from SAAF HQ, I got this reply: ‘… [he] very much doubted it as the entire filing system within SAAF – in so far as record keeping is concerned – has collapsed.’ As to whether any civilians – in particular, youths – were also flown to Bird Island by SAAF, I was told that no non-military or non-government person was flown there by military helicopter.

  It was pointed out to me that military aircraft were not the only helicopters flown to the island in those years. Helicopters belonging to a private company – contracted by the Department of Sea Fisheries – were used to fly out crew and technicians every six weeks to service lighthouses along the coast.

  In addition, a former close friend of Allen’s, who did not want to be named, told me that apart from the SAAF aircraft and choppers hired by Sea Fisheries, Allen had also used private aircraft. ‘Dave used other private choppers. Dave used helicopters a lot,’ he said.

  I was told that the other mode of travel to Bird Island was by boat, and that at least one of the boats used for trips to the island – and to transport civilians there – belonged to Allen. ‘It was approximately 6 metres long, had powerful twin outboard motors. It was fully seaworthy, equipped and licensed to conduct salvage and sea-rescue operations,’ a source recalled.

  A former business associate of Allen also confirmed the names of the cabinet ministers who visited the island. The first such visit he was aware of was a fishing trip organised in 1984. Malan and Wiley as well as two other politicians were present. The business associate himself was also there, and told me that the expedition had been nothing more than a fishing trip.

  However, he did recall that a second ‘fishing trip’ – which he himself did not go on – was then organised. He told me that Malan, Wiley and the Third Minister went on that jaunt. He further recalled that Malan had gone out to the island more than once after that. But he was unable to provide details about the other trips as he was operating from Johannesburg at the time.

  During an off-the-record meeting in 2017, someone who spoke to me in passionate defence of Wiley – whom I shall refer to as ‘Mr X’ – insisted that Wiley was on Bird Island only three times. He told me that on two of those trips a close family member was invited along, but could not go. Mr X claimed that Wiley would not have asked a family member to accompany him if he was going to be doing anything untoward on the island. He also told me that on two of the occasions Wiley was flown there in a private helicopter by a company involved in the guano business.

  Mr X said Malan had heard that fishing off the island was fantastic, and a military Puma helicopter was used to ferry them to the island. But, according to this source, that trip led to a big falling-out between Wiley – a keen rod fisherman – and Malan, who caught a shark and had a trophy photograph taken. Mr X said Wiley was so horrified that he passed a regulation to ban great white shark hunting. That led to a rift with Malan. According to Mr X, Wiley did not have a good relationship with Malan at the time of his death. Adding to the tension between them, he said, was the fact that, Malan – a conservative – was not in favour of opening up the country.

  This man insisted that what had been written about Wiley was so at odds with what his family knew of him, so left-field, that it was beyond comprehension – and that none of it was possible. He described it as blatant character assassination by people who were too gutless to say anything while Wiley was alive.

  For example, Mr X said, the day after Wiley had died, Roger Hulley of the Progressive Federal Party had started a rumour that Wiley had AIDS. But, according to Mr X, Wiley was not homosexual. He described Wiley as an honourable individual, and a single father who went out of his way to make a good life for his children. In this man’s opinion, Wiley’s relationship with Allen was purely professional. He insisted that the claim that Wiley was ‘deviant’ was not borne out by fact.

  Mr X told me that the Wiley family had even gone to the then minister of police and had asked for a re-investigation of allegations against their father. After that, a senior police officer spent a week re-investigating and informed the family that he had found no substantiation for the claims.

  I also spoke to someone who admired Dave Allen. The man described himself as a ‘good friend’ of the late police reservist, and was very forthcoming in sharing some of his good memories with me. But after I sent him the notes from our telephone conversation to fact-check and he spoke to a family member about it, he called me in a state of agitation to tell me that he did not want to be identified.

  Earlier he had told me how he had gone diving off Bird Island with Allen. ‘We went to Bird Island on his ski boat, the Plus Ultra. He sho
wed me the cannon of the Sacramento at Schoenmakerskop, where he later died.’ The man also told me how much he had admired Allen for the work he did as a marine conservationist. In that respect Allen was his ‘hero’. And, according to him, Allen also did good work ‘rounding up criminals’.

  As for Allen’s secret life, the man stressed that he only found out after Allen’s death that he had ‘fiddled with some guys – and that he had been involved with kids’. He went on to say: ‘He was my friend and I admired him, but I had nothing to do with his sex life. That was a dark side I did not know about. It only came out afterwards.’

  The only time this man could recall personally seeing Allen in the company of a ‘kid’ was when he went to Bird Island with him for a weekend’s ‘diving and seafood’. ‘Dave had a youngster there,’ the man said. ‘He was about fourteen. Dave asked me to teach him to dive.’

  Recalling Allen’s death, the man said: ‘Dave must have been up all night. Apparently, he looked very scruffy. He knew the undertaker, and he wrote him a note. He still asked him to handle his body with care.’

  Information also came from a pilot who revealed to me that Allen’s body was picked up from the beach by a military helicopter. Approached on my behalf, the pilot of that helicopter recalled making the pickup. He said he was not exactly sure why an SAAF helicopter had been called, but it may have been ‘because Dave was a police reservist’.

  Another pilot also thought that Allen’s status in the police might have been the reason why his body had been ferried by SAAF helicopter. This pilot stated that Allen had been a police reservist and the South African Police had not yet received any helicopters for such missions. He also said that the SAAF still conducted many body-recovery and search-and-rescue flights, especially in isolated or remote areas, so the pickup had not been viewed as strange at the time.