Jewish World Review / Nov. 24, 1998 /5 Kislev, 5759
Will Mandela's dream soon become a fundamentalist nightmare? |
Iran's Meddling Is a New
Danger for South Africa
EXTREMISTS SOMETIMES FORGE strange
alliances. But one of the weirder ones I've
heard of is currently out of Africa.
According to senior intelligence sources, there's
been a recent surge in contacts between
operatives of Iran's Islamic fundamentalist regime and members of
the shadowy South African right-wing white underground that
some security circles call the Third Force.
The sources say that four white activists recently returned to South
Africa from a secret week-long visit to Iran. The Iranian authorities
refrained from stamping their passports so as not to raise
suspicions of South African airport police when the quartet arrived
home by way of Europe.
The visit, which took the white extremists to Tehran, reportedly
was organized by Iranian intelligence following two initial meetings
in Mozambique in May between representatives of the South
African group and Iran's intelligence bureau.
Potentially the most dangerous of all the revisionist white groups in
South Africa, the Third Force draws heavily on remnants of South
Africa's old apartheid regime: former army men, retired
bureaucrats, security personnel and extremist farmers --- all racists
who just won't give up.
Their first goal is to force the majority black administration, led by
Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, not only to include
whites in all political decisions that the new South Africa makes,
but to grant the white minority wide autonomy. The most radical
members actually envisage a separate white state.
That's where Iran comes in. Trouble-making Tehran's long-term
strategy for Africa includes expanding its fundamentalist influence
through the continent's growing Islamic population --- particularly
in resource-rich South Africa.
According to intelligence sources, Iranian government strategists
believe that if South Africa's extremist white minority continues
pressing demands for white autonomy, it could open the door to
radical Muslim demands for some form of Islamic autonomy in
South Africa --- a development that would give Iran, which
already pours substantial money into the community, an even
stronger foothold.
The white underground, which has a well-developed operational
infrastructure and keeps both the identity and location of its
members secret, is thought to have a large store of various types
of weapons and forged documents. The sources say the South
African government now fears a supply of new arms from Iran to
the white extremists and an increase in Iranian financed or
sponsored terror.
Adding to the potential for mayhem is growing evidence that the
Third Force has already managed to infiltrate an alarming number
of South Africa's security bodies, including the National
Intelligence Agency.
Of prime concern to Mandela's circle of ANC leaders is the
growing fear that extremists will carry out armed violence before
South Africa's parliamentary elections scheduled between May
and July of next year.
Nonetheless, South African authorities have carefully refrained
from publishing data on the full scope of the Third Force's
activities for fear it may encourage other extremists --- not to
mention exposing the Pretoria government's ineptitude in quashing
it. No one has breathed a word publicly of the new Iranian
connection.
If I were them, I wouldn't keep quiet. I'd shout protests and
warnings from the
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News.
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