Apartheid guns and money: a tale of profit /

Description

The apartheid state was at war. For two decades before 1994, while internal resistance grew, mandatory sanctions prohibited the sale of strategic goods and arms to South Africa. The last white regime was confronted with an existential threat. A global covert network of nearly 50 countries was constructed to counter sanctions. In complete secrecy, allies in corporations, banks, governments and intelligence agencies helped move cash, illegally supply guns and create the apartheid arms money machine. Whistleblowers were assassinated and ordinary people suffered. This is an exposé of that machinery created in defence of apartheid and the people who made this possible: heads of state, arms dealers, aristocrats, plutocrats, senators, bankers, spies, journalists and members of secret lobby groups. They were all complicit in a crime against humanity. Motivated by ideology or kinship most sought to simply profit from the war. Many have until now relied on lingering silence to erase the uncomfortable truth. This meticulously researched book lifts the lid on some of the darkest secrets of apartheid’s economic crimes, weaving together material collected in over two-dozen archives in eight countries with an insight into tens of thousands of pages of newly declassified documents. Interviews with spies, businessmen, politicians, sanctions busters and freedom fighters provide eyewitness accounts. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction: On the Trail of Profit The Secret State 1. Securocrats, Sanctions and Assassinations 2. The Secret Economy 3. Oil and Other Foreign Affairs Banking on Apartheid 4. Bunkers, Bankers and Gold 5. The Arms Money Machine The Big Five 6. France 7. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 8. The United States of America 9. The United Kingdom 10. The People’s Republic of China (PRC ) Proxies, Players and Pariahs 11. Proxies and Other Players 12. Pariahs The Long Shadow 13. The Long Shadow Acknowledgements Endnotes Index