WILD WAYS-THE DARK CONTINENT PART 3

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Springbok
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WILD WAYS-THE DARK CONTINENT PART 3

Post by Springbok »

ESCAPE FROM HARARE

From 1990 to 1993, I was an intelligence officer based in Malawi. National Intelligence priorities for Southern Africa centred primarily on Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia. Our responsibility was to collect highly sensitive information via covert means and by targeting human sources of information in key government positions who had access to the goods we wanted. In most cases we made use of "cover" companies and as the vehicle to hide our true intentions and to enable us to operate under covert identities with good backup structures.

Why were we targeting these above mentioned states you may ask? Zimbabwe had always been a problem child to South Africa since its independence in 1990. Mugabe followed a Marxist doctrine and structured his government on socialist ideology. He was not considered as a good neighbour. Mugabe also made a habit of trying to place himself on a pedestal and keep himself in the African limelight. He made continued attempts to get elected as the Chairman for all important economic or political forums in Southern Africa. As the head of these forums, he would then spout anti-South African rhetoric which continued even after Mandela became president. Mugabe was extremely jealous of Mandela due to the latter`s popularity worldwide and on many occassions Mugabe got publicly sidelined and shunned by the media and international politicians / leaders in favour of Nelson Mandela.

Mozambique was targeted due to the ongoing civil war between Renamo and the pro Marxist Frelimo government. Just another neighbouring country in a far from in a stable position which needed to be watched. South Africa was secretly supporting the Renamo rebels with arms and counter insurgency training in the hope that they could topple the marxist government.

Zambia was leaning towards a more favourable relationship with South Africa but was still troubled by internal opposing factions which supported terrorist groups trying to infiltrate South Africa at the time. A new government was coming into power and it needed to be monitored.

Botswana was our neighbour but contrary to the other states, they remained largely neutral in their policy to a changing SA. The USA had built a large airforce base and listening post in Botswana in an attempt to keep an "eye" on us and also to deter SA from launching any attacks on Botswana....ridiculous but true. We kept tabs on them as well.

Malawi was a strong South African ally and was therefore the best place from which a covert operation to monitor Zambia and Zimbabwe could be launched. That was my job. At the time, I had my PPL and I used to hire and fly aircraft to get me to and from Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi without the hassles of relying on sometimes unreliable local airlines. I used to mainly make use of a Piper Arrow 200R (ZS-LVH) for this purpose.
The stage had been set and I was working on the covert recruitment of a very senior Zimbabwean military General and his wife who was a senior politburo member close to Mugabe. Lets call him Gen M for the purpose of this story. Gen M had and ADC who I was using to get closer to him. Lets call him Fred. Now, my aim was to get Fred to build Gen M`s confidence in me and my "company" which would allow me closer access which would hopefully lead to cultivation and the final recruitment of Gen M as an agent.

Now, the Zimbabwe government had a shit hot intelligence organisation that kept an eye out for folk like me. It was called the ZCIO (Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation). These guys were all British trained by the MI6 and their counter-intelligence function was one which kept me on my toes so it became a slow and careful process working with Fred and Gen M. His wife was a real nasty bitch and I had to watch my "P`s" and "Q`s" around her and had to live my cover to its fullest as I knew they would be doing background checks.

I had builtup a really good relationship with Fred and he had even visited my "office" in Malawi, probably at the request of Gen M in order to check out the credibility of our "company". I had also met Gen M on three occassions in Zimbabwe and I was trying to arrange for him to meet with me again at a neutral venue (Malawi or South Africa) where I would be safe if the shit hit the fan during his recruitment pitch. Gen M was being difficult about this and wanted me to join him for a weekend on his farm in Northern Zimbabwe. This is when the first warning bells went off. Secondly, I had offered to fly direct to his farm as that way I could make an excuse and bugger off if he became difficult. He said he would have a problem with arranging immigration clearances which was bullshit given a man of his experience. Second set of warning bells!

Eventually, I was persuaded to fly in direct from Malawi to Harare so I arranged with Fred to meet me at the airport on an Air Malawi flight. Instead, I flew in and landed 2 hours earlier in the Arrow. Refueled and ready to rock, she was waiting for me at the local FBO. When Fred met me at the airport, he seemed very distant and could not look me in the eyes. His body language was off.. big time! 3rd set of alarms sounded and I should have pissed off right there an then. Fred told me that General M wanted to see me immediately. This was not part of the plan as we were to drive to his farm the next day and he was not suppossed to even be in Harare. In the car driving through town from the airport to the meeting, Fred`s behavior became even more dodgy, shit, the guy was sweating on a winter`s morning with the temp only 10 above 0. Final alarm call for me. Something had gone wrong and these bastards were trying to trap me. I thought at the time that Fred was taking me straight to the ZCIO HQ in Harare. I was picking up bad vibes and Fred`s body language was freaking me out. He was acting wierd and stuttering while being evasive when I tried friendly banter. I felt that the shit was about to hit the fan! It turned out later that I was 100% on the mark!

I immediately suggested that he quickly stop at my hotel so that I could just drop my overnight bag off and check into the room. I lied and told Fred that they were pretty booked up and that I stood a good chance of losing the room if I did not at least check in by 10h00. He was not very happy but I remained adamant and we stopped at the Holiday Inn. It was not even the hotel I was staying in but it was the closest one to the airport. We pulled up in front of the hotel and I hopped out ever so casually with bag and very important briefcase in hand and strode on up to the front desk. Fred stayed where he was and kept watching me through the front entrance windows. I just started chatting to the clerk and asked about booking a room and paid for it. When I looked at Fred again, I saw a security guard telling him to move his car. I then went up to the room on the third floor and quickly started preparing for my very rapid sexual retreat (escape).

I shaved off my mustache........years and years of careful grooming down the friggin drain and it left a bright white streak on my face where the lily white skin had not seen much sun! I scratched some pencil markings onto white paper and then gently rubbed it into my upper lip. It kind of gave me a 5 o` clock shadow. I then put on a pair of reading specs, slicked down my hair with shower gel, changed clothes and then started to get my documentation in order. My briefcase / flight bag was equipped with a hidden sleeve on the side where I kept me maps and a false bottom. I used this to transport secret documentation through control points. I had another passport (British) in another name which featured a recent photograph of me with no mustache and with specs. I also had about US$2000 which was Fred`s salary. This I transferred to my pockets. I took my other passport, packed it back into the hidy hole and got the hell out of the room. I took the fire escape stairs down to the ground floor and exited into front lawns of the hotel that accessed the main road. I crossed the road and started walking towards the airport. At a service station I spoke to an old man who was gassing up his car. He had a small kid in the back which turned out to be his granddaughter. I asked him to take me to the airport and explained that I had cocked up my timing and was late for a flight to Lusaka, the Zambian capital. I gave him $200 which was a small fortune for these guys. He was more than happy to bomb along to the airport at breakneck speed. I was shitting myself in case he got pulled over by the cops but then again, we would have probably outrun them. They drove really crapped out landrovers. Nothing happened anyway and he dropped me off at the terminal building.

After he left me, I walked off to the FBO which was luckily deserted at lunch time. Shit, if that guy had of been there, he would have blown me for sure. I was someone else and would have had a hard time explaining my change of appearance. The biggest problem with the whole identity change thing, was the fact that my Malawi and South African PPL`s were issued in my real name. I dumped my gear in the aircraft, fired her up and requested taxi clearance to the front of the terminal to file a flight plan. That was OK`d. I hoisted my flight bag and went to the tower where the flight ops was situated. They were also short staffed due to lunch hour and the guy that was there hardly spoke to me as he was enthusiastically filling his face with KFC. I filed to a place called Kariba, which is in the opposite direction of where I was going but I had to try and leave a false trail just in case Fred showed up with his new ZCIO mates. Zimbabwe had MIG 23`s or some shit so I was not in any mood to become a statistic.

With flight plan filed and in no need for customs or immigration clearance, I fired up all 200 Horses, got clearance for taxi and proceeded. I got to the holding position and was kept waiting as there was an Air Tanzania flight inbound. After ten minutes I was getting really freaked out. There was no other traffic in sight although I could hear the airliner 10 nm inbound. I opened the door to get the a/c working again and waited. I then realized that I had not checked a met report and there was a heavy cloud base sitting at about 5000ft to the South but clear to the North. I was heading straight for South Africa so I would be flying through all that shit. I was as nervous as hell what with the hold for take off, the weather and the fact that I might get busted right here on the f-cking taxi apron.

Air Tanzania thundered in and cleared the active. I was given a go, lined up and blew the place. I was cleared for a left hand out 180 turn and a climb to 3000 as per my flight plan. I ignored this and expected ATC to hammer me. All he did was tell me to squawk 1200 when I hit the Harare TMA. I just confirmed and kept my GPS heading for the Limpopo river and the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa....no squawk! The reason I opted for this was due to the fact that going back to Malawi would have taken me over Mozambique which needed clearance. Also, the ZCIO might have suspected me running for home and contacted the Mozambique airforce or asked the military to shaft me with a SAM 7 or heavy AA.

An hour into the flight, I was asked by Harare approach to confirm field in site which according to him would have been Kariba. 10 min later, I called field in site and he transferred me to Kariba approach. They are probably still waiting for my call. By this time I was worried about three things. The cloud base was dropping, possible S&R from Harare and I was worried about conflicting traffic. The latter probably being the more serious issue. Ask anyone who has bombed around the skies above shithole African states like Zimababwe. It can get very hairy. The S&R was probably the last worry as the Zimbabweans could not even organise a piss up in a brewery! Having the GPS gave me the confidence I needed as I had no nav plan in front of me for this flight. I was nearing a place called Matopos which had some low granite hills so with the cloud pushing me down to 2000, it was getting as bumpy as hell. I went VFR OTT @ 10000. When I got there I heard Springbok 527 (South African Airways) routing from Jhb to Blantyre, Malawi. I asked him about the cloud and he told me it was open clear blue skies once I got to the border. By this time I was an hour plus 30 from the border and I relaxed for the first time.

When I crossed the border, I contacted Louis Trichard air force base and obtained clearance for a descent to Pietersburg for fuel. The ATC was not happy about my unexpected arrival and was also not impressed by the fact that I was OTT without a flight plan or IFR rating. I called them from Pietersburg to calm the situation and avoid Civil Aviation involvement.

At the de-brief, I learnt that a contract agent we were using in Malawi to back up our cover operation was also working for the ZCIO as a double agent and that they had had me pegged the whole time. F-cker had three kids, was on our payrole, was employed by us and he did this. We fried his arse in a sting about 3 months later where we had him up for fraud, confiscated his company car, closed his bank accounts and put him out to pasture with the sword of Damocies hanging over him.

Zimbabwe has always been a difficult customer with regard to good intelligence operations and recently, South Africa paid the ultimate price. A good friend of mine by the name of Aubrey Welken alias Welman was arrested in a ZCIO counter intelligence operation while he was meeting agents at Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side. Unfortunately, it was bad tradecraft on his part and he paid the ultimate price. He is now in the infamous Chikarubi prison near Harare and most attempts to secure his release have been stopped by the SA government. His wife is sueing the South African Secret Service which is a first in history. The politicians have gone to sleep on the issue and I am afraid that he will be there for the rest of his life. Espionage carries either a death sentence or life in prison. Aubrey also happens to be white which significantly reduces his chances of getting back to SA and his family. The family is approaching Mandela in the hope that he can do something but I doubt that the old man has the energy to help, even if he could. Aubrey is a big strong man and a former bodybuilder and I just hope his mind can hold out against the abuse he is guaranteed to suffer. I can tell you what happens to whites in African prisons but that is better left for next time.

This Zimbabwe situation was the only time that I ever came under threat in my 9 years as an intelligence officer. Luckily for me, everything worked out OK and lady luck was definitely on my side. Bad Zimbabwean ATC was probably the biggest gift of all. So...if you ever find yourself in African skies be on the look out for dudes like me skimming under radar or bombing illegally OTT. There is always a lot of shit happening out there and African airspace is not voted as the most dangerous airspace in the world for nothing!


Check out http://sundaytimes.co.za and do a search for Aubrey`s name. You will probably have to back search about 6-8 months for the story or stories.
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