Never be caught out! (Part 3)

 Gary (aka “brilletijies”) had been subjected to enlightenment about the human condition in the brief period of three years since leaving school. Two years in the military had exposed him to both the best and worst of human nature. The camaraderie facilitated by the harsh regimen of training – especially junior leadership training – that resulted from helping and receiving help from fellow trainees, forged close bonds between “brothers”. Despite his limited role of gathering useful intelligence after a battle in the operational area, he had been exposed to the same danger and brushes with death as his comrades who were at the sharp end of the clashes with insurgent forces. He developed a genuine admiration for infantrymen, armoured vehicle crews and all who unhesitatingly placed their boots on the ground in hostile territory. On the other hand, he could not ignore the excesses of errant individuals who spun out of control in the heat of the moment. He had witnessed troops and the odd NCO and junior Officer who lost the plot and overstepped the boundaries of human decency. These tainted individuals who were clearly “bosbefok” (military slang for shell-shocked) by the tightrope they were walking at the precipice of death, had given themselves to unnecessarily gratuitous brutality. This, too, was etched in his mind. Upon his return to “civvy street” he had witnessed the devastation indiscriminately visited upon unsuspecting civilians – men, women and children – who found themselves too close to the barbarous car bomb that wreaked havoc in Church Street in Pretoria. That had convinced him that there was a very fine line between good and evil – on all sides of a bitter conflict.  

Gary’s internal turmoil stayed with him as he entered his second year as a Rhodes University student. It was over a period of several weeks that he was approached and persuaded to continue intelligence gathering operations for the government. He was hesitant at first to yield to the pressure he encountered. His internal conflict about serving what he had come to believe was a flawed system, was somewhat tempered by his conviction that the insurgent forces who had styled themselves with the mantle of “liberation”, had thick, sticky blood on their hands as well. Sometime during the weeks of introspection, he came to the conclusion that he could apply his skill and intellect to the conundrum, and could help to ameliorate the situation by playing a dangerous game of acting as a “double agent”. He accepted the commission from the NIS (National Intelligence Service). He was tasked to enter student politics and attempt to infiltrate the ranks of the “liberation movements”. NIS would not suspect that he was betraying their mission by making his way up in the hierarchy of the resistance movements.

Soon, as an elected SRC (Student Council) member, he weaseled his way into ever more radical student movements. He joined the underground structures that were infiltrating the country with the purpose of making it ungovernable. All the while he was feeding the NIS with intelligence of dubious value. In the organisations where he was gaining the trust of the middle leadership, he fed them with carefully tailored research and information that had the ring of truth but were in reality benign. He played each side off against the other, each fully aware that he was technically working for both. His best cover was a cunningly devised plan to assure each that they were the only ones being given useful intelligence. Foremost in his mind was his intent to cause as little harm as possible and dampen the explosion of brutal violence that was being meted out by both the state and the opposition forces arrayed against them. In his mind, he was rendering outstanding service to the ordinary, innocent civilian population of all shades of race and political persuasion, by crafting his intelligence reports to limit the excesses and provide scant operational success on both sides of the divide. The  main concern at the forefront of his singlehanded dampening effect, was to never be caught out. 

The mid 1980s were fraught with gratuitous violence. Hit squads acted on behalf of the government and security forces with impunity. The forces ranged against the state ratcheted up their excessive brutality by resorting to “necklacing” (burning tyres around the bodies of perceived collaborators found guilty by a proliferation of kangaroo courts). Extra-judicial killing was the order of the day. Suspicion of co-operation with the “enemy” was sufficient to visit death upon the victim. Evidence was  assigned little regard in this explosion of viciousness.

Gary straddled this gaping cavern between the forces ranged against each other. Had he even been suspected of this cunning one man mission to apply an anchor to both sides, he would have been squashed like a bug. Neither side brooked dissent of this nature. Many an innocent bystander met a sticky end at the hands of both the security police and the armed wings of the “liberation movements”. It is difficult to imagine that they would have treated a perceived “traitor” with kid gloves. The TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) of the mid-nineties exposed the ferocity of the conflict in too much detail, for anyone to believe that the state and their opponents would have hesitated to use poison, bombs, grenades, necklaces and a host of other savagely violent means to subdue treachery.

“Brilletjies” lived long enough to witness the arrival of a new era post-1994. He slunk into anonymity and saw no need to expose his actions to public scrutiny at the TRC. No amnesty application was submitted by him, hence none was granted. No statement. No evidence. He simply blended into civilian life.

Who knows how many lives he saved? Was he a traitor or a hero of that bitter era? He disappeared without subjecting himself to investigations that could possibly expose him to belated vengeance. 

©Paul M Haupt

                                  

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