On 12 March 1982 the ANC offices in London were bombed. The head of the South African Security Branch, General Johan Coetzee, had planned the operation under instruction of the Minister of Law and Order, Louis le Grange.
The operation involved a group of South African security police operatives, including Eugene de Kock:
"At head office we were told that we would be leaving for London…. We immediately began to prepare for the operation. This included getting false passports, traveller's cheques, buying clothes and 'getting orientation' about our target, the ANC's London headquarters at 27 Patten Street. [Peter] Casselton, based in London, had already received the explosives and detonators in sealed boxes via the South African embassy." 1
The explosives had been shipped to the UK in a diplomatic bag.
South African security police operatives scaled the back gate, entered the building and left the explosives behind a discarded lounge chair in a back office. Just in case something went wrong they were armed with vials of nerve gas.
The ANC headquarters were empty at the time of the explosion (9:00 am), except for a caretaker, who was slightly injured. However, the bombing coincided with an anti-Apartheid rally being held in central London and led by ANC president, Oliver Tambo. Since it was widely known that Mr Tambo held early morning meetings at the ANC offices when in London, it is possible that he was actually the target.
In applications for TRC amnesty it was alleged that the raid on the ANC offices in London were in retaliation for "the involvement of British subjects in the ANC rocket attack on the Voortrekkerhoogte military base near Pretoria in 1981."
For their part in the operation Eugene de Kock and his colleagues were awarded the Police Star for Excellent Service by Minister of Law and Order Louis le Grange.
South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded: "… that the operation against the ANC diplomatic mission in London was authorised by the South African government at the highest level and that the prime minister, Mr PW Botha, and the Minister of Law and Order, Mr Louis le Grange, are deemed to be directly accountable. The raid was undertaken in violation of the territorial sovereignty of the United Kingdom and was also a violation of international law in terms of … the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations in regard to the use of the diplomatic bag." 2
1. From A long night's DAMAGE: Working for the Apartheid State by Eugene de Kock, as told to Jeremy Gordin, Contra Press, 1998, pp 84-5.
2. From Vol 2 Chap 2 The State outside South Africa between 1960 and 1990, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, 1998, p 157.
