Swiss inquiry slams intelligence ties with racist South Africa
South African
doctor Wouter Basson smiles in Pretoria High Court, 11 April 2002
facing 46 charges ranging from murder to fraud and drug dealing
after a 30-month trial. AFP PHOTO Alexander JOE
By Peter Capella
GENEVA (AFP) - Independent Swiss investigators on Friday sharply criticised the country's military intelligence service for the close ties it long had with agents of South Africa's former apartheid regime.
Releasing the findings of an enquiry commissioned by the government, they also revealed that key documents on the relationship throughout the 1980s and the 1990s had been destroyed.
The investigation led by a Swiss academic, Rainer Schweizer, found that military intelligence had turned its back on violent repression under apartheid and became too closely involved with its South African counterparts.
The report was commissioned by the Swiss defence ministry last year, after an uproar about revelations that former intelligence chief, Peter Regli, had maintained close ties with South African agents.
Schweizer said no human rights violations resulted from the relationship, but he was highly critical of the attitude of Swiss military intelligence and their "astonishingly limited political sensitivity".
"The fact of ignoring problems which the violent repression exerted on the majority of the population... was completely incomprehensible," his report said, referring to the Swiss attitude to South Africa's white minority rulers.
"The lack of sensitivity of many service employees, even the overzealous way some of those in charge dealt with South African services, leaves one extremely pensive," he added.
Schweizer also found that some intelligence documents had been destroyed "either routinely or in a targeted manner that does not conform with archiving rules", notably correspondence involving intelligence chiefs.
The report concluded that there had been a clear interest for Switzerland to keep abreast of developments in southern Africa, where a proxy battle was being waged between East and West at the height of the Cold War.
However, military intelligence could not protect Switzerland's national interests at the expense of "legal and ethical reponsibilities", Schweizer emphasised.
Military intelligence's policy in southern
Africa had sometimes differed substantially from that of the Swiss
government, the report said. Regli's services also failed to keep
their political and military masters informed of all their activities.