On the twisted trail of Dulcie’s death

Evelyn Grœnink Mail and Guardian, January 9, 1998

When Evelyn Grœnink set out to trade fairs named Sport Eco. It would investigate the murder of Dulcie Sep- never have occurred to me to pay any tember, she found herself embroiled in attention to this company had Septem- a Kafkaesque world full of French se- ber’s colleagues in Paris not told me cret service plots and fake publications. that September herself did not trust In March 1990, while investigating these neighbours. Dulcie September’s workplace for the September was a nice woman, but period just prior to her murder, I disco- she never greeted these particular vered something odd. The small com- people. She took great care to ensure pany across the hallway from her Afri- that the ANC’s mail did not get mixed can National Congress office, on the up with theirs. And once or twice, ac- fourth floor of a typically narrow buil- cording to her colleagues, she mentio- ding in the Rue des Petites Ecuris, mo- ned that she thought these people were ved there on the same day as the ANC. watching her. Even though the company officially The above, together with the fact edited a newsletter on sports trade, the that Sport Eco’s editor-in-chief, Pierre editor-in- chief was a foreign reporter Cazeel, was the person who waited for the French state radio and speciali- half-an-hour next to September’s dead sed in South Africa and the ANC. He body for the police to arrive, and that and his colleagues moved out of the September’s colleagues mentioned that building shortly after the murder. somebody seemed to have messed with On March 29 1988, September, a the mail and her handbag, were the former teacher from Cape Town who reasons why I began looking for Sport had joined the struggle out of anger Eco in the Paris register of companies. at the way kids were treated by the I decided to phone Herve Delouche, apartheid education system, was mur- a journalist for a new French monthly, dered by a salvo of five bullets fired J’Accuse, that had shown an interest in straight at her face. She died instantly. my investigation. J’Accuse planned to Her murderers were never found. investigate scandals of the French go- The murder was not seen. Of course vernment and secret services, Delouche it was the South African death squads told me. one heard so much about. Who else ? The first issue of J’Accuse was to The neighbouring office was com- be released in April and, according to pletely French. They published a bi- Delouche, the cover story was to be de- monthly two- page account of sports dicated to my French connection to the

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September murder. delight, but I was confused : I hadn’t J’Accuse was so interested in this stumbled on the slightest suggestion story, it asked me to come and visit that there was anything South African even though I told them I had nothing about Sport Eco. concrete as yet. It paid me a cash ad- My suspicion was, and still is, that vance, assigned three people to assist Sport Eco was an antenna for the me, and, in their new offices, I got the French secret services, and established biggest desk. to keep an eye on the ANC. I had not People brought me coffee and com- arrived at the conclusion that Sport plimented me extensively on my yet Eco was involved in the murder itself, to be written, wonderful article. They at least not directly. But, if it was a even mentioned a prime-time television French antenna, why hadn’t it at least slot ! seen the South African death squad When I met Delouche and my first coming ? That was the question. And J’Accuse contact, Michel Briganti, to what had Cazeel been doing, alone for discuss the new developments, I had al- half- an-hour, next to the body ? ready phoned several established sport My story, as proposed to J’Accuse, and trade publications in Paris. No- was to be about this and other myste- body had ever heard of Sport Eco. rious French tracks that I had stum- I did learn that Cazeel had reported bled on in the previous two years – extensively on the 1982 bomb attack about the French secret service which on the London office of the ANC. De- had repeatedly launched false tracks louche and Briganti nodded pensively : and smokescreens, messing up the po- this could indeed be an indication of se- lice investigation. cret service involvement in the murder About French individuals who ap- of September. peared to play some suspicious role They suggested a high-powered concerning September and her office meeting of the core group of J’Accuse when she was still alive. Such as Mon- to discuss this trail and invited me sieur G, an extreme right-wing mer- to spend the evening at the home of cenary from the French Foreign Le- their editor-in-chief, Jacques de Bonis, gion, who shortly after the murder told in the Rue des Pyrnes. a journalist he had been recruited to De Bonis’s flat was full of boxes, make a map of the ANC office by a sheets and other just-moved-in ar- top French government official. ticles : he had recently arrived from Such as Antonia S, ex-girlfriend to Lyon to take up his new job. another foreign legionnaire, who not De Bonis showed great interest in only told a friend that she had been the Sport Eco trail and jumped up to spying on ANC targets, but revealed phone J’Accuse’s director general – a that she knew on the eve of the mur- man, he says, who knows a lot about der that an attack was going to take the sports business. place in Paris. He talked, showed surprise, put And such as a third foreign legion- down the phone and said : “This is a naire who was adamant that the above- real track. This company dœs business mentioned top government official was deals with South Africa.” directly involved in the murder opera- My French colleagues beamed with tion. 3

The French underworld of right- The idea that Pretoria, or Paris, or wing mercenaries has its base on the both, could have felt threatened by the partially French Comoros Islands. This political activities of the ANC office in base reaches a strong right-wing net- Paris seems far- fetched. work in French cities like Lyon and “Dulcie etait une zero [Dulcie was Marseille. Officially, the French govern- a zero],” an expert observer of the ment dismisses the private military French anti-apartheid movement told grouping as a bunch of unruly adven- me. “She made speeches in commu- turers over whom the state has no nity centres and sold badges and sti- control. ckers. Her political influence was non- But, despite the French concern existent.” over this group’s involvement in coups According to this expert, as well d’etat and other strife on the Como- as to numerous other observers, it was ros and in other parts of Africa – some highly unlikely that the motive for the of them were involved in sanctions- murder could be political. September, busting and arms- smuggling between in other words, would not have been France and apartheid South Africa – killed in a professional, risky and costly some experts say the adventurers can’t operation just because she happened to make a move without the approval of say anti- apartheid things to a few hun- the French authorities. dred people in a small town city hall “How else can the obscure right- every once in a while. wing private security companies, that Pretoria was, in the late Eighties, some of these men manage, continue desperately looking for a thaw in its to operate even in Paris itself ?” as one foreign relations, especially with the source puts it. West : they wouldn’t risk all that just “They have no problems because of to kill Dulcie. “Whœver did it, did their good relations with the army and it for a very special and urgent rea- the foreign secret service, DGSE. The son, a reason that would also be valid Comoriens are sources of information to France – so that they would allow as well as instruments for the DGSE. the operation,” says Alex Moumbaris, Whenever they need the adventurer- ANC activist and former colleague of type for an operation, they recruit Dulcie in Paris. “She was an obstacle them from this bunch.” to something. But what ?” If Monsieur G, Antonia S, and the That was a question I could shed third Comorien – whose name is unk- some light on. September, stubborn nown to me – had anything to do and persistent, alone with her figh- with the murder of September, it is ting spirit and suffering from rheuma- quite unlikely that the French autho- tism in cold, inhospitable Paris, had, rities would not have had a clue about since her arrival in 1984, soon had en- the attack that was going to happen ough of being a zero. She had experien- in Paris : all three have, as various in- ced that the South African question dependent sources confirm, good rela- wasn’t of much real interest to French tions with the DGSE. politicians, whether they were right The big question around the mur- wing, centre or Mitterrand left. The der is, however, not the who but the left would, at official occasions, speak why. Why did September have to die ? out beautifully against apartheid – and 4 some would probably really mean it – murder. but all the while French state corpora- “In the autumn of 1987, some tions kept trading with the apartheid French diplomats and secret service government. and military people were here, osten- France never agreed to a coal boy- sibly to negotiate a prisoner swop bet- cott, peaceful nuclear co-operation got ween Angola and South Africa. But, more and more intimate, and the offi- in the meantime, they were dealing cial military boycott of the United Na- arms all around,” former apartheid spy tions never really seemed to stop the Craig Williamson told me. “And if Sep- military contacts. tember stood in the way of that, she September wanted to do more than would surely have been killed.” just make noises against apartheid. She Interestingly, rumours that a South wanted to stop the illegal trade bet- African death squad would be on its ween Paris and Pretoria. Shortly be- way to Paris started to surface in the fore she died, September had stumbled autumn of 1987, about the time that on some information concerning arms September started reporting to friends trade. She had had a military source and colleagues that she felt threatened. who, regrettably, was known only to September, however, did not drop her. her efforts to convince the ANC struc- Just weeks before she died, Septem- tures to come and help make a public ber phoned Abdul Minty of the World fuss. Campaign against Military and Nu- “She just could not accept that clear Collaboration with South Africa there were things going on that she in Oslo, Norway, and told him she could do nothing about,” say those would send him something. She never who knew her. did. “She was too stubborn,” said Pa- But she did repeatedly phone her had. “Of course the French authorities then superior in the London ANC of- wanted us to withdraw Dulcie. They fice, Aziz Pahad. “She said we should asked me to do that, just as they made come to Paris,” Pahad told me. “There trouble with her residence permit. But was a sensitive question that we had to we never had enough skilled people to sort out – I think it was something nu- just oblige such a request.” clear. She said she felt threatened. But And then there was another track, I because it sounded all so paranoid, I told my colleagues from J’Accuse, after dismissed it. I though she was being a one week of continued investigations in bit of a drama queen.” Paris. In the three months prior to the A few weeks later, September was murder, the building that housed the dead. ANC office was painted. What could it have been that she There was so much rattling of bu- stumbled on ? There is no doubt that ckets and walking up and down, that France did break the arms boycott to on the morning of the murder nobody South Africa, and did so repeatedly – bothered to come and see what the the three or so scandals that came to noises of the shooting were. Everybody light formed only the tip of the iceberg. thought it was the painters. The co-operation reached a new height I related the stories that Septem- in the six months prior to September’s ber’s colleagues told me : that the boss 5 of the painters had insisted he have searching for a reaction. Didn’t they the key to the ANC office. Septem- see that the arms trade motive would ber refused to give it to him. That explain it all ? How that would provide afterwards, a young painter had tried a motive for both Paris and Pretoria, to make friends with Dulcie, had gone and explain why French secret services into her office a few times to chat and and adventurers seemed to be so invol- had bought an ANC lighter. Which ved in the preparation and the cover- was remarkable, as the young painter up of the murder ? When I finally loo- – according to his fellow painters – was ked at the circle of investigators, I felt an extreme right-wing xenophobe who the ground sinking away. The faces ex- was looking forward to a military ca- pressed disapproval, boredom, a tinge reer. I went on to talk about the young of compassion, but certainly no enthu- man’s friend, also working at the site siasm. but, according to his colleagues, not a De Bonis started to speak. “The di- real painter. rector general phoned,” he says. “He “He gave us a headache with the was mistaken. Sport Eco has no links way he was painting in one corner and with South Africa.” not finishing, already moving on to the “But dœsn’t that confirm what I next,” the professional painters said. said in the first place,” I tried despe- “But fortunately, he didn’t stay very rately. “That they were French ... that long. He left not long after that lady the French were monitoring Dulcie.” It was killed. To Switzerland, because he dœsn’t help. had a Swiss passport.” His name was “So, the track is dead,” continued Daniel, his right-wing young friend was De Bonis. “Do we agree on that ?” Stephane. On the day of the murder, Delouche and Briganti agreed. “We the two had been together and fairly don’t need to look any further,” said undisturbed in the building : one of the Briganti. professional painters was working on a De Bonis saw me to the door ; as- remote floor ; the other, the foreman, sured me that my story on the French had been summoned to a working site links would still be published in J’Ac- somewhere else in town. cuse. “It is a good story. I just don’t Did it happen often, that the boss want to spend any more time on it.” would take him, the foreman, away Back in Amsterdam I obtained, via from a site and put him back again af- other Paris contacts, a copy of J’Ac- ter a day or two ? “No,” the foreman cuse. had said. “Come to think of it, that My article wasn’t there. I looked at actually never happens.” the cover to see if this was indeed the I tried to convince the J’Accuse first issue and saw the date : April 1, team to follow up on the track of the fools’ day. painting business. I told them that the I phoned J’Accuse and De Bonis a company’s boss lied to me a few times. number of times, but the phone just I related my search for painter Da- kept ringing. niel’s Parisian address. When I found it Only once I happened to get De- on the computerised phone directory, it louche, who cried : “I know nothing ! I disappeared from the screen before my know nothing !” and hung up. A few eyes. I rattled on, almost pathetically, months later I received a concerned- 6 sounding letter from Briganti, in which ranoid. Maybe all this is just one big he told me that J’Accuse unfortunately coincidence. But it dœs remind me of would cease to exist, but that I should my visit to the Paris brigade crimi- really keep him informed of my inves- nelle, whom I also presented with most tigation’s progress. of my findings. There I saw the same I should have smelled a rat in the stern faces, the same unwillingness, the first place, I told myself. How Briganti same haste to get me out of the door had giggled and answered : “That is again. Only one young officer had seem a good question” when I asked him slightly interested. He had looked pen- where J’Accuse got the money for its sively ahead of him for a second or so, glossy launch. How I got a big cash ad- then asked : “But you certainly don’t vance without even asking, or showing think that we would arrest our own col- a synopsis. How they did not want to leagues ?” sign a contract : “Not needed,” they He had given me his card and had said. “We trust you.” phone number, and I had called him How could they be real investiga- often. But, always, someone else ans- tive journalists anyway, this editor for- wered, someone else giving me an ex- merly from a regional paper in Lyon cuse why I couldn’t speak to the other (De Bonis), this forever cause-changing one. activist (Delouche), this attorney from the French state electricity company Only once did I manage to break (Briganti) ? And didn’t the French through and secure an appointment electricity company have longstanding with him. But in the cafe opposite the nuclear cooperation links with Eskom ? Palais de Justice it wasn’t him who ap- Typical of a secret service, by the peared, but two frowning other gent- way, to set up a publication that in- lemen in raincoats. They asked me if vestigates secret services. I had discovered anything new in the Maybe I have gone completely pa- September case.