Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, Molly here, Welcome back to the second of
Speaker 2: four installments of the holiday reruns here on Weird Little Guys.
Speaker 2: Since Christmas and New Year's Day are both Thursdays this year,
Speaker 2: I was going to have to run two reruns in
Speaker 2: a row. Instead of picking two random reruns, I'm using
Speaker 2: this opportunity to run my favorite mini series of the year,
Speaker 2: the eight episodes I wrote back in the spring about
Speaker 2: the international networks of right wing extremists who were trying
Speaker 2: to hold onto a part time in South Africa. The
Speaker 2: first two episodes popped up on Your Feet on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: making this episodes three and four of that series. The
Speaker 2: episodes The White Wolf and White Guns for Hire originally
Speaker 2: aired on March twentieth and March twenty seventh. For this
Speaker 2: section of the story, I don't really have an update
Speaker 2: or a correction, but I do have more clues, more
Speaker 2: information that sort of hints at possibilities I just can't
Speaker 2: prove yet. When I first started digging into Monica Huggett Stone,
Speaker 2: there was this curious claim that she was a member
Speaker 2: of the American ku Klux Klan. And when I was
Speaker 2: writing about this back in the spring, I went to
Speaker 2: great lengths to try to figure out exactly what that
Speaker 2: might mean. I found some interesting history involving a South
Speaker 2: African anti Semite who claimed to be running a clan
Speaker 2: group in South Africa a few years before Monica would
Speaker 2: have been involved, and that helped a little bit. Gave
Speaker 2: me some context, but it didn't actually directly connect her
Speaker 2: to anything. It didn't explain how she became pen pals
Speaker 2: with an American clansmen in the late nineteen seventies when
Speaker 2: she was helping those Italian terrorists build that bomb in Johannesburg.
Speaker 2: But in the months since, someone was kind enough to
Speaker 2: send me a newspaper clipping, one I wish i'd had then.
Speaker 2: This was a recurring theme throughout the series. I really
Speaker 2: had to get creative in finding source material. It isn't
Speaker 2: easy to find newspaper archives in another language from another
Speaker 2: continent from decades ago. I found more than I expected,
Speaker 2: but there were always gaps in my timeline that I
Speaker 2: had a good feeling could be filled in if I
Speaker 2: just had more access to South African newspapers from the
Speaker 2: time period. And this clipping is exactly the kind of
Speaker 2: thing that would have saved me like twenty hours of frustration.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty one, Monica's mother told a reporter that
Speaker 2: Monica had been corresponding with an American pastor for years
Speaker 2: and the pastor's name was one do you know? It
Speaker 2: was Robert Miles by the mid nineteen seventies, which seems
Speaker 2: like it may have been when they started writing. Miles
Speaker 2: no longer publicly claimed clan membership, but he had been
Speaker 2: a grand Dragon in the Klan in Michigan in the past,
Speaker 2: and even after he transitioned away from publicly identifying as
Speaker 2: a klansman, he was still hanging out with klansmen, plotting
Speaker 2: to blow up school buses to prevent integration in a
Speaker 2: very clan like fashion, and writing essays that were published
Speaker 2: in the inter Clan newsletter. What I'm saying is he
Speaker 2: was still involved with the clan. So even though his
Speaker 2: primary focus was his Christian identity church, he could very
Speaker 2: well have been Monica's American Clan contact, And if he wasn't,
Speaker 2: he was almost certainly her introduction to whichever Klansman it
Speaker 2: was who did mail her that bomb making manual. Notably,
Speaker 2: both Robert Miles and Monica Huggett were connected to the
Speaker 2: American Ku Klux Klan in the nineteen seventies, and they
Speaker 2: both ended up moving on to the Aryan Nations. Miles
Speaker 2: died in nineteen ninety two, but in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: he was a regional leader in the Aryan Nations. And
Speaker 2: you know where this whole story started. When Monica moved
Speaker 2: to the United States, she was a leading member of
Speaker 2: the Aryan Nations group operating out of Louisiana. So those
Speaker 2: are interesting parallel tracks, and it gives me just enough
Speaker 2: to go on that I'm definitely going to have to
Speaker 2: keep digging. I mean, I have to write about Robert
Speaker 2: Miles eventually. Anyway. On August tenth, nineteen eighty nine, around
Speaker 2: nine thirty pm, a white sedan pulled up outside the
Speaker 2: United Nations Transition Assistance Groups Straitive headquarters in aut Yo,
Speaker 2: a town in northern Namibia. It had what appeared to
Speaker 2: be UN issued license plates and the United Nations emblem
Speaker 2: was painted on the side, so perhaps it didn't look
Speaker 2: out of place there at first. Initial reports say witnesses
Speaker 2: saw three men dressed in green camouflage uniforms. The UN
Speaker 2: Transition Assistance Group had arrived in Namibia four months earlier,
Speaker 2: authorized by UN Resolution four thirty five. The resolution had
Speaker 2: actually been adopted over a decade earlier, but it took
Speaker 2: that entire decade to get all parties to come to
Speaker 2: the table. The Transition Assistance Group was there to ensure
Speaker 2: the ceasefire was honored, that South African troops would withdraw
Speaker 2: from Namibia, and that the upcoming election would be free
Speaker 2: and fair. Those first four months had not been without incident,
Speaker 2: but a ceasefire was re established Over the summer. The
Speaker 2: South African military was withdrawing s planned and UN officials
Speaker 2: were making progress on disarming and disbanding the citizen militias
Speaker 2: paid by the South African government. If things continued on
Speaker 2: this path, it was looking good for the November elections.
Speaker 2: But not everyone was on board with UN Resolution four
Speaker 2: thirty five. One small group in particular, calling itself Axi
Speaker 2: Kontra four three five Action against four thirty five, did
Speaker 2: just what the name implies. They took action. When those
Speaker 2: men in green camos stepped out of their car outside
Speaker 2: the UN offices in Autyo that night, they opened fire
Speaker 2: with automatic weapons hand grenades caused extensive damage to the buildings.
Speaker 2: Both the administrative offices and the sleeping quarters. A security
Speaker 2: guard named Michael Hoseg was killed in the attack, but
Speaker 2: the men fled into the night without finishing the mission.
Speaker 2: The entire cell was arrested fairly quickly, and authorities found
Speaker 2: a massive arsenal of guns and explosives the group planned
Speaker 2: to use in future attacks on United Nations targets with
Speaker 2: the goal of stopping the upcoming elections. And those men
Speaker 2: were in custody in November when the elections were held,
Speaker 2: but they didn't stay there. They escaped. They'd failed to
Speaker 2: prevent Namibian independence, but now the fight was in South Africa,
Speaker 2: and they would do everything in their power to prevent
Speaker 2: the end of apartheime. I'm Molly Conger, and this is
Speaker 2: where the were guides. This is still the story of
Speaker 2: Monica hugget'st the elderly South African woman who was living
Speaker 2: in Mandeville, Louisiana, when she organized a series of nationwide
Speaker 2: Nazi rallies in twenty twelve. But she isn't in this
Speaker 2: part of the story because I can't tell you about
Speaker 2: the international network of mercenaries she was organizing in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety four without telling you a little bit more about
Speaker 2: some of those men, who they were and what they
Speaker 2: were up to in the years leading up to that
Speaker 2: deadly shootout with the police on the eve of the
Speaker 2: South African elections. I know I don't have to make
Speaker 2: excuses for this meandering narrative. It's my story and I'll
Speaker 2: tell it the only way I know how. I never
Speaker 2: know where we're going when I start putting my notes together,
Speaker 2: and I really can't help but chase down this seemingly
Speaker 2: infinite number of surprisingly deep rabbit holes. And I'm so
Speaker 2: fascinated by this international network. It's come up a bit
Speaker 2: in other stories. Dennis Mahon and Tom Metzger had close
Speaker 2: ties with Heritage Front in Canada. In the early nineties,
Speaker 2: Denis Mayhon flew to Germany to show German Neo Nazis
Speaker 2: a good old fashioned American ku Klux clan cross burning,
Speaker 2: and he gave fiery speeches stoking the flames of the
Speaker 2: anti immigrant riots that were exploding across Germany at the time.
Speaker 2: The week before Dennis started making that bomb that he
Speaker 2: went to prison for, he'd been hanging out with an
Speaker 2: Ulster Unionist who'd carried out bombings in Northern Ireland during
Speaker 2: the troubles, British Holocaust denied David Irving traveled regularly to
Speaker 2: the United States to network with American white supremacists. Frank
Speaker 2: Sweeney joined the American Nazi Party in New Jersey as
Speaker 2: a teenager and later joined the Rhodesian Army as a mercenary.
Speaker 2: Members of American white supremacist groups like the Base Adam
Speaker 2: Waffen and the Rise Above movement and its spinoff active clubs,
Speaker 2: have a particular fondness for traveling to Ukraine to fight
Speaker 2: with far right groups like the azof Battalion. Patriot Front.
Speaker 2: Flags have popped up at neo Nazi marches and Poland,
Speaker 2: and its members have met with leaders of foreign fascist
Speaker 2: groups like the Nordic Resistance Movement in Sweden and Cossa
Speaker 2: Pound in Italy. One of the young men arrested in
Speaker 2: connection with the Terogram Collective was taken into custody at
Speaker 2: the airport before he could board a flight to Ukraine
Speaker 2: to join the Russian Volunteer Corps. The fascists, racists, and
Speaker 2: anti Semites of the world are obsessed with borders, but
Speaker 2: they don't seem to mind crossing them, So that's what
Speaker 2: we're exploring. Here, and we'll find Monica again in the
Speaker 2: next chapter of this story when she does a bit
Speaker 2: of border crossing of her own, but that's not until
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, and right now it's nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty nine, South Africa was still five years
Speaker 2: away from ending apartheid, five years away from holding their
Speaker 2: first election with universal suffrage, five years away from electing
Speaker 2: Nelson Mandela as their first post of Parkment high president.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty nine, Nelson Mandela was still in prison,
Speaker 2: where he'd been since nineteen sixty two. But in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, one of South Africa's neighbors was taking the
Speaker 2: leap into multi racial democracy. Well. Whether or not South
Speaker 2: Africa considered Namibia to be a neighboring country or a
Speaker 2: country at all, depends on who you ask. The present
Speaker 2: day nation of Namibia had been a German colony from
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty four until nineteen fifteen. During World War One,
Speaker 2: when everyone was a little preoccupied elsewhere, South Africa captured
Speaker 2: the colony known as South West Africa. In nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring that
Speaker 2: South Africa no longer had a right to the territory,
Speaker 2: but South Africa continued illegally occupying the area that the
Speaker 2: United Nations now recognized as Namibia. The conflict lasted over
Speaker 2: two decades. The South African Border War wasn't just about
Speaker 2: South Africa's desire to extend apartheid into this colonial territory.
Speaker 2: It was inextricably intertwined with other conflicts in the region,
Speaker 2: things like the Angle and Civil War. It was a
Speaker 2: modern consequence of the nineteenth century Scramble for Africa. It
Speaker 2: was the unraveling of a century of colonialism. It was
Speaker 2: fueled by Cold War anxiety about communist guerrilla forces and
Speaker 2: Soviet influence. And it was about white anxiety. If Black
Speaker 2: Africans were allowed to participate in government, if they were,
Speaker 2: god forbid, allowed to rule their own nations, what would
Speaker 2: they do with that power. The whole world got in
Speaker 2: on the action, both officially, with major power sending material
Speaker 2: support to their preferred parties and none officially, with independent
Speaker 2: mercenaries and shadowy state sponsored operations popping up all over
Speaker 2: Sub Saharan Africa. But by nineteen eighty nine it was
Speaker 2: finally time. The border war was over and Namibia was
Speaker 2: going to have free and fair elections in November. In
Speaker 2: April of that year, peacekeeping forces from the United Nations
Speaker 2: Transition Assistance Group arrived to oversee the process. Namibia was
Speaker 2: going to be an independent nation, one without apartheid, and
Speaker 2: this was a frightening prospect for those white South Africans
Speaker 2: trying desperately to hold onto power in an increasingly unsustainable
Speaker 2: form of government. Now, this next part might sound like
Speaker 2: a conspiracy theory. I tried to tread waters like this
Speaker 2: with immense care. I nearly drove myself to madness trying
Speaker 2: to thread the needle of fact, fiction and question marks.
Speaker 2: When I talked about the Oklahoma City bombing a while back,
Speaker 2: and when I started poking around this particular history, I'll
Speaker 2: admit I didn't have a lot of context. I don't
Speaker 2: know the landscape here, so sorting fact from speculation and
Speaker 2: sifting out the lies is a tricky prospect. And at
Speaker 2: first I completely dismissed the idea that these neo Nazi
Speaker 2: terrorists could have been acting on government orders. That's Tinfoil
Speaker 2: had territory, right. I saw the idea heavily insinuated in
Speaker 2: some reporting from the time period. An article published in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, in an issue of Frei Vigblad, a South
Speaker 2: African newspaper with an anti apartheid stance, opened with this
Speaker 2: fairly explosive allegation. They are fugitives accused of murder. They
Speaker 2: come from South Africa, Britain, Namibia and Zimbabwe. They have
Speaker 2: one common characteristic. They left a trail of destruction, death
Speaker 2: and bloodshed in Southern Africa over the past decade, but
Speaker 2: cannot be prosecuted. They are among the most wanted men
Speaker 2: in our neighboring states, but enjoy the protection of the
Speaker 2: South African government because they have worked or still work
Speaker 2: for the security forces. But that's not proof, right. Think
Speaker 2: about how often you see similar sentiments expressed when it
Speaker 2: comes to American far right groups. Allegations that this group
Speaker 2: or that one or whichever prominent white supremacist leader hasn't
Speaker 2: been prosecuted because they're being protected by the state. And
Speaker 2: that's always a possibility, sure, but that doesn't mean it's true.
Speaker 2: But some of those men would themselves later claim that
Speaker 2: they couldn't be prosecuted for murders and bombings because they'd
Speaker 2: been acting on government orders, And again that's not proof.
Speaker 2: I've seen that before too. Sometimes people will say anything
Speaker 2: to avoid responsibility, and that doesn't necessarily mean it's true.
Speaker 2: I'd been chugging along, accumulating sources and taking my notes,
Speaker 2: translating old newspapers. I subscribed to several South African genealogical databases,
Speaker 2: getting into the weeds here, all under the assumption that
Speaker 2: there wasn't really a need to explore that angle. It
Speaker 2: could be true, but it wasn't something I'd be able
Speaker 2: to substantiate, And it's the kind of thing I'm not
Speaker 2: comfortable exploring without something to hold on to. I don't
Speaker 2: want to abuse your trust by speculating wildly and getting
Speaker 2: reckless with the facts. But then I realized this is
Speaker 2: a very unusual set of circumstances. Normally, a government would
Speaker 2: never admit to state sponsored terrorism. They all do it,
Speaker 2: but nobody admits it, and if you ever do prove it,
Speaker 2: it's nothing short of a miracle. You need leaked documents
Speaker 2: and deathbed confessions. But the South Africa of nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: five wasn't really the same South Africa that had existed
Speaker 2: until nineteen ninety four. This government wasn't admitting to its
Speaker 2: own crimes the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an unusually
Speaker 2: transparent look at the nation's past, and they admitted it.
Speaker 2: There is an entire chapter of the Truth and Reconciliation
Speaker 2: Commission final report called secret State Funding. And according to
Speaker 2: the report, Oxi Coontra four thirty five, the group behind
Speaker 2: the attack at the UN offices in Autyo in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, is believed to have been entirely a creation
Speaker 2: of funded by the South African government. At least one
Speaker 2: of the men involved was later confirmed to have been
Speaker 2: an operative of the South African Civil Cooperation Bureau, an
Speaker 2: odd name for what was essentially government sponsored death squads.
Speaker 2: And I tell you that now so you can draw
Speaker 2: your own conclusions later in the story when things get
Speaker 2: a little murkier. So just keep that in the back
Speaker 2: of your mind for now. It wasn't long after the
Speaker 2: attack on Autio that members of Oxi Contra for thirty
Speaker 2: five started getting arrested. Although the group's name disappears from
Speaker 2: the conversation pretty quickly, the men who carried out that
Speaker 2: attack were members of other groups too. Specifically, they were
Speaker 2: all members of the Africaner Resistance movement. The AWB led
Speaker 2: by Eugene terre Blanche. The first to be arrested were
Speaker 2: two South African citizens, Arthur Archer and Craig Barker, and
Speaker 2: a German mercenary named Horst Clens. South Africans Darrell stopped
Speaker 2: Forth and Leonard Winendhal were arrested soon after. By October
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty nine, two months after the attack, and
Speaker 2: out Yo five men had been arrested. Charges against Craig
Speaker 2: Barker were dropped early on, and the charges against Arthur
Speaker 2: Archer were dropped after he agreed to cooperate, And so
Speaker 2: in December of nineteen eighty nine, it's just three Nandhl
Speaker 2: Cleans and stop Foth were officially charged with murder in
Speaker 2: a Namibian court. The courthouse was a three hour drive
Speaker 2: from the prison where the men were being held. After
Speaker 2: the hearing, Leonard Venadal asked to use the bathroom before
Speaker 2: they were loaded back into the transport van to return
Speaker 2: to their cells. And this is one of those moments
Speaker 2: where it's useful to bear in mind that the Truth
Speaker 2: and Reconciliation Commission names Leonard Venandal as a known operative
Speaker 2: of the Civil Cooperation Bureau, those government sponsored death squads
Speaker 2: and he's named as an operative of the CCB, specifically
Speaker 2: in connection with these events in Namibia. So with that
Speaker 2: in mind, Leonard Venandal goes to the bathroom of the
Speaker 2: courthouse and he somehow knows to take the top off
Speaker 2: the tank of a particular toilet. Someone had left him
Speaker 2: a gift in there, a pistol, and he takes the
Speaker 2: gun out of the toilet and he tucks it away
Speaker 2: and allows himself to be placed back in the van.
Speaker 2: About three quarters the way through the drive back to
Speaker 2: the jail, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the men
Speaker 2: insisted that they just couldn't hold it any longer. They
Speaker 2: needed to stop to go to the bathroom, and the
Speaker 2: two Namibian police officers agreed. They pulled over and they
Speaker 2: let their three prisoners out to pee on the side
Speaker 2: of the road, and then suddenly another vehicle appeared. It
Speaker 2: stopped and two men got out, and Vinadel produced the
Speaker 2: pistol from his hiding place, and the two officers were
Speaker 2: overpowered by the three prisoners and their two accomplices. Constable
Speaker 2: Ricardo van Wick was shot on the stomach and later died.
Speaker 2: The surviving officer was forced at gunpoint into the back
Speaker 2: of the van, which the prisoners drove half an hour
Speaker 2: off the main road before abandoning it. And then they disappeared,
Speaker 2: and the vehicle driven by their accomplices, and they really
Speaker 2: did disappear. Darrel stopped Forth, Leonard Fiennandal, and Horse Glens
Speaker 2: had murdered a UN security guard and an Amibian police officer.
Speaker 2: They were supposed to have gone on trial in Namibia,
Speaker 2: but they vanished for a little while anyway. Just a
Speaker 2: few short months later, both Leonard Fiennindal and Darrel Stopforth
Speaker 2: came out of hiding. They were home in South Africa,
Speaker 2: and South Africa had no extradition treaty with the newly
Speaker 2: independent nation of Namibia. There were warrants for their arrest there,
Speaker 2: but there was nothing anyone could really do. Nadal said
Speaker 2: in a public statement a few months after his escape,
Speaker 2: I have now returned to my family and I'm going
Speaker 2: to devote myself full time to the cause as the
Speaker 2: revolution is here. A photo of Venandal taken around that
Speaker 2: time shows him wearing his AWB uniform and holding his
Speaker 2: newborn son. He'd named the boy Daryl, presumably to honor
Speaker 2: Darrel stop Forth, the man he'd just committed two murders
Speaker 2: with and there's an odd thing I keep seeing these
Speaker 2: guys do as I'm researching this story. They have this
Speaker 2: strange fondness for giving interviews when they're supposed to be
Speaker 2: in hiding on the run from the law. When it
Speaker 2: was announced in September of nineteen eighty nine, a month
Speaker 2: after the attack and out YO that Leonard Venadal had
Speaker 2: been arrested, a reporter in South Africa came forward with
Speaker 2: a pretty wild story. While Venondal had been on the run,
Speaker 2: he'd taken the time to sit down for a two
Speaker 2: hour interview with a reporter, and in that interview he
Speaker 2: spoke openly about his membership in the AWB. That fact
Speaker 2: alone wasn't really a secret. He was Eugene Tablanche's personal bodyguard,
Speaker 2: and he was the leader of the Johannesburg branch of
Speaker 2: the group. But he also claimed there had been a
Speaker 2: split within Aquala, the militant arm of AWB, with some
Speaker 2: members openly declaring their willingness and intent to die for
Speaker 2: the cause, forming a sort of Kamakazi unit that planned
Speaker 2: to carry out high profile assassinations. He also showed the
Speaker 2: reporter a small circular placard of sorts with a picture
Speaker 2: of a wolf. The reporter Yu hung Kus just looked
Speaker 2: at it with disbelief, and he said, there's no such
Speaker 2: thing as the White Wolves, and vin ad all smiled
Speaker 2: at him and replied, believe me, they exist. The White
Speaker 2: Wolves probably didn't exist, not really, not then anyway, not
Speaker 2: in any way that really means anything. I guess they
Speaker 2: kind of did, in the sense that if someone were
Speaker 2: to carry out a series of bombings and then call
Speaker 2: the newspaper to say that the White Wolves did it,
Speaker 2: you sort of retroactively created the idea of a group
Speaker 2: that could be imagined to exist, because Venadel would later
Speaker 2: be connect to an attempt to do just that. But
Speaker 2: by most accounts, the White Wolves wasn't a terrorist organization
Speaker 2: that actually existed. But in September of nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: as he's sitting there with this reporter from the Sunday Times,
Speaker 2: everyone in South Africa had heard of the White Wolf,
Speaker 2: at least in the singular. Earlier that year, a former
Speaker 2: policeman who called himself the White Wolf had been sentenced
Speaker 2: to death. He was a former policeman because he'd been
Speaker 2: dismissed a year earlier. After opposing for a photo holding
Speaker 2: the severed head of a black man who had died
Speaker 2: in a gruesome car accident. He tried to submit the
Speaker 2: photo for publication in a police magazine, but they declined
Speaker 2: to publish it. He'd joined a to w B at
Speaker 2: just sixteen, with his father's support and encouragement. He'd been
Speaker 2: sentenced to die for something he did. November of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight, one afternoon, a twenty three year old named
Speaker 2: Baron Stredam put on his custom belt buckle engraved with
Speaker 2: the words white wolf and Afrikaans. He barked his car
Speaker 2: near a busy city square in downtown Pretoria, and he
Speaker 2: got out, and he started walking, and then he started shooting.
Speaker 2: On the day of the massacre, he just walked for
Speaker 2: several blocks, just shooting black people at random. He murdered
Speaker 2: eight people and wounded sixteen others, and every survivor says
Speaker 2: the same thing. He smiled the entire time. Bradley Stein
Speaker 2: was just seventeen years old that day and he was
Speaker 2: on his way home from rugby practice when he saw Stridum.
Speaker 2: He didn't understand at first what he was looking at.
Speaker 2: This man with a gun must be a police officer.
Speaker 2: He must be trying to catch a bad guy. But
Speaker 2: then he saw Stridem walk up to an old woman
Speaker 2: carrying groceries, and without saying a word, Stritem shot her
Speaker 2: in the head. At that moment, a black teenager called
Speaker 2: out to stein beckoning him over to the bench he
Speaker 2: was hiding behind, and the two teens hid behind the
Speaker 2: bench together, but Stridum found them. He shot the black boy.
Speaker 2: As Steyne, who's white, cradled this bleeding stranger in his lap.
Speaker 2: He looked up at Stridam and asked him why.
Speaker 3: Then I turned up to him and I said, who
Speaker 3: com duniate that? Why are you doing this? And he said,
Speaker 3: agduned it for it two cooms for we sight africananners,
Speaker 3: which means I'm doing this for the future of white
Speaker 3: South Africans.
Speaker 2: Stridum never fired at a white person. The shooting only
Speaker 2: stopped when a black taxi driver named Simon Mucondeley tapped
Speaker 2: Stritum on the shoulder while he was reloading. He must
Speaker 2: have caught the killer off guard because as Stridem turned round,
Speaker 2: Mucondeley was able to grab the gun out of his hands.
Speaker 2: As I was reading about Stridem's murders. It felt so
Speaker 2: familiar to me. I've read accounts of a lot of
Speaker 2: mass shootings. I've seen videos I wish I could forget.
Speaker 2: I've wasted countless hours reading manifestos, and there are plenty
Speaker 2: of similarities between white supremacist mass shootings. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of common denominators when it comes to a young
Speaker 2: white man who carries out a racist mass shooting. But
Speaker 2: this felt so terribly, eerily familiar to me. It was inescapable.
Speaker 2: It felt just like the Charleston church shooting. It felt
Speaker 2: like Dylan Rufe. And back in twenty fifteen, several South
Speaker 2: Africa journalists covering that story that American shooting referred to
Speaker 2: Dylan Rufe as America's white Wolf. So I guess I'm
Speaker 2: not alone in that feeling. We talked briefly last week
Speaker 2: about the apartheid era South African flag patch in photos
Speaker 2: of roof taken shortly before he murdered nine people at
Speaker 2: the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in twenty fifteen, So
Speaker 2: we know he had a fondness for apartheid. But I
Speaker 2: wonder if he was familiar with the white wolf. So
Speaker 2: in Venadel is sitting there with this reporter showing him
Speaker 2: this little picture of a wolf. This is what he's
Speaker 2: talking about. He's telling the reporter that he's a member
Speaker 2: of this extremely militant, violent arm of the AWB, that
Speaker 2: they're planning to get a race war going before Christmas,
Speaker 2: and he really wants the paper to run a story
Speaker 2: that will convince people that there are hundreds more Barren
Speaker 2: Stritums out there lying in wait. And the reason the
Speaker 2: reporter didn't believe him is because it had been discussed
Speaker 2: extensively during Stritem's trial just a few months earlier. There
Speaker 2: was no reason to believe any actual group called the
Speaker 2: White Wolves existed. He was a member of AWB, that
Speaker 2: was fairly certain, but when it came to the White Wolves,
Speaker 2: it appeared to just be a pack of one. Fienandal
Speaker 2: was maybe just planting seeds of propaganda. He was trying
Speaker 2: to capitalize on this intense fear and trauma surrounding Stritem's
Speaker 2: murders by convincing people it could happen again at any time.
Speaker 2: But Leonard Fiennindal had been telling the truth about at
Speaker 2: least one thing when he spoke to that reporter before
Speaker 2: his arrest, there had been some splintering within the African
Speaker 2: or Resistance movement, members of AWB had started forming increasingly
Speaker 2: violent breakaway groups, groups like the Orde van de Dude,
Speaker 2: which translates to the Order of Death, and the Order
Speaker 2: Borofolk the Order of the Boer People. And that name
Speaker 2: might sound familiar. A violent fascist group calling itself the
Speaker 2: Order we heard that one before its founder would later
Speaker 2: say that he'd never actually heard of Robert J. Matthews,
Speaker 2: the American neo Nazi who founded a group called The
Speaker 2: Order in nineteen eighty three. It seems both men arrived
Speaker 2: at the name independently, but for the exact same reason.
Speaker 2: It was the name of the fictional white supremacist organization
Speaker 2: in William Luther Pierce's novel The Turner Diaries. And you
Speaker 2: might remember the name of the man who founded the
Speaker 2: South African version of the Order. Remember last week we
Speaker 2: were talking about the trial of Massimo Bolo and Fabio Miriello,
Speaker 2: the Italian fascist convicted of the vit Commando bombings in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty. As the two men were led into the
Speaker 2: court room on the first day of their trial, one
Speaker 2: man and the gallery stood up and applauded for the bombers,
Speaker 2: and that man was Pritorious City councilor Pete Rudolph, And
Speaker 2: so by this point in our timeline, Rudolph is a
Speaker 2: high ranking member of the africaner resistance movement the AWB,
Speaker 2: and Pete Rudolph maintains to this day that he founded
Speaker 2: the Order in nineteen eighty nine with the knowledge and
Speaker 2: blessing of AWB's leader, Eugene taire Blanche, specifically so that
Speaker 2: AWB members could engage in more violent resistance without risking
Speaker 2: AWB itself being sanctioned or banned. And if that's true,
Speaker 2: it's actually quite similar in that respect to the group
Speaker 2: of the same name in the United States. When Robert
Speaker 2: Matthews founded the Order, he did so with the knowledge
Speaker 2: and blessing of William Luther Pierce, announcing the formation of
Speaker 2: the group in a speech at the annual meeting of
Speaker 2: Pierce's National Alliance. And National Alliance benefited Ida theologically and
Speaker 2: financially from the Order's crimes, but they had the plausible
Speaker 2: deniability of having no formal affiliation with the group. Just
Speaker 2: like Pierce a National Alliance, Terre Blanche and the AWB
Speaker 2: could sit back and enjoy the political benefit of their
Speaker 2: orders act of terror without the risk of appearing to
Speaker 2: have authorized them. The Order Boro Folk was definitely founded
Speaker 2: and led by Pete Rudolph, but press clippings over the
Speaker 2: years occasionally name other men as the group's leader. At
Speaker 2: one point, Nick Stridem, the father of mass murderer Baronstretem,
Speaker 2: is quoted as the head of the Order. In nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety four, a South African TV news program aired an
Speaker 2: interview with a man claiming to be the leader of
Speaker 2: the Order. I was perhaps as surprised as Pete Rudolph
Speaker 2: was to see Leonard Wienendahl staring back at me from
Speaker 2: the screen. Rudolph would later tell them Truth and Reconciliation
Speaker 2: Commission that Venandal had appointed himself as chief of staff
Speaker 2: of the Order without his permission, and that such a
Speaker 2: position didn't even exist. And he called Venandal quote a
Speaker 2: man fond of publicity with strong national socialist inclinations. And
Speaker 2: he scoffed at the very idea that he would have
Speaker 2: let Venondal lead anything, disparagingly referring to Venondal's habit of
Speaker 2: appearing in public in a khaki uniform, saying I despise
Speaker 2: a khaki uniform. Let me tell you, because khaki is
Speaker 2: the color of the British. But I guess the fashion
Speaker 2: police unit of the Nazi terror squad is really neither
Speaker 2: here nor there. No one denies Vnondal was a member
Speaker 2: of the Order. In fact, when Venondal, Cleans and stop
Speaker 2: Forth had escaped from custody in Namibia, it had been
Speaker 2: the Order who picked them up on the side of
Speaker 2: the road there next to the still bleeding policeman. The
Speaker 2: man driving their getaway car was Rudolph's chief deputy, Hank Bradenhan.
Speaker 2: Rudolph claims the Order was formally established in October of
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, but they didn't announce their presence to
Speaker 2: the world until February of nineteen ninety, when a small
Speaker 2: group of quote suspicious looking white men vandalized the British
Speaker 2: embassy in Pretoria. Witnesses saw them walk up to the
Speaker 2: embassy gates and spray paint in Afrikaans. The struggle begins
Speaker 2: and they signed the statement order. Borofolk police looked at
Speaker 2: the graffiti and said they'd never heard of the group.
Speaker 2: One member spoke anonymously with the press and said they
Speaker 2: were allied with the White Wolves. In April of nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: the Order Boro folk took its first big step. Pete
Speaker 2: Rudolph organized and led a raid on a South African
Speaker 2: Air Force base. Carried out in collaboration with three young
Speaker 2: A Tobb sympathizers within the Air Force. Order members, including
Speaker 2: Leonard Wienendahl, stole a busload of guns and ammunition from
Speaker 2: the South African Defense Force. Rudolph called the Pretoria News
Speaker 2: while on the run to take credit for the heist,
Speaker 2: saying it was time for war. Quote. I have now
Speaker 2: crossed the rubicon. The boar now have a chance to
Speaker 2: arm themselves. We are now going for the a n
Speaker 2: c's throat. And keep those guns in the back of
Speaker 2: your mind too, I'll remind you, but one of those
Speaker 2: guns shows back up. In June, Rudolph recorded a half
Speaker 2: hour long video declaring war against the government, and he
Speaker 2: mailed copies to several New Use outlets as well as
Speaker 2: other right wing groups. I could only find a short
Speaker 2: clip of it. I don't know why it looked so
Speaker 2: hard for the full video. It wouldn't have done me
Speaker 2: any good. It's all in Afrikaans, but still frames from
Speaker 2: the video show Rudolph sitting at a desk flanked by
Speaker 2: masked men carrying rifles they'd stolen from the military, and
Speaker 2: the message was part press release, part warning, part call
Speaker 2: to action. He's speaking to a variety of audiences here
Speaker 2: and for his fellow African or nationalists. His message was
Speaker 2: pretty simple. It's not time to talk anymore and it
Speaker 2: is quote better to die in glory than to live
Speaker 2: in disgrace. Within days of this video's release, the bombs
Speaker 2: started going off. In late June and early July of
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, bombs went off every night. A bomb went
Speaker 2: off on a bust terminal in Johannesburg injuring nearly thirty people.
Speaker 2: Bombs went off at both the home and business belonging
Speaker 2: to Clive Gilbert, a Johannesburg City councilor who was both
Speaker 2: Jewish and a member of the Democratic Party. That same week,
Speaker 2: a synagogue in Johannesburg was bombed and defaced with swastika's
Speaker 2: and pro apartheid slogans. The office of the National Union
Speaker 2: of Mine Workers, a radical black labour organization, was destroyed
Speaker 2: by a bomb that went off overnight. A bomb blew
Speaker 2: out the windows of the offices of the anti apartheid
Speaker 2: weekly newspaper Freivigblad, and the homes and offices of several
Speaker 2: members of the ruling National Party were targeted as well,
Speaker 2: accompanied by warnings that President de Clerk must stop all
Speaker 2: efforts to adopt moderate reforms. And then the phone calls came.
Speaker 2: Two phone calls to the offices of a pro government newspaper.
Speaker 2: The first caller spoke English, not Afrikaans. A day later,
Speaker 2: a second call came to the same paper, and this
Speaker 2: caller spoke Afrikaans, but he used the code word the
Speaker 2: reporter had given the previous caller to ensure he was
Speaker 2: speaking with the same group. Both callers told the newspaper
Speaker 2: that the White Wolves were responsible for the bombings and
Speaker 2: that the bombings would continue if their demands weren't meant.
Speaker 2: Their primary demand was pretty straightforward. They wanted President de
Speaker 2: Clerk to call an election. His moves towards reform and
Speaker 2: concessions and negotiations with the ANC, and his recent release
Speaker 2: of Nelson Mandela. These things were unacceptable, and they wanted
Speaker 2: the opportunity to elect a better white president. But the
Speaker 2: group had two other strangely specific requests. They wanted the
Speaker 2: White Wolf himself, Baron Stridam, released from prison, and they
Speaker 2: wanted the police to call off the man hunt for
Speaker 2: Pete Rudolph, who was at this time still on the
Speaker 2: run after claiming responsibility for stealing all those guns from
Speaker 2: the military and then sending the government a videotaped declaration
Speaker 2: of war. But like I said, the White Wolves almost
Speaker 2: certainly didn't exist, not in nineteen ninety, not as an
Speaker 2: actual organized group, whatever that means for a group that
Speaker 2: didn't exist, though they were very busy in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: In February, shortly after Nelson Mandela was released from prison,
Speaker 2: letters threatening to assassinate him were received by newspapers and
Speaker 2: those letters were signed the White Wolves. In May, when
Speaker 2: President Declark announced another round of apartheid reforms, including the
Speaker 2: repeal of the law that segregated libraries, the White Wolves
Speaker 2: put out a press release warning the president to watch
Speaker 2: his back. In May of nineteen ninety, three black activists
Speaker 2: with the African National Congress were run off the road
Speaker 2: by two white men. Prince Makina and Simon Koba were murdered,
Speaker 2: but Xavier Likuote survived to testify. He says, before one
Speaker 2: of the white men started shooting at them. He'd ask
Speaker 2: if they'd heard of the White Wolves, Lekuote said, he
Speaker 2: replied that he had, and just before opening fire, the
Speaker 2: man looked down at them and said, I'm going to
Speaker 2: show you just who the White Wolves are. And now
Speaker 2: in July, the White Wolves are claiming responsibility for most,
Speaker 2: though not all, of the bombs that had been going
Speaker 2: off every night for a week. It's possible that some
Speaker 2: of the other incidents involving people claiming to be the
Speaker 2: White Wolves were just people doing what Leonard Binendal had
Speaker 2: done with that reporter. They were pretending they were acting
Speaker 2: on their own or in connection with some other group.
Speaker 2: But they liked the way it sounded to say they
Speaker 2: were the White Wolves. They understood the kind of fear
Speaker 2: it would inspire and the kind of plausible deniability it
Speaker 2: would give their actual group affiliation for whatever they'd done.
Speaker 2: And more importantly, they wanted to honor the White Wolf
Speaker 2: Baron Stredam. I see a lot of parallels here between
Speaker 2: the way Stritam's murders so quickly achieved this almost religious
Speaker 2: significance and the way modern terogram culture canonized his mass shooters.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize they'd been doing that for so many decades.
Speaker 2: I don't know that it was ever conclusively proven who
Speaker 2: was actually behind every instance of someone claiming to be
Speaker 2: the White Wolves, but in at least one of those
Speaker 2: cases we knew exactly who it was. The men who
Speaker 2: murdered Prince Makina and Simon Koba in May of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety was Peter Grinevald, son of General Teeny Gunivald, South
Speaker 2: Africa's head of military intelligence. Peter Garnivald fled the country
Speaker 2: after the murders, and he spent years hiding in Portugal.
Speaker 2: When he was finally brought to justice, he testified that
Speaker 2: at the time of the murders, he had been an
Speaker 2: employee of the Civil Cooperation Bureau, just like Leonard Vinendal.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure with conclusion to traw here, but the
Speaker 2: only two people I can say with conclusive proof were
Speaker 2: telling people that the White Wolves were real. Both turned
Speaker 2: out to be members of state sponsored death squads. But
Speaker 2: when it comes to those bombings in July, the police
Speaker 2: knew it wasn't the White Wolves because they knew it
Speaker 2: was members of the AWB, And we know more specifically
Speaker 2: that it was members of the closely aligned splinter group,
Speaker 2: the Order Borofolk. There are a lot of reasons why
Speaker 2: we know that to be true, but just in case,
Speaker 2: here's Pete Rudolph himself saying it in an interview. Last year.
Speaker 1: We blew up National Party offices, we attacked some of
Speaker 1: the trade unions and it was becoming an open war.
Speaker 4: And this was under the flag of the Order Bouervont.
Speaker 5: Under the older Budafowk, which were started on the tenth
Speaker 5: of October eighteen eighty nine in Connivence and with the
Speaker 5: assistance of the AWB.
Speaker 2: All three of the men who bombed those un offices
Speaker 2: in Namibia in nineteen eighty nine had reappeared in South
Speaker 2: Africa by mid nineteen ninety, and all three were actively
Speaker 2: involved in the Order's bombing campaign that summer. And when
Speaker 2: the police started making arrests in July of nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: Horst Cleans, Darryl Stopped Fourth and Leonard Fienendal were three
Speaker 2: of the ten men pained and connection with the bombings.
Speaker 2: All ten of those men had ties to AWB. Several
Speaker 2: would later testify that they'd also been members of the
Speaker 2: Order of Death, a group that required members to commit
Speaker 2: a random, unprovoked murder as an act of initiation. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't know what
Speaker 2: happened next. I tried so hard to sort this out.
Speaker 2: I love a day by day timeline, but I think
Speaker 2: there are a lot of factors complicating things here. I mean,
Speaker 2: first of all, it was thirty five years ago. Not
Speaker 2: every piece of news has been archived and digitized, and
Speaker 2: there's probably reporting out there that I just can't access.
Speaker 2: And there are still the issues I talked about last
Speaker 2: week when it comes to locating source material in a
Speaker 2: foreign language with naming conventions and cultural contexts that I
Speaker 2: just don't have. I've noticed a surprisingly casual attitude towards
Speaker 2: spelling and nick names. I mean, it was incredibly common
Speaker 2: across all of my sources for this story for someone's
Speaker 2: name to be spelled a handful of different ways, pretty interchangeably,
Speaker 2: sometimes even within the same article. And it seems like
Speaker 2: it might be normal in Afrikaans to refer to a
Speaker 2: particular individual using their full name or just their first
Speaker 2: and middle initial with their last name or some kind
Speaker 2: of nickname, even in very formal writing, again totally interchangeably.
Speaker 2: It took me a week to realize that KOs is
Speaker 2: a nickname for Jacobis, and one guy might be written
Speaker 2: about both ways, from sentence to sentence. I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe this is cultural. I have no idea, but it
Speaker 2: really complicates the process of looking for information. I've also
Speaker 2: noticed dates are often wrong. I mean a lot, like
Speaker 2: markedly provably wrong, just not consistent from source to source,
Speaker 2: sometimes just offering information that isn't possible. I mentioned last
Speaker 2: week that some of the dates in the Truth and
Speaker 2: Reconciliation Report are definitely not correct. Things like the year
Speaker 2: the Wit commando trials took place are pretty easy to
Speaker 2: corroborate with newspaper archives, and it happens over and over again.
Speaker 2: The bombing of the Frei vik Blot office is widely
Speaker 2: reported in later sources to have occurred in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: The paper's own editor, Max Duprees, even puts the date
Speaker 2: as nineteen ninety one in his memoirs, but that's not true.
Speaker 2: He spoke to a reporter from the London Times about
Speaker 2: the bombing the day after it happened in July of
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety and Duprees writes in his book that Leonard
Speaker 2: Wienendhal had confessed to having planted that bomb, which again
Speaker 2: could not have happened in nineteen ninety one because Leonard
Speaker 2: Venendal was in prison in nineteen ninety one, and the
Speaker 2: confession in question is actually very well documented because Venondal
Speaker 2: would later testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that
Speaker 2: he'd only confess to that bombing because police interrogators had
Speaker 2: electrocuted his testicles in July of nineteen ninety So sorting
Speaker 2: out a day by day timeline, which is again my
Speaker 2: preferred strategy, really just wasn't possible here. There is no
Speaker 2: consistently reliable source when it comes to when a particular
Speaker 2: event actually happened. And I'm not gidding about that the
Speaker 2: bit about Venendal claiming to have been tortured. He applied
Speaker 2: to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, not as
Speaker 2: a perpetrator, but as a victim. He offered testimony about
Speaker 2: abuse he'd suffered after his arrest in July of nineteen ninety.
Speaker 6: I then experienced being shocked. Then the current would come
Speaker 6: through my leg, knew my arm, but stand through my gentiles.
Speaker 6: Sometimes they would come all free together while this was going,
Speaker 6: he shouted at me. Why don't I call my God
Speaker 6: to release me from the chain.
Speaker 2: That clip comes from one of the weekly hour long
Speaker 2: broadcasts that aired every Sunday from nineteen ninety six through
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight. Every week South Africans could tune in
Speaker 2: for the Truth and Reconciliation Special Report, a compilation of
Speaker 2: clips from the hearings that was presented by Max Dupries,
Speaker 2: the newspaper editor whose office Mean and All admitted to bombing,
Speaker 2: and Duprez ends that segment of the show with his
Speaker 2: own commentary.
Speaker 7: I'm looking forward to mister Finnandahl's amnesty education hearing, and
Speaker 7: perhaps our Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs owe the
Speaker 7: public and explanation why he has not been sent back
Speaker 7: to Namobia to stand trial.
Speaker 2: But back to the question of the missing facts, Perhaps
Speaker 2: the biggest factor here is that some of this information
Speaker 2: just isn't there to find. And I don't mean it's
Speaker 2: missing from the archives. I mean it doesn't exist. These
Speaker 2: final years of the apartheid regime were chaotic. Someone might
Speaker 2: get arrested for terrorism and then there just isn't ever
Speaker 2: any follow up. I may be searching for answers that
Speaker 2: aren't there, because sometimes cops would round up a bunch
Speaker 2: of guys and put a story in the newspaper, and
Speaker 2: then I don't know, they just aren't in jail anymore,
Speaker 2: and there's never any more to the story. Sometimes people
Speaker 2: escaped two members of the Order Bora Folk definitely did.
Speaker 2: And sometimes people were quietly released because they secretly worked
Speaker 2: for the government. And during this time period especially, the
Speaker 2: government had a strategy of politically targeted am As part
Speaker 2: of this effort to cool tensions and advanced negotiations, there
Speaker 2: were these occasional releases of political prisoners. They just pick
Speaker 2: a few guys on both sides of the conflict and
Speaker 2: let them go. And unlike the later, more organized and
Speaker 2: thoughtful process of granting amnesty through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this,
Speaker 2: at least to me, I could be wrong here, but
Speaker 2: this looked a little haphazard. It doesn't look like these
Speaker 2: early nineties amnesty releases really involved any sort of long
Speaker 2: process of thoroughly accounting for what actually happened and documenting
Speaker 2: the specifics and getting statements on the record, getting people
Speaker 2: to admit what they'd done. They just sort of let
Speaker 2: people go and one of the more egregious instances of
Speaker 2: this was the release of Baron Stretum in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: The men who laughed as he shot pedestrians at random
Speaker 2: had served just four years, and the release of political
Speaker 2: prisoners was a part of the ongoing negotiations between the
Speaker 2: National Party administration and the African National Congress. Both sides
Speaker 2: were getting some of their people out of prison, and
Speaker 2: the A and C seemed generally supportive of the strategy,
Speaker 2: but not when it came to Barons Stritum. Cyril Ramaposa,
Speaker 2: the current President of South Africa, was the A and
Speaker 2: C General secretary back in nineteen ninety two, and he
Speaker 2: issued their statement condemning the decision. Our prisoners will not
Speaker 2: go out and commit these acts again, he said. But
Speaker 2: there's no guarantee that the prisoners who hate black people
Speaker 2: will not come out and shoot more black people. Baron
Speaker 2: Stretum didn't carry out another mass shooting after his release,
Speaker 2: not that I'm aware of, but he did continue to
Speaker 2: support and encourage far right violence. Shortly after his release.
Speaker 2: Australian journalist Alan Hogan interviewed Stridam about the murders. Camera
Speaker 2: not in a studio or his living room. No, the
Speaker 2: interview took place as the pair walked together along the
Speaker 2: path that Stridam had taken that day, and he's pointing
Speaker 2: out the locations each spot where he took a human life,
Speaker 2: and he's laughing, and he enthusiastically agrees that, Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you gave me a gun right now, I do it again, Rock.
Speaker 7: Then then I say shut another one here. That's three,
Speaker 7: so that's free so far. You see these couple of
Speaker 7: bucks sitting here now, yeah, would you like to shut
Speaker 7: them another another time?
Speaker 2: All that to say, the early nineties were a little chaotic,
Speaker 2: So I'm come saying, I just don't know why. It
Speaker 2: looks like no one was ever charged for those bombings
Speaker 2: in July of nineteen ninety. I can tell you for
Speaker 2: certain that ten members of the Order were arrested in
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen ninety after that series of bombings.
Speaker 2: One was released after he agreed to cooperate to escape,
Speaker 2: and Leonard Wienendal Darrel stopped Forth and Horst Cleans were
Speaker 2: in jail, originally held in connection with the bombings for
Speaker 2: violations of Section twenty nine of the Internal Security Act,
Speaker 2: and they seemed to stay in jail for quite a while.
Speaker 2: No charges were ever actually filed against them for those
Speaker 2: bombings in South Africa, but while they were in custody,
Speaker 2: the newly independent nation of Namibia filed a petition to
Speaker 2: have them extradited to face trial for those murders. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. The Truth and Reconciliation Report notes in
Speaker 2: passing that they were never interviewed by Nimbia authorities during
Speaker 2: this time period. It doesn't say why, if they asked
Speaker 2: and weren't given permission, or if they just never asked.
Speaker 2: And I do have articles that were published in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety and nineteen ninety one that seemed to indicate they
Speaker 2: remained in continuous custody throughout this time, But after those
Speaker 2: first few months, the articles stopped mentioning why they'd been
Speaker 2: arrested in the first place, and they only refer to
Speaker 2: the fact that they're still being held pending a determination
Speaker 2: about extradition. By July of nineteen ninety one, a year
Speaker 2: after they were arrested, both Vinendhal and Cleans were reportedly
Speaker 2: dangerously ill from an ongoing hunger strike, along with other
Speaker 2: incarcerated members of the Order Bfolk. They were political prisoners.
Speaker 2: They said they'd only carried out the orders of the state.
Speaker 2: They can't be prosecuted for that, and they said they
Speaker 2: would continue their hunger strike until their demands were met.
Speaker 2: News stories show Fienandl was on a hunger strike as
Speaker 2: early as January of ninety one and as late as
Speaker 2: August of ninety two, So that can't have been continuous
Speaker 2: because he's still alive. But for about two years, I
Speaker 2: can place him in jail and he's going on intermittent
Speaker 2: hunger strikes to protest this continued detention. In April of
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, a South African judge did rule that
Speaker 2: the Autio three could be extradited to Namibia. Stop Fourth
Speaker 2: and Venandal tried to appeal that ruling, but horse Glen's
Speaker 2: wasn't really participating. He just kind of disappeared, and when
Speaker 2: they were all released on bond in December of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two to await this final ruling, he disappeared entirely.
Speaker 2: It would take another four years, but in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: the Minister of Justice finally signed the extradition order. Horst
Speaker 2: Glens was otherwise engaged by Van He was serving time
Speaker 2: for the plot we'll cover next week. But Darrell stop
Speaker 2: Fourth and Leonard Venondal were ordered to surrender themselves for
Speaker 2: extradition to Namibia, but they didn't. I can't figure out
Speaker 2: where Darryl stopped Fourth ended up. I tried, but I
Speaker 2: know exactly where Leonard Venendall is because just as he
Speaker 2: was due to present himself to the authorities to be extradited,
Speaker 2: he stole a car, crossed the border and flew to
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom. Some reporting says he initially entered the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom using a false passport, probably because he was
Speaker 2: on Inner Poll's most wanted list, and that he didn't
Speaker 2: try to claim asylum until after he was caught, but
Speaker 2: it's unclear. The man that Eugene Tareblanche used to affectionately
Speaker 2: refer to as my little fanatic settled down with his
Speaker 2: family in Wisbeck, a town about one hundred miles north
Speaker 2: of London. He's the chair of the Wisbeck Rugby Club
Speaker 2: and his wife Tracy, is the treasurer. The payday loan
Speaker 2: company he started after moving to England went into liquidation
Speaker 2: a few years ago. I'm not really familiar with how
Speaker 2: anything works in the UK, and I really don't know
Speaker 2: how you could bankrupt a business that's pure extortionate profit,
Speaker 2: but that is what the paperwork appears to show. There's
Speaker 2: been a handful of articles over the years asking why
Speaker 2: Leonard Wienandal was allowed to enter and remain in the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom. In two thousand and three, a reporter tracked
Speaker 2: him down in his home in Wisbec, and Searchlight magazine
Speaker 2: would later report that Vnandal allegedly attacked the reporter, grabbing
Speaker 2: him and slamming him up against a wall, shouting, you're
Speaker 2: going to find yourself in a very negative position. Subsequent
Speaker 2: attempts to write articles about Venondal don't contain quotes from him.
Speaker 2: He and his wife are South African citizens born in
Speaker 2: South Africa. There's no evidence he actually applied for political asylum.
Speaker 2: Corporate filings for his bankrupt paid a loan company list
Speaker 2: his nationality as South African, which, again, knowing nothing about
Speaker 2: British business zoom, means he did not seek British citizenship.
Speaker 2: So the UK is just willingly harboring a man who
Speaker 2: still wanted for two murders in Namibia. International extradition law
Speaker 2: can be a bit tricky, but ultimately even if they
Speaker 2: couldn't or don't want to extradite him to Namibia, why
Speaker 2: is he still in the UK. They could deport him
Speaker 2: back to South Africa, and presumably the South African government
Speaker 2: would finish what they started in nineteen ninety and send
Speaker 2: him to Namibia. In February of this year, as Donald
Speaker 2: Trump started parroting white nationalist talking points about South Africa,
Speaker 2: Mihnandhl made a flurry of online posts praising the American President,
Speaker 2: writing in one post last month, thank you President Donald J. Trump,
Speaker 2: not only for hearing the plight of my people, the
Speaker 2: poor africaners, but for boldly stepping up to stand with
Speaker 2: them in their hour of need and face of adversity.
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter died in December. Bvenandal posted he just died,
Speaker 2: so we're supposed to pretend he's a saint. But Carter
Speaker 2: was instrumental in killing the free, prosperous state of Rhodesia.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I can't tell you whatever became of
Speaker 2: Darrell stop fourth, but we'll pick back up next week
Speaker 2: with horsed cleans. He was released from the South African
Speaker 2: jail in nineteen ninety two, pending a decision on whether
Speaker 2: or not he could be extradited to Namibia. Unlike stop
Speaker 2: fourth in Biennondal, he doesn't seem to have participated in
Speaker 2: the legal battle to appeal that decision. He went underground,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't resurface again until nineteen ninety four, when
Speaker 2: he's arrested again, this time after a shootout with the
Speaker 2: South African police that left one of his young German
Speaker 2: mercenaries dead. And that's where we'll find the woman who
Speaker 2: set me down this long, strange path. It was Monica
Speaker 2: Huggett who was graciously playing host for those foreign mercenaries.
Speaker 2: In early March of nineteen ninety four, three men left
Speaker 2: the Bosnian city of Siroki brieg German mercenaries Falk Semang
Speaker 2: and Ralph Moracas were eager for a change of scenery,
Speaker 2: not because they had tired of their lives as soldiers
Speaker 2: of fortune, but because they were in a bit of
Speaker 2: hot water after murdering two of their fellow mercenaries, and
Speaker 2: Ronald Doyster, a Dutch mercenary they'd worked with on his
Speaker 2: last stint with the Croatian forces, was happy to recruit
Speaker 2: them to a new mission, one far away from the
Speaker 2: mess they'd made in the Balkans. Before they left, they
Speaker 2: took a few souvenirs, a couple of AK forty sevens,
Speaker 2: one pistol, eight kilos of semtex, a plastic explosive, and
Speaker 2: a crate of hand grenades. They stashed the stolen weapons
Speaker 2: under the seats of the old Citron that Doyster was driving.
Speaker 2: Doyster was no stranger to committing crimes across borders. He'd
Speaker 2: been a soldier for hire for over a decade and
Speaker 2: had served a bit of time in Ireland for arms smuggling.
Speaker 2: He was confident that his expertly forged un press credentials
Speaker 2: were all they'd need to ensure a clean getaway without
Speaker 2: anyone searching the vehicle, and he was right. After driving
Speaker 2: nearly two thousand kilometers, they reached their first destination, the
Speaker 2: Belgian city of Roussillara. There they met with Roger Spinewen,
Speaker 2: the leader of a Belgian Neo Nazi group called the
Speaker 2: Order of Flemish Militants. He was a bit of a
Speaker 2: legend in certain circles. He was already an old man,
Speaker 2: but in the seventies he'd led a small group of
Speaker 2: Belgian Nazis in a daring heist of sorts, successfully stealing
Speaker 2: the corpse of a long dead Nazi priest from his
Speaker 2: grave in Austria to be reinterred on his home soil
Speaker 2: in Belgium. And on that day in March of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety four, Spinewin paid Douster eleven thousand Deutsche marks for
Speaker 2: the stolen weapons, but he gave him one more thing directions.
Speaker 2: It had been Spinewen who had asked Deuster to return
Speaker 2: to Bosnia this one last time, not as a mercenary
Speaker 2: this time, but to fetch hardware and recruits for a
Speaker 2: new mission, one in South Africa. The Aeging Neo Nazi
Speaker 2: had spent his life fighting for fascism At home in Belgium.
Speaker 2: His son John was a member of parliament as a
Speaker 2: leader in the far right party of Vlam's Bloc. World
Speaker 2: continued to change around him. He hoped to retire one
Speaker 2: day in a beautiful white Ethno state in Southern Africa.
Speaker 2: Here on the eve of the end of apartheid, though
Speaker 2: that dream was starting to look less and less likely,
Speaker 2: unless they could incite enough violence in those final months
Speaker 2: to convince the white population of South Africa that they
Speaker 2: needed to secede to form a new pure white nation,
Speaker 2: and this was the task he'd recruited these mercenaries for.
Speaker 2: It wasn't safe to depart directly from Belgium, the authorities
Speaker 2: there were already a little suspicious. Instead, the mercenaries took
Speaker 2: the ferry across the English Channel to Ramsgate, a seaside
Speaker 2: town in Kent. There, with an introduction from Spinowin, they
Speaker 2: made their next contacts, members of the British fascist group,
Speaker 2: the League of Saint George. They spent a few days
Speaker 2: there making final preparations for their journey with the help
Speaker 2: of their new English friends. This was becoming something of
Speaker 2: a routine for the members of the League of Saint George.
Speaker 2: Just two months earlier, they'd hosted another batch of German
Speaker 2: mercenaries making the same trip. They didn't know just yet
Speaker 2: that one of those men was already dead. On the
Speaker 2: evening before Doyster and the Germans were scheduled to fly
Speaker 2: out of Heathrow, Roger Spinowen dispatched one of his sons
Speaker 2: to Ramsgate with one final message for the mercenaries. Willie
Speaker 2: Spinowen handed Ronald Doyster a sealed envelope and passed along
Speaker 2: his father's order, Doyster was to personally hand deliver this
Speaker 2: envelope to the woman who would meet him at the airport,
Speaker 2: a woman named Monica hugget I'm Molly Conger and this
Speaker 2: is weird, little guys. This is the part of the
Speaker 2: story where we finally rejoined the woman we started with,
Speaker 2: Monica Huggett Stone. It's been a long, strange journey. We
Speaker 2: started out a few weeks ago in twenty twelve, in Sacramento, California,
Speaker 2: American neo Nazis from the Golden State Skinheads were rallying
Speaker 2: outside the state capitol holding the flag of apartheid South
Speaker 2: Africa when counter protesters from a nearby occupy encampment showed
Speaker 2: up to heckle them. What an odd site, those skinheads
Speaker 2: in their black jackets rallying for the imaginary cause of
Speaker 2: a white genocide against South African farmers. That rally was
Speaker 2: one of more than a dozen simultaneous rallies across the
Speaker 2: United States that day, though they were mostly poorly attended
Speaker 2: and some were barely publicized, and all of them were
Speaker 2: organized by a short lived Aryan Nations affiliated group called
Speaker 2: the South Africa Project, and that group itself was almost
Speaker 2: certainly really just two people, a long time Arian Nations
Speaker 2: member named Maurice Goulette and a mysterious woman in Louisiana
Speaker 2: named Monica Stone. I'm always surprised by the twists and
Speaker 2: turns that these stories take. Once you start turning over
Speaker 2: a few rocks, there's always some bizarre new ankle that
Speaker 2: takes us miles from where I thought we were going.
Speaker 2: But this one has been the strangest ride of any
Speaker 2: weird little guy so far. In this chapter of the story,
Speaker 2: we'll try to trace the paths of these European mercenaries
Speaker 2: from Bosnia to South Africa. It turns out there was
Speaker 2: an international network to funnel guns for hire from one
Speaker 2: conflict to another, And as cloak and dagger as all
Speaker 2: of that sounds, it wasn't really a secret, not entirely.
Speaker 2: Searchlight magazine had reported on the scheme months before Those
Speaker 2: German mercenaries even bought their plane tickets. Every year for
Speaker 2: decades now, European Neo Nazis gather in the Belgian city
Speaker 2: of Dixmude for an international fascist get together, and at
Speaker 2: the event in nineteen ninety three, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about changing their focus about redirecting mercenaries from
Speaker 2: the Balkans to South Africa, and plans were made. At
Speaker 2: least fifteen mercenaries were pledged to be dispatched in early
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four with plans to fight alongside Robert vent
Speaker 2: Honter's Boristock Party. All of this was published in print
Speaker 2: in English in the fall of nineteen ninety three, months
Speaker 2: before this actually happened. That same publication, Searchlight magazine, would
Speaker 2: eventually uncover more of the details about what went on
Speaker 2: at Dixmuda in nineteen ninety three. It was at this
Speaker 2: summit that Roger Spinwin recruited Ronald Doyster to return to
Speaker 2: Bosnia to recruit more mercenaries for South Africa, and according
Speaker 2: to another source, it was also sometime in late nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three that Roger Spinwin paid a visit to South
Speaker 2: Africa himself at the invitation of Monica Huggett. I mentioned
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago that the first step in tracking
Speaker 2: this Monica Stone, the one who organized those rallies in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, back to her home country of South Africa,
Speaker 2: was figuring out her maiden name, which is Huggitt, and
Speaker 2: I did that by digging up old corporate filings for
Speaker 2: a Christian identity church called the New Christian Crusade Church.
Speaker 2: And the New Christian Crusade Church was run by a
Speaker 2: man named James k Warner. I don't think Warner necessarily
Speaker 2: qualifies as a big name, but he shows up in
Speaker 2: a lot of big stories. He was an early member
Speaker 2: of George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party. He was a
Speaker 2: leading member of the short lived National States Rights Party,
Speaker 2: and in his clan days, he was a very close
Speaker 2: friend of David Duke. I've left myself a note to
Speaker 2: come back to James k Warner. I think there's some
Speaker 2: real weird little guy stuff going on here, and I
Speaker 2: do have a quick correction to make, as much as
Speaker 2: it pains me, I just realized I misspoke in the
Speaker 2: last episode where I mentioned James k Warner. I called
Speaker 2: him Robert k Warner. Careless. Honestly, I should have caught that.
Speaker 2: But to be honest with you, I'm recording this at
Speaker 2: one in the morning, and this is early by my
Speaker 2: usual standards. I'm always a little down to the wire.
Speaker 2: But I think what happened there was just a slight
Speaker 2: mix up because in my defense, James Conrad Warner did
Speaker 2: have a brother named Robert L. Warner, and he did
Speaker 2: use his brother's name on the deeds to some of
Speaker 2: the church property. But it turns out that Monica's connection
Speaker 2: to Robert K. Warner may be the answer to a
Speaker 2: question that's been bothering me for weeks. How on earth
Speaker 2: did a woman in South Africa manage to join the
Speaker 2: Ku Klux Klan? If you recall the story in the
Speaker 2: episode two weeks ago, Monica Hugget was arrested in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one in connection with a series of pro apartheid
Speaker 2: bombings by a group that called itself the Vid Commando,
Speaker 2: and after her arrest, she agreed to testify against the
Speaker 2: Italian fascists that she'd helped carry out those bombings. During
Speaker 2: the trial, she said she was a member of the
Speaker 2: American Ku Klux Klan, and she told the authorities that
Speaker 2: the books they'd used as a guide for making those
Speaker 2: bombs had been sent to her by her American clan contacts,
Speaker 2: So she wasn't just a member of a Ku Klux
Speaker 2: Klan style group that operated independently in South Africa. She's
Speaker 2: saying that she has active contact with the clan in
Speaker 2: the United States, because there is a big difference there.
Speaker 2: There have been groups in other countries that have adopted
Speaker 2: the esthetic and the ideology of the clan without necessarily
Speaker 2: maintaining meaningful contact with the group they're modeling themselves after.
Speaker 2: In other examples, what looks like a foreign iteration of
Speaker 2: the clan is actually just an American who happens to
Speaker 2: be living overseas. In the nineteen eighties, there was an
Speaker 2: American serviceman station in Germany who claimed that he was
Speaker 2: leading an active clan group in Bavaria. And in the
Speaker 2: Denis Mahon story, we saw an American klansman who traveled
Speaker 2: internationally trying to spark an interest in American clan aesthetics
Speaker 2: and ideology, but with relatively little success. So what Monica's
Speaker 2: talking about here is something a little different, and I
Speaker 2: was stumped, truly. As we'll get to later on in
Speaker 2: the story, I can absolutely connect Monica huggets Stone to
Speaker 2: the American Ku Klux Klan by the nineteen nineties. I've
Speaker 2: got the Federal election commissioned filings to prove that that's easy.
Speaker 2: But I still have no answers when it comes to
Speaker 2: the question of klansmen in South Africa in the late
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, not in any concrete way, but I do
Speaker 2: have a theory. One of the sources I've relied on
Speaker 2: heavily throughout this series is a nineteen ninety nine thesis
Speaker 2: by Mita Visser on the white fascist movements in South
Speaker 2: Africa in the twentieth century, and she sort of hints
Speaker 2: at this idea. She writes, quote, the activities of the
Speaker 2: clan in South Africa are obscure. Although the police had
Speaker 2: no concrete evidence that the movement was active in South Africa,
Speaker 2: there were claims in the press in the late seventies
Speaker 2: that branch has existed in the country, And so in
Speaker 2: Visser's thesis she gives a couple of examples that are
Speaker 2: definitely evidence of that esthetic copycat behavior I'm talking about. So,
Speaker 2: when the Vit Commando took credit for those bombings in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, the letters they sent to the press had
Speaker 2: a symbol in the letter head that was almost identical
Speaker 2: to the logo used by American clan groups. And in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, when two members of the Order of Death
Speaker 2: went on trial for murder, our supporters packed the courtroom,
Speaker 2: and they were all wearing little clan lapel pens, and
Speaker 2: one of them even told a reporter the order is
Speaker 2: long gone. It's the Ku Klux Klan now. In an
Speaker 2: unrelated side note, just to wrap up a loose end
Speaker 2: from the last episode, I can tell I've spent too
Speaker 2: much time digging around for details I'm not gonna need
Speaker 2: for this story when side characters start to look really familiar.
Speaker 2: When I was reading that anecdote about the order of
Speaker 2: death trial in nineteen ninety, I recognized the names of
Speaker 2: the murderers. Cornelius Lottering and Fanny Goosen were two of
Speaker 2: the ten members of the Africaner Resistance movement who were
Speaker 2: arrested in the summer of nineteen ninety. So when they
Speaker 2: scooped up Leonard Wienendahl and Horst Cleans, Lottering and Goosen
Speaker 2: were in that bunch. And I mentioned in last week's
Speaker 2: episode that I couldn't exactly tell what became of all
Speaker 2: ten of those men, but two of them had escaped
Speaker 2: from custody, and those two were Lauding and Guzen, so
Speaker 2: I guess they found them again because they did get
Speaker 2: convicted of murder. But back to the question of the clan.
Speaker 2: I could have left it there, but I think you
Speaker 2: probably know by now that I didn't, because if he
Speaker 2: dig just a little bit deeper into the past. There
Speaker 2: was a man in South Africa who called himself the
Speaker 2: leader of the South African Ku Klux Klan in the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties and into the seventies. He died in the
Speaker 2: late seventies. His name was Raymond Kirch Rudman, and by
Speaker 2: the time he was trying to get a South African
Speaker 2: clan going, he was already pretty old, and he was
Speaker 2: decades into his career as a professional anti Semite with
Speaker 2: impressive international connections. Aside from his clan activities, Rudman was
Speaker 2: also the leader of an African or nationalist group called
Speaker 2: the Boranasi, originally founded by Many Merits. Meretz's son, also
Speaker 2: called many Merits, was a prominent figure in the Africaner
Speaker 2: resistance movement. During the same time period as Monica Huggett
Speaker 2: and Rudman also led a group called the Anglo Norman Union.
Speaker 2: I can't find much information about the extent to which
Speaker 2: that group actually operated in South Africa, like did it
Speaker 2: actually have real members, But in nineteen sixty five. Rudman
Speaker 2: did use the group to join the World Union of
Speaker 2: National Socialists. That was an effort by George Lincoln Rockwell's
Speaker 2: American Nazi Party and Colin Jordan, who was then the
Speaker 2: head of the National Socialist movement in the United Kingdom,
Speaker 2: to form I guess exactly what it sounds, a World
Speaker 2: Union of Nazi groups. But when it comes to the Clan,
Speaker 2: there's not much written, at least not that I was
Speaker 2: able to find about the history of the clan in
Speaker 2: South Africa. But everything that does exist has Ray Rudman's
Speaker 2: name on it. Last year, doctor William Robert Phillips completed
Speaker 2: his dissertation at Emory University, and I know, I know
Speaker 2: that dissertation has the answers I'm looking for, but it
Speaker 2: is currently embargoed and not available to read. But a
Speaker 2: write up about his research tells me I'm on the
Speaker 2: right track. He was researching anti Semitic bombings in the
Speaker 2: United States during the Civil Rights era when he came
Speaker 2: across one of the same sources I did. An old
Speaker 2: mention of Ray Rudman trying to recruit for a clan
Speaker 2: group in South Africa in the early nineteen sixties. Phillips
Speaker 2: was able to secure grant funding to spend several weeks
Speaker 2: in South Africa at the University of the Free State,
Speaker 2: where Rudman's personal papers are held in a special collection. Again,
Speaker 2: unfortunately for me, I can't read Phillips's research, but I
Speaker 2: do have the finding aid for Rudman's papers, I can't
Speaker 2: actually see what's written. The documents aren't digitized. A finding
Speaker 2: aid is just an inventory listing the contents of various
Speaker 2: boxes and folders, and I would love to get my
Speaker 2: hands on some of those letters because listed in that
Speaker 2: inventory are entries for correspondents between Ray Rudman and the
Speaker 2: New Christian Crusade Church dated as early as the sixties
Speaker 2: and seventies. There's also an entry listing correspondence between Ray
Speaker 2: Rudman and the National States Rights Party dated from the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties. The inventory also lists more than forty books
Speaker 2: in Rudman's collection that were published by James K Warner,
Speaker 2: either through his Sons of Liberty Press or the New
Speaker 2: Christian Crusade Church. A similar finding aid for the personal
Speaker 2: papers of James k Warner, held by the University of
Speaker 2: Wyoming also lists correspondence between James Warner and Ray Rudman,
Speaker 2: and Warner's Nazi publishing outfit, the Sons of Liberty Press,
Speaker 2: also published and sold English language versions of texts by
Speaker 2: South African anti semi Johann Schumann an African inter nationalist
Speaker 2: politician Yap Maree. So I can't tell you exactly how
Speaker 2: Monica Huggett came to join the Ku Klux Klan, but
Speaker 2: there is some really solid connective tissue here. It doesn't
Speaker 2: feel as random now. So when she moved to the
Speaker 2: United States, she was a close enough associate of James
Speaker 2: K Warner that he put her in charge of his
Speaker 2: new Christian Crusade church, and that has to have something
Speaker 2: to do with the fact that archives show that he
Speaker 2: was in active communication with the far right in South
Speaker 2: Africa from his earliest days in the movement. It looks
Speaker 2: like I have some more digging to do on the
Speaker 2: subject of the Fascist International, because the number of connections
Speaker 2: here is honestly pretty staggering to me. James K Warner
Speaker 2: visited England in the seventies to speak at a meeting
Speaker 2: of the League of Saint George. In nineteen eighty, our
Speaker 2: Belgian Nazi Roger Spinewen was deported from the United States
Speaker 2: while he was here visiting members of the National States
Speaker 2: Rights Party and our South African Clansman Ray Rudman was
Speaker 2: listed as the South African correspondent in issues of a
Speaker 2: British fascist magazine in the nineteen seventies. All of these
Speaker 2: guys are connected going back decades. But I've been promising
Speaker 2: to get to this part of the story for weeks now,
Speaker 2: the part where a handful of German mercenaries get into
Speaker 2: a shootout with the South African police in March of
Speaker 2: night eighteen ninety four. A few episodes ago, I told
Speaker 2: you that one of the first places I found Monica
Speaker 2: Hugget's name was in the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Speaker 2: Commission's Final Report in Volume two. The portion of the
Speaker 2: report that deals with quote the Commission of Gross Violations
Speaker 2: of Human Rights, Chapter seven political violence in the Era
Speaker 2: of Negotiations and Transition. Under the subheading links with international
Speaker 2: right wing groups, the report reads. The first link between
Speaker 2: ultra right terrorism and foreign agencies came to light in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two when mister Fabiomiello, mister Massimo Bolo and
Speaker 2: mister Eugenio's office all white foreign expatriots known as the
Speaker 2: White Commando, were convicted of the nineteen seventy nine bombing
Speaker 2: of the offices of prominent academic doctor Jan Lombard. Originally,
Speaker 2: mister Kus ver Mullin and Miss Monica hugget were arrested
Speaker 2: with them, but Huggitt turned state's witness and Vermullin was
Speaker 2: released after a few days. Huggett's name was subsequently linked
Speaker 2: to a shootout in March of nineteen ninety four between
Speaker 2: the South African police and three German right wingers in
Speaker 2: the Donkerhok area. One German right winger, mister Stephen Rays
Speaker 2: was arrested, Mister Thomas Kuns was shot dead, and a third,
Speaker 2: mister Horse Cleans, was later arrested. A fourth, mister Alexander Nydeleine,
Speaker 2: was later charged in the Cullen and Magistrates Court for
Speaker 2: illegal possession of a firearm. And I read that paragraph
Speaker 2: before you've heard that bit, and at this point you
Speaker 2: know some of the back story that paragraph is talking about.
Speaker 2: Two weeks ago, we talked about the Vit Commando bombings
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty and we spent most of the last
Speaker 2: episode talking about one of those men Horst Cleans. Before
Speaker 2: that shootout in nineteen ninety four, Glen's had been involved
Speaker 2: in a nineteen eighty nine attack on a United Nations
Speaker 2: outpost in Namibia, killing a security guard and later murdering
Speaker 2: a police constable when he and his accomplices escaped from custody.
Speaker 2: And at some point I teased you a little bit
Speaker 2: with a story about Alexander Nydline. He was the German
Speaker 2: neo Nazi who swore allegiance to Donald Trump at a
Speaker 2: fascist rally in Croatia in twenty seventeen. So we know
Speaker 2: where Horst Clean's was in the early nineties. He was
Speaker 2: in South Africa. But how did those other three men
Speaker 2: actually get there? In nineteen ninety four, Alexander Nydline, Stephen
Speaker 2: Rays and Thomas Koonst follow the same path as the
Speaker 2: mercenaries recruited by Ronald Doyster. They deserted from the Convicts Battalion,
Speaker 2: a paramilitary unit of the Crow Defense Council made up
Speaker 2: of prisoners and foreign mercenaries, and they left Bosnia with
Speaker 2: stolen weapons. Then, with the help of the League of
Speaker 2: Saint George in England, they made their way down to
Speaker 2: South Africa and just like Ronald Doyster. They were given
Speaker 2: the name of a woman who would pick them up
Speaker 2: from the airport, Monica Huggett. And here is another place
Speaker 2: in my research for this story where I found a
Speaker 2: very unlikely source of information that I just couldn't have
Speaker 2: gotten anywhere else. Two weeks ago I had to give
Speaker 2: my begrudging thanks to the Central Intelligence Agency after discovering
Speaker 2: English translations of South African news stories in archived reports
Speaker 2: from the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. And this week
Speaker 2: I haven't even more unsavory source, I think, though he
Speaker 2: isn't around to hear it.
Speaker 4: This is the prosecution's appeal concerning Praliac in all other
Speaker 4: respect respects affirms the sentence of twenty years of imprisonment,
Speaker 4: subject to credit being given on the rule one oh
Speaker 4: one see of the rules for the period he has
Speaker 4: already spent. In attention, step Praliac. You may be seated,
Speaker 4: wat your stop. Please please sit down.
Speaker 2: That audio might not sound familiar, but if you're extremely online,
Speaker 2: you've seen mimified images of this moment used as a
Speaker 2: reaction give a thousand times. I know it. I'm sure
Speaker 2: you know the one I'm talking about. It's a white
Speaker 2: haired old man in a suit, and he's drinking from
Speaker 2: a small vial. That man is Slobodon Proliac. He died
Speaker 2: by suicide in twenty seventeen, and the meme shows the
Speaker 2: moment that he produced a small vial of cyanide from
Speaker 2: his pocket after a judge at the Hague announced that
Speaker 2: his sentence for war crimes would be upheld. I don't
Speaker 2: speak Croatian, but news reports translated his last words in
Speaker 2: that video as judges, Slobodon Proliac is not a war criminal.
Speaker 2: With disdain, I reject your verdict, and then he knocks
Speaker 2: back the vial of cyanide. We don't have to get
Speaker 2: into the crimes against humanity that Slobodon Proliac was convicted
Speaker 2: of by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. He
Speaker 2: doesn't really factor in directly to our story at all,
Speaker 2: but he did choose to defend himself without an attorney
Speaker 2: during his war crimes trial, and as part of that effort,
Speaker 2: he had a website dedicated to proving his innocence, and
Speaker 2: that website is actually still online today. But the documents
Speaker 2: that I found most useful in researching this story don't
Speaker 2: appear to be accessible on the current version of the site.
Speaker 2: So buried in this poorly organized series of files on
Speaker 2: an archived version of this war criminal's website, I found
Speaker 2: something terribly interesting. All of the existing reporting that I
Speaker 2: could find about Alexander Ninelein, Stephen Rays, and Thomas Coonst
Speaker 2: and their whereabouts in late nineteen ninety three seems to
Speaker 2: rely on one of those documents, an arrest warrant signed
Speaker 2: by their commanding officer, a war criminal named Maladin Nalatilic,
Speaker 2: which I know I've not pronounced correctly, so we'll just
Speaker 2: call him by his nickname Teuta. Everyone else did. When
Speaker 2: those three German mercenaries deserted from Teuta's Ragtag Convicts Battalion
Speaker 2: in the middle of December of nineteen ninety three, he
Speaker 2: wrote a memo requesting arrest warrants. Translated, it reads, on
Speaker 2: December sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, members of the Convicts Battalion
Speaker 2: fled from Sierroki Brieg to an unknown destination after spending
Speaker 2: three to four days in the unit after sealing weapons
Speaker 2: and ammunition. The memo goes on to specify that, aside
Speaker 2: from their names and the fact that they'd been briefly
Speaker 2: affiliated with the unit. He had no additional information about
Speaker 2: these three men. It's possible that a lot is lost
Speaker 2: in translation here, but it kind of looks like he's
Speaker 2: really going out of his way to distance himself from
Speaker 2: these men, because he's very explicit that they were only
Speaker 2: there for a few days and he doesn't know anything
Speaker 2: about them. These guys are strangers to him, and I
Speaker 2: guess there's no reason to doubt that. It's what every
Speaker 2: write up about the incident says. And who knows, maybe
Speaker 2: they got all the way there and they realized war
Speaker 2: isn't very fun and they changed their minds. That makes
Speaker 2: plenty of sense, right, But I think it would be
Speaker 2: terribly naive to take a war criminal at his word
Speaker 2: because he was lying in that chaotic document dump. On
Speaker 2: Slowbodon Prolac's website, I found tuta's request for the issuance
Speaker 2: of those arrest warrants, and I found the arrest warrants themselves,
Speaker 2: and they were both signed by TUTA. I clicked through,
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe a hundred documents that mostly meant
Speaker 2: absolutely nothing to me. I didn't really know what I
Speaker 2: was looking for or what might even be there for.
Speaker 2: Me to find. But I did find another document bearing
Speaker 2: the signature of the commander of the Convex Battalion, and
Speaker 2: this one was dated December second, nineteen ninety three, a
Speaker 2: full two weeks before those men deserted. And it's a
Speaker 2: list of soldiers under Tuta's command. And it appears to
Speaker 2: have been written on a typewriter, and next to the
Speaker 2: name of each soldier who had been paid for their
Speaker 2: service in the month of November, he had drawn a
Speaker 2: check mark in pencil. And there twenty four pages into
Speaker 2: this list of names are Alexander Nydeline, Stephen Rays, and
Speaker 2: Thomas Kunst. Nydeline and Coonst both have a check mark
Speaker 2: next to their name, indicating that they'd been paid for
Speaker 2: the month of November. Nydeline has over the years taken
Speaker 2: issue with journalists who characterize him as a mercenary, often
Speaker 2: arguing that he never actually got paid, so he can't
Speaker 2: be called a mercenary. So this document at least offers
Speaker 2: some possible rebuttal to that next to Stephen Ray's name,
Speaker 2: though there isn't a check mark. Instead, there's a little
Speaker 2: symbol that looks like it might be the letter D.
Speaker 2: I think the soldiers who have died are the ones
Speaker 2: with a little cross next to their name, and soldiers
Speaker 2: who are in the hospital either have a B or
Speaker 2: the word bolnika, which means hospital written out. And I
Speaker 2: couldn't find any commonly used word for something like dead, deceased, killed, deserted, quit, captured,
Speaker 2: any words like that. I couldn't find any that would
Speaker 2: start with D in Croatian. But there are some words
Speaker 2: and phrases related to the concept of author leave or
Speaker 2: a permitted absence that do start with D in Croatian.
Speaker 2: I'm just spitballing here. I have no idea what it
Speaker 2: could mean. I don't know anything about running a mercenary
Speaker 2: unit to do war crimes, and I don't speak Croatian.
Speaker 2: I'm just guessing. But regardless of what these mysterious little
Speaker 2: symbols mean, here's their commanding officer's signature on a document
Speaker 2: listing their names two weeks before. He says they had
Speaker 2: only just shown up in the last couple of days.
Speaker 2: The obvious next question, then, is why would he lie
Speaker 2: about how long they'd been with the unit. The short answer,
Speaker 2: obviously is, I don't know. I don't think anybody knows.
Speaker 2: But if I had to guess, I would say he
Speaker 2: covering his ass. The convict's battalion was becoming increasingly unpopular
Speaker 2: by late nineteen ninety three. It was again exactly what
Speaker 2: it sounds like. It was made up of people who
Speaker 2: had been in prison for violent crimes, as well as
Speaker 2: foreign mercenaries who had volunteered to commit violent crimes, and
Speaker 2: they were out of control. A letter sent to a
Speaker 2: Croatian general, signed by another officer that same month, December
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety three, complained about Tuta's convicts running a muck.
Speaker 2: They weren't just committing war crimes, but they were killing
Speaker 2: and raping military and police personnel on their own side,
Speaker 2: and their commanding officer was protecting them. So I can
Speaker 2: only assume that he was trying to distance himself from
Speaker 2: another embarrassing act of misconduct by this ragtag group of
Speaker 2: foreign murderers when these three Germans deserted the unit with
Speaker 2: a bunch of stolen guns and bombs. Other sources I
Speaker 2: found writing about the actions of mercenaries in the Bosnian
Speaker 2: War single out the German mercenaries in particular for their brutality.
Speaker 2: Rob Kraut, a frequent contributor to soldier of Fortune magazine
Speaker 2: wrote in his book Save the Last Bullet for Yourself
Speaker 2: that the Germans he served with during the Bosnian War
Speaker 2: had a terrible habit of cutting the ears off the
Speaker 2: people they killed and keeping them as trophies. Austrian journalist
Speaker 2: Christoph Santner co wrote egay yetst Ramboshpielen, which translates to
Speaker 2: I'm going to play Rambo now with former mercenary. Wolfgang
Speaker 2: Nighter writer and Nighter writer recounts seeing a German mercenary
Speaker 2: hand a live grenade to a seven year old Muslim
Speaker 2: boy in the Bosnian city of Mostar as a joke
Speaker 2: of some sort. The mercenary told the boy it was
Speaker 2: a toy, and the child was blown to pieces moments later.
Speaker 2: There was no shortitch of violence in the Balkans in
Speaker 2: the early nineties. There's plenty of blame to go around,
Speaker 2: so it seems all the more remarkable that even in
Speaker 2: this context, other actual war criminals, people sentenced to life
Speaker 2: in prison at the Hague, people who were guns for hire,
Speaker 2: they were looking at these German mercenaries and saying that's
Speaker 2: a little bit too much. Now. I hesitate to build
Speaker 2: a theory on the sand of speculation. But if that
Speaker 2: little D next to Stephen Rays's name does happen to
Speaker 2: mean that he was on leave in November, that does
Speaker 2: line up with some other sort of hazy details about
Speaker 2: this time period, because again we know that there was
Speaker 2: an international effort to recruit mercenaries to travel to South Africa.
Speaker 2: The two men from the beginning of this episode, Fox
Speaker 2: Samang and Ralph Morajz were recruited by Ronald Douster personally
Speaker 2: when he traveled to Bosnia in early nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: and by all accounts, Nideline Rays and coonst were recruited
Speaker 2: by Horsed Klens. But how because remember Horsed Glens had
Speaker 2: been in South Africa for years at this point. He
Speaker 2: escaped from custody in Namibia nineteen eighty nine and he
Speaker 2: fled back to South Africa. He was arrested again in
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen ninety in connection with the Ordo
Speaker 2: Boro folk bombings, and he didn't end up getting charged
Speaker 2: with anything, but he spent a while in jail while
Speaker 2: South African courts tried to figure out if they needed
Speaker 2: to extradite him to Namibia. He was eventually probably in
Speaker 2: late nineteen ninety two, released on bond depending a final
Speaker 2: decision in the extradition matter, and then he disappeared. It
Speaker 2: is possible, I guess that Glen's could have gone to
Speaker 2: Bosnia at some point in nineteen ninety three, but I
Speaker 2: don't think so, because there's a much more likely explanation.
Speaker 4: Vanley fastings on to Uss not Nice and Sennoseallella that
Speaker 4: there's some of Ervvre Moule's striker game at Gimenem. Dolphin
Speaker 4: said Oscar Wolf involvement.
Speaker 2: That probably didn't mean anything to you. I speak a
Speaker 2: little German, but that guy's accent was a little tricky
Speaker 2: for me. I had to ask a friend who was
Speaker 2: fluent for some help with this one. That's a clip
Speaker 2: from a segment that aired on a German TV news program,
Speaker 2: and the man speaking is an unname hotel guest. Unnamed,
Speaker 2: probably because the hotel in question was a cedy establishment
Speaker 2: in Hamburg's red light district, and the man is recalling
Speaker 2: for a reporter from Derspiegel an incident that happened in
Speaker 2: late October nineteen ninety three. Stephen Rays was thrown out
Speaker 2: of the hotel after some kind of loud argument and
Speaker 2: just Stephen Rays. According to researchers from Germany's anti fascist Infoblot,
Speaker 2: Klen's was also spotted in Hamburg in October of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three.
Speaker 7: And we know.
Speaker 2: Stephen Rays did go back to Bosnia after he got
Speaker 2: kicked out of that CD motel because he deserted in December.
Speaker 2: So what it looks like to me is that Rays
Speaker 2: made contact with Klen's in Hamburg in October, and then
Speaker 2: he went back to Bosnia and told his friends about
Speaker 2: this exciting new opportunity. All they had to do was
Speaker 2: steal a bunch of guns and find a way to
Speaker 2: get to England. What we do know for certain is
Speaker 2: that all three of those mercenaries left Bosnia on December sixteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, and on December thirtieth, they robbed a
Speaker 2: post office in the German city of Lubec, making off
Speaker 2: with around eighty five hundred Deutsche marks. I don't entirely
Speaker 2: know how to sort out how much money that is.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety three, one US dollar was equal to
Speaker 2: about one point six Deutsche marks, so that would make
Speaker 2: it a little over five thousand dollars, But those are
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three dollars, So I guess you could best
Speaker 2: understand the actual value of this money is around ten
Speaker 2: thousand US dollars today. Don't email me about math. And
Speaker 2: with cash in hand, they traveled from Germany to Ramsgate,
Speaker 2: that little seaside town in England, where members of the
Speaker 2: League of Saint George drove them to the airport, and
Speaker 2: just like the mercenaries that would follow them two months later,
Speaker 2: they were given a name Monica Huggit would pick them
Speaker 2: up from the airport when they got to South Africa.
Speaker 2: They arrived on tourist visas in January of nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: and Monica was there as promised to pick them up.
Speaker 2: She sorted other paperwork and work permits and their mercenary assignments,
Speaker 2: passing them off to Horst Cleans. They were assigned as
Speaker 2: armed guards at Radio Pretoria, an illegal radio station that
Speaker 2: broadcast African nationalist propaganda, and they participated in military drills
Speaker 2: led by Willem Ratta, a former Rhodesian military officer. Everything
Speaker 2: seemed to be going according to plan until March fourteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. By the time the next round of
Speaker 2: mercenaries arrived a few days later, there was no one
Speaker 2: there at the airport to greet them. Thomas Konst was dead,
Speaker 2: and Alexander Nydelin, Horst Cleans, Stephen Rays, and Monica Huggett
Speaker 2: had all been arrested. I really do hate to leave
Speaker 2: you hanging again. I promise I'm not dragging this story
Speaker 2: out on purpose to torment you. I was a little
Speaker 2: preoccupied this past week, and I'll be entirely otherwise occupied
Speaker 2: during the week you're hearing this. If you're listening to
Speaker 2: this on the day it comes out, I am almost
Speaker 2: certainly sitting in court right now. In October of last year,
Speaker 2: I did a couple of episodes about Virginia's burning objects law.
Speaker 2: There was a pair of episodes on Barry Black, the
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania clansman who challenged Virginia's cross burning statute and eventually
Speaker 2: won his case at the Supreme Court. And there was
Speaker 2: a third episode about a man who broke the law
Speaker 2: Virginia wrote to replace that original crossburning ban. In that episode,
Speaker 2: I talked a bit about the Nazi torch march that
Speaker 2: took place here in my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia on
Speaker 2: August eleventh, twenty seventeen. The episode was about Tyler Diykes,
Speaker 2: but he was just one of about a dozen men
Speaker 2: who've been charged with burning an object with the intent
Speaker 2: to intimidate. That's the law that replaced the old crossburning statute. Well,
Speaker 2: this week, another one of those men is taking his
Speaker 2: case to trial. So I lost a little bit of
Speaker 2: time this week reviewing the facts so I can be
Speaker 2: prepared to sit through the trial. And I'm going to
Speaker 2: lose the entire next week sitting on a wooden bench
Speaker 2: taking notes by hand. I would love to promise you
Speaker 2: the final chapter of Monica Hugget's story is going to
Speaker 2: come next week, but if I'm being realistic, it'll be
Speaker 2: something else. I've been planning to do, sort of a
Speaker 2: Q and A episode, so it might be that you
Speaker 2: can submit questions for that on the Weird Little Guy's subreddit.
Speaker 2: Just please don't send them to meet anywhere else, Like
Speaker 2: on any other social media platform, I'll just lose them.
Speaker 2: So if you have a question, please post it to
Speaker 2: the subreddit, or if you absolutely for some reason cannot
Speaker 2: do that, you can email it to me, but nowhere
Speaker 2: else please, And depending on how things go during the trial,
Speaker 2: I might have a minisode about the defendant Basilio's pistols.
Speaker 2: If you're curious about Pistolis, I'll include a link in
Speaker 2: the show notes to the pro publica article about his
Speaker 2: discharge from the Marines after he was revealed to be
Speaker 2: a member of Adam Laffin. So thank you for bearing
Speaker 2: with me as I tell the story of Monica Stone
Speaker 2: in these Strange Little Bunks. I've really been enjoying how
Speaker 2: much digging this one has demanded of me. I just
Speaker 2: need a little more time to read some very weird
Speaker 2: racist prophecies before I'm ready to write the last chapter.
Speaker 2: Weird Little Guys is a production of Cool Zone Media
Speaker 2: and iHeartRadio. It's researched, written and recorded by me Molly Conger.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. The
Speaker 2: show is edited by the wildly talented Rory Gagan. The
Speaker 2: theme music was composed by Brad Dickert. You can email
Speaker 2: me at Weird Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: I will definitely read it, but I almost certainly will
Speaker 2: not answer it. It's nothing personal. I don't answer any
Speaker 2: of my emails. You can exchange conspiracy theories about the
Speaker 2: show with other listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit,
Speaker 2: just don't post anything that's going to make you one
Speaker 2: of my weird Blue Guys