Civil Cooperation Bureau


The South African Civil Cooperation Bureau was a government-sponsored death squad during the apartheid era that operated under the authority of Defence Minister General Magnus Malan. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee pronounced the CCB guilty of numerous killings, and suspected more killings.

Forerunners and contemporaries

When South African newspapers first revealed its existence in the late 1980s, the CCB appeared to be a unique and unorthodox security operation: its members wore civilian clothing; it operated within the borders of the country; it used private companies as fronts; and it mostly targeted civilians. However, as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission discovered a decade later, the CCB's methods were neither new nor unique. Instead, they had evolved from precedents set in the 1960s and 70s by Eschel Rhoodie's Department of Information, the Bureau of State Security and Project Barnacle.
From information given to the TRC by former agents seeking amnesty for crimes committed during the apartheid era, it became clear that there were many other covert operations similar to the CCB, which Nelson Mandela would label the Third Force. These operations included Wouter Basson's 7 Medical Battalion Group, the Askaris, Witdoeke, and C1/C10 or Vlakplaas.
Besides these, there were also political front organisations like the International Freedom Foundation, Marthinus van Schalkwyk's Jeugkrag, and Russel Crystal's National Student Federation which would demonstrate that while the tactics of the South African government varied, the logic remained the same: Total onslaught demanded a total strategy.

Establishment

Inaugurated in 1986 with the approval of Minister of Defense General Magnus Malan and Chief of SADF General Jannie Geldenhuys, the CCB became fully functional by 1988. As a reformulation of Project Barnacle, the nature of its operations were disguised, and it disassociated itself from all other Special Forces and DMI structures. The CCB formed the third arm of the Third Force, alongside Vlakplaas C1 and the Special Tasks projects.
In his 1997 submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, General Malan described the CCB as follows:
Reports about the CCB were first published in 1990 by the now-defunct weekly Vrye Weekblad, and more detailed information emerged later in the 1990s at a number of TRC amnesty hearings. General Joep Joubert, in his testimony before the TRC, revealed that the CCB was a long-term special forces project in the South African Defence Force. It had evolved from the 'offensive defence' philosophy prevalent in P.W. Botha's security establishment.
Nominally a civilian organisation that could be plausibly disowned by the apartheid government, the CCB drew its operatives from the SADF itself or the South African Police. According to Joubert, many operatives did not know that they were members of an entity called the CCB.
In the wake of the National Party government's Harms Commission, whose proceedings were considered seriously flawed by analysts and the official opposition, the CCB was disbanded in August 1990. Some members were transferred to other security organs. No prosecutions resulted.

Structure

The CCB consisted of four groups with different functions: an executive, a management board, two staff functions, eight operational sections known as regions, and an ad hoc collection of contractors. The overall size of the CCB never exceeded 250-300 full-time personnel.

Executive

There is much dispute about what senior military officers knew when. However it is common cause that the CCB was a unit of special forces at first controlled by the General Officer Commanding Special Forces, Major-General Eddie Webb who reported to the Chief of the SADF.

Management board

The CCB operated as a civilian entity, so it had a chairman of the board and a group of 'directors'. The GOC Special Forces – Major General Joep Joubert followed by Major General Eddie Webb from the beginning of 1989 - was the chairman. The rest of the board included Joe Verster, Dawid Fourie, WJ Basson, Theuns Kruger, and Lafras Luitingh.

Staff functions

Although there is consistent evidence that the CCB had two staff functions it is not clear what the names of these groups were and whether these remained the same over the life of the CCB. Region 9, is sometimes referred to as Intelligence or Psychological Warfare and elsewhere as Logistics. Region 10 is known as Finance and Administration or simply Administration.

Operational sections

Each region had an area manager and its own co-ordinator who reported to the managing director.
▪Pseudo Unit: Operated by ex S.A.D.F. members. Members named: John McCloud , Willem Schalk Van Der Merwe,aka:.

Blue plans and red plans

Operatives were required to have a 'blue plan'. This referred to a front operation funded by the CCB. Slang Van Zyl, for instance, started a private investigation business while Chappies Maree ran an electronic goods export company called Lema. Operatives were allowed to keep the proceeds of their activities. Proceeds from all blue plan activities vastly exceeded the funding CCB received from the state. A large private sector was created, which employing tens of thousands of people. Former security officers not in the CCB ran these companies alongside CCB officers. In the December 1993 Goldstone Commission, the task group found that ex CCB members were involved in various illegal activities including gun and drug smuggling
Red plans, on the other hand, detailed the activities they would undertake against the enemy. Operations could be of a criminal nature as long as they had prior approval from the CCB bureaucracy. These mostly began with a feasibility study. If the report showed merit it was verified, then reviewed by a panel of five: the operative, the manager or handler, the coordinator, the managing director and in the case of violent operations, the chairman. Where loss of life was anticipated the chairman was required to obtain approval from the Chief of the Army or the Chief of Staff.
The 'red plan' targeted victims and detailed action to be taken against them. The scenario, as described by Max Coleman in A Crime Against Humanity: Analysing the Repression of the Apartheid State, was as follows:

Known and suspected operations

To date there is no published record covering all operations conducted during the CCB's five-year existence. Some of the active operations conducted included:
According to TRC records, CCB operatives were tasked to seriously injure Martti Ahtisaari, UN Special Representative in Namibia, and to eliminate the following:
While the CCB was a section of the SADF's Special Forces they were joined on many operations by individuals from other parts of the state's broad security apparatus, sometimes making it difficult to ascertain whether a specific person was part of the CCB or not. Of the estimated one hundred covert members, evidence exists that the following individuals were deployed as administrators or operatives:

Senior military decision-makers

Although the entire truth about the Civil Cooperation Bureau may never be known, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that:
...the CCB was a creation of the SADF and an integral part of South Africa's counter-insurgency system which, in the course of its operations, perpetrated gross violations of human rights, including killings, against both South African and non-South African citizens. The Commission finds that the activities of the CCB constituted a systematic pattern of abuse which entailed deliberate planning on the part of the leadership of the CCB and the SADF. The Commission finds these institutions and their members accountable for the aforesaid gross violations of human rights.

As per the policy of the TRC, its findings were set out, but no action was taken.
According to General Malan, the CCB's three objectives—comparable to those of the British Special Operations Executive —were:
In his testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Malan declared that he had never issued an order or authorised an order for the assassination of anybody, and that the killing of political opponents of the government never formed part of the brief of the South African Defence Force.

Negative outcomes

The front company Oceantec among others was used to embezzle $100 million US from private investors and a collateral trading house as part of a supposed sanctions busting operation between 1989 and 1991.
CCB member Eben Barlow and Michael Mullen recruited other CCB members to start Executive Outcomes a private military contractor that provided combatants, training and equipment.