GeneralMagnus André de Merindol MalanSSA, OMSG, SD, SM, MP (30 January 1930 – 18 July 2011) was a South African military figure and politician during the last years of apartheid in South Africa. He served respectively as Minister of Defence in the cabinet of President P. W. Botha, Chief of the South African Defence Force (SADF), and Chief of the South African Army. Rising quickly through the lower ranks, he was appointed to strategic command positions. His tenure as chief of the defence force saw it increase in size, efficiency and capabilities.[1]
As P.W. Botha's cabinet minister, he posited a total communist onslaught, for which an encompassing national strategy was devised. This entailed placing policing, intelligence and aspects of civic affairs under control of generals. The ANC and SWAPO were branded as terrorist organizations, while splinter groups (UNITA and RENAMO) were bolstered in neighbouring and Frontline States.[1] Cross-border raids targeted suspected bases of insurgents or activists, while at home the army entered townships from 1984 onwards to stifle unrest. Elements in the Inkhata Freedom Party were used as a proxy force, and rogue soldiers and policemen in the CCB assassinated opponents.[1]
Personal life
Malan's father was a professor of biochemistry at the University of Pretoria[2] and later a member of parliament (1948–1966) and Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees (1961–1966) of the House of Assembly. He started his high school education at the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool but later moved to Dr Danie Craven’s Physical Education Brigade in Kimberley, where he completed his matriculation. He wanted to join the South African armed forces immediately after his matriculation, but his father advised him first to complete his university studies. As a result of this advice, Malan enrolled at the University of Stellenbosch in 1949 to study for a Bachelor of Commerce degree.[3] However, he later abandoned his studies in Stellenbosch and went to University of Pretoria, where he enrolled for a BSc Mil. degree. He graduated in 1953.
In 1962, Malan married Magrietha Johanna van der Walt;[3] the couple had two sons and one daughter.
Military career
At the end of 1949, the first military degree course for officers was advertised and Malan joined the Permanent Force as a cadet, going on to complete his BSc Mil at the University of Pretoria in 1953.[3]
Malan was commissioned in the Navy and served in the Marines based on Robben Island.[3] When they were disbanded, he was transferred back into the Army as a lieutenant.[4]
In October 1980, Botha appointed Malan defence minister in the National Party government, a post he held until 1991. As a result of this appointment, he joined the National Party and became Member of Parliament for Modderfontein. He was also elected to be a member of the Executive Council of the National Party.[10]
During Malan's tenure in parliament as defence minister, his greatest opposition came from MPs of the Progressive Federal Party such as Harry Schwarz and Philip Myburgh, who both served as shadow defence ministers at various points during the 1980s.[11][page needed]
In July 1991, following a scandal involving secret government funding to the Inkatha Freedom Party and other opponents of the African National Congress, President F. W. de Klerk removed Malan from his influential post of defence minister and appointed him as the minister for water affairs and forestry.[12]
Malan and the other accused were bailed and ordered to appear in court again on 1 December 1995. A seven-month trial then ensued and brought hostility between black and white South Africans to the fore once again. All the accused were eventually acquitted. President Mandela called on South Africans to respect the verdict.[15] Nonetheless in South Africa, the Malan trial has come to be seen by some as a failure of the legal process.[16][17][original research?][18][original research?][19][20][21][22]
On 26 January 2007, he was interviewed by shortwave/Internet talk radio show The Right Perspective.[24] It is believed to be one of the very few, if not the only, interviews Malan gave outside of South Africa. In 2006, he published an autobiography titled My Life With the SA Defence Force.[25]
Malan died at his home in Pretoria on 18 July 2011.[26][27] He was survived by his wife, 3 children and 9 grandchildren.[28][3]
In August 2018, a book by a former apartheid-era policeman Mark Minnie and journalist Chris Steyn alleged that Malan had been involved in a paedophilia ring in the 1980s.[29] The book, The Lost Boys of Bird Island contains testimony that Malan used his position as Defence Minister to kidnap and ferry young Coloured boys to an island off the coast of South Africa by helicopter, under the pretext of going on a fishing trip. They were then allegedly raped and otherwise sexually abused by Malan and other members of the ring who purportedly included local businessman Dave Allen, former minister of environmental affairs John Wiley, and at least one other government minister who is not named but is still alive.[30] The book, however, contained sufficient information for readers to conclude that former finance minister, Barend du Plessis, was the implicated living minister.[31]
Dave Allen was later arrested for paedophilia but was found dead from an apparent suicide before he was due to appear in court.[32][33] Wiley was found dead just weeks later.[30] Mark Minnie, one of the authors of Lost Boys was found dead in August 2018.[34]
The allegations were met with scepticism and rejected by those who were intimately acquainted with Malan, including his surviving family.[35][36][37] In a review by investigative journalist Jacques Pauw, Minnie is described as "a sloppy, negligent and careless policeman". Pauw criticised the book's authors, especially Minnie, for the quality of the investigation and research supporting the allegations and Steyn for having a conflict of interest; and asserted that this has had a negative impact on the victims getting justice.[38] In April 2019, a major South African newspaper, Rapport, published an apology for their reporting based on the book. The newspaper apologised to the surviving relatives of Malan as new evidence had emerged that cast doubt on the contents of the book and the key allegations were based on unsubstantiated hearsay.[39][40] On the morning of 3 March 2020, Johan Victor Attorneys, who represented Barend du Plessis and the surviving families of Malan and Wiley, released a press statement revealing that, after a forensic investigation was conducted into the allegations made in the book, major concessions and a lack of concrete evidence implicating any of the ministers had been found. The publishers of The Lost Boys of Bird Island, Tafelberg, a subsidiary of NB Publishers, retracted the book from the market in both its hard copy and e-book form later on the same afternoon. They issued a statement in which an apology was extended to Barend du Plessis, but not to any other person identified in the book.[41][42]
Footnotes
^Only the Cunene clasp was awarded, to members who served in Angola during Operation Savannah in 1975 and 1976. Recipients of the clasp wear a button, with the letter C encircled by a wreath, on the ribbon bar.
^Wilkins, Ivor; Strydom, Hans (1 June 2012). The Super-Afrikaners: Inside the Afrikaner Broederbond. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers SA. p. A70. ISBN9781868425358.
^Herbert M. Howe (1994). The South African Defence Force and Political Reform. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 32
^16 S. Afr. J. on Hum. Rts. 415 (2000) After the Dry White Season: The Dilemmas of Reparation and Reconstruction in South Africa; Jenkins, Catherine
^The "New" South Africa: Violence Works Bill Berkeley World Policy Journal , Vol. 13, No. 4 (Winter, 1996/1997), pp. 73–80
^117 S. African L.J. 572 (2000) Second Bite at the Amnesty Cherry – Constitutional and Policy Issues around Legislation for a Second Amnesty, A; Klaaren, Jonathan; Varney, Howard
^Baines, Gary. "The life of a uniformed technocrat turned securocrat: My life with the SA Defence Force, Magnus Malan: book review." Historia 54, no. 1 (2009): 314–327.
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