The rulers of apartheid South Africa had long decided that the war should be fought on all fronts, two of which were "Total Onslaught" on the enemy by military means while winning "the hearts and minds of men" by means of disinformation and propaganda. Newslink Africa, whose theatre of operation was the Frontline States, was the crystallisation of the latter and had two main aims: to destroy the image of the liberation movement, especially the ANC, in exile while promoting apartheid, especially the National Party as its anchor, in the outside world. Botswana was the launch pad and first leg of a project that was intended to spread next to Nambia before expanding to the heartland of the ANC in Zambia and the rest of southern Africa.Thankfully, Tsiako - who was the newspaper's second editor after Nicholas Sebolao - said the project failed in its aims for two main reasons: He took advice, even instructions, directly from the ANC in Lusaka whenever he was confronted with a matter that could have a bearing on the liberation struggle. The other reason was that he was a firm believer and upholder of the principle of no interference in the newsroom by management.He recalled that an attempt was actually once made during the campaign against dredging of the River Boro when he was in Maun. After staff contacted him by phone to inform him of this surreptitious development, he left management - especially an ex-Rhodie and Selous Scout named Neil Burrows, who was the MD - in no doubt that it must "back off", he says. "So much for the intelligence service of southern Africa's bulwark against communism that enjoyed the support of the West and the Zionists who have occupied Palestine since 1948," Tsiako commented dryly.He is adamant that the staff of Newslink were completely unaware that they were - as he put it - potentially "in the heart of the whore" until he received a phone call from Anton Harber, the fearless co-editor of The Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian), the Johannesburg weekly in the mould of the alternative press that was a thorn in the side of the apartheid regime, sometime in early August 1992. After both men thought they had detected the presence of a wiretapping device on the line, Anton decided to press ahead with the purpose of his call, saying the matter was too serious to postpone even for a moment longer "because you are sitting on a powder keg, Doug, to put it mildly".
The Weekly Mail had spent the previous six months investigating Newslink and would start publishing a series of deadly exposes in three weeks whence. Newslink, Harber continued, was an extremely dangerous propaganda project of the South African Defence Force. As a matter of fact, he pressed on, the general responsible for the project was in the process of defecting to the ANC but was then at a safe house arranged by The Weekly Mail en route to Lusaka. "'Thankfully, our investigations show that you and your colleagues have no idea what is going on,'" Tsiako quoted Harber as saying. Harber then invited him to speak with the general, in case he was in any doubt of what he was hearing. He was not. Astounded, perhaps, that he and his colleagues had been pussyfooting with the devil without quite knowing it. They had had their suspicions, afterall. For one thing, the capo dei capi of the team entrusted with implementing the nefarious project was a generous stocky specimen named Abel Rudman who was the proud owner of a vintage limousine that had once been the official car of the man credited with conception and implementation of apartheid who was Prime Minister of the heretical state from 1958 to 1966, Henrik Verwoerd. For another, a young Afrikaner meisie who worked at project headquarters in Centurion near Pretoria had told Tsiako about her father's "unnerving" friendship with fiendish Europeans and Americans from dangerous rightwing organisations in Europe and the US, and how these men regularly brought Gatsha Buthelezi, then the head of a exceedingly malevolent force at the beck and call of apartheid South Africa's National Party government, Inkatha, to conclaves at her parents' home. And then there was the 'consultant' - a young intelligent, sauve and well-groomed gentleman who, in addition to his patina of good heath and hint of material success, dressed rather too well for a white man in Africa. The trouble with Allan Sole was that inspite of his confidence, he always seemed exceedingly perturbed whenever Tsiako assured him that a future South Africa under a democratic ANC government was both inevitable and imminent and that that government would include the South Africa Communist Party. Further, Burrows' management team included a pastor who had worked in Mozambique, invoking spooky images of bodies of gun-toting, Bible-thumping chaplains who had fought alongside Renamo and apartheid South African aggressors to reverse the gains of the socialist government in that country. "The Religious Right and fascists have come a long way," says Tsiako. But unlike Allan Sole, Burrows was a man of inferior intellect and manifestly limited education who wore his cheap white shirts with their short sleeves turned inside out to reveal sagging biceps. The ex-Rhodie knew no better than to gloat about how he and his fellow Selous Scouts used to maim and murder Zimbabweans in the bush during the liberation struggle, thinking his audience of Batswana found great entertainment in his bloodcurdling accounts of crimes against humanity that were obviously embellished. Always clean-shaven, he had the round face of a happy puppy and eyes the glistening brown of the semi-precious stones of Bobonong. Standing ramrod, which he couldn't quite achieve because he had a slight slouch, he cut a 'kiss madolo' figure that tapered downwards like a giant mermaid's. With a flabby belly that dominated an ample torso, Burrows presented the picture of an animated caricature. Says Tsiako: "One look at him, and you went away thinking he might have done better a dog trainer because he had the image of one with the suitable canine instincts. Besides, being a racial bigot, the god-forsaken bloke must have felt a stronger affinity for dogs than he had for 'darkies.'"
