The Berkeley affair
Sir: I will not answer, in detail the tissue of falsehoods about my negotiations with the Nigerian authorities contained in the letter written by Mr Makiwane and Mr Somdaka and published in your issue of 1 September.
My lawyers have already issued writs for defamation and libel against Chief George Matanzima, the Prime Minister of Transkei, and against the Permanent Secretary to the Transkei Department for Foreign Affairs, who have made similar allegations in the South African press. The true facts will emerge when the case is heard in court.
I must, however, point out that it is incorrect for Mr Somdaka to state that he was not in Transkei on the night of 15/16 February 1979 when certain members of the Transkei Security Police attempted to murder me on South African soil. I had dinner with him in Umtata on the night of Sunday 4 February. He interviewed me for the West German Radio, by whom he was then employed, on Wednesday 21 February in Umtata, after I had returned there, having been discharged from hospitals in South Africa. He had not been away in the meantime.
A new and very sinister development has taken place since my article appeared in your issue of 4 August. At midnight on Thursday 23 August ten armed members of the Transkei Security Police visited the home of Mr Liston Ntshongwana, who was at the time of the attempt on my life in February Assistant Secretary in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and who, incidentally, visited Nigeria with my Deputy in January 1979. He had little doubt that he would have been abducted and murdered, had he not managed to escape. He is now in this country and an application has been made on his behalf for political asylum. He is the sole witness who knows the names and ranks of the Transkei Security Police who attempted to murder me, since he arrived at the Holiday Inn in Umtata as I was being taken away by the Security Police and he recognised them all. Had he been killed on 23 August my evidence against these three men would have been uncorroborated at their trial and they would, in all probability, have been acquitted. As it is, the British Government is urging the South African government to extradite these men to face trial in South Africa. Fortunately Mr Ntshongnana is still alive and can give his evidence to the court, if a trial is held.
Humphry Berkeley 35 Dover Street, London W1
Previous page
