Who killed Dulcie September?

Dulcie September was not just murdered: she was erased.

There would be no prolonged torture and interrogation followed by a murder in the veld. No braai and beer in celebration for the security men and secret handshakes by generals and knowing nods from the politicians; no need to try to cover up the chain of command. What was to be gained from her murder?

September was born in the Cape Town suburb of Athlone in 1935. She, with other coloured South African activists, was soon active in the resistance movement and was eventually detained without trial in 1963 and imprisoned by the state. Following her release she left for exile in the United Kingdom in 1973.

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In London she came into contact with the UK Anti-Apartheid Movement and eventually the ANC. She enjoyed a reputation as a hard-working, no-nonsense activist, alert to sexism, which she described as a pattern of behaviour within the ANC. "We must seriously examine our atrocious methods of work and our attitude towards people," she warned.

She was appointed the ANC's chief representative for France, Switzerland and Luxembourg, based in Paris, in 1983. Although that year saw the election of a socialist government under President François Mitterrand, France's relations with the apartheid regime did not seem to alter much as a result.

If anything, this strengthened September's resolve to isolate South Africa by calling on the French government to impose full economic and military sanctions.

The scant records available in the ANC archives at Fort Hare University suggest that September undertook extensive investigation into the illicit arms trade with South Africa and delved deeply into the clandestine aspects of South African-French relations.

In the process she must have developed insight into the extent of French circumvention of the arms embargo. In a speech she wrote in 1987, she said: "In the sale of arms to the Pretoria regime, France is the second most important collaborator [after Israel] ... "

Given her outspokenness, it is hardly surprising that she was met with threats and intimidation.

In 1985 she wrote a detailed memo, probably for the ANC office in London, in which she reported: "It is quite obvious that the telephone both in my apartment and office are tapped." She mentioned numerous mysterious calls to her apartment, including an instance when she lifted her phone to make a call and found other people speaking on the line.

She listened to their conversation and when this ended, "a telephone rang and a woman answered and said 'Thomson and Cie' [referring to the French arms company Thomson-CSF]. I was so shocked that I replaced my receiver."

A month before her murder she reported: "Office entered during night on a number of occasions. Lights left on. Once electric meter turned off. Nothing disturbed or stolen."

The rising star of the French right-wing Front National, Jean-Marie le Pen, publicised September's address in what was a veiled threat to the representative of what he regarded as a terrorist organisation.

Then, on March 29 1988, September was killed by a gunman as she was entering the small ANC office in the heart of Paris. There was a powerful popular response to her murder in the city, which brought together more than 20,000 mourning Parisians in a sea of banners proclaiming "Dulcie was our friend".

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The ANC's Solly Smith (aka Samuel Khanyile) was appointed September's successor. The choice could not have been worse. Smith was later revealed to have been recruited by the South African Police Special Branch.

Craig Williamson, an ex-security policeman, told me that he had been Smith's handler.

Smith gained access to September's flat and helped co-ordinate the funeral arrangements. In this way he was able to ask probing questions, cast his eyes over her documents and rummage through her personal belongings. The ANC Paris office was now in the hands of a Security Branch double agent with a weakness for alcohol.

At the time of the assassination, President Mitterrand did not respond to public calls to break off diplomatic relations with South Africa. When drawn on the possible perpetrators, he is reported to have remarked, "I can't say anything, even if I have an intuition."

The identity of the person who murdered Dulcie September still remains a mystery. A judicial investigation by a French judge and an inquiry by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission produced no conclusive findings.

As part of the TRC's investigation, the Swedish police officer Jan-Åke Kjellberg was tasked with investigating September's murder, together with former South African policeman Wilson Magadla. When I spoke with the Swede, he sounded frustrated that the investigation was never properly followed up. As a general point he argued, "We failed on arms deals."

A seasoned former military official, who wishes to remain anonymous, followed my line of questioning with his head in his hands. It was a contemplative, prayer-like gesture which I at first mistook for lack of interest. Is it possible, I probed, that French intelligence had instigated September's murder? I had become somewhat convinced of this hypothesis given that Pretoria would have much to lose. As the obvious assailants, they could expect a public backlash that would endanger other operations.

He moved his hands away to reveal his face and murmured, "But unfortunately it was the South Africans ..." At best I had thought that this retired military commander would duck and weave this question but he chose to speak his truth. According to him, September "was identified as the number one person in Paris operationally speaking, in terms of spying on South Africa, that was her only job. It was hard to tell what she knew. In a case like that you say, 'Let's expect the worst,' and cut off her oxygen."

He added that she had information about the extensive military relationship between South Africa and France, and that there was a risk of her "blowing this open". Thus "the evidence that she had, had to be removed, and she had to be taken out of the equation".

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Regarding the trigger man in her murder, the source said he did not "know who pulled the trigger, but it was linked to the old security police". According to him, the gun that was used was smuggled in "piece by piece by piece to avoid detection" in an operation that required detailed long-term planning.

The matter was handled as a need-to-know operation and carried State Security Council approval, which would implicate PW Botha and one or more of his cabinet members. Not even Military Intelligence knew of the specifics of the operation: "We only knew 'she is a target' and it is only a matter of time," the source claimed.

Self-confessed assassin Craig Williamson also confirmed that September was on a kill list. He remarked, matter-of-factly, that if the [South African] war had "gone on long enough they would have killed more of them".

I pushed my source as to who could have been involved in the murder. He said it was a man "who could take equipment apart, and get it overseas in pieces and even produce a bomb ... and then go over and reconstruct it ... To put it in military terms, you know, he's fucked up, but if you get him sober ... " The man's name? I ask.

Colonel Vic McPherson.

McPherson agreed to meet at his neat suburban home. His face lit up when I asked him about work he had undertaken in Paris. He claims that he had no agents there but "I was often in Paris and at times would ask my contacts to meet me there".

I asked McPherson if September was ever on any kill list. He denied this was the case. I then asked him if he or one of his agents were involved, as had been suggested to me. He paused and responded, "I would have known if one of our agents were involved. We didn't have people in Europe that could kill someone, she was walking in the passage and she was shot directly in the head. I didn't have people who could have shot her. I think it was the army — CCB [apartheid death squad the Civil Co-operation Bureau], it's their stories. It had nothing to do with the police."

He took a sip from his drink. "I can't remember." The detail about the murder, unprompted by me, is surprising. For a man who claimed innocence, he had an astonishingly clear recollection of how it took place almost three decades ago.

However, McPherson did very soon lead me back to French intelligence. "You see, the thing is, the French secret service would have been interested in the ANC, given the close link to the communists in Paris and the links to the Kremlin."

Craig Williamson, also speculating, says it is entirely possible that the DGSE [the French external intelligence agency] would help South Africa in this plan. "France is not the UK, the French secret service is similar to Mossad [the Israeli secret service], they are not shy of 'direct action'."

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This is high praise from a man who killed women and children with letter bombs. Breyten Breytenbach also believes that French intelligence collaboration in September's murder is plausible, not least because, according to him, local French intelligence cleared out all her documents after her murder.

What all the evidence we have collected suggests is that it is necessary to look far deeper at the motives of the people who had the most to lose if the identity of September's murderer was uncovered. It is not enough to find the man who pulled the trigger. We should focus our energies instead on the motive, as this could expose a far greater conspiracy.

As much as September's life was a struggle to uncover this conspiracy, her death gives us important clues.

As Vic McPherson explained to me: "You must understand that the French wanted to sell weapons, it meant billions of dollars for the French arms industry, but it was a state secret, and if this woman wants to expose this, it is better that she disappears. They could have used a South African connection to do the dirty work. They would also cover up the investigation. The guy who killed her has disappeared, nobody knows who that guy is, and they will never know."

September was killed by forces close to French-South African arms deals during apartheid. We do not know who pulled the trigger. Most likely, he was an official in South African Military Intelligence. Perhaps he worked for the DGSE. He could have worked for Armscor or a French arms manufacturer.

There was ample motive to murder her. If she had discovered only the tip of the iceberg of French-South African arms dealings during apartheid, it would have been cause enough for a bullet to find its way to her as she opened her office door that March morning.

A likely scenario is that September was killed by a South African assassin with either the participation of French security services or at least their tacit approval. The arms deals at the time were not only a South African affair. The trail of profit-making led to Paris, where it benefited politicians, corporations and spies. If any of this was revealed, it might have endangered the continued existence of the Armscor office in Paris and, with that, the entire arms money-laundering machine. Those with power simply had too much to lose by her living. They continue to have as much to lose by the identity of her killer being revealed and held to account.

Why the continued cover-up so many years later? One reason is no doubt that the motive for the cover-up has additional layers of complexity. Some of the same players implicated in her murder engaged in cutting deals in the post-apartheid arms deal. These may have included French arms corporations and very powerful politicians in Paris. If they were exposed, it would harm this trade and their careers. It might also harm powerful politicians in post-apartheid South Africa who corruptly benefited from the arms deal. Hence the silence.

The past and the present are inextricably entangled. All this is too difficult to untangle, some argue. But judging from the manner in which she lived her life, Dulcie September would have insisted on the right to truth. Justice for her was not a luxury to be traded as a political good. It is the only weapon we have against future abuse by the powerful and corrupt.

• This is an edited extract from 'Apartheid Guns and Money: A tale of profit' published by Jacana, R280

• See more at opensecrets.org.za