Obituary: Dries Putter - Navy chief and apartheid regime securocrat

1935-2014

VICE-Admiral Dries Putter, who has died in Mossel Bay at the age of 78, was chief of the South African Navy and one of the most dominant members of the extremely powerful State Security Council in the 1980s.

The council was established to counter what the government of the day saw as a "total onslaught" against South Africa. It was chaired by then-state president PW Botha. Among its tasks was to decide what action should be taken against those it deemed enemies of the state.

As a leading member of the State Security Council and chief of staff intelligence for the South African Defence Force between 1985 and 1989, Putter would have been privy to a South African intelligence report on Swedish premier Olof Palme submitted to the council.

The report detailed Palme's strong support for the ANC and his closeness to the Soviet Union, which, it concluded, made him an enemy of South Africa.

It proposed that action be taken against him during a meeting of the anti-apartheid movement in Stockholm in February 1986.

Alongside this proposal in black ink was written "agreed". In February 1986, Palme was assassinated.

As chief of staff intelligence for the SADF, Putter oversaw its clandestine operations. These included the smuggling of elephant tusks and rhino horns from Angola to finance Unita leader Jonas Savimbi's war against the country's MPLA government. He was also responsible for operations in support of the Lesotho Liberation Army and the Renamo rebels in Mozambique.

In 1996, Putter was acquitted in the High Court in Durban of involvement in the 1987 KwaMakhutha massacre. Thirteen people, mainly women and children, were killed by Inkatha Freedom Party cadres who had received offensive paramilitary training in the Caprivi Strip in Namibia from the SADF.

Putter was subpoenaed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, along with five other senior apartheid-era security officials, and questioned about this covert training of IFP cadres and their deployment in KwaZulu-Natal.

He was born on December 2 1935 in Brits in what is now North West.

After matriculating at Hoërskool Brits, he went to the military academy at Stellenbosch University, where he was one of the first naval officers to graduate with a BMil degree.

In the early 1960s, Putter completed a one-year torpedo anti-submarine course in the UK. On his return, he became a torpedo anti-submarine officer on the navy frigate President Kruger.

In 1982, the President Kruger sank with the loss of 24 lives after colliding with the replenishment ship SAS Tafelberg. Shortly afterwards, Putter, who knew many of the deceased, became chief of the navy, which was still reeling from its worst disaster since World War 2.

Several months after Putter's appointment, one of his most senior officers, Dieter Gerhardt, commanding office of the Simon's Town naval base, was exposed as a spy for the Soviet Union.

It was a huge shock for Putter, who had known him well, and it sent shock waves through the navy.

No one knew whether Gerhardt had been acting alone or was part of a network. If part of a network, the question the new navy chief had to grapple with was how many of his other officers were spies.

Gerhardt was jailed in 1983 and released and deported to Switzerland in 1992.

Putter became chief of staff intelligence for the SADF in July 1985 and was reappointed chief of the navy in March 1989.

By this time, South Africa's finances were in such a desperate state that Putter had to decide whether to cancel a project to upgrade the navy's badly depleted blue-water capability or drastically reduce personnel. He decided to do the latter and promptly retrenched a quarter of the navy. He felt that the least he could do under the circumstances was to retrench himself as well and retired as chief of the navy in June 1990.

He is survived by his wife, Gerda, and five children.