she hit the water. The aircraft disappeared in a huge burst of spray, staggered out of the other end like a wet dog, and then painfully slowly picked up speed again. The trees at the far end of the runway seemed very close as he finally pulled her up and swept over the top. Carlos dipped his wings to huge cheers from the stunned onlookers!’4
Back at Buffalo Range, Pessarra’s reverie was interrupted by the arrival at his tent of his old Legionnaire mate, Jean-Michel Desblé, who told him that the Scouts needed ‘five parachutes’.
‘Obviously, Jean and I have known each other a long time. I could tell by his demeanour that something was not correct,’ Pessarra recalled. ‘I simply asked him, “Jean, where’s the sit-rep [situation report] requirements for the five parachutes from [Air Force HQ at] New Sarum?” … and he said, “There’s none; just give them to us.” Well, obviously, this is … when the war was extremely heavy and during the day, the PJIs [parachute jump instructors] would put out the para fire-forces, the RLI or the RAR … Then, if there were ops going in – usually the SAS operated out of Buffalo Range and Recce operated at Buffalo Range where they would have their ops in the evening – they would fly another Dak down from New Sarum to take care of them, or the Dak used during the fire-force would take care of them if they had a relief pilot crew … So obviously this all goes through the FAF [operations] room, the base commander there, and I hadn’t received anything.’
This was critical, as PJIs had the responsibility for all parachute-related equipment – and the safety of the parachutists until the point at which they dropped out of the aircraft.
Pessarra continued: ‘So Jean says, “No, it’s supposed to be off the books.” Well, we had strict orders at that time … and obviously I wasn’t about to turn over five parachutes for them to disappear, especially to the Scouts, and get my ass in the crack. I knew Jean, and I knew obviously something was up. I told Jean I wouldn’t do it.’
About an hour later, at around 3:00 pm, Desblé showed up again, this time accompanied by base commander Major Bert Sachse. Pessarra also gave him short shrift: ‘Bert Sachse tried to browbeat me into releasing five parachutes and I very diplomatically told him to fuck off. He and I had words and he fucked off.’
Speaking to this author 32 years later, Sachse clearly had fond memories of Desblé, calling him ‘a specialist reconnaissance-type guy … one man by himself getting us information’, but remembered Da Silveira only as ‘a Portuguese pilot that flew for … 3 Squadron’. He claimed he could not recall Pessarra at all.5 Da Silveira had allegedly been approached by Sachse and Desblé earlier in the afternoon and, concerned with the irregularity of the demand for the chutes, went to speak to Pessarra who refused to hand over the parachutes without authorisation from New Sarum. ‘My main [para fire-force] pilot … came to me … and I said, “Look, what’s going on?” and he said, “Something’s going on, they’re not talking about it, they want five parachutes but they don’t want the PJI on board …”’
‘A lot of people go under very strange circumstances’
At about 4:40 pm, Pessarra saw two Land Rovers pull up near the Dakota at the far end of the airfield. About an hour later, he wandered down to take a closer look. ‘There was a covered Land Rover that had two Scouts in the front seat … they were commercial, full-covered Land Rovers … [in the other] there’s a Scout driver. And I saw Desblé walk over and in the front seat I recognised one of the American intelligence officers who was unofficial in Rhodesia at this time, his name is Davis; he was not well-known but he was well-known in the trade as the person who worked for the Christians [CIA] there, getting all the information, but he operated between Rhodesia, Zambia and South Africa. I knew – he had been pointed out to me by an American intelligence officer – that I was supposed to stay away from him; they did not want him to know of my presence, but I was supposed to be aware of his, which made me suspicious.
‘In the back right-hand seat,’ he claimed, ‘was [SADF medic Major Wouter] Basson, a guy with a beard, hell of a bit more hair, he looked like a German hunter out on safari; that’s my first impression of him. I was within about ten feet from him; they saw me, I saw them very clearly.’
Pessarra’s identification of Basson at Buffalo Range is deeply controversial. Basson and his legal counsel have consistently and strenuously denied he was ever in Southern Rhodesia, claiming he was not yet in the military but still studying medicine in South Africa at this time. However, Basson testified on 31 July 1991 before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) inquiry into the apartheid chemical and biological warfare programme that he had joined the SADF in January 1975, more than three years before the Buffalo Range incident.6
‘I have the MBChB, I obtained that in 1973. I have a master’s degree in Physiology and Biochemistry in 1978. I obtained MMed in 1980 … In January 1975, I joined the Defence Force,’ he stated before the TRC.
A former medic who wishes to remain anonymous informed this author that Basson had funded his medical studies under a scholarship scheme whereby he owed the SADF two years’ service for each year of study.
Chandré Gould and Peter Folb’s official report for the United Nations mistakenly states that ‘Wouter Basson had joined the SADF in January 1979, as a medical officer … He held the rank of Lieutenant and worked at 1 Military Hospital until February 1981. During this time, he completed various courses and became a specialist in internal medicine.’7
In 1981, Commandant Basson was attached to Special Forces HQ (Speskop) as the project manager of Project Coast, the SADF’s chemical and biological warfare programme. In January 1985, as a commandant sporting a full, dark beard, he became head of the SADF’s new specialist combat medics unit, 7 Medical Battalion.
It was for his Project Coast role as a senior staff officer that over the period 1999–2002, Basson faced charges of conspiracy to commit mass murder, R30 million fraud, and other serious crimes. Acquitted on all charges, he was nevertheless found guilty in 2013 by the Health Professions Council of South Africa on four counts of unprofessional conduct related to his covert work, although this conviction would later also be set aside by the courts.
Evidence was presented at the criminal trial that Basson graduated as a medical specialist in April 1981. There are strong indications that he was both an active SADF medical officer and a medical student. It is telling that it appears as if Basson altered his own career timeline between his TRC and trial testimonies – both under oath – to try to make it impossible for him to have been involved in Rhodesia, a country that was not mentioned during his TRC hearing but to which he was repeatedly linked in his indictment via his relations with former Rhodesian pseudo-operators. However, he appears to have slipped up again in a 17 November 2011 email to CBW researcher Glenn Cross. ‘Dr Basson denies having any knowledge of Rhodesia’s CBW programme, but admits having worked in Rhodesia on “joint operations”,’ Cross states.8 The use of ‘Rhodesia’ implies Basson’s pre-independence presence in the country, before it became Zimbabwe, while the term ‘joint operations’ is suggestive of the sort of multi-unit combined operation witnessed by Pessarra at Buffalo Range on 5 March 1978.
The claim that Basson was not yet in the military was made in cross-examination of Neil Kriel by Basson’s counsel, Advocate Jaap Cilliers, SC, who stated: ‘[I]n 1979/1980, Dr Basson was still a medical student … Dr Basson was at that stage a full-time medical student for his intern exams at HF Verwoerd [Hospital] … he finalised his exams and practical period in December 1980 … then in the first quarter of the next year students received their degrees formally.’
Cilliers went on to produce Basson’s medical degree certificate, dated April 1981, and stated further: ‘I must put it to you in the seventies, Dr Basson here was a medical student and he was most definitely not part of any group visiting Zimbabwe or the then-Rhodesia.’ An undeterred Kriel riposted that he had
