Apartheid spies and the revolutionary underground / Billy Keniston.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Keniston, Billy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Anti-apartheid activists--Biography.

Anti-apartheid activists.

Anti-apartheid activists--Crimes against--South Africa.

Spies--South Africa--History.

Spies.

Assassins--South Africa--Biography.

Assassins.

Espionage--South Africa.

Espionage.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxii, 336 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2024.

Summary:

An in-depth study of the assassination of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon at the hand of apartheid spy, Craig Williamson, that explores how the lives of a group of white activists intersected with and were impacted by the undercover security police and their operations both within and outside of South Africa.<br><br>This is the first book-length account of the assassination of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon on 28 June 1984, ordered by Craig Williamson, a member of the security service and apartheid spy. Jeanette Curtis Schoon and Craig Williamson first met in 1973 at Wits University. Schoon was part of a network of white activists fighting apartheid; Williamson had successfully infiltrated the student movement and rose within its ranks. He held positions of trust, first within the National Union of South African Students and later, after pretending to 'flee' the country, as an office-bearer of the International Universities Exchange Fund in Sweden, which helped fund many South African activists in exile.<br><br>The book uncovers how the lives of a group of white activists intersected with and were impacted by the undercover security police and their operations both within and outside of South Africa in a multitude of ways.<br><br>Williamson received amnesty for his role in the Schoons' murder, among other crimes. This book shows the limits of the TRC process to deliver social justice and render healing from South Africa's apartheid past. That justice has not been served to the Schoons remains a tragedy in this story of struggle against apartheid.

Contents:

Timeline

Introduction

Prologue: the assassination, 1984

Part 1. From student radicals to post-student people, 1972-1976

1. Student radicals

Post-student people

Part 2. Cover stories and undercover stories, Botswana and Geneva, 1977-1980

3. Cover stories

4. Undercover stories

5. Exposing Craig Williamson

6. The damage is done

Part 3. Furthering the aims, 1980-1983

7. Arrests and detention

8. The trials

Part 4. Forced asylum, 1981-1984

9. No asylum from Her Majesty

10. A kind of asylum

Epilogue: Amnesty and justice, 1995-2007

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 18 Apr 2025).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781776149032

1776149033

OCLC:

1482450352