For three years Mossad waged its deadly war of attrition against the CSIS over the length and breadth of Africa. There was no mercy on either side. When a CSIS hit team ambushed a Mossad
Finally, through an intermediary, President Mobutu of Zaire, the CSIS let Mossad know it had no wish to fight anymore; rather, they shared a common interest in stemming Russian influence on the continent. The approach perfectly suited Mossad’s policy toward all superpowers, articulated in Meir Amit’s dictum: “Dividing them helps Israel to survive.”
While the CSIS and Mossad had battled each other, the KGB had taken further steps to take over Castro’s plans to Cubanize Africa. KGB chiefs and the politburo had met in the Kremlin and agreed that Russia would underwrite the entire Cuban economy. The terms were enough to ensure that a nation of seven million people became in hock to the Soviet Union. In return, Castro agreed to accept that Moscow’s brand of Communism rather than Beijing’s was the correct one for Africa. He also agreed to receive five thousand advisers who would “instruct” Cuba’s own security service, the DGI, on how to operate “correctly” in Africa.
The KGB began to work alongside Cubans throughout black Africa. Within six months every act of terrorism in Africa was controlled by the Russians. From the Middle Eastern camps it had set up to train terrorists, the KGB brought the very best to Africa to wage war against the apartheid regime of South Africa. Terrorists from Europe, Latin America, and Asia were also soon providing their expertise in Angola, Mozambique, and countries bordering South Africa.
According to Meir Amit, “Matters were really heating up below the equator.” He realized it could only be a matter of time before these battle-hardened mercenaries would turn their attention to Israel. The offer from the CSIS to collaborate against a common enemy, the KGB and its terrorists, was one the Mossad chief gratefully accepted. The Chinese began to provide details about Arab movements in and out of Africa. Some were killed by the usual Mossad methods of car bombs or explosives placed in hotel rooms. On one occasion, Mossad placed a bomb in the toilet of a mercenary suffering from “Congo stomach,” a particularly unpleasant form of dysentery. The lower half of his body was blown to pieces when he pulled the flush in a Khartoum hotel.
Mossad kept its side of the bargain, tipping off the CSIS that Moscow intended to offer a massive financial aid package to one of the poorest countries on earth, Somalia. Beijing promptly doubled the offer. Next Mossad helped China in Sudan, where Moscow had established a bridgehead through President Nimeri’s military government. But when the dictator refused to become completely dependent on the Russians, the KGB planned a coup. Mossad informed the CSIS, who told Nimeri. He expelled all Russian diplomats and suspended Soviet Bloc aid schemes.
Having set the two bastions of Communism at each other’s throat while at the same time, as Meir Amit later put it, “working our way into the African woodwork,” Mossad turned its attention to the one intelligence service in Africa it had come to look upon as a friend: the Bureau of State Security, BOSS, the most feared arm of South Africa’s security apparatus. BOSS matched Mossad in blackmail, sabotage, forgery, kidnapping, prisoner interrogation, psychological warfare, and assassinations. Like Mossad, BOSS had a free hand in how it dealt with its opponents. The two services quickly became bedfellows. Often operating in tandem, they moved through Africa, enjoined by a secret “understanding” between Israel’s prime minister, Golda Meir, and the Pretoria regime.
The first result had been the export of uranium ore to Dimona. The shipments were carried on commercial El Al flights from Johannesburg to Tel Aviv, and listed on manifests as agricultural machinery. South African scientists traveled to Dimona and were the only outsiders who knew the true purpose of the facility. When South Africa tested a crude nuclear device on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, Israeli scientists were present to monitor the blast. In 1972, Ezer Weizman, then a senior official in the Israeli defense ministry, met Prime Minister P. W. Botha in Pretoria to ratify a further “understanding.” If either country was attacked and required military assistance, the other would come to its aid. Israel supplied the South African army with substantial quantities of U.S.-manufactured arms and in return was granted permission to test the first nuclear devices produced by Dimona at the site in the Indian Ocean.
