SIGNED BY PETER STIFF

Galago, 2017 printing. Softcover, 600 pages in good condition

The second book in Peter Stiff's trilogy about South Africa's covert wars is perhaps the most controversial. It covers a large variety of material and operations spanning the period 1977 to 1994. Some of the material came to light during the Truth and Reconciliation hearings but much more of it comes from Mr. Stiff's own digging and interviews. This is harrowing stuff including many lethal injections of captured guerillas who could not be turned into double agents and numerous assassinations and murders of others. While Stiff's other writing has focused on special forces this focuses on the role of undercover agents, government support of coup attempts, the policy of supporting the homelands and their rulers, the recruitment of anti-ANC local activists in those homelands and the dismantling of the ANC during the period of `Total onslaught'. Some of the most harrowing and diabolical material involves Operation Barnacle in which captured SWAPO guerillas were drugged, killed and thrown out of airplanes. The story of the 1989 attempt to place a baboon foetus outside Desmond Tutu's house borders on the ludicrous or something from Hollywood.