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secretary, Dagmar Kahlig-Scheffler, was a spy working for the written by Australian investigative reporter Janine Roberts, the Stasi, Wolf explains that Chancellor Schmidt's spy-cum-secretary Oppenheimer family and De Beers arranged that a "...fabulous was caught when her Stasi control officer Peter Goslar came multibillion Rand stockpile of the finest gems was shipped out under suspicion by West German counterintelligence. rior to the 1994 elections, and that the mines producing the best I asked Peter if he was the same Peter Goslar identified by his gems were put into overdrive in both South Africa and Namibia "friend" Marcus Wolf and he denied this. Nonetheless, he told me so that as many as possible of the better gems were extracted as that Rolf van Rooyen was still living in Germany and was under fast as possible."* I have also been told that large quantities of the protection of two former Stasi agents. And we do know that South African gold were also surreptitiously shipped out of South the Stasi worked closely and in the shadows with South African Africa at around this time—presumably for similar reasons. intelligence on a variety of projects, mostly weapons-related. It is also of interest to note that mounting evidence points to the Curious. conclusion that since 1995 the price of gold has been kept pur- The Palace Group, meanwhile, contains all the guile and charm osely low as a result of a conspiracy engineered by the US of a privatised off-the-books appendage of Britain's Secret | Treasury Department in collaboration with leading international Intelligence Service (SIS). anks. The result has been that the cost of extracting gold for On the other side of the Atlantic, General Cocke and his firm many South African gold mines is no longer cost-effective. Cocke & Phillips International have many similarities with its Could some of this alleged "missing" South African gold be foregoing British cousin and probably was related to a transaction that van Rooyen (and is, as the firm remains active) one of and Stander entered into in 1991? This the CIA's private off-the-books companies. involved Eastech International Bank's This conclusion is not only drawn from agreeing to purchase 5,000 metric tonnes enity Nogan Hand Bank, but afer iA | [Miterestingly, during the | + ee rd tendon Fx vat a cost of abou front company called Associated Traders course of my ongoing US$50 billion. This gold was held in the Corporation. 1 1 7 1 1 free zone area beneath Zurich's Kloten ATC, as it is known, came into brief investigation into Project Airport. The contract, which was to be rominence some years ago following a Hammer, a number of governed by the "canton laws of Zurich", series of articles written by syndicated h 6 | d 6 hi runs to six pages and each page bears the columnist Jack Anderson, naming others involved in this official stamp of the Swiss police, authoris- Associated Traders as a gun-running, program whom I have ing and validating the transaction. -laundering, "off-the-books" CIA 9 It ains unclear if van R and front. Then, in 1988, a USS4 million law. | SPOKen with have told me | sinder were acting on their own behalf or suit was filed that involved ATC. By that the Hammer were fronting for someone else in this 1990, the Director of the CIA, William transaction. Van Rooyen, at least, has Webster, issued an affidavit calling program—and NUMCTOUS been fingered as a CIA asset in addi- for a sweeping gag order to be other collateral trading tion to his having South African slapped on the lawsuit on the grounds rograms associated with intelligence affiliations. Might they of national security. Of interest is the Pp 8 have been operating as a "deniable fact that more than one source has it—have enormously cut-out" for the US Treasury told me that Associated Traders " " Department who wished to get deliv- powerful "gold trusts of royal origin sitting behind them. Corporation was General Cocke. ery of this gold? The foregoing connections could Perhaps the Chinese Government easily be typified as part of the was party to the transaction instead. Anglo-American-African covert Eastech International Bank was, after intelligence relationship that contin- all, a wholly owned subsidiary of ues to conceal many sins. Sino-Eastech, an entity which van There is reason to suppose that part Rooyen told German police investi- of the funds derived from the Project gators was "established in China" Hammer financial trading program and which “operates from Xin Xong went to fund certain military and and was originally established by the intelligence operations in South Africa. These are thought to General Staff of the 7th military power in China". In operating have included financing of the so-called "Hammer units" that are their bank, van Rooyen and Stander liaised with a Chinese Army alleged to have engaged in brutal beatings and assassinations General whom van Rooyen declined to name, saying he wasn't throughout South Africa prior to the collapse of the apartheid "sure what his name is". His German police interrogator, dis- regime. It is also believed that Hammer funds were used to _ playing a well-honed sense of official disinterest in such diplo- finance the purchase of arms given to the Inkatha Freedom Party, matic incongruities, rapidly moved on to other issues. which was engaged in widespread acts of bloody violence during By 1995, Eastech International Bank had begun to hit the radar 1992 and 1993—as discussed in the 1994 Report of the Goldstone screen of regulatory authorities around the world, which viewed it Commission of Inquiry that named Eastech, van Rooyen and with suspicion. But by then it seems probable that much of Stander. Project Hammer's South African objectives had been fulfilled. Another aspect of Project Hammer may have involved the Fearing the worse, Rolf van Rooyen left South Africa and trav- desire to plunder South Africa of much of its available mineral elled to Germany. And according to his one-time friend Peter wealth prior to the country's coming under control of the ANC in Goslar, that is where he still lives—albeit protected by former 1994. In the hard-hitting and suppressed book Glitter and Greed, members of East Germany's Stasi spy network. Interestingly, during the course of my ongoing investigation into Project Hammer, a number of others involved in this program—and numerous other collateral trading programs associated with it—have enormously powerful "gold trusts" of royal origin sitting behind them. NEXUS ¢ 23 FEBRUARY — MARCH 2002 www.nexusmagazine.com