Three ministers in South Africa’s apartheid government were identified as the central figures in a paedophilia ring that operated during the 1980s.
The investigation revealed that Magnus Malan‚ who was the minister of defence, John Wiley, who was minister of environment, and a third person who is still alive‚ together with businessman John Allen, were involved in trafficking minors Bird Island in Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth where the children were molested and forced to satisfy the older men’s sexual fantasies, according to News24.
The allegations are contained in a new book The Lost Boys of Bird Island, by former policeman Mark Minnie and ex-journalist Chris Steyn.
Minnie, a detective at the police’s narcotics bureau in Port Elizabeth in the 1980s, came across allegations that Allen recruited children for sex. Steyn, a journalist at the Cape Times, investigated the apparent suicide of Wiley and Allen in 1987. Both authors were not convinced that the two had committed suicide; they believed that they were killed as part of a conspiracy to prevent the connection between the Apartheid government and paedophilia ring from being discovered.
According to News24, the book also reveals that a child was maimed after a gun was thrust up his anus and the trigger pulled. Not only was he transported by helicopter to a local hospital he was also treated under guard. It also places Malan, who was referred to as ‘Ore’ (Afrikaans for ‘ears’) at a rented flat in the city where a young boy was also sexually assaulted.
The commissioning editor of the book, Maryna Lamprecht, said the book highlighted the depravity of the apartheid government.
“It dehumanised people in every possible way, even to the point of exploiting vulnerable children sexually to satisfy the needs of powerful politicians.”
