Smelling a Rodent

This is a logo of a well-known rodent organisation.

An experienced vole strangler can smell a nasty rodent from a long way off, even when it is hiding underground.

In the 1980's, The Vole Strangler had the unfortunate experience of meeting Arthur Kemp, apartheid security policeman. While at University and keeping tabs on progressive activists, Arthur belonged to an outfit that was affiliated to the International Freedom Foundation (IFF). He was a weedy character, but most of his outfit were built like bouncers, and were not averse to beating people up. Arthur was later involved in the assassination of an ANC leader. Now in Britain he is now a friend of Nick Griffen and a member of the BNP.

These days he is an open rightwinger. He has written a white-supremecist book (that we can all agree doesn't celebrate his racially superior countrymen enough!) However back in 1980s Kemp was fond of saying he was a moderate, but he spent most of his time attacking the African National Congress, the Sandinistas, and what he called "a global communist conspiracy". It later turned out that the whole IFF shower was an apartheid front, brought to you by the same people who brought you:

• Apartheid
• State terrorism
• Murder
• Political assassinations
• Bombing of opponents offices
• Death squads
• Bribery and corruption

and lots of other nasty things.
Their friends in the USA were people like Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay, and various right wing groups. Besides for bringing us the Taliban (via their support for the mujahadeen), these people introduced covert funding for slick (pro-apartheid) political campaigns.

For an in depth look at this aspect, see this War and Peace article.

See also CapitalBuzz:

The International Freedom Foundation "Tackled" The ANC For the Apartheid Regime. According to Russel Crystal, IFF’s chief in South Africa, "'The military intelligence, there were certain things they wanted done - tackling the ANC as a terrorist-communist organization,' Crystal said. 'The projects we did for them, they paid for.' He added that it was not impossible that South Africa accounted for far more than his estimated 50 percent of IFF revenues. As an example of this 'tackling,' Crystal cited the targeting of Oliver Tambo, whenever the late exiled leader of the ANC traveled around the world." According to former Senior South African spy Craig Williamson "'The advantage of the IFF was that it pilloried the ANC,' said Williamson. 'The sort of general western view of the ANC up until 1990 was a box of matches [violence] and Soviet-supporting - slavishly was the word we latched on. That was backed up with writings, intellectual inputs. It was a matter of undercutting ANC credibility.'" [Newsday, 7/16/95]

The IFF were not merely useful idiots for the Apartheid government, they were nutjobs in their own right. Some of them were seen sporting Hang Mandela t-shirts. Voles of the same pelt tended to congregate together, and that they were under the banner of the IFF didn't fool any respectable vole strangler.

This Vole Strangler was reminded of this bunch of right-wing extremists when he saw that the same kind of nutjobs are flocking to the blog Harry's Place. Again these dirty vermin are couching their words in "moderate" terms: they support democracy, freedom, shoelaces, English muffins, motherhood and apple pie. However there is a strong whiff of the vole about them.

Another site to watch is Guido Fawkes blog, where one of the regulars has even owned up to being an old IFF supporter.