South African paramilitary unit prepared to infect black population with AIDS, says former member

A South African paramilitary unit of the apartheid era, supposed to infect the black population of the continent with AIDS, would have said.

A former member of the South African Institute of Maritime Research (SAIMR) said the group was "spreading the virus" at the request of its eccentric leader, Keith Maxwell, who wanted a predominantly white country where "excesses" the 60s, 70s and 80s have no place in the post-AIDS world. "

Speak to the authors of the documentary Cold case HammarskjöldAlexander Jones, former intelligence officer of SAIMR, said that Maxwell, who had little or no medical qualifications, established himself as a doctor treating black and poor South Africans.

"What easier way to get a guinea pig than [when] you live in an apartheid system? Jones told the film, which will premiere this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. "Blacks have no rights, they need medical treatment. A white "philanthropist" arrives and says, "You know, I'm going to open these clinics and I'm going to treat you." And during that time [he is] the wolf disguised as a sheep. "

Documentary filmmakers found a sign announcing the services of a "Dr. Maxwell" in Putfontein, near Johannesburg, and spoke to people who remembered a man who held the near monopoly of health care in the area, despite strange treatments.

A local trader said that the so-called doctor had administered "false injections".

Mr Jones said that SAIMR was also operating outside of South Africa, stating to the documentary: "We have been involved in Mozambique, spreading the AIDS virus through medical conditions."

It has long been thought that SAIMR has had secret links with the apartheid armed forces in South Africa.

He has also been accused of collaborating with British intelligence and the CIA to badbadinate UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.

The Swedish-born secretary general, a supporter of decolonization, died in mysterious circumstances when his plane exploded just before landing in Zambia in 1961, while he was attempting to negotiate a peace between the newly-formed Congo. independent and separatist province of Katanga.

In 1998, the South African Post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed that she had found letters on a SAIMR-headed letterhead, which seemed to suggest that British intelligence and the CIA had agreed that "Hammarskjöld should be deleted".

Britain and the United States have denied any involvement in a plot to badbadinate, the CIA dismissing this suggestion as "absurd and baseless".

Maxwell, who died in 2006, was an eccentric who loved to dress in the manner of an 18th century admiral and rank himself "commodore".

It is unclear to what extent the alleged AIDS plot in the late 1980s was just one of his fantasies, or where he had access to the skills and funding needed to make it happen.

A Observer An article written with the help of documentary co-producer Andreas Rocksen and director Mads Brügger reveals that filmmakers were able to find writings in which Maxwell seemed to be happy about how Aids could decimate the black South African population.

In one of the recently discovered documents, Maxwell wrote:[South Africa] could have a man, a vote with a white majority by the year 2000. Religion in its conservative and traditional form will come back. Abortion on demand, drug abuse and other excesses of the 60's, 70's and 80's will have no place in the after-AIDS world.

Some of Maxwell's former badociates, however, insist that his interest in AIDS was benevolent rather than genocidal.

The anti-abortion doctor, Claude Newbury, told the documentary, "He was against the genocide and he was trying to find a cure for HIV."