It is often thought that the three activists - Dulcie September, Chris Hani and Anton Lubowski - were assassinated by Apartheid forces simply because they were freedom fighters. But Incorruptible, a nail-biting thriller reflecting Evelyn Groenink’s painstaking research over the past 30 years, reveals that the truth is different. All three tried to keep their organisations, the ANC and SWAPO, free from wrongdoing. They stood against mafias who had invaded their movement’s inner circles. They were not only brave anti-apartheid fighters: they were incorruptible.

One of the most explosive revelations in this book concerns the murder of Chris Hani 25 years ago. Groenink reveals how the police buried evidence from no less than three witnesses who saw another murderer besides Janusz Waluś and how the state’s ‘brave’ star eyewitness in all likelihood hadn’t even been there when Hani was shot.

With corruption endemic in South Africa today, the reader is entitled to ask if things would be different if Hani, Lubowski and September had lived. Though in 2018 the murder of Dulcie September, for example, is 30 years past, the book raises the spectre of similar mafia-type deals that may still be catching victims in its crossfire, in South Africa and beyond.

The book has already caused controversy, so much so that a planned publication in 2005 could not take place because of the myriad legal and physical threats – against then intended publisher, Jacana Media – that resulted after comments were invited from a number of individuals mentioned in the book.

In a dedicated chapter Incorruptible includes the events surrounding the requesting of comments exercise on the part of the author and publisher. It also includes, in an effort to be scrupulously fair, all responses that were received either verbally or in writing. When the responses were too long to include in the book (one letter received amounted to twenty pages) they are reproduced in full on Evelyn Groenink’s website.

ZAM editor Bart Luirink will interview Groenink about her book, its impact and if recent revelations about the possible killer of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme are related to the themes of her writing.

Date: Thursday 13 December, 2018, 7h30pm 

Venue: Zuid-Afrika Huis, Keizersgracht 145, Amsterdam 

More information here.