Collection of the Month: AL3450 The Open Secrets Collection

Between 2012 and 2017, Open Secrets engaged in research in archives across the world in search of the lost stories of apartheid era economic crime. During this period, they collected approximately 40,000 documents in 25 public archives, consulting numerous collections in seven countries including South Africa, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In mid-2013, 48 Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) requests were lodged with state agencies in terms of PAIA. Most of these documents date from the period 1978–94 and included TRC-related investigations (from the late 1990s). The close relationship between Open Secrets and SAHA began when SAHA helped with these PAIA requests.  Most recently SAHA went to court with the Reserve bank to gain access to some of these records which were not released. (For more details on the case with the Reserve Bank click here)

This vast collection of documents has been handed to SAHA to make available to other researchers who wish to consult the material used in the publication Apartheid Guns & Money: A Tale of Profit, authored by Hennie van Vuuren and published by Jacana in May 2017.

As many of the documents supplied are copied from other archives SAHA is only making available online the finding aids, Open Secrets Summaries and their document references. 

Click here to view the listing for this collection.

View the Open Secrets website for more information on Open Secrets.