8 September 1986
A bomb exploded in the office of the African National Congress (ANC) on the third floor of a block of offices in Stockholm Sweden. The office was severely damaged but nobody was killed despite the presence of three people in the office at the time. Amongst those that survived were the ANC's representative in Sweden Lindiwe Mabuza.
The bombing was part of a broader strategy of the apartheid government in the 1970s and 80s that sought to eliminate or neutralise South African liberation movements and the Anti-Apartheid movement outside the country. Both African and non African countries that supported Anti-Apartheid movement and the ANC were targeted. For instance, a series of attack of attacks that involved operations conducted by the apartheid government the ANC office in London was bombed March 1982 and in September 1986 the ANC office in Stockholm in Sweden was bombed. In March 1988 the ANC's Chief Representative in France Dulcie September was shot and killed in Paris.
Craig Williamson an intelligence operative involved in gathering information on activities of the ANC overseas stated his activities were "...to understand the whole dynamic behind the anti-apartheid support internationally. We had to sabotage it." He applied for amnesty in 1995 for the bombing of the ANC's offices in London and despite his denials, is suspected to have been involved in the Stockholm bombing.
References
Tor Sellstrom, (2002), Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume II, Solidarity and Assistance 1970-1994, (Stockholm), pp.634-635|
Mark Israel, 'Crime of the State: Victimisation of South African Political Exiles in the UK' in Crime, Law and Social Change, Vol.29, No 1, 1998, pp.1-29|
(Coleman, M. (ed) (1998). A Crime Against Humanity: analysing the repression of the apartheid state, Johannesburg: Human Rights Committee.)|
Author, 'The State outside South Africa between 1960 and 1990' (Volume Two Chapter Two), [online], available at :www.polity.org.za[accessed: 30 August 2010]