More Abramoff Dirt

This from TPM Cafe:

For several years after its launch in 1985, Abramoff (47) was the Washington face of Pacman, code name for the International Freedom Foundation (IFF). In 1995, the New Nation reported former security policeman Paul Erasmus as describing the IFF as a stratcom-military intelligence (MI) project designed to sway world opinion against the anti-apartheid movement.

The IFF was reportedly the brainchild of [Russel] Crystal, current deputy national executive director of the DA. He, Abramoff and former top spook Craig Williamson worked closely together in launching the organisation.

Among Abramoff's South African projects was the anti-communist film Red Scorpion, made in South African-occupied Namibia and, according to Williamson, funded by the South African military.

With a 1991/92 budget of more than R10-million, Pacman was terminated by former president FW de Klerk in the early 1990s, along with other covert apartheid-era projects.

The IFF was ostensibly founded as a conservative think-tank, but was in reality part of an elaborate South African military intelligence operation, code-named Operation Babushka.

Established to combat sanctions and undermine the African National Congress, it also supported Jonas Savimbi and his rebel Angolan movement, Unita. [From '85-'88, Grover Norquist, who worked with Abramoff at the College Republicans, served as Savimbi's Economic Advisor as was registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent of Angola. -PK]

More corrupt than we know.

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