Two weeks ago PLUS ran a front-page story on former RSA diplomat for Namibia, Sean Cleary. According to Africa Confidential, the former intelligence officer runs the Johannesburg office of Erinys International, which rents out mercenaries worldwide. In 1988, while working in Windhoek under Administrator General Louis Pienaar, he founded the company African Granite Ltd, of which he was a director until at least the end of ‘1993. The company was mining huge blocks of granite at the Spitzkoppe, bringing enormous damage to the environment, and threatening the ancient rock art sites. Despite a request from UNESCO in 1996, to inspect the sites, 2 Namibian government officials recommended that the mining should continue.

The multi-talented Cleary, who has a military back-ground, might also have been an agent for the CIA. He was long enough in the US as a South African diplomat. The German publication GeheimMa-gazin, also published in English under the name Top Secret alleges he worked for the CIA.

Sean Michael Cleary was born in 1948 and is CEO of Strategic Concepts (Pty) Ltd, MD of the Centre for Advanced Governance, Chairman of Atlantic Holdings (Pty) Ltd, a Member of the Supervisory Board of Think Tools AG, and a director of various other companies.

He served in the SA Navy on the staff of the Commander Maritime Defence before commen-cing a diplomatic career in the SA foreign ministry in the Middle East, USA and Namibia. As chief director in Namibia in the mid-1980s, he initiated negotiations between all political parties, the release of political prisoners, paving the way for independence. He had a company, Strategic Management Concepts (SMC) after the first letters of his name, now called Strategic Concepts. It offers in-vestment services in mining, oil and gas, and financial institutions, risk assessment and manage-ment.

He now lectures on global corporate strategy at the Graduate Schools of Business at UNISA and Wits, the Graduate Institute of Management and Technology, Henley Management College, the Gordon Institute of Business Science of the University of Pretoria, and the International Centre for Management Deve-lopment; and on conflict resolution and development economics at a number of US and European universities and institutes.

He is a lecturer on the National Security Management Course at the SA Defence Staff College and the Air Force Staff College, a research associate of the SA Institute of International Affairs, a faculty member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and a member of the WEF’s African Task Force, a Trustee of the SA Foundation for Conciliation and the Peace and Reconstruction Foundation, and an executive committee member of the NEPAD Business Steering Group. In 1997, he founded Meridian Worldwide.

He was a member of the Facilitating and Preparatory Committees of the SA Peace Accord and Chairman of the Working Group on the Code of Conduct for Political Parties and Organizations, and served on national advisory committees in Namibia. However, another source states he resigned from the RSA diplomatic service already in 1985.

Cleary is a recipient of academic and public service awards and has been widely published in South African, German, Portuguese and U.S. journals. He graduated in social sciences and law at the UNISA, after studies at the University of Cape Town and Pahlavi University in Iran, and holds an MBA from Henley Management College at Brunel University in the United Kingdom.