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Koevoet

Explanation
a police counter-insurgency unit set up in South West Africa in 1979 by members of the SAP Security Branch. It comprised recruits mostly from the local population who were trained as a mobile unit to gather intelligence, track guerrillas and kill them. Koevoet (Afrikaans for 'crowbar') soon gained a reputation for brutality, largely because of its methods of interrogating and torturing local people and for its heavy-handed presence in the operational areas. In the early to mid-1980s, at the height of its war with SWAPO, Koevoet claimed a kill rate of around 300 to 500 people a year, for which its members were paid a bounty per corpse.

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... stress reactions, and take to heavy bouts of drinking and drug-taking: but these are consequences. 90 An extract from the written statement of Koevoet member Mr John Deegan states: I really had bad dreams … I have dreams of bodies, or parts of bodies … like an arm … this is a ...
... National Intelligence Service (NIS), Joint Management Centres (JMCs), the Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) – a euphemism if ever there was one – Koevoet, Vlakplaas, the Roodeplaat Research Laboratory, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), C10, Stratcom and others that may yet be unearthed. ...
... To a large extent, Vlakplaas owed its existence to the SAP’s experience first with the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia and then with setting up Koevoet in South West Africa. 125 In 1978, MK began attacks in the PWV (Pretoria, Witwatersrand and Vereeniging region) and western Transvaal. The ...
... should not be dismissed when attempting to explain South Africa’s conduct in the region. It finds it difficult to believe, for example, that Koevoet would have been allowed to operate on a bounty basis, or that the SADF would have killed over 600 people, many of them children and women, ...
... in South Africa, but had been researched by the security forces and had been in the possession of the security police counter-insurgency unit Koevoet since 1979. On 2 April 1982, Mtimkulu instituted a second claim against the Minister of Police, this time for poisoning. On 14 April, ...
... of the CCB’s modus operandi was the use of cash as an incentive to ‘produce’. Thus, like other hit-squad or counterinsurgency units such as Koevoet and C10, CCB members were provided with a positive inducement to undertake actions which could, and often did, result in a gross violation of ...
... that the deaths of MK operatives were possibly revenge killings. 379 The use of the Casspir or armoured vehicle as a breaching device, a common Koevoet practice, indicates scant regard for the principle of minimum force. Its lethal nature makes the possibility of an arrest improbable and the ...
... of the A section at Security Branch headquarters, and was instructed to make arrangements for Skorpion to be killed. 434 Visser contacted an ex-Koevoet colleague, Captain ‘Sakkie’ van Zyl, then Security Branch commander of Ladysmith, for assistance. Captain Van Zyl decided to use ...
... explained that he did not receive an order from anyone to kill Mabotha, but that Potgieter’s intentions were clear. They had worked together in Koevoet in South West Africa and he said that he and Potgieter "understood each other well". 85 Both Potgieter and De Kock applied for ...
... Mr Johannes Temba Mabotha, allegedly a trained MK member, was arrested at Potgietersrus and became an askari. He was assigned to work with former Koevoet member Colonel Jan Daniel Potgieter at the Soweto Intelligence Unit, and apparently became involved with the Mandela United Football Club. It ...
... At least seven applicants from C1/Vlakplaas applied for amnesty for unlawfully transporting massive quantities of arms of Eastern Bloc origin from Koevoet in Namibia to South Africa. These were weapons that had been seized in the course of the Namibian war and were transferred and stored in an ...
... 82 The fifth period falls between 1980 and 1988. From around 1980, the nature of the war began to change. South Africa increasingly relied on Koevoet, a newly-formed special police counter-insurgency unit, which became notorious for its human rights abuses during its pursuit operations. A ...
... conscripts. Medic and conscript Sean Mark Callaghan applied for and was refused amnesty for acts of omission regarding his role while attached to a Koevoet unit during 1983, and conscript Kevin Hall was granted amnesty for his role in killings committed as part of a unit on patrol during the ...
... infiltrating networks, in interrogations and in giving evidence for the state in trials. 166. A large number of white C1 operatives were drawn from Koevoet, the SAP Special Task Force or had specific counter- insurgency experience. Several had explosives training while a small number were former ...
... police and military. The devolution of decision-making powers resulted in police units such as Vlakplaas and the Namibian-based hunter-killer unit Koevoet operating with virtual impunity, making it extremely difficult to establish lines of command and accountability. 7. Unlike the police, the ...
... headed the South African Police (SAP) investigation immediately after the crash; “James” (real name withheld to protect his identity), former Koevoet member and subsequent MI officer. 6 The Commission’s Investigation Unit interviewed many others in an attempt to arrive at the truth. ...
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