Vlakplaas

On the evening of 26 November 1981 a group of Vlakplaas men under command of Dirk Coetzee entered Botswana. Their aim was to kill ANC cadres Joyce Dipale, her husband Tieho Rola Masinga and anybody else in the Gaborone house who would, according to their intelligence, probably be ANC as well.

General JJ Viktor is a much decorated South African policeman with 45 years of service behind him. Amongst other achievements he founded the base at Vlakplaas in 1979. In September 1992 he was head of the Ciskei Police Force. // My men and I don’t reflect on the CDF. I was not their commander. My ...

... Fourie would like to see him explain his government’s education policy to the TRC. // We’re trying to bring Vlok forward or Malan forward about Vlakplaas and about a range of different specific killings. But one of the most dampening/damning effects of education was the apartheid regime, PW ...

In May 1990 on the instructions of Eugene de Kock we organised jobs in Johannesburg for four askaris on Vlakplaas who had AIDS, namely Ndam, Sebole, Stretcher and Vietnam. We had a problem with them on the farm because other black members did not want to use the same facilities. Dries had a friend, ...

the valley; I’d say about ten kilometres away from the actual murder scene. I’ve spoken to numerous operatives, I’ve spoken to the people from Vlakplaas, the guys who we arrested and who were convicted of the KwaZulu hit squads. They are unable to assist us. I’ve spoken to members of our ...

... to the security police version of a clinical and clean execution. Somewhere between these extremes is the story told by two black operatives of the Vlakplaas squad. Former askari Kimpani Mogoai and policeman Johannes Koole are asking for amnesty for the abduction and assault of the Pebco Three. ...

But the National Party when questioned about the widespread killing and torture of opponents and the use of covert units like that at Vlakplaas and the Civil Cooperation Bureau, was not able to explain who took the decisions and who should take final responsibility.

... the last time the embattled nationalist government used the strategy of cross-border raids. The forthcoming amnesty hearings, especially those of Vlakplaas policemen, may give us a clearer picture of who did what, where despite the fact that the Truth Commission can’t indemnify people for ...

Swaziland was perhaps the country that suffered most in the 1980s when Vlakplaas and other security police units raided it year after year.

... bad. // During the first sitting of the Truth Commission in East London last month he was already implicated in torture. In the same week, former Vlakplaas assassin Joe Mamasela confessed on this programme his complicity in the kidnapping, torture and murder of three Eastern Cape activists in ...

... and sometimes bizarre acts of cruelty and cold blooded murder. And in the process the profile of another ruthless mass murderer is emerging, Vlakplaas warrant officer Joe Mamasela. But with the successes for justice and truth come uncomfortable questions. Should De Kock and the two right ...

Joe Mamasela. Joe Tsele’s sister was not the first witness before the Truth Commission to ask about this man who has admitted to being part of the killing of more than 30 activists. Mamasela was one of the black policemen at Vlakplaas called askaris. So was Brian Ngqulunga.

... are disappointing to say the least. Venter has not furnished this Committee with any information in addition to the revelations made by the Vlakplaas operatives outside of this Commission. In fact he has not even associated himself with the allegations made by these operatives. ...

Vlok used to come there, Commissioner van der Merwe used to come there, Kriel used to come there, Hernus Kriel used to come there at Vlakplaas, a lot of ministers used to come there.

Schoon told the TRC that he’d never been disciplined for authorizing actions of an illegal nature and said that former Commissioners and Ministers of police such as Louis Le Grange, Adriaan Vlok, Johan van der Merwe and Johan Coetzee had all visited Vlakplaas.

... questions and we offer some explanations. We also go to Paarl where the NG Kerk made an emotional confession and we talk to a former commander of Vlakplaas. But we start in Pietermaritzburg. ...

I was at no stage aware of any unit carrying out assassinations. The Vlakplaas unit as it was explained to me had a totally different objective, a totally different field of activity, I was never part as I’ve said of any decision to assassinate or murder anybody. I totally distance myself from ...

... around the Bisho massacre where Oupa Gqozo at last gave evidence and the Truth Commissioners clashed publicly and emotionally with the former Vlakplaas policemen. // Your callousness, your coldness and insensitivity shows us the kind of leaders that the South African government chose. // No ...

De Kock came clean is Mr. Justice Louis Harms. In 1990 Judge Harms led a commission of inquiry into the allegations of Dirk Coetzee and others about Vlakplaas and the death squads. His final report gave the police a virtual clean bill of health. Judge Harms then rejected virtually everything Dirk ...

he had become an ANC agent. His friends and family say he was killed because he sued the police after a colonel had assaulted him. The policemen say Vlakplaas man Joe Mamasela shot Busisiwe Motasi. Warrant Officer Paul van Vuuren admitted to the Truth Commission’s Amnesty Committee that he ...