Vlakplaas

... and he landed on his head. The brain injury he suffered could not be explained away. Colonel Nick van Rensburg called in the expertise of the then Vlakplaas commander, Dirk ...

... with a pistol. I looked away because I could not handle it. I cannot remember exactly how it happened, but it was arranged that he’d be buried at Vlakplaas and his entire family was there and De Kock gave instruction that everyone was to attend the funeral. I simply couldn’t bring myself to ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

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 ...

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.

‘Tokkie Bezuidenhout, the ‘Tube Specialist’ of Vlakplaas, on the tricks of his trade.’ // Okay, it’s very simple. You put him down on his stomach, you handcuff him, you put your knees on his back, you stabilize, and you just take the tube and you pull it over his face; in other words you ...

What difference does it make when a perpetrator does seem to be genuinely remorseful? In the 1980s Eugene de Kock was the commander at the notorious Vlakplaas and one of the security police’s most powerful and efficient operatives. He is now serving life plus 212 years in Pretoria Central Prison. ...

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.

By now Vlakplaas is known as the shadowy space where hit men like Eugene de Kock, Joe Mamasela, Dirk Coetzee and Almond Nofemela freely roamed and secretly planned their killer missions against the opponents of the apartheid state. Little is known though of the assassinations in their own ranks; of ...

... When I followed De Kock’s case, De Kock did admit that he had something to do with the death of my child and Andy Taylor was the spearhead of the Vlakplaas unit in ...

... 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. ...

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 ...

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.

... 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 ...

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

... 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. ...

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, ...

can be little doubt that it would stir up high emotions if these murderers were to walk free. Now that De Kock is in a maximum security cell another Vlakplaas policeman is stepping into his shoes as prime evil number two, as apartheid’s second most effective assassin. Warrant officer Joe ...