Vlakplaas

They weren’t the best behaved guys we had. They all smoked and all drank heavily. And everyone that smoked also smoked dagga. // You were not smoking at that stage? // No, I was not smoking, but drinking a lot. // Pillay was delivered into the hands of Dirk Coetzee at 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 ...

... the most gruesome we have heard in two years of amnesty applications. This week, Joe Mamasela, self confessed multiple murderer and ex askari from Vlakplaas gave his version of events. He is the only one involved in the killing of the Pebco three who has not applied for amnesty because he has ...

... 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 ...

We’ve all heard of the dramatic stories of Dirk Coetzee and Eugene de Kock’s hit squad at Vlakplaas and the shady army unit, the CCB. And there is an impression that these formed the heart of the apartheid government’s violent strategy of torture and murder against pro-democracy activists. ...

Then you went back to Vlakplaas where you gave orders to Martinus Ras, Snyman and Vermeulen to prepare for the operation. What precisely did you tell them? // I can’t give you specific details, but the gist of it was that people would be killed and specifically that policemen would be killed. // ...

The applicants contradict each other on the purpose of the abduction. The askaris and policemen from Vlakplaas whose applications will be heard this week will say they were abducting the Pebco Three for the purpose of interrogation. They also say they did not know of the elimination plan.

their disappearance has remained a mystery. But now, Joe Mamasela has decided to talk. For several years during the 80’s Joe Mamasela was based at Vlakplaas; he says his job was to kill anti-apartheid ...

Vlakplaas never ever did hit operations. Hit is assassin, am I right if I say that? // Mm. // And in my time there was no such a thing as hit or assassin or assassination. // Nobody was allowed to contact any of these victims’ parents. The autopsy was rushed through and they were buried. All the ...

Vlakplaas and the askaris did become the main instrument in the killings in the 1980s and early 1990s, yes. The Mxenge killing, I mean I couldn’t walk as a white man into a black township and I would stand out like a sore finger. So you need black guys to cooperate and do the job for you and act ...

... 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 ...

... up with parcel bombs. Former super spy Craig Williamson admitted to the parcel bombs that killed Ruth First and Jeanette and Katryn Schoon. Former Vlakplaas commander, Eugene de Kock is now on trial for murdering ANC lawyer Bheki Mlangeni with a parcel bomb in 1991. The security police had a ...

Godolozi, Hashe and Galela were left with Sakkie van Zyl and Gert Beeslaar of the Port Elizabeth security branch. At this point Vlakplaas pulled out. They were also taken to Post Chalmers and their fate was exactly the same as that of Siphiwo Mtimkulu and Topsy Madaka. It is up to Van Rensburg, ...

... 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. ...

... 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 ...

The Truth Commission can, according to the Act of Parliament that governs them, investigate the gross human rights violations perpetrated by Vlakplaas, but there are other apartheid practices that did even more damage to generations of our people that cannot be narrowly defined as individual human ...

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 ...

... the five amnesty applicants did get the chance to give evidence about some of their other actions. In 1983 Brigadier Jack Cronje led an attack of Vlakplaas men into Swaziland. They executed the ANC military commander in Natal, Zweli Nyanda and an ANC soldier, Keith MacFadden. Nyanda was the ...

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 ...

... 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 ...