Vlakplaas

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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... in 1989. One wonders if we would have had a Truth Commission now if it hadn’t been for the ball that he started rolling. Coetzee and two of his Vlakplaas colleagues, David Tshikalanga and Almond Nofemela will start retelling their stories in Durban this coming week when their applications for ...

... had been convicted were kept secret to protect their families. The Goldstone Commission’s report on Boipatong was never publicly released. Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee says the police death squads were ...

... know De Kock, he’s a big guy with a big torso. He jumped several times in the face of Ngqulunga. Ngqulunga told him that he wanted to get out of Vlakplaas, he wanted to go and work at Fortis, at the head office and he didn’t want people to run away from him. Brian was a family friend; he was ...

... 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 ...

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.

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 ...

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.

It is a shame that men responsible for the uncovering the Vlakplaas horrors will probably spend time in jail, because of the apparent administrative incompetence of the Amnesty Committee, or is it being done to punish Coetzee? Well, that was tonight’s programme. Watch this space for new ...

... you’re a cop who takes orders and execute them without asking questions; then you’re a good cop. // You obviously heard of your colleagues at Vlakplaas who were involved in killing people as well. // Yes, that came to my attention also. // How did that advance the cause? // I don’t think ...

Vlakplaas in my opinion was a living hell on earth; there was torture on a daily basis, there was killings on a daily basis.

... person yourself and then to go back and interact normally with society, is a struggle. I remember two, three occasions when Minister Vlok came to Vlakplaas. On one of these he came to thank C1, members from Soweto and Johannesburg for certain operations like the bombing of COSATU and Khotso ...

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

from again. Today we know they were abducted from Port Elizabeth airport by Eastern Cape security branch supported by a contingent of policemen from ...

... 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. ...

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 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 ...

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.