Vlakplaas

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 ...

Wouter Mentz cries easily. He was the one applicant who showed signs of emotional distress while testifying. After being part of the murder of fellow Vlakplaas policeman, Brian Ngqulunga he was ordered to attend the funeral. I simply couldn’t bring myself to attend the funeral, it was too much ...

For a person to be guilty of a crime there must be intent and we cannot therefore say citizens who had no intention to set up Vlakplaas and kill people that they should carry the burden of this. We cannot hold responsible ordinary shunters, farmers and so on who supported apartheid because they ...

... story of the brutal execution of nine people and the elaborate lies fabricated by the state. A story of the men who never took prisoners, the Vlakplaas death squad. Last week in Durban a mother asked the Truth Commission why was my child mowed down in a hay of bullets on that night in June ...

... 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 ...

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 ...

... diplomat. They too disappeared without a trace. The police claimed the men had left the country. More lies. The abduction of the Pebco Three was a Vlakplaas job. Joe Mamasela was there, following the orders of Roelf Venter who told us about his involvement last ...

... 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 ...

... 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. ...

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, ...

... 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 ...

... criminal responsibility and I think one could actually question that. The whole concept of vicarious liability, the putting into place things like Vlakplaas, the CCB, where you must have a sense that things can go horribly wrong. Now I think that’s what we would like to get an answer on. // I ...

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 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 ...

... 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 ...

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.

... 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 ...

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.

... 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 ...