Vlakplaas

... of the existence of such a ‘third force’…The Government never adopted a policy to promote ‘black-on-black’ violence…I had heard of the Vlakplaas installation but was under the impression that it was a facility for the reorientation of captured ANC cadres who wished to work for the ...

Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee was supposed to testify this week, but he was prevented by legal technicalities. This is what he would have told the Commission. // Nick van Rensburg and his men poisoned him upon release, poisoned him and apparently he did not add enough poison according to ...

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.

... Gen Gerrit Erasmus and Sgt Johannes Raath, who have all since retried are seeking amnesty for their part in Sizwe Kondile’s death. Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee also wants amnesty for the same murder, but he has a separate amnesty application and a very different version of ...

Joe Mamasela, self-confessed political serial killer was one of the Vlakplaas askaris who participated in this operation. // It was brutal; it was what in Afrikaans people call ‘broekskeur.’ It was terrible. // Were they tortured? // They were tortured severely. They were savaged; they were ...

... 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 ...

... and why. We’ll give some background to the unpleasant infighting in the Truth Commission and we introduce you to some of the victims of former Vlakplaas policemen Dirk Coetzee, Almond Nofemela and Joe Mamasela. But we start with a special story about forgiveness. The Azanian People’s Army ...

Pebco Three. The Centenary Hall in New Brighton was cramped daily by residents and activists who came to hear security policemen Gideon Niewoudt and Vlakplaas askari Joe Mamasela speak of their roles in the deaths of Sipho Hashe, Champion Galela and Qaqawuli Godolozi. // Niewoudt is a convicted ...

... 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, ...

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 ...

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

... 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 ...

Black policemen at Vlakplaas were called askaris, they did most of the killing for Eugene de Kock, yet their lives were worth nothing and they were executed as easily as they killed opponents of the apartheid government. // Talk about a dog that feeds on its puppies; that was De Kock. He fed on his ...

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 ...

A few years ago it was still unthinkable that the force could have been involved in this. When former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee, spoke in November 1989, they said he was mad. But then came the Eugene de Kock case and an orgy of death and destruction committed by him and his men unfolded in ...

One of the most notorious askaris was Glory ‘September’ Sidebe. He aided the Vlakplaas operatives in capturing and killing MK cadres from Swaziland.

... was the main witness against Gen Lothar Neethling when he sued me for defamation after the expose about the use of poison. Eugene de Kock and his Vlakplaas men decided to kill Coetzee and sent him a bomb in a tape recorder. The bomb later killed lawyer Bheki Mlangeni. At the amnesty hearing in ...

... explosives were also stored in the basement of the building. I delegated the instruction to Brig Willem Schoon who at that stage commanded Vlakplaas unit and once again emphasized the question of not putting lives at risk. The instruction was duly carried out at a later date and the ...

... supported by three former police commissioners, four other generals, and Adriaan Vlok himself. These are the 22 policemen. Many were members of the Vlakplaas counter-insurgency unit. Some have already been implicated in murder. Others like Brigadier WAL du Toit and Major Marthinus Ras were ...