TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 1

Subsection 31

Using Stratcom activities to turn attention away from the perpetrators and cast blame on other parties

345. In many cases, an attempt was made to lay the blame on a third party. For example, former minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok testified that he himself was party to the attempt to lay blame for the Khotso House bomb on MK operative Shirley Gunn. Ms Gunn was subsequently detained.

346. The use of Eastern Bloc weapons in many operations was a further means of disguising the identity of the perpetrators. It is significant that security force operatives had easy access to, and carried around an armoury of, such weaponry.

347. Northern Transvaal operatives testified that their modus operandi with regard to extrajudicial killings was to get rid of bodies by blowing them up. This not only destroyed evidence, but also created the impression that the victims had killed themselves while laying a landmine, making them appear incompetent and poorly trained.

348. In some cases, measures were taken to perpetuate the myth that a victim who had been killed was still alive. For example, following the killing of Messrs Siphiwe Mthimkhulu and Topsy Madaka, the Port Elizabeth Security Branch abandoned Mr Madaka’s car near the Lesotho border and continued to harass their families to reinforce the impression that they were still alive. Similarly, before being killed by the Northern Transvaal Security Branch in 1986, Patrick Mahlangu was forced to write his family a letter which was then posted in Botswana, thereby creating the illusion that he had gone into exile. His family believed this and eagerly awaited his return in the early 1990s.

349. Some applicants testified to even more malicious behaviour. Those who applied for the killing of Ms Phila Portia Ndwandwe in October 1988 testified that they had spread a rumour that she had been recruited as an askari. Friends and family testifed that they had come to accept this painful fact and, following the disclosure of the facts surrounding her killing, were ridden with guilt by their failure to believe in her integrity.

350. In other examples of deception, Major Craig Williamson testified that the Security Branch had been responsible for the story that had surfaced, suggesting that Mr Joe Slovo had been responsible for the death of his wife, Ruth First.

351. Captain Willem Coetzee testified that he had given Major de Kock a letter to place at the ambush scene of three SANSCO¹⁰⁷ students in February 1989 to suggest that they had been killed by the ANC, following suspicions that they w e re informers.

352. As the above examples demonstrate, many of these Stratcom operations not only turned attention away from the perpetrators but cruelly increased the trauma of victims’ families.

Giving false evidence to inquest and other courts and Commissions of Inquiry

353. The Amnesty Committee heard evidence of Security Branch members providing false information to inquest and investigative proceedings.

354. During the inquest into the Piet Retief ambushes, for example, false evidence included the fact that the first group had been unarmed. Further, Major de Kock’s command of the second operation was not disclosed.

355. When questions were asked in Parliament about the askari who had killed MK suspect Batandwa Ndondo, the name of the askari was formally changed so that Minister Vlok would not be lying when he told Parliament that the individual was not in the employ of the SAP.

Complicity by other parts of police/security structures

356. Numerous applicants testified to complicity in unlawful activity by other security f o rce structures. In several incidents, evidence was led about approaches to b o rder patrol units or those stationed at border posts to ensure free passage for covert units. Furthermore, several names of investigating officers attached to the Detective Branch repeatedly came up as having played the role of ‘sweeper’ – in other words, being responsible for ensuring that the identity of perpetrators remained concealed.