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Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
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Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
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Special Report
Transcripts for Section 2 of Episode 20
| Time | Summary | | | 01:48 | Referring to the December 1985 raid into Lesotho in which seven people died De Kock said ‘I have no doubt that State President PW Botha must have known about this.’ After the raid De Kock and his men were decorated with the police cross for bravery, one of three medals for bravery that De Kock had received in his 27 year career in the police. Those who knew about and approved operations, De Kock said, were PW Botha, former ministers of law and order Louis Le Grange and Adriaan Vlok, former police commissioners Mike Geldenhuys, Johan Coetzee and Johan van der Merwe and a host of senior police generals and officers. Testifying about the bombing of COSATU house in the late 1980s De Kock said he was told that the order for the destruction of the building came from PW Botha himself. He was also ordered to destroy Khotso House. Before the operation, a senior police general told him they should kill any uniformed policemen who may interfere with their mission to blow up the building. | Full Transcript and References | | 02:51 | Eugene de Kock also named former president PW Botha as a man who was directly involved, who gave orders; who had intimate knowledge. Can the Truth Commission afford not to call Mr. PW Botha? // I don’t think we can afford not to call him quite frankly. // But he has said that he won’t come. Will you force him? // Well, I don’t want to speculate about the future but I think the law is there for all of us. For instance, if there is a decision that has been taken by the Commission - and I’ve given my own views that this is something that we can hardly ignore - where a person is implicated at that level and where a person is generally defiant and said ‘look I have nothing to do with that Commission,’ we have to look what the law provides and if the law provides that we can subpoena a person, we can even cause a person to incriminate himself or herself, then that is the route that we’d have to go. | Full Transcript | | 04:04 | After most operations a braai was held at Vlakplaas to celebrate the successes of the unit. The generals were there, eating and drinking. According to De Kock corruption and fraud, ranging from free booze in the Vlakplaas pub, to the filing of false claims worth up to R80 000 at a time was the order of the day in the police force. Hundreds of thousands of rands were stolen and given to amongst others senior generals for overseas trips. But behind this mask of charm and kindness lies a life of incredible violence and brutality. After blowing up Bheki Mlangeni instead of Dirk Coetzee in 1981, he said it didn’t matter that it was Bheki and not Coetzee. Bheki Mlangeni was anyway a member of the ANC. De Kock was very selective in his evidence. He didn’t tell us about the train violence, the Boipatong massacre or his role in the Shell House killings. De Kock said his war never included women, children and innocent civilians. He did not talk about Jackie Quinn, a civilian with no links ...more | Full Transcript and References | | 05:49 | In dealing with the unconventional strategies from the side of the government I want to make it clear from the outset that within my knowledge and experience they never included the authorization of assassination, murder, torture, rape, assault or the like. I have never been part of any decision taken by cabinet, the State Security Council or any committee, authorizing or instructing the commission of such gross violations of human rights. Nor did I individually, directly or indirectly, ever suggest, order, or authorize any such action. I feel in duty bound to also place on record that the above statement with regard to my position is also a reflection of the viewpoint of my colleagues who sat with me in cabinet, the State Security Council or cabinet committees. | Full Transcript | | 06:49 | What is clear after this week’s evidence is that Eugene de Kock did not act alone. The whole state apparatus was behind him, cheering him on and decorating him. And De Klerk and other National Party ministers were part of the state apparatus. | Full Transcript | | 07:05 | They may well be interested parties who would have been or who even did try to prevail upon De Kock not to talk. I am more than satisfied on reports that I have that there are clearly interested parties who would have preferred that he does not talk. He is now giving evidence under oath. He gives evidence - he’s going to be cross examined and all that - but he gives evidence which is not hearsay evidence, most of it. In relation to which he says ‘I have firsthand information about this.’ Now, of course the persons that he mentions will say ‘oh well he’s not saying something new.’ But he now adds an additional voice to what was said by the other witnesses who were testifying against him, in relation to those people. // It’s now more than an allegation. // It’s more than an allegation and it’s being said under oath. // Do you think this could be a kind of opening of the flood gates, of people talking? // It should and I would hope it does. In fact, I would hope that ...more | Full Transcript | | 08:38 | In many ways De Kock has merely confirmed what people like Dirk Coetzee had said seven years ago. One of the people who must take responsibility for the fact that politicians and generals could go on lying and denying until 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 Coetzee had said. He insulted Coetzee and repeatedly called him a liar and he believed Eugene de Kock and his partners in crime. De Kock admitted this week that he had lied to Harms and Dirk Coetzee, we know now, did not lie to him. Mr. Harms, since then promoted to the appeal court, simply said this week ‘I was right. De Kock wasn’t cross examined by anyone at the Commission so why shouldn’t I have believed him? If De Kock lied to me, he lied to me.’ Louis Harms ...more | Full Transcript | | 09:56 | Mr. Justice Willem van der Merwe will soon have to decide, is Eugene de Kock simply a cold blooded serial killer or a victim of a vicious system that used and abused him, or perhaps both. Hopefully this is a beginning of a new era of truth. There are dozens of men, politicians, generals and policemen who should now get the message very clearly. Come forward, stop the lies and confess or face exposure and prosecution. As Truth Commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza said earlier, the De Kock trial will influence the Truth Commission process. It will certainly influence the submission the former commissioners of police are going to make to the Truth Commission a week from tomorrow. I spoke to Mr. Ntsebeza about this and other matters, such as the rumour that Deputy President Thabo Mbeki had made a deal with the apartheid generals. | Full Transcript | | 10:48 | I do not know if he made a deal. I wouldn’t know. You see, I’m not a politician. Quite frankly, when I understood that there had been an intervention by him I was on leave and I was sick and I was not here. But I understood that he was doing so at the request of the minister of safety and security who apparently made representations to him on the basis that the people, it was rumoured, who were going to subpoena, the generals, were people who - since most of them were commissioners of police – were assisting the ministry of safety and security in their presentations to the Commission. Because they also wanted to make an institutional presentation. And the view was that if those people are keen and prepared to assist in the manner in which apparently they are assisting the ministry of safety and security, why do we subpoena them? Because that might send wrong signals maybe to their underlings that they are being subpoenaed because they are not wanting to be cooperative and if ...more | Full Transcript and References |
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