| Time | Summary | |
| 08:17 | Let me introduce you to Jann Turner, daughter of the prominent 1970s activist Dr Rick Turner, who was assassinated in 1978. Jann was with him when he died. // Jann, why did you make this film we’re about to show? // Well, it wasn’t really until 1989 when Jacques Pauw first revealed the death squad story that I thought we might stand a chance of finding out who killed my dad. And, I began to investigate it and in 1993 came here to see if we could find out who the killer was and made a film about that journey. // So the film is three years old? // Yes. // You officially went to the Truth Commission this week. What is it you want from that Commission? // I want to know who killed my dad and why. // And if you find that out would you forgive that person? // For me this process is less about forgiveness than it’s about understanding. It’s not that I don’t want to forgive it’s that I can’t actually locate forgiveness in me for this. I’d like to understand what happened and ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 09:42 | The last thing that my father said to me was, think about the planets. I was thirteen, I couldn’t sleep and I had wandered the house to where he was lying in the bath reading. He told me to try counting sheep but I already had and it didn’t work. Then think about the planets, he said. // I did go to sleep and a few hours later I woke up when I heard my dad in the hallway, saying who’s there? And there was no answer and he came into our bedroom and he walked up to the window and he parted the curtain. And, with barely a beat the shot went off, an incredible explosion and it flung him right back onto the floor. And he fell screaming, I mean literally writhing with pain. His whole body convulsed. But he picked himself up and he ran through the house. He fell here on the floor and he was face down in a pool of blood. And because he was face down all I could hear was his breathing [sound of breathing] because he was breathing in and out the blood and I had to turn him over. And he ...more | Full Transcript |
| 11:46 | I just remember shaking. I don’t think I actually felt anything, I don’t think you did either. It wasn’t a time to feel things. I just remember sitting there shaking really and just letting the time pass. | Full Transcript |
| 12:09 | I just remember walking in and again the smell of blood everywhere. I walked into the bedroom and I saw your father’s handprint in blood on Kim’s sheet and then I turned round and I looked at the wall and I could see the bullet hole above Kim’s bed. And I thought that bullet must have ricocheted across the room and I walked and inside your bed was the bullet. I remember him as a very good man. You know, I am not a great rememberer because I get upset. | Full Transcript |
| 12:48 | It wasn’t AIDS, it wasn’t cancer; it wasn’t old age that killed my father. Somebody walked up to our house armed with a 9 mm pistol and shot him at point blank range. Who? Why? For the last 15 years I have been circling those questions. Now I have come back to a very different South Africa. This is a country poised for democracy, breaking from apartheid. I have come here to confront my past. But I have also come to find out if South Africa is going to confront its past or bury it. Because the reason for my father’s death is wrapped in South Africa’s violent history. | Full Transcript |
| 13:27 | Your father, as a figure for assassination would have suggested himself. He was a particularly critical person, intellectually and in other ways. In the formation and direction that mass movements were beginning to take he of course was an extremely popular person amongst the student movement. But had managed to reach also into the black student movement where he had considerable credibility. He was at the centre point of a number of debates around the direction in general mass resistance should take in South Africa. | Full Transcript |
| 14:09 | I think Rick was very vulnerable because of his innate honesty and the fact that he approached everything very frankly. He hid nothing about himself or about what he did. But more than that I think it was his profound gentleness that made him so vulnerable. The rest of us, we would fight back and we would be aggressive and we would be abrasive. But not Rick. | Full Transcript |
| 14:43 | My father and mother divorced in 1971. That same year my dad married Fazia Fischer in a Muslim ceremony. Their being together broke three fundamental laws of apartheid: the Group Areas Act, the Immorality Act and the Mixed Marriages Act. So does Fazia share my need to know who killed her husband? | Full Transcript |
| 15:06 | That person has been with us. It’s almost like wanting to distance that person, wanting to take that person away from that closeness and saying go over there so that he becomes part of things that are explainable and can be dealt with. // Do you feel a need for revenge? Does distance mean revenge? // No, no. I would not want to enter that person’s life as intimately as that person has entered mine, no. | Full Transcript |
| 15:48 | My investigation begins in Zambia. I have come here to meet a former government agent who has now defected to the ANC. This is a man who casts his shadow over my father’s murder. In 1978 the security forces were divided into an intelligence gathering arm: BOSS and an executive arm: the security police. Martin Dolinschek was my father’s case officer in BOSS. All reports so far point to him as someone who must know who killed my father. // I’m Jann Turner. // Rick Turner’s telephone was on tap at BOSS office local station in Durban. But later on when he was murdered it transpired that it was, it shouldn’t have been because security branch was in charge of his case. // What shouldn’t have been? // That BOSS shouldn’t have tapped his phone, but nobody told nobody. In other words the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. There was 24 hours surveillance on him by surveillance units of BOSS in Durban. // 24 hour? // Yes. // For years? // For years. // And ...more | Full Transcript |
| 18:20 | This morning we are going to meet a man who claims he knows the identity of the assassin. We traced him through a series of leads, somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody whose cousin knew who did it. // For fear of reprisal our source has asked us to conceal his identity. He was in the police in the 1970s and still has friends in the security forces. The voice you are hearing is not his. // So, who was it that killed my father? // Well Jann, the rumour at that stage was that it was a man by the name of Rooibaard, who … he worked for BOSS, the Bureau of State Security and that’s as much as I know. // So, what was the gossip that you heard? // Well we heard that Rooibaard had actually bumped off Professor Turner and quite frankly I can believe it. // Where is he now? // Not long after your father’s death he himself was killed in a motor accident. // And was there anything strange about the accident? // Yes, we found it rather strange that his brakes failed on his vehicle ...more | Full Transcript |
| 20:10 | Do you think that this was a well planned murder? // Yes. According to the docket it seems like that. // Have you ever come across in any of that docket the name of a BOSS agent, I don’t know his name, but his nickname was Rooibaard? // There were names mentioned but I can’t disclose that, because you see I can mention names now and a person might not be responsible. It will put me in trouble. // As I understand it the cartridge and the bullets came from a SAP mint, that’s information that came from Dolinschek. Is that true? // The bullets… they issued the police force comes from our logistics, but its virtually the same as … I mean its … | Full Transcript |
| 21:02 | Cape Town waterfront on a Saturday afternoon. I am talking to David Bilders, a convicted right wing terrorist, who has alleged to have confessed to killing my father. He does not know we are being filmed. // Did you ever come across a guy whose nickname was Rooibaard? // Most certainly. // You did? What was his name? What was his actual name? // Why do you want to know that? // Do you think that he could have killed people? You said he was a vicious character. // He wasn’t as tolerant as some people. We’re all capable of killing sometimes. // Ja? Are you? // Later, Bilders did agree to a formal interview, but he did not want to show his face to camera. This time he was much less forthcoming and during the interview it transpired that he was bugging us with an ill concealed transmitter. // Were you in fact involved in the killing of Rick Turner? // There’s no evidence to prove that I was involved in any way, therefore I can refute it. I have never been visited by any member of ...more | Full Transcript |
| 23:21 | A week into my journey, Chris Hani, a senior ANC official was assassinated. He was shot down in his drive way in front of his 14 year old daughter, Nomakwesi. It was a terrifying indication that assassination continues to be used as a political weapon in South Africa. // ‘It was consistent with the patterns of the past. Scores of assassinations remain unsolved. Richard Turner, Matthew Goniwe, Sparrow Mkonto, David Webster, Ruth First and Dulcie September are but a few.’ | Full Transcript and References |
| 24:20 | I visited the Hani family two weeks later and met 12 year old Lindiwe. // Your mom said that you knew my name. // Ja, but I didn’t hear what happened. // Oh, about my dad? // He was shot in 1978 when I was thirteen and he was killed in our house. A bit like your dad. Were you here? // No. // Where were you? // I was in Sotho. // How did you feel? // Terrible. // How you’re feeling now? // OK. // Really? Sometimes OK? // Yes, sometimes. // Sometimes not? // Do you still feel bad now? // Ja, I do. It gets easier and it gets harder. And sometimes the sadness gets worse but you learn to not get over it, but you learn to live with it. You know who did it right? // No, ja I know the person who … // Does that, what does that feel like? // Knowing? It just feels like you want to go to that person and kill him yourself. How did you feel when you saw your dad lying on the floor? // I felt very numb. // How are you doing, I mean how are you getting through the days? // I don’t have a ...more | Full Transcript |
| 27:50 | Joe Slovo is a member of the ANC national executive. His wife, Ruth First was assassinated in 1982. // The problem we face in this country is that here is an obvious tension between reparation and reconciliation, between retribution and reconciliation. At a moral level the answer is absolutely clear and that is: they should all be put on trial and they should pay for the crimes that they committed. But I’m afraid looking at the kind of vision of the unfolding of the negotiating process it’s not as simple as that. And this is one of the issues, which in other countries as well -whether it’s Chile or other places - become an element in the bargain in a way which has to be struck in a atmosphere of give and take. // Do you feel a need to know who killed your wife? // Absolutely. It’s the kind of thought that floats in your mind continuously. It bubbles up every time you open the paper and read about a similar event or similar historical analogy. It’s almost difficult to ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 31:02 | Hello, can I speak to Casper Venter? // Mister Venter is not here at the moment can I ask him to call you back? // Under the present law those who committed political crimes during apartheid are protected by a blanket amnesty. The ANC is prepared to have an amnesty only as long as all crimes are investigated and disclosed. I had been trying for three weeks to get an interview with a senior government minister to ask their view. // Hello is Frik le Roux available? // Speaking. // Oh hello, it’s Jann Turner. // Hello, good morning. // How are you? // Fine and you? // Good, I was just checking in to see if you got my fax and if there was any response. // No … which fax? // Hello is that Craig? Hello it’s Jann Turner. // Hello Jann. How are you? // Fine thank you. Just checking in to see if you got any news on the interview. // Yes I have, but it’s bad news. Mr. Le Roux will not be able to make it. // Is there a reason why? // Well, they are not going to be available. // So ...more | Full Transcript |
| 32:35 | Anybody who is victimized because of his commitment to the struggle is a source of inspiration to us. Especially when it is a white person who belongs to a privileged group who decides to abandon those pleasures and identify himself with the struggle of the oppressed. That has always been a source of inspiration. // I want you to know that we respect your father, and he is amongst some of our heroes. We do visualise some time to having a hero’s acre. // A hero’s acre is an important symbol. And symbols do play a part in the healing process but it still leaves unanswered the questions surrounding my dad’s death. // Your father would be one of those who would be moved to the acre. I’m very happy indeed to have met you. // Thank you, I’m very happy to meet you. | Full Transcript |
| 33:43 | My father converted to Islam when he married Fazia. So he was buried here in Brook street cemetery in the heart of Durban. In making this film I have come to know my father and I have finally let go of him. I will always need to know who killed him and why. Like thousands of others I simply need to understand. I thought I had come here at a time when the brutal secrets of apartheid were unraveling, but this is clearly still a country where assassins can hide. The ANC may be committed to full disclosure but I do wonder whether we will ever know what really happened. Will our need get lost in the negotiation and compromise that fashions the new South Africa? // Maya Angelou wrote. History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived. But if faced with courage need not be lived again. // Will South Africa have that courage? | Full Transcript |
