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SNYMAN, ABGAge Description Harold Snyman is seriously ill. The amnesty committee’s doctors are checking on his ability to testify. The amnesty committee also considered the role of the Eastern Cape Joint Management council, a body which coordinated the enforcement of security in the area. The JMC or GBS consisted of ... ... or ordered to do so? // No Mr Chairman. // Your application indicates that you committed these crimes as a result of being ordered to do so by Col Snyman, Lt-Col Van Rensburg and Col Du Plessis. // That’s correct. // Is that the truth? // That is the truth Mr Chairman. // You were at liberty ... Col Snyman did not give a direct instruction but he did say that he realized that there were no other options, that nothing else did work and that I had to proceed and do the best I could in the interest of the country. // And you interpreted that as instruction to go ahead and eliminate. Is that ... Van Zyl was ordered by his immediate superior, Lt-Gen Nic van Rensburg who in turn said he received his order from the commander of the Eastern Cape security branch, Col Harold Snyman. ... of activists like Steve Biko, Siphiwo Mtimkulu, Sizwe Kondile, the Pebco Three or the Cradock Four. Gideon Niewoudt, Nick van Rensburg, Harold Snyman, Gerhardus Lotz, Daantjie Siebert, Ruben Marx and Eric Taylor. Perhaps the dramatic part of this story is the amazing web of lies the state ... They also heard from Nic van Rensburg who passed the execution order down from Harold Snyman to the men who would carry it out. This week there was more detail from Eric Taylor and Gerhard Lotz, who together with Sakkie van Zyl stopped their victims on the road from Port Elizabeth to Cradock and ... Elizabeth Airport. They were taken to Post Chalmers, a disused police station in Cradock and eliminated. Five Eastern Cape security policemen Harold Snyman, Hermanus du Plessis, Johan van Zyl, Gideon Niewoudt and Gerhardus Lotz are now asking for amnesty for the killings of the men who have become ... Afterwards Biko’s widow held an impromptu media conference. // From the very onset everybody could hear what Snyman is saying. In fact, I think he’s lying even more than he did in the inquest. So, it doesn’t change our attitude to the fact that we’ll oppose the amnesty. The Cradock Four amnesty hearing continues in Port Elizabeth next week. If Harold Snyman does testify he may disclose dramatic new details of the chain of command. We’ll have to see what the doctors say. It is difficult for all of us to listen to former policemen and other perpetrators confess to ... Snyman and Du Plessis were not there when the three were executed. The sequence of the executions was reported by Van Zyl who says after their abduction the men were taken to Post Chalmers, a disused police station in Cradock. The next day, May the ninth they were fed, drugged, shot dead and their ... ... But the inquest discredited the medical doctors who examined Biko and had cast a dark shadow over his interrogators: Alfred Oosthuizen, Harold Snyman, Pieter Goosen, Paul Jansen van Vuuren, Henry Fouche, Ruben Marx, WP Siebert, Jakobus Weneke. Nineteen years later Steve Biko’s wife, sons ... Mr. Snyman told me that he had a private conversation with Minister Le Grange and that Le Grange had told him that the situation in the Eastern Province needed attention and should be addressed. When you reported that death to Mr. Snyman you were speaking about something you do not have factual knowledge of, because you did not witness it - the death. // That’s correct. // I put it to you that the applicants accepted Mr. Koole and Mr. Mogoai and to a lesser extend Mr. Beeslaar did ... Your evidence was that Col Snyman reported that there was discussion at the JMC in which the Defence Force people put in the JMC, put the security police under pressure and suggested that the security police were unable to stabilize the position. Do you recall that? // Yes. // Now ... of this ... Then you went back to Vlakplaas where you gave orders to Martinus Ras, Snyman and Vermeulen to prepare for the operation. What precisely did you tell them? // I can’t give you specific details, but the gist of it was that people would be killed and specifically that policemen would be killed. // ... |
