DECISION
_
All the applicants apply for amnesty for their involvement in attempts to murder or in a conspiracy to murder one Mark Shope and/or one Lambet Moloi and/or one MK Sipho and/or one MK Jackie, first at the Lion Park and later at the Oasis Motel, Gabarone during August/September 1987.
During 1987 the Soweto Intelligence Unit under the command of General Ignatius Coetzee (Applicant) through an informer SWT 180 and other agents and informers successfully infiltrated a MK underground structure in Botswana of which the abovementioned persons were prominent trained members. This unit was active in the Republic of South Africa and specifically in Soweto, and was responsible for recruitment, for training and infiltration of trained cadres and supplying of weaponry into the Republic of South Africa, and the planning of other acts of terror.
During the monitoring of this unit, it became apparent that the command structure of the unit set itself the goal of establishing MK- units within the already volatile labour field for the training of workers to commit acts of terror. SWT 180 was tasked by Shope to establish so-called Industrial Combat Units in Potwa in the RSA.
Towards the middle of 1987, a meeting was held in Potchefstroom where present were inter alia were present, Commandant Charl Naude of the SADF Special Forces. The applicant Brigadier Loots, Section Commander Western Transvaal and the applicants Colonel de Jager, Colonel Pretorius, and Colonel Coetzee, all of the Soweto Security Branch.
At this meeting Special Forces requested the support of Soweto Intelligence and the Western Transvaal Section of Brigadier Loots to provide the necessary support to eliminate the said members of the MK unit. After a reportback to General I. Coetzee, permission was granted to render the necessary support where requested. This was in accordance with a general operational direction dating from 1985 for the Security Branch to where requested, provide support to Special Forces. In essence the planned operation was a Special Forces operation.
Loots was informed by Special Forces that an attempt would be made in August 1987 during a visit of SWT 180 to Gaberone to eliminate the said members of the MK Unit at the Lion Park in Gabarone. Loots informed De Jager who in turn informed General I. Coetzee and others under his command. For a reason unknown to applicants the operation was aborted.
During September the Soweto Intelligence Unit was again approached by Special Forces to set up a meeting between SWT 180 and the said MK-members. De Jager asked Colonels Coetzee and Pretorius to liaise with SWT 180, who by then had already been summoned to attend a meeting in Botswana with Mark Shope.
The applicant, Constable Olifant, was tasked to assist a Special Forces operator to set up an explosive device in rooms in the Oasis Motel to be occupied by Shope. This was duly done and would be detonated by remote control. This operation, too, was aborted because Shope and others, for some unknown reason to the applicants, failed to arrive at the motel and Olifant assisted the Special Forces operator to dissemble the explosive device.
At all relevant times the applicants acted in accordance with a general resolution of 1985 and special instructions by General I. Coetzee to support Special Forces whose operation this really was.
The Committee is satisfied that the applicants made a full and truthful disclosure of their involvement. A minor discrepancy as to who instructed Olifant is not material to the facts and can be attributed to memory failure of one or another as a result of the lapse of time. The Committee is further satisfied that the acts are within the context of the political conflict of the time and committed with a political objective as envisaged in the Act. In the premises all the applicants have complied with the requirements of the Act.
Accordingly, all the applicants are therefore GRANTED amnesty for all acts committed related to the conspiracy to commit murder and/or the attempts to murder the MK-members mentioned above, both at the Lion Park and Oasis Motel, Gabarone, during August/September 1987.
DATED at
: this
: day of
: 1999.
Judge S. Khampepe
Adv. N.J Motata
Mr. W. MALAN
PANEL: Judge S. Khampepe, Adv. JM Motata and Mr. W. Malan
EVIDENCE LEADER : Mr Andre Steenkamp
DATE & VENUE: 25 October 1999
Idasa Centre
Cnr Prinsloo and Visagie Streets
PRETORIA
ATTORNEYS FOR APPLICANTS
1. MR LOUIS VISSER
WAGENER MULLER ATTORNEYS
2. MR LAMEY
