APLA

Valentine’s day in 1994. South Africa is run by a transitional executive council and preparations for the first ever democratic elections are well under way. But in the bustling coal mining town of New Castle however preparations of a different kind are being made.

... demonstration, just peaceful demonstrations that’s how you see how the police they come and answer with a bullet. // So even you as part of APLA you didn’t feel that the country was heading towards any kind of reconciliation process? Did you feel it was a necessary thing to go and ...

manifestations. We make no apologies, we have nothing to hide. // But there was a wide expectation that the PAC should explain the brutal attacks by APLA on white civilians. // A new pattern arose in the 1990s where civilians within the white community were attacked. In the nature of guerrilla ...

Hello. Thanks for joining tonight’s Special Report. The Truth Commission process this past week was dominated by the 1993 APLA attack on a pub in Cape Town and by a special hearing into the past role of the legal profession. Tonight we bring you the full drama of both these hearings as well ...

... the South African Defence Force, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army and Umkhonto we Sizwe. The Azanian People’s Liberation Army or APLA was the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress. APLA has been operating for decades, but it really only became well known in 1992 and 1993 ...

... knows who the oppressor was. // And did the white man also include young women as well? // According to the education I received the battle APLA was lodging was fighting the oppressor. Who you were or what you were was irrelevant. If you’re an oppressor we would fight against you. ...

you forgive me at this point in time but I can ask for your forgiveness. // My name is Walter Tanda, I come from the Eastern Cape and am a member of APLA. I got instruction from the high commander of APLA. I didn’t kill your daughter because it was my decision. I am saying sorry and that ...

Two previous APLA operations, the St James Church and the Heidelberg Tavern attacks, had raised several questions. Those questions came up yet again this week. When exactly did APLA suspend the armed struggle and what role did race play in the attacks?

‘Transkei: Military activities of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army.’ The document identifies places in the Transkei at which APLA guerrillas were trained and it names a number of them. One of the places identified in that document is the house of Dumisa Ntsebeza in Cala. ...

APLA as a unit, that is APLA high command, is shouldering responsibility of all the activities that took place since its inception in 1961 till the cut-off date that is May 1994.

... were killed and more than sixty wounded. This week, these three young men, cadres from the PAC’s Azanian People’s Liberation Army, APLA applied for amnesty for what has become known as the St James massacre. Bassie Mkhumbuzi transported the weapons from the former Transkei for ...

APLA then was fighting, returning a bullet with a bullet, protecting the Africans in Azania and the PAC was busy using other tactics so that you people in the government could hear the cries of the children of Azania. If your ears couldn’t listen, APLA decided to take guns to open the ears ...

... Special Report and we ask the question, can racism be a political motive for murder? We start in July of 1993 on Sunday evening the 25th. APLA gunmen burst into an evening service at St. James Church in Kenilworth, Cape Town. They lobbed two hand grenades into the back pews and sprayed ...

Hello. Welcome to the Special Report. Tonight we deal with the bloody conflict in KTC Crossroads in 1987, the vicious APLA attack on an Eastern Cape hotel in 1992 and the death of 11 commuters during the 1983 Mdansane bus boycott. But we start in the Cape Peninsula. The dreaded pass book had always ...

relive more atrocities when the Amnesty Committee listens to the events around the brutal murder of the American exchange student, Amy Biehl and the APLA attack on the St James Church in Cape Town. But we will not honour the victims of our past if we allow the evil to depress us so much that we ...

In the spirit of reconciliation and healing the Commission wants to facilitate a meeting between the Highgate massacre survivors and members of the APLA command, such as this man, Letlapa Mphahlele, APLA’s director of operations who’s applied for amnesty and takes full responsibility ...

pub with bullets, whole hand grenades and tear gas canisters into the bar area. They escape. The killers are members of the PAC’s armed wing, APLA. The dead are Derek Whitfield, Dave Wheeler, Deon-Wayne Harris, Douglas Gates and Stan Hacking. Many others are seriously ...

APLA units across the country were told that we haven’t got enough money, we haven’t got enough guns, we haven’t got enough ammunition and the Boers have lots of money, lots of ammunition, lots of guns and they must go and repossess them, not steal them.

... coins. // The car was to be sold in Lesotho so that the money that we get from that should be used to buy arms in order to further the struggle for APLA. // So, the money remained with you, the clothing remained with you, the motorcar remained with you. What about the camera you stole? Where did ...

The APLA attack on the St James congregation in 1993 was one of the most vicious. Letlapa Mphahlele ordered the attack. Charl van Wyk was one of the survivors. On Friday they met in the PAC offices in Cape Town.