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Cradock FourExplanation On the night of June 26, 1985 Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkonto were on their way back to Cradock after attending a meeting in Port Elizabeth. Just before midnight they were pulled off the road by three security policemen Capt Sakkie van Zyl, Lt Eric Taylor and Sgt ... Their bodies they say were burnt and the remains thrown into the Fish river at Cradock. The Amnesty Committee will now have to decide who to believe, because if they accept Joe Mamasela’s version of what happened here the other men are liars and will not get amnesty. But if they accept the ... ... I also phoned Derrick Swarts and Maoli Blackburn to establish their whereabouts. Derrick Swarts informed me that Matthew left with his friends for Cradock the previous night, the 27th of June, 1985 at about 9 pm. You can imagine the shock, and I shivered to think what might had happened to these ... ... previous programmes connected all these men to the killings 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 ... ... ago us ordinary South Africans knew about the cruel suppression of the Sharpeville and Soweto ’76 uprisings, about the murder of Steve Biko, the Cradock Four, and Griffiths Mxenge. We knew about most of the big and dramatic stories of torture and assassination. Perhaps the one thing we ... ... to uncover the truth. You need just to think of say the Pebco Three; the sort of things that we now know. Or the bombing of Khotso House, or the Cradock Four and perhaps most heartrendingly you might refer to the exhumations of people who were killed secretly and buried secretly and what all ... Ivor Lang and Benjamin Tucker of Steve Biko infamy. Port Elizabeth, 1985 was a nightmare. It was the year of the Langa massacre, of the death of the Cradock Four, of the disappearance of the Pebco three, of the declaration of the State of Emergency. I used to go through an army roadblock every day ... ... submitting to us is going to go to the heart of the matter, namely indicate to the nation… we have been asked by the Pebco Three, what have you, Cradock Four, those families have said ‘we want the bones, we want this, we want that’ and we have a duty to those people. And if they would ... 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 ... ... perpetrator is still lying then no amount of apologizing helps. This was highlighted three weeks ago when Gerhardus Lotz, one of the killers of the Cradock Four, ... Not all the stories told in East London were as well known as those of the Pebco Three and the Cradock Four, but their accounts were no less disturbing. Nohle Mohapi was Steve Biko’s secretary, her husband Mapetla was killed in police cells. // After the death of Mapetla I was full of hate. I was ... many mysterious murders carried out by the security police. The Motherwell bomb attack, the killing of Matthew Goniwe and three others, known as the Cradock Four, Siphiwo Mtimkulu, Sizwe Kondile and the Pebco Three. These men have finally told the families how they kidnapped, tortured and murdered ... ... 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 took them to deserted sand dunes where, with help from black security reinforcements, they executed them one by ... The Amnesty Committee of the Truth Commission resumes its hearings this week. The murders of activists Stanza Bopape, the Pebco Three and the Cradock Four will be the topics of the hearings this week and may we remind you again that the Special Report can be viewed on Sunday evenings at six and on ... Sakkie van Zyl was not able to tell the Committee in what order the Cradock Four had been killed or why the bodies and the car were set alight in four different locations. But he did explain why he thought his actions had a purpose. From one cover up to another. In Port Elizabeth this week the Truth Commission’s Amnesty Committee met to hear applications from seven security policemen who were responsible for the 1985 deaths of a group of Eastern Cape leaders who have become known as the Cradock Four. According to Mamasela the Pebco Three were driven to this old police station outside Cradock. It was known as Post Chalmers. ‘Ambush and Killing: Cradock 4’ // It has never been the policy of the government, the National Party that people should be murdered, should be assassinated. I’ve said that clearly. Such instruction is in conflict with the policy as it has been at all times within my knowledge. ... Yes. // Now ... of this information that was furnished to the Committee under oath whether that clearly indicates that the persons you refer to as Cradock Four in inverted commas, the question was discussed at GBS meetings and the information available to the GBS was made available to you when ... ... The signal was sanctioned by the then Head of Military Intelligence, General Joffel van der Westhuizen. Mr. Justice Nevel Sietzman found that the Cradock four have been killed by unidentified members of the security forces. ... |
