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Koevoet

Explanation
a police counter-insurgency unit set up in South West Africa in 1979 by members of the SAP Security Branch. It comprised recruits mostly from the local population who were trained as a mobile unit to gather intelligence, track guerrillas and kill them. Koevoet (Afrikaans for 'crowbar') soon gained a reputation for brutality, largely because of its methods of interrogating and torturing local people and for its heavy-handed presence in the operational areas. In the early to mid-1980s, at the height of its war with SWAPO, Koevoet claimed a kill rate of around 300 to 500 people a year, for which its members were paid a bounty per corpse.

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CHAIRPERSON: And as part of this operation, you used these people from Koevoet - well, they were called something else?
MR HUGO: In 1979, that is when Operation Koevoet commenced?
MR McCARTER: In 1980 I joined Koevoet in Namibia.
... you joined the security police at Oshakati and you worked with the Ovambo Force and January 1979 you then became one of the founding members of the Koevoet Unit under leader of Colonel Hans Dreyer and is it correct that during this time that you then participated in hundreds of contacts in SWAPO. ...
MR HATTINGH: You were also a member of Koevoet in the former South West Africa, now Namibia?
MR VALLY: Director Hesslinga, you were a member of Koevoet, is that correct?
MR HOLTZHAUSEN: Yes, I was a Koevoet member.
If we can return throughout history and look at your service in Koevoet, in the former South West Africa, is it correct that you arrived there in 1980?
application is concerned. I could perhaps ask you a couple of questions on this point, and that would be the following. Did you at some point join Koevoet while you were in South West ...
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Coetzee, when Bambo and the others were with Koevoet, in what capacity were they there?
Could I just say that I'm now going to deal with Mr de Kock's experiences in Rhodesia in Koevoet and that is also just to sketch a bit of background. I won't deal with it in any depth.
MR HATTINGH: And then you also deal briefly with the fact that while you were still the Commander of Koevoet in Namibia, you became involved in the London bombing incident, is that correct?
ADV GCABASHE: Can I just ask. But you see the members who came were chaps whom you knew from your Koevoet days, yes?
... training, advanced training and also served and was subjected to or underwent further counter-insurgency training in South West Africa with the Koevoet ...
MR ROSSOUW: That's correct. In order to determine in which manner you reached consensus about this I would like to ask you, when you were in Koevoet in the early eighties in Namibia was Mr Potgieter also there? Did you perform service there together?
In this period of June 1992, we got a report that Hernus Kriel called a group that was called Koevoet gang, and this gang he called it to come to Cape Town in order to be used in destroying the SDU's.
MR ROSSOUW: That's correct. In order to determine in which manner you reached consensus about this I would like to ask you, when you were in Koevoet in the early eighties in Namibia was Mr Potgieter also there? Did you perform service there together?
... qualify this by saying that Col Potgieter and I have a good understanding, we've always had it and it was a service rendered, we served together at Koevoet where he was in charge of previous SWAPO terrorists and their interrogation and the analysis thereof. He is a very good analyst of ...
of Koevoet, the police counter-insurgency unit, during the Namibian Bush war.
MR JANSEN: And in 1984 you were transferred from the Koevoet division in the then Southwest Africa, currently Namibia to the Vlakplaas Unit?
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