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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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... attacking the community inside the township are professional people and they have the knowledge of what they are doing. By then SANDF had deployed Koevoet, Battalion 32, inside the township and as I said there was an attack which took two days. I participated when I realised that during the ...
What was the relationship between Koevoet operations and the Police Security Branch?
MR SIBANYONI: Can you maybe clarify for me, were you serving as Battalion 32 or as Koevoet or is it one and the same thing?
MR BOOYENS: Koevoet?
MR WAGENER: Did you not know that he was attached to Koevoet?
MR DE KOCK: If I could just finish. Two of the three persons in any case had served with Koevoet in the former South West, so they were persons who were used to counter-terrorism and the nature thereof.
... that was the basic guidelines that I picked up there, but previously these guidelines had to exist. I came back from South West from the operation koevoet, that was at the end of May 1983. In September I executed my first attack under the Command of Jack Cronje in Swaziland where members of the ...
... and I'm here referring specifically to Mr Nortjč, had come a long way with the whole issue of the combating of the struggle from the days of Koevoet, etcetera, and also saw what was happening at Vlakplaas as a continuation of the struggle against the liberation movements who wanted to ...
MR LAMEY: In your career, you also had built up operational experience in the former Southwest Africa as part of Operation Koevoet?
MR MOERANE: That he was a member of Koevoet?
MR HUGO: Then in 1979 you became a founding member of the Koevoet Unit in the former South-West Africa?
The plan was going to be further that the said members had returned fire in self-defence. The two (2) ex-Koevoet members were to be left completely out of the picture and no mention was made of their involvement or role in the incident. The corpses were taken to the mortuary at Komatipoort where ...
"... as the Commanding Officer of a Koevoet Unit, in the previous South West Africa, I developed a reputation of a very harsh tracer of the so-called terrorists."
Have you been involved in Koevoet?
... have run counter to the need to know principle. Now, that is a ridiculous answer with great respect to Mr de Kock, under the circumstances. Old Koevoet people together on a covert operation, need to know, could play absolutely no role whatsoever, especially in view of the fact that de Kock ...
... turned a blind eye thereto, as not having authorised these specific actions. It is however submitted that the actions of the units of Vlakplaas, Koevoet and other counter-insurgency units was silent if not directly authorised by the government and were used outside the normal system to form ...
5.2.3 Who authorised and commanded the activities of Koevoet, 5 Reconnaissance Regiment, 32 Battalion and other such units; and what have been their activities since their re-deployment within the country?
... well armed and the SDU's were forced to arm themselves. This decision was strengthened by information received that Mr Hernus Kriel had called for Koevoet to come to Cape Town to help destroy the SDU's. Later in his evidence he informed us that they had been told that the Koevoet gang would be ...
ADV JANSEN: You were both members of Koevoet, is that correct?
Superintendent I just want to find out do you know if Bellingham and/or Mbelo had ever severed in Koevoet before they came to Vlakplaas?
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