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Operation Zero ZeroExplanation The second Maseru is a different operation. It was a Vlakplaas operation; it was led by Eugene de Kock. The operatives were all Vlakplaas operatives, a number of whom have applied for amnesty. The second raid occurred at a time in December of 1985 when the South African government was extremely ... ... of special tasks. // I was never shown a mission statement for the unit as a whole or an objective for the unit as a whole but it consisted of four operations, all of them relatively similar. The largest being the operation to destabilize UNITA, destabilize Angola, by means of supporting UNITA. ... ‘On 2 December 1988, New Hanover police Captain Brian Mitchell ordered the elimination of a group of UDF members. The operation went wrong. Eleven people attending a night vigil were killed.’ // It was just I think the driving force behind it, behind the motives of the security establishment ... Mamasela is a self confessed killer. He’s one of the Vlakplaas operatives who took part in the Pebco Three operation. He has not applied for amnesty but will testify before the Truth Commission once all the amnesty applicants have been heard. He has a very different account of the killings. and she turned around and he then shot her from behind. He then proceeded to cut her throat. At that stage I thought we should withdraw, because the operation was not going according to plan. It was the plan that we would withdraw under those circumstances, but at that stage Mr. Dubani came around ... Then you went back to Vlakplaas where you gave orders to Martinus Ras, Snyman and Vermeulen to prepare for the operation. What precisely did you tell them? // I can’t give you specific details, but the gist of it was that people would be killed and specifically that policemen would be killed. // ... For Susan van der Merwe knowing how her husband died has not answered the question of why he had to die. // If it was a military operation, for instance if my son who was in the army, if they had told me he had lost his life it would have been different. Because he was a trained soldier fighting ... The operation was the brainchild of General Johan van der Merwe and approved at the highest level of the then National Party government. // General van der Merwe gave the express instruction to use the hand grenades and to make these available to activists in order to eliminate them. It was a ... And the decision was in the conduct of war it is not possible to avoid civilian losses. // After the few incidences where civilians were caught, the president called us in and asked us to put a stop to this method of operation. I gave the instructions to all our forces to stop using the landmine. Phila’s death was not an isolated occurrence. A member of Umkhonto we Sizwe’s special operations unit a man known as Raymond Mkhwanazi, or MK Tekere was kidnapped from Swaziland a month after Phile. His was one of the bodies found this week and a local newspaper investigation claims that the ... appear that you in fact succeeded in doing so. What do you say about that? // After we set up the original ambush for them we then withdrew from the operation. Thereafter they shot at us first, they attacked us and we must have been a lot more successful in actually countering this attack. ... The whole operation went wrong, where the wrong people became victims. // The community of Trust Feed has also requested me to advise the Amnesty Committee that they would try to forgive mister Brian Mitchell if he becomes actively involved in the reconstruction of the community that he was ... ... cross for bravery, one of three medals for bravery that De Kock had received in his 27 year career in the police. Those who knew about and approved operations, De Kock said, were PW Botha, former ministers of law and order Louis Le Grange and Adriaan Vlok, former police commissioners Mike ... It was decided that South Africa would hire mercenaries recruited and led by Hoare to pull off a coup to oust René and put Mancham back in power. At this stage, according to Dolinschek, the operation fell under the control of the National Intelligence Service headed up by Dr Niel Barnard. The only way of understanding the suspension of armed operation, comrade Sisulu has gone further to explain, that it means that we are not going to take initiative, but we are going to defend ourselves if we are attacked. ... discussed these ideas with different right wing groups and individuals, both inside and outside South Africa. NSP members launched their first operation after taking a blood oath, swearing that they would give their lives for their objectives. The organisation needed money and ... was convenient for the RSA and that’s why they sent in … to say ‘we’ve got nothing to do with this.’ But using their forces and the covert operation not from RSA soil to launch attacks against that that they deemed to be a big problem at the time. And then how do you counter a mass ... We’re aware of the fact that in the early 1990s there was a, if you like, a general cleaning operation; motivated, so we’re informed, on the basis that much of that material is no longer relevant to current policing activities, particularly records of the security police. There was fairly ... The aim of the operation was to question them, to get information from them and to remove them from the area and to neutralize their involvement. Casselton set up his European operation with this man, Major Craig Williamson. The two men rented a luxury flat in North London from where they ran their spy network. |