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people's warExplanation The worst part of it is that one couldn’t get out of it, you will just disappear like Ace Moema, we don’t know where he is. Many other people that were in Vlakplaas, they just disappeared. Even if you asked … if you posed a threat to the security, you’re gone. We actually are talking about creating something that never was in this country. // Conciliation as far as I’m concerned will mean that you have to take away the anger and the animosity in people and make them understand the need to stay and work together. In 1993 more than 1500 people were killed in the orgies of violence that engulfed the East Rand townships near Johannesburg. Most of the violence was rooted in the political conflict between the supporters of the ANC, who were primarily township residents, and Inkatha hostel dwellers. Bloody ... Let’s get some comment in Johannesburg. // Max, I’d rather focus on where the Truth Commission has succeeded. To me, as a viewer. // OK, let’s talk about that. // I think that a lot of people in the case of Steve Biko’s killing wanted this not to be part of the TRC process. Their argument ... Police claimed that the crowd of people who were shot at were armed with sticks, stones, petrol bombs, and bricks with which they had intended to attack the white inhabitants of Uitenhage. Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange immediately appointed judge Kannemeyer to head up a commission of ... Meanwhile the search for three escapees and two accomplices who shot and wounded a policeman during a daring escape near Otjiwarongo, Namibia has been extended to the South African Namibian border. The wounded policeman, Constable Ricardo van Wyk may have to be transferred to a hospital in Cape ... In October 1985 the world got to see an amazing piece of television footage shot in South Africa. A number of policemen hid in boxes on an open truck and provoked angry young people to throw stones at them. Like in a violent movie the world watched the policemen jump up and mow down the stone ... Tell me about the Aliwal North exhumations, do you have strong evidence besides forensics evidence about whether those were members of a MK unit. // Well, the evidence seems to be sufficient. I wouldn’t say it is conclusive, but it seems to be sufficient, because one, it is a consequence of ... During the marathon three year court case which more than 3000 people brought against the police they denied complicity with the witdoeke and eventually no one was found guilty for the deaths and destruction. But this week the Truth Commission heard this man, Ulrich Schellhase admit the links. ... ‘Makoma’s statement read by lawyer’ // As the hand grenade exploded we took cover behind the doors, re-entered and while the people inside were screaming we started to shoot. We shot indiscriminately and I finished my full R4 magazine, some 31 rounds of ammunition. There were shots and people were crying. As I was running a white person said ‘Zulu, capture him, there he is’ and I went straight into the passage. When I got into the passage they couldn’t see me anymore and I heard a loud bang of a gun behind me, seven times. I ran just alongside the ... This cocktail of God and fatherland was backed up at home with medal parades and military manoeuvres. The news was clinical and heroic. To keep the machine rolling and white South Africa’s morale up, the blood and guts, the dying and killing was not shown. Those who came back from the killing ... We’ve heard a lot of evidence about how you people went into houses and you saw some person there you didn’t know so you killed them. // [We heard such evidence] // So wasn’t it important to find out who was in a house? How many people were there? Whether there were innocent people there or ... Poverty, repression and police brutality in the 1980s. The townships on the East Rand were seething. Six COSAS leaders died in July in 1985 after being lured into launching an attack with hand grenades, booby trapped by Vlakplaas policeman Joe Mamasela. At one of their funerals Maki Skosana was ... ... security forces that I have spoken to say, there’s a carrot but they don’t believe the stick. They don’t believe that if they don’t come forward that they will ever be caught. Is that a problem for the Truth Commission; that the investigators are not efficient enough or there are not a ... It began in November 1978, a warm summer’s day that began like any other for Susan and Jaap van der Merwe on their farm Swartklip at Thabazimbi near the Botswana border. Susan left for a teaching job and Jaap went to a nearby farm to shoot a buck. He left a note saying he might be late, but he ... Under the heading ‘special projects’ support for anti-Marxist liberation movements, Mortimer talked about SADF support for UNITA in Angola, RENAMO in Mozambique and the Lesotho Liberation Army. And then he dropped in this insignificant little paragraph. // Inkatha. In 1985 chief minister ... ... hear evidence on the reign of terror of the Toasters gang. You may have seen that the Special Rreport team was given the foreign correspondence award for outstanding journalism. Tonight we want to dedicate this award to all the people who have appeared before the Truth Commission, the people ... ... with the Imbali support group. // We were sitting in the house, the Gabela house, that has experienced unspeakable terror, even from ’86 onwards because Sipho her son was a UDF member and a spokesperson for the youth. In ’89 Sipho was so severely injured by white policemen and Mama ... And this is exactly what many black people did. The passport out of the hardship of being black was trying to be coloured. Many took on a coloured identity or an Afrikaans sounding surname, usually both. // Yes, they called it turning your jacket inside out. You put the inside outside and the ... |