Vlakplaas

... pass laws and the hostel system and we look at truth commissions elsewhere in the world. We also bring you a special documentary on the notorious Vlakplaas death commando and their secret weapon, former guerrillas called ‘askaris.’ But we start with the past week’s hearing in Cape Town. ...

... supported by three former police commissioners, four other generals, and Adriaan Vlok himself. These are the 22 policemen. Many were members of the Vlakplaas counter-insurgency unit. Some have already been implicated in murder. Others like Brigadier WAL du Toit and Major Marthinus Ras were ...

... also serve as a powerful warning to future generations not to repeat the mistakes of the past. But how do we in South Africa do this? For instance Vlakplaas, the death squad headquarters, could be turned into a public park or Steven Bantu Biko’s gravesite into a national monument. Robben ...

On the evening of 26 November 1981 a group of Vlakplaas men under command of Dirk Coetzee entered Botswana. Their aim was to kill ANC cadres Joyce Dipale, her husband Tieho Rola Masinga and anybody else in the Gaborone house who would, according to their intelligence, probably be ANC as well.

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.

Vlakplaas was also at a certain stage then disbanded when allegations became substantially, almost, you couldn’t prove, you could no longer say that it was just rumours and we then took steps as information came to the fore.

... had been convicted were kept secret to protect their families. The Goldstone Commission’s report on Boipatong was never publicly released. Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee says the police death squads were ...

... and he landed on his head. The brain injury he suffered could not be explained away. Colonel Nick van Rensburg called in the expertise of the then Vlakplaas commander, Dirk ...

‘Vlakplaas assassin Joe Mamasela on the torture of Sipho Hashe, Qaqawuli Godolozi and Champion Galela in 1985.’ // They were tortured severely, they were savaged; they were brutalised. Niewoudt beat them up with an iron pipe into their heads, so severely that … They were kicked, they were ...