TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 2

Subsection 26

236 By the late 1970s, South African security had identified Mr Chris Hani as the most important MK operative in the immediate region. A former high-ranking MI officer told the Commission that he had attended at least one meeting of senior SADF generals where a senior MI officer presented a plan for Hani’s killing. The meeting was chaired by General Viljoen. The plan was vetoed as the safety of Hani’s family could not be guaranteed.

237 Clearly, other plans were approved as, in the early 1980s, a number of attempts were made by the security police and the SADF to kill Hani in Lesotho. In addition to the major SADF incursion of December 1982, at least two other attempts were made on his life. The first was in early 1980, when his house was bombed. Later in August of the same year, Mr Ernest Ramatlala, a police informer who had been given training in the handling of explosives by the SAP, attempted to attach a bomb to Hani’s car which was parked in the driveway of his house. The bomb exploded prematurely and Ramatlala was seriously hurt. Ramatlala was granted bail but fled back to South Africa where he was given sanctuary at Vlakplaas. He later joined the SAP.

238 Two years later, on 2 August 1982, Hani’s home was damaged in a bomb blast. Hani was absent but one person was hurt in the attack. This incident coincided with another attack on the house of a South African exile where a Mr T Banzi was seriously injured. No amnesty applications were received for these operations.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT MR CHRIS HANI WAS TARGETED FOR ELIMINATION BY SOUTH AFRICAN SECURITY FORCES AND THAT THEY WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR SEVERAL ATTEMPTS TO KILL HIM IN LESOTHO IN THE EARLY 1980S.

239 On 26 November 1981, Dirk Coetzee led a team in an attack on a house in Gaborone, Botswana occupied by two ANC activists, Ms Joyce Dipale and Mr Tieho Masinga (aka Rola). The house was believed by the security police to be an ANC transit house. In his original hit squad confession document, Coetzee states that he was ordered to kill the occupants by the head of C section and to link up with the heads of the Zeerust and West Rand Security Branches. The base from which the attack was launched was an abandoned farm house close to the Kopfontein border post.

240 Amnesty applicants Almond Nofemela and Mr David Tshikilange as well as Vlakplaas members Captain Paul van Dyk and Mr Joe Mamasela were the operatives who performed the mission; others at the farm briefed the team on details such as the layout of the house.

241 From the police perspective, the operation was not a success in that Masinga (Rola) was out of the country on the night of the attack, while both the occupants of the house, Joyce Dipale and Lilian Keagle, a Batswana colleague, survived despite being badly wounded.

THOUGH THE AMNESTY APPLICATION IN RESPECT OF THIS INCIDENT HAS BEEN HEARD, NO DECISION HAD BEEN ANNOUNCED AT THE TIME OF REPORTING. THE COMMISSION’S FINDING ON THIS ATTACK AWAITS THAT DECISION.

242 On 4 June 1982, acting ANC chief representative in Swaziland, Mr Petros Nyawose (aka Nzima) and his wife, SACTU¹⁷ representative Ms Jabulile Nyawose, were killed in a car bomb explosion outside their flat in Matsapha near Manzini, Swaziland. Two passengers in the car, Mr Thokozane Mkhize and Mr Siphiwe Mngomezulu, were seriously injured. The explosion and murder of their parents was witnessed by the Nyawose’s three children. One of them, Nonzamo Nyawose, submitted a statement to the Commission [KZN/NNN/011/DN] and appeared at a public hearing.

243 Intelligence-gathering and surveillance for the assassination was done by Dirk Coetzee [AM0063/96], Almond Nofemela and David Tshikilange [AM0065/96] for which they have applied for amnesty. According to a statement to the Commission by Eugene de Kock, and further oral evidence at a Commission amnesty hearing, the murder of the couple was authorised by Brigadier Willem Schoon, then head of C section. The operation was performed by the then commander of Vlakplaas, Captain Jan Coetzee, assisted by Colonel Paul Hattingh of the SAP Explosives Department and Captain Paul van Dyk of the Ermelo Security Branch. For this operation, the three perpetrators received the SOE medal, a high police decoration.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE MURDER OF MR PETROS AND MS JABULILE NYAWOSE WAS SANCTIONED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT, AUTHORISED AT SENIOR MANAGEMENT LEVEL OF THE SECURITY POLICE AND CARRIED OUT BY THE OPERATIVES NAMED ABOVE.

244 Following the spate of sabotage and other covert operations in Zimbabwe, a CID Inspector Mr Eric Roberts was appointed in late 1982 by the Zimbabwean government to investigate these attacks and South Africa’s possible involvement in them. In December 1982, Roberts was shot and killed at his home in Bulawayo when he answered a late-night knock on his front door. No arrests were made for this killing. but South African agents are suspected of having been involved.

IN THE ABSENCE OF CORROBORATED EVIDENCE, THE COMMISSION IS UNABLE TO MAKE A FINDING ON THIS CASE.