TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 2

Subsection 29

273 Over the Easter weekend in 1987, an operation to assassinate a senior member of MK’s Special Operations Unit, Mr Johannes Mnisi, failed. Instead, three Batswana citizens were killed and seven injured. Mnisi was believed by the security police to have been involved in the Church Street bombing in 1983. The plan to kill him was developed at a meeting attended by amnesty applicants Brigadiers Loots and Jack Cronje, as well as Colonel PR Crause, an agent by the name of McKenzie and a senior Special Forces commander who has not applied for amnesty. It was then presented to senior management of the security police

and approved at that level. The security police’s regional co-ordinator for the Western Transvaal, General Albertus Steyn, applied for amnesty for his role in this operation. The then head of the security police was named at the amnesty hearing of Brigadier Cronje as having approved the plan, but did not apply for amnesty.

274 The plan involved Mr Keith Charles McKenzie, and agent from Eersterus in the Transvaal, who had successfully infiltrated MK in Botswana. He was to drive a minibus he regularly used to transport MK weaponry, into which a bomb would be built. The vehicle, which had a tracking device, was to be delivered to Mnisi and detonated by remote control once he was in the vehicle.

275 Unbeknown to the planners, McKenzie was under suspicion. On his arrival in Botswana, McKenzie was persuaded by MK members to travel to Francistown, where he was arrested by MK security and taken to Lusaka.

276 Unaware that the vehicle was carrying a bomb, MK returned it to Gaborone where it was parked outside the home of a Batswana family sympathetic to the ANC. That night it exploded. According to both the ANC and the Botswana government, the bomb was deliberately detonated by the security police once it was realised that the plan had gone awry. A Batswana woman and two of her children, a sevenyear-old and an infant, were killed while seven others were hurt.

277 The incident caused a considerable rift in relations between the governments of South Africa and Botswana. On 24 June 1987, The DFA issued a formal note in which it denied any South African government involvement in the operation and alleged that McKenzie was an active member of MK. In the light of the information available to the Commission, the DFA either deliberately put out a false statement or unwittingly reproduced falsehoods supplied to it by other agencies.

278 On 22 May 1987, the head of MK’s Natal machinery, Mr Theophilus Dlodlo (aka Viva) [JB00165/990VE] and two passengers in his car, Ms Mildred Msomi and Mr Tutu Nkwanyane, were shot and killed in Mbabane, Swaziland. Two other passengers, MK member Mr Shezi Msimang and Ms Lungie Zwane, were wounded in the attack. Ms Zwane lost an eye as a result Although all in the car were South Africans, only Viva and Msimang were ANC activists.

279 Six weeks later, on 9 July 1987, Mr Cassius Make, ANC NEC member and senior MK commander, Mr Paul Dikaledi, another senior MK operative, and Mr Augusto Elizah Tsinini, a Mozambican national and ANC supporter, were killed in an ambush at Lobamba, Swaziland. Make and Tsinini had been collected from Matsapha airport by Dikaledi and were travelling in a taxi driven by a Swazi citizen, Mr ‘Boy’ Gamedze. He survived the ambush.

280 In both of these assassinations, security police informers played important roles. Evidence before the Commission shows that Gamedze was an informer and that he stopped his taxi at a prearranged isolated spot. This view of Gamedze as an informer has been disputed by one of those involved in the operation, Warrant Officer ‘Lappies’ Labuschagne of the Middelburg security police. He ran a network of sources in Swaziland and is adamant that Gamedze was neither one of them nor an agent of any other operative. Gamedze died sometime after this incident in a car accident.

281 Eugene de Kock has linked an informer code-named ‘Rasta’ to Viva’s killing. Moreover, in its second submission to the Commission, the ANC included the confession of Ms Nompumelelo Zakade as one of its case studies of confessions by agents. She is said to have provided information for the killings of Viva and Dikaledi and others, as well as on the house in Dalraich where Pantsu Smith and others were killed in June 1986. For this latter operation another agent, Mr Chris Hlongwane, was paid R7 000. For the Viva and Dikaledi/Make killings, Zakade is said to have been paid R8 500.

282 Colonel Johan Botha was involved in these two operations with Labuschagne. Both applied for amnesty.

283 Two days after the murder of Viva and his companions, Labuschagne and Botha, authorised by Schalk Visser, head of the Eastern Transvaal Security Branch, abducted Ms Sheila Nyanda from Mbabane, Swaziland. An activist in her own right, Nyanda was also the wife of the head of MK’s Transvaal machinery, Mr Siphiwe Nyanda (aka Comrade Gebuza). They took her to Piet Retief where they unsuccessfully tried to persuade her to become an informer, then placed her in detention. Nyanda’s car was retained – in effect stolen – by Botha and Labuschagne and used by them in their ambush of Make, Dikaledi and Tsizini.

284 In testimony to the Commission, Labuschagne stated that Sheila Nyanda was abducted in an attempt to draw out her husband.

285 The Eastern Transvaal branch of Trewits had identified Dlodlo as a target and there was a general authorisation for the killing of Make in his capacity as an ANC NEC member. Labuschagne told the Commission that he had received a letter of thanks in connection with the latter’s death from Law and Order Minister, Mr Adriaan Vlok.

286 On 11 May 1987, Ms Tsitsi Chiliza [JB05088/02PS], a Zimbabwean citizen and the wife of an ANC member, a Mr Masondo (aka Mhlope) , was killed when a booby-trapped television set exploded. Two young children present in the room survived the explosion. Ms Chiliza was not the intended target of what was a South African MI /Special Forces operation for which their agent, Mr Leslie Lesia was arrested in Mozambique and handed over to the police in Zimbabwe. There he made a confession and was charged with murder. He was never tried, possibly because of the severity of the torture to which he was subjected and the fact that his confession could have been ruled inadmissible. He was, however, kept in detention until July 1990.

287 On Lesia’s return to South Africa, he voluntarily gave a statement to a human rights organisation in which he confirmed his role as an operative handled by MI agents known to him only as Becker and Brown. He confirmed that he had taken to Mozambique a booby-trapped television supplied to him by Becker.

288 Lesia was also used in at least two assassination attempts by poisoning. On a trip to Botswana, he was instructed by Becker to supply a crate of Castle Lager, which had been spiked with poison, to the Soviet embassy in Botswana. The Commission is not aware of any deaths or illnesses as a result of this delivery.

289 In 1987, he delivered a consignment of liquor, including beer containing poison, to an ANC contact in Mozambique. Soon thereafter, an ANC member died after drinking beer at a party. An amnesty application has been received from Captain Henri van der Westhuizen [AM4388/96] for supplying the liquor to an agent for use in Mozambique. Van der Westhuizen was at that time responsible for developing DCC target dossiers on Swaziland and Mozambique. Van der Westhuizen refers to the victim as Mr Gibson Mondlane while Lesia refers to him as Gibson Ncube.

290 Another MK member killed in similar circumstances in 1988 or 1989 was Mr Knox Dlamini. Based in Swaziland, he died after an agent had been instructed by his handler, DCC operative Commandant Jan Anton Nieuwoudt, to supply Dlamini with poisoned beer. Soon thereafter, Dlamini died in an Mbabane clinic after developing hepatitis, the intended outcome of the administration of this drug. Nieuwoudt applied for amnesty for this operation. He names his superior officer as instructing him to undertake this task. He cannot be named as he has not applied for amnesty. Nieuwoudt also states that the agent who gave the beer to Dlamini was paid R8 000 for this.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT MS TSITSI CHILIZA AND AN ANC MEMBER IN MOZAMBIQUE WERE KILLED AS A RESULT OF AN OPERATION MANAGED BY MEMBERS OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE. IT IS UNABLE TO MAKE A CONCLUSIVE FINDING ON THE KILLINGS OF MR GIBSON MONDLANE/ NCUBE AND MR KNOX DLAMINI AS THE AMNESTY APPLICATIONS PERTAINING TO THEIR KILLINGS WERE PENDING AT THE TIME OF REPORTING.