TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 4

Subsection 7

Killing of individual ‘enemies’ and ‘defectors’

46 In the late 1970s, the ANC began to target specific police officers and perceived ‘collaborators’. Initially those killed were former ANC members who had turned state witness in political trials. The ANC justified these killings in its second submission because those killed were “personnel actively assisting SAP”.

47 Mr Leonard Mandla Nkosi, a former member of the Luthuli detachment and involved in the ‘Wankie campaign’³, became an askari after he was captured by the police and went on to testify against his former ‘comrades’ as a state witness in several trials. Nkosi was killed by the ANC on 9 September 1977. His case is documented in the KwaZulu-Natal regional profile. Mr Jan Daniel Potgieter [AM5418/97] applied for amnesty for having forced Nkosi into becoming a state witness.

48 Mr Abel Mthembu [JB00336/01GTSOW], former deputy president of the ANC in the Transvaal, was killed on 14 April 1978 because, according to the ANC’s second submission, he “turned state witness at the Pretoria ANC trial”.

49 Mr Tennyson Makiwane [EC0258/96STK] was one of the ‘Gang of Eight’ who had sought to launch a ‘reformed’ ANC and was expelled from the ANC in 1975. Makiwane joined Matanzima’s Transkei government in February 1979. He acted as a “consultant and roving Transkei ambassador” and was believed by ANC members to be revealing confidential information. He was shot dead in Umtata in July 1980. Mr David Simelane [AM5305/97], a member of the ANC, applied for amnesty for this killing, as well as for the killing of other police officers and askaris.

50 On 26 February 1985, the Pietermaritzburg court sentenced MK members Clarence Lucky Payi [EC0855/96STK] and Sipho Xulu to death for killing Mr Benjamin Langa. Payi and Xulu claimed that they had been led to believe that Ben Langa, an active ANC member, was a police informer and killed him on orders they believed came from the ANC.

51 According to the ANC’s first submission:

In a few cases, deliberate disinformation resulted in attacks and assassinations in which dedicated cadres lost their lives. In one of the most painful examples of this nature, a state agent with the MK name of ‘Fear’ ordered two cadres to execute Ben Langa on the grounds that Langa was an agent of the regime. These cadres – Clement Payi [Clarence Lucky Payi] and Lucky Xulu [Sipho Xulu] – carried out their orders. This action resulted in serious disruption of underground and mass democratic structures in the area and intense distress to the Langa family – which was the obvious intention of Fear’s handlers…

52 Oliver Tambo personally apologised to Langa family for this action. The Commission notes that this incident illustrates that it was not unheard of for MK members to be ordered to assassinate civilians. Mr Joel George Martins [AM6450/97] applied for amnesty in respect of the case of Benjamin Langa, claiming that he supplied information about his movements to MK members.

53 In about April 1986, Mr David Lukhele [JB00646/02PS], former minister of KaNgwane, was framed in a bogus pamphlet associating him with anti-ANC sentiments. A few days before his death, he had met with chiefs to discuss the unification of KaNgwane and Swaziland. On 6 June 1986, he and his sister-in-law were killed in his home in Mamelodi, while watching television. ANC members Mr Neo Griffith Potsane [AM7159/97], Mr Jabu Obed Masina [AM5886/97] and Mr Frans ‘Ting Ting’ Masango [AM7087/97] applied for amnesty for the killing.

54 Mr Sipho Phungulwa [JB00420/01ERKWA] was part of a group of exiles who were held in ANC detention camps in Angola. The group included Mr Mwezi Twala, Mr Norman Phiri, Mr David Mthembu and Mr Luthando Nicholas Dyasop. They returned to South Africa along with fellow exiles and prisoners and approached various organisations, including the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) for assistance in exposing the hardships they had endured in Angola. Phungulwa was shot dead in Umtata on 13 June 1990, apparently while he and Dyasop were trying to seek an audience with the Transkei ANC leadership. Mr Ndibulele Ndzamela [AM5180/97], Mr Mfanelo Matshaya [AM7016/97] and Mr Pumlani Kubukeli [AM5180/97] were granted amnesty on 13 August 1998 in connection with this incident.

55 Further cases of a similar nature may be found in Volume Three of this report.

INDIVIDUALS WHO DEFECTED TO THE STATE AND BECAME INFORMERS, AND/OR MEMBERS WHO BECAME STATE WITNESSES IN POLITICAL TRIALS AND/OR BECAME ASKARIS WERE OFTEN LABELLED ‘COLLABORATORS’ BY THE ANC AND REGARDED AS LEGITIMATE TARGETS TO BE KILLED. THE COMMISSION DOES NOT ACCEPT THE LEGITIMISATION OF SUCH INDIVIDUALS AS MILITARY TARGETS AND FINDS THAT THE EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS OF SUCH INDIVIDUALS CONSTITUTED INSTANCES OF GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS. FURTHER FINDINGS IN THIS REGARD WILL BE MADE BY THE AMNESTY COMMITTEE WHEN THE ABOVE CASES AND OTHERS HAVE BEEN HEARD.

Security force personnel

56 The Commission views armed and/or uniformed combatants on both sides as being ‘legitimate targets’. The deaths of members of the security forces while on duty, armed and in uniform are not considered gross violations of human rights. However, the Commission recognises that there are many ‘grey areas’ in this regard, especially when dealing with unconventional guerrilla warfare, and where the security forces of the state were employing unconventional means (such as using informers, askaris and plain-clothes security police officers).

57 Between 1984 and 1987, 144 police officers were killed. According to Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok, it is not possible to distinguish politically-motivated murders of police officers from others. Not all such cases can qualify as gross human rights violations, and in most such cases, the families of the deceased did not approach the Commission. Cases received by the Commission that can be classified in this way concerned the deaths of Mr Johannes van der Merwe [JB00686/02PS] and Mr Thomas Shingange [JB03383/02NPTZA] and the injuries of Mr Edmund Beck [JB00135/01GT] and Mr Welmar O’Reilly [CT03081/GAU].