TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 4

Subsection 12

Public order policing

99 The Commission received a large number of statements from victims in Orange Free State townships alleging that they had been injured as a result of police action during the course of mass marches, demonstrations, funerals, and arbitrary attacks on the streets. Many of these injuries were gunshot wounds. Fatal shootings were also recorded. The Commission heard also of injuries allegedly sustained as a result of police swoops on private homes in search of individuals for the purpose of harassing, arresting or assaulting them.

The death of Petrus Maitse

On 18 May 1986, AZAPO member Petrus Mahlomola Maitse participated in a joint AZAPO/UDF protest against the state of emergency and against restrictions on political activity. The police clashed with protesters, sjambokking some and opening fire on others. Maitse was shot and taken to hospital in Sebokeng, Vereeniging, where he died a few days later [KZN/JRW/038/SB].

100 Victims reported the widespread use of tear gas as a means of coercion on the part of the police. From accounts of mass public demonstrations, it appears that police very quickly resorted to the use of tear gas as a means of dispersing crowds. Moreover, several witnesses reported the police’s use of tear gas in confined spaces, greatly compounding its suffocating effects. Some victims reported being teargassed in the backs of police vans.

101 A number of submissions reported police intimidation at funerals, usually at the funerals of people whose deaths were associated with political events at the time.

Police open fire on mourners in Tumahole

The Commission heard several accounts of the police opening fire on mourners returning from a funeral in Tumahole, Kroonstad, on 21 July 1985, injuring several and killing at least one person, namely, Mr Gushe Panoshe [KZN/JRL/003/FS].

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE SAP ROUTINELY EMPLOYED UNJUSTIFIED USE OF FORCE TO COUNTER PUBLIC PROTESTS AND DEMONSTRATIONS, RESORTING TO BATON CHARGES, TEARGASSING AND SHOOTING OF PROTESTERS. THIS RESULTED IN A LARGE NUMBER OF INJURIES AND DEATHS IN THE ORANGE FREE STATE. THE SAP IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE GROSS VIOLATIONS INVOLVED IN THESE UNLAWFUL ACTS.

Arson

102 Several cases of arson committed by the police in the Orange Free State were reported to the Commission. Attacks were made on the homes of activists and their sympathisers, often to ‘teach them a lesson’. In June 1986, Mr Tumelo Molosioa’s house in Mangaung was burnt down by unknown police officers because his father had helped the families of political activists [KZN/SMB/013/BL]. In 1987, Ms Winnie Mandela’s house in Brandfort was gutted in an arson attack, along with the clinic on the same premises (see above).

103 Statements indicate that police arsonists were usually identified as such and did not go to great lengths to conceal their identity while involved in such attacks or in their support of arson attacks by vigilante groups. In September 1987, however, police burned down Mr Isaac Modise’s house in Tumahole with the alleged intention of implicating a certain activist, Mr Mkhonzi, whom they wanted to arrest. Modise refused to pretend that Mkhonzi was the perpetrator of the arson attack on his home [KZN/MP/031/BL]. Modise told the Commission that he was severely beaten by the police during this incident.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT UNKNOWN MEMBERS OF THE SAP WERE INVOLVED IN UNLAWFUL ARSON ATTACKS ON THE HOUSES AND PROPERTY OF INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES SYMPATHETIC TO THE UDF, AS A MEANS OF EXERTING PRESSURE AND INSTILLING FEAR INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES.

Cross-border activities

104 Refugees and exiles living in Lesotho continued to be subjected to surveillance and attacks by sections of the South African security forces during the mid- to late eighties. In December 1985, six South Africans and three Lesotho nationals were killed in an armed raid on two houses in Maseru. The attack was conducted by members of the Vlakplaas C-Section, led by Colonel Eugene de Kock. Details of the attack appear in Volume Two of the Commission’s report.

105 Reports were received of skirmishes between the security forces and MK operatives in QwaQwa and along the Orange Free State border with Lesotho. Several cases of abduction and kidnapping of exiles in Lesotho were also reported.