TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 4

Chapter 3

Subsection 5

APPENDIX: THE ‘THIRD FORCE’

1. In its Final Report to President Mandela in 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the Commission) made reference to the ‘Third Force’ in its discussions on the subject of ‘Political Violence in the era of Negotiations and Transition, 1990–1994’³⁵. In addition, the Commission made a set of specific findings on the ‘Third Force’ during this period.³⁶

2. The early 1990s witnessed unprecedented levels of political violence, with over 14 000 people killed and many more thousands injured. Although violence permeated the country, most violations occurred in the homeland of KwaZulu and the neighbouring Natal province, and in the PWV (Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging) region of the Transvaal. In the latter region, the Human Rights Commission (an independent non-governmental organisation) estimated that some 4756 people were killed between July 1990 and June 1993 alone. While many of these killings can be attributed to the internecine conflicts that developed in many communities, primarily between supporters of the IFP and ANC, there were frequent allegations about the role and complicity of elements within the security forces.

3. The ‘third force’ label was first used by ANC leadership figures in the wake of a wave of seemingly random attacks on the Witwatersrand and Vaal areas in August and September 1990. As the attacks continued, allegations were made that a ‘hidden hand’, or ‘Third Force,’ was involved in orchestrating and fomenting violence – to derail the negotiation process and/or to undermine the ANC’s efforts to consolidate its political presence. These attacks were believed to involve covert units of the security forces acting in concert with individuals or groupings, such as the IFP and certain right-wing paramilitary organisations.

4. Although the Commission wishes to restrict the understanding of this phenomenon to the post-1990 period, its origins and genesis can be found in the philosophy of the ‘Total Strategy’ and the practices of covert counter- insurgency that developed throughout the period from the 1960s to the 1980s.

5. The apartheid state’s counter- insurgency efforts intensified during the 1980s, and especially after 1986. As testified to by a number of security force amnesty applicants, the methods employed by specialist covert units included murder, torture, kidnapping and various other covert illegal actions. They also involved the use of proxy and surrogate forces, including freelance criminal elements.

6. The development of intelligence-gathering units with an offensive capacity had p roved effective in the Rhodesian situation and was subsequently adapted to the South African context by both the police and military. The devolution of decision-making powers resulted in police units such as Vlakplaas and the Namibian-based hunter-killer unit Koevoet operating with virtual impunity, making it extremely difficult to establish lines of command and accountability.

7. Unlike the police, the military made no disclosures to the Commission about its role in violations, with the exception of admissions about two sets of assassinations executed by South African Defence Force (SADF) Special Forces in 1986. In these cases, the head of Special Forces, Brigadier Joep Joubert, claimed that the chief of the defence force gave him approval. Allegations of complicity in ‘third force’-type activities in the 1990s were denied, including those relating to an array of charges generated by General Pierre Steyn’s preliminary investigations into covert military operations in late 1992.

8. Such denials and the limited evidence available make it difficult for the Commission to make specific findings, especially on the role of the military. This does not mean, however, that such activities did not take place. Indeed, the security forces were repeatedly involved in a long line of cover-ups of illegal or unlawful activity. This is evident, for example, from evidence about torture and killings that emerged in inquests and trials, which again, in cases such as that of Stanza Bopape, reached the highest echelons of the police.

9. There is no evidence to suggest that this practice was halted during the 1990s. The Harms Commission is a significant example of this: not only were witnesses instructed by their seniors to lie, but the Harms Commission failed to deter them from embarking on further operations.

10. The March 1994 Goldstone Commission report on the criminal activities of the South African Police (SAP), KwaZulu Police (KZP) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) provides further compelling evidence of the fact that senior police officers attempted to subvert a government-appointed commission of inquiry. According to the report, senior members of the SAP repeatedly approached police officers associated with the Goldstone Commission in the course of the investigation – in ways that could only be construed as obstructive. Further, once the police became aware of Goldstone’s interest in false passports, those in possession of such passports were requested to bring them in for destruction. Similarly, Goldstone investigators learnt that Major General Engelbrecht, the last head of the SAP Counter- Insurgency Unit (C-section), had ordered the destruction of all documentation relating to the SAP’s involvement with Inkatha.

11. The fact that such cover-ups involved senior officers and continued well into the 1990s reflects the extent to which such groups felt they had the authority to act with total impunity. In such a context, the impression must have been conveyed to the more junior members of such structures that, despite negotiations, they w e re still at war and could make use of whatever means they had at their disposal, if not to rout, then at least to weaken ‘the enemy’. The continued practice of referring to the ANC as ‘the enemy’ in SADF operational commands clearly underscores this.

12. While allegations of ‘third force activities’ in no way account for all or even the bulk of violent incidents during this period, these attacks were particularly significant as they appeared to be largely indiscriminate, and consequently spread terror amongst hundreds of thousands of township residents. The types of attacks included drive-by shootings, attacks on trains and taxis, and massacre s at social gatherings such as night vigils and shebeens. Regular allegations of collusion between elements of the security forces and the IFP were refuted as propaganda. Although a number of these attacks could be placed within a matrix of revenge violence, many could not. Indeed, they gave the impression of being deliberately designed to provoke further violence.

13. In late 1991, a Johannesburg-based non-governmental organisation, the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE), published a research report³⁷ that analysed the first twelve months of Reef violence and highlighted the major actors, victims and alleged patterns of control of the violence that erupted during the period from 22 July 1990 to 31 July 1991. The report was based on thousands of reports from a range of newspapers and figures published by human rights monitoring organisations, including the Independent Board of Inquiry into Informal Repression (IBIIR), the Human Rights Commission (HRC), the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) and Lawyers for Human Rights.