TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 4

Chapter 3

Subsection 6

14. The report stated that IFP supporters and the police were reportedly responsible for the vast bulk of the classifiable acts of violence. Furthermore, it was revealed that the targets or victims of the violence were mainly ordinary citizens. Of the 2271 people killed during the period, 87 per cent were recorded as ‘general members of the community’. There were reports of direct collusion between members of the SAP in 257 confirmed incidents. The report also showed that IFP-supporting hostels provided the base for massive attacks on squatter camps, and that at least 915 of the total number of 2271 killed during the period were the result of attacks from these hostels.

15. The report suggested that the violence could not simply reflect a violent power struggle between the ANC and IFP, and that the monthly breakdown of the deaths reported during the period made it difficult to believe that the sharp monthly variations were random.

16. The sudden escalation of violence in 1990 coincided with the establishment of Inkatha as a national political party in July, and its attempts to develop a political base in the Transvaal.

17. Inkatha’s relationship with apartheid security force agencies had a long history. In April 1986, the State Security Council approved guidelines for a strategy for a counter- revolutionary war, which, amongst other things, emphasised the fact that the forces of revolution should not be combated by the security forces alone, but also by ‘anti-revolutionary groups such as Inkatha … or the ZCC³⁸ as well as the ethnic factor in South African society’.

18. In 1986, the State Security Council also authorised the provision of military training for 200 Inkatha members by the SADF. The special project to support Inkatha was called Operation Marion and was the responsibility of the Directorate of Special Tasks, a section within the office of the Chief of Staff (Intelligence), which was also responsible for supporting insurgency initiatives in neighbouring front-line states.

19. Support for Inkatha continued in the early 1990s. It is now known that President de Klerk approved a Strategic Communication (Stratcom) propaganda project in 1990, which included financial support by the SAP for Inkatha. In July 1991, the existence of a secret police project to fund Inkatha was revealed in the media.

In response to these revelations – which became known as ‘Inkathagate’ – President de Klerk reshuffled his two leading security ministers, Malan and Vlok, and ordered a new review of secret projects.

20. It is also now evident from evidence presented to the Commission that elements in both the police and the IFP continued to collude with one another throughout the negotiation period, and that the police, mainly through Vlakplaas operatives, supplied considerable amounts of weaponry to the IFP during the 1990s. This was also covered by the March 1994 Goldstone report, which implicated members of the SAP, KZP and IFP in the supply of weapons to the IFP. This included a massive arms cache unearthed in KwaZulu-Natal during 1999, which was provided to the IFP by Vlakplaas, ostensibly for the purpose of training self-protection units. The Commission received a number of amnesty applications corroborating this evidence from both Vlakplaas and IFP operatives. Eugene de Kock, for example, claimed that his unit provided and sold weapons directly to hostels on the East Rand and elsewhere. When Vlakplaas was officially closed down in 1991, unit members were redeployed to work on the recovery of illegal fire arms. This provided a perfect cover for the further distribution of weapons and other fraudulent activities. Chapter One of the Investigation Unit’s Gun Running Report deals with the ‘receipt of weapons by the IFP’ and describes the back-g round and systematic distribution of weapons in the PWV³⁹ region.

21. In addition, the Commission received detailed testimony from Vlakplaas operatives about the specific nature of relations with senior IFP officials operating in both the Transvaal and Natal. Security police resources were used, and a core group of IFP members was allegedly placed on the Vlakplaas payroll for a short period of time. According to De Kock, the relationship was known about, approved and even encouraged by senior police officials.

22. When the IFP’s Transvaal Youth Brigade leader, Themba Khoza, was trapped in the grounds of the Sebokeng hostel after the massacre of nineteen hostel inmates on the night of 3/4 September 1990, the local police fabricated evidence to ensure that Khoza and the 137 IFP supporters arrested with him could not be linked to the firearms found in the boot of Khoza’s vehicle and apparently used in the massacre. According to Vlakplaas operatives, the weapons found matched those they had provided to Khoza the previous day, while Khoza’s car was provided by the Security Police. Vlakplaas also allegedly put up Khoza’s bail money.

23. Amnesty was granted to the head of the Vaal Triangle Security Police, Jacobus Francios Conradie (AM4123/96), who admitted to ‘defeating the ends of justice’. The officer investigating the massacre, the head of the Vaal Triangle Murder and Robbery Unit, Jacobus Jacobs (AM 4373/96), and an officer at the scene of the crime, Arthur John van der Gryp (AM 4146/96) were also granted amnesty. Conradie denied that his actions to assist Khoza were approved or authorised, but claimed that he had acted unilaterally when he found out how important Khoza was to the police.

24. While the three amnesty applicants’ versions of events largely corroborate one another, other important issues that are not thoroughly covered in their applications saw the light of day at the Section 29 in camera hearings. Regrettably, these amnesty applications were heard in chambers, preventing any further opportunity to explore the case and its broader implications in terms of collusion between the security forces and the IFP.

25. Although no admissions have been made by the IFP regarding these allegations, several investigations undertaken by the National Department of Public Prosecutions are believed to have reached an advanced stage, indicating that there is prima facie evidence against certain individuals.

26. Disclosures made regarding the Sebokeng incident support the assertion that ‘third force’ elements were at play. Not only did one of the security forces’ most ‘successful’ counter-insurgency units supply weaponry to the Inkatha attackers, but the police were also successful in protecting one of the most prominent Inkatha leaders in the region in the legal process following the massacre.

27. Consistent allegations that Themba Khoza and other IFP leaders in the region were involved in the distribution of weapons and had regular meetings with security forces representatives such as Eugene de Kock further supports the findings in the Commission’s Final Report.

28. The Commission thus finds that, while little evidence exists of a centrally directed, coherent or formally constituted ‘Third Force’, a network of security and ex-security force operatives, frequently acting in conjunction with right-wing elements and/or sectors of the IFP, was involved in actions that could be construed as fomenting violence and which resulted in gross human rights violations, including random and target killings.⁴⁰