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57 A last word to those who have made it their obsessive business in life to discredit and vilify the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It has been wonderful to see the high regard in which the Commission is held in the international community. Almost without exception, foreign heads of state ...

28 Accompanying this document in the file is an undated message from SWA Command to the chief of the army, which reads: “Contingency plans in progress to create own incidents that can be attributed to SWAPO should insufficient publicity or further SWAPO actions be forthcoming”. The signal ...

... for amnesty for his role in this and other operations. He claimed that his role in operations inside Zimbabwe was limited to providing intelligence and logistic and surveillance (photographic) assistance for sabotage attacks on ANC facilities in Harare and Bulawayo. He passed his information ...

... Jeremy Brickhill [KZN/JD/001/AM] were severely injured in separate car bomb explosions in Maputo and Harare. Both of these operations were undertaken by Special Forces covert operatives. Based on its investigations and the amnesty application of Henri van der Westhuizen, the Commission believes ...

The case of the Chetequera/Mariental detainees An estimated 200 to 300 South West African refugees in Angola were captured by the SADF during the raid on Chetequera in 1978 and taken to Oshakati military base, where many were tortured. A year later, UN officials published the names of 130 people ...

Intimidation of families 71 The childhood of the children of activists was often filled with fear of police intimidation and violence. Ms Nolita Nkomo was born in February 1970. Most of her recollections of her early teenage years are of threats and intimidation, especially when members of the ...

South African Defence Force 66 In June 1997, the Commission began trying to set up the joint investigative team. It was hoped, at that stage, to conduct a broad investigation of record destruction by SADF structures. However, the team was only finally constituted in December 1997, after several ...

Separation of families 92 Arrests, detentions, abductions, restrictions and exile of family members affected the cohesion of families, with negative effects on family relationships. Ms Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge’s political activism began in the 1970s when she became an organiser and ...

Department of Prison Services 75 The joint investigative team responsible for this investigation conducted its work between November and December 1997. It received excellent support from the Department of Correctional Services. 76 In terms of records management policy and practice, the ...

Banning 13 Banning of persons took place between 1951 and 1990. Its purpose was similar to that of ‘preventive’ detention – to ensure withdrawal from the political arena. The duration of banning orders ranged from one to five years, but an order could be successively applied. The longest ...

... highlight the deep damage inflicted by past gross human rights violations on human relationships in South Africa. While the main conflict was between a state representing a white minority and an oppressed black population, the conflict found expression in various ways and involved different ...

... region 11 Two of the national commissioners were allocated to this region: the Revd Dr Khoza Mgojo and Mr Richard Lyster. Both had a record of extensive work in KwaZulu-Natal. 12 The Commission appointed four committee members to support its work in the region: Mr Mdu Dlamini, Ms Virginia ...

Mozambican incident 25 In January 1992, FRELIMO troops conducted an operation near the South African border. During the course of the operation, they were allegedly exposed to what was thought to have been a chemical agent. Some of the soldiers died during the incident and others required ...

... dubious agendas of violence is apparent, and sufficient evidence of this was already within the public domain, at no stage did the NP concede that sectors of its security forces were out of its control. More than this, despite the fact that former President de Klerk was aware that his ...

■ RURAL COMMUNITIES 165 Much of the media and literature on human rights violations and its consequences published to date have focused on the urban areas. The Commission’s human rights violation hearings and post-hearing workshops allowed for a unique insight into opposition, violations ...

Dislocation and displacement 110 Large numbers of children, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, were displaced or ran away from their homes to avoid the violence. Many of them have still not returned and others have not been able to find their parents. Many children also suffered the trauma of ...

■ RELATIONSHIPS 112 As noted, women’s relationships were often used against them to weaken them and extract information. In their testimony, women also related how their experiences had affected those close to them, and their relationships with them. 113 On the one hand, concern for ...

Towards national unity and reconciliation: giving priority to the needs of children and youth 114 Ms Anne Mckay, from the KwaZulu-Natal Survivors of Violence Project, made the following statement at the children/youth special hearing in Durban: I think the stress on family life created by the ...

Mr Eric Rautenbach, who opted for exile rather than conscription 41 Writing from Canada, Mr Rautenbach told the Commission how he escaped conscription by leaving the country. The people I went to school with and my other white friends and acquaintances all went one by one to do their military ...

■ THE HEARING The link between prisons and apartheid 22 From the early 1960s, with the introduction of detention without trial under the various versions of the General Law Amendment Act, prisons became an essential part of the apartheid system of control. The incarceration of political ...