Special Report Transcript Episode 20, Section 2, Time 08:38

In many ways De Kock has merely confirmed what people like Dirk Coetzee had said seven years ago. One of the people who must take responsibility for the fact that politicians and generals could go on lying and denying until De Kock came clean is Mr. Justice Louis Harms. In 1990 Judge Harms led a commission of inquiry into the allegations of Dirk Coetzee and others about Vlakplaas and the death squads. His final report gave the police a virtual clean bill of health. Judge Harms then rejected virtually everything Dirk Coetzee had said. He insulted Coetzee and repeatedly called him a liar and he believed Eugene de Kock and his partners in crime. De Kock admitted this week that he had lied to Harms and Dirk Coetzee, we know now, did not lie to him. Mr. Harms, since then promoted to the appeal court, simply said this week ‘I was right. De Kock wasn’t cross examined by anyone at the Commission so why shouldn’t I have believed him? If De Kock lied to me, he lied to me.’ Louis Harms started his final report with these words ‘blessed is he who can recognize the truth.’ What bitter, bitter irony.

Notes: Vrye Weekblad ‘Bloedspoor van SAP’ [Blood trail of the SAP] ‘It’s laughable, say top police’ ‘The death squad confessions’; Coetzee at the Harms Commission of inquiry

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