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Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
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Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
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Special Report
Transcripts for Section 4 of Episode 3
| Time | Summary | | | 23:10 | Throughout the 1980s most of the state’s aggression was unleashed on the black youth of the country. In 1986 26 000 people were detained, 40 percent of those were 18years old or younger. At least 1 198 people died in political violence in the same year, a third of whom died in the hands of security forces. | Full Transcript | | 23:34 | Young Benjamin Oliphant was constantly on the run from police. In December 1986 he was betrayed by a police informer, he was arrested. When his family went to look for him at the Klerksdorp police station, they were told that he had already been released. On their way home, they saw something which made them suspicious. // At Oranjeville there’s a spoor, crossing, that is between Joubertina and Klerksdorp. They were in the taxi on the right hand side and the police van was on the other side. When they peeped through the window they saw a person in this van and they realised it was Benji, his face was swollen. They came home running and said, ‘the police told us they’ve released Benji, but we saw him in the police van and his face was swollen.’ | Full Transcript and References | | 24:27 | Two ministers who were close to the family informed them about his death. At the mortuary police prevented them from going inside to identify his body. They were only allowed to view the head of the corpse through a window. // Through the window we could see Benji’s head, it was swollen, you don’t know what was this protruding from inside his nose. You couldn’t see whether was it the mouth or the chin, because it was just mixed up. His head was so swollen you could compare it to a head of a calf. | Full Transcript | | 25:13 | Cornish Makhanya was arrested with 14 others in Lichtenburg in June, 1986. He was 18 at the time, and involved in student politics. He was taken to the police station. // They took this machine connected this two cords, they put them on my head, over my hair. They poured water on me, and put on this machine for a long time. And I continued to refuse talking. Another boss said to me, ‘this kaffir doesn’t want to talk, we must just kill this kaffir.’ They took this two cords, they put them on my private parts. After they put this cords on my private parts they put this machine on, I got torn underneath. | Full Transcript and References | | 26:17 | Sicelo Dhlomo was a bright young activist well known in Gauteng in the 1980s. Police were hunting for him, long before his death in January 1988. // His mother, Sylvia Dhlomo-Jele, began to fear for his life, but is seems as if Sicelo too had a premonition about his fate. // …referring to his father. He said, ‘my father is strong, it may happen that I will die. I’d want you to know that whatever happens to me you must be strong, pick up my spear and continue my struggle.’ I was very sad, I was very upset. When he told me about his lack of security I said, ‘just tonight, sleep here at home,’ and he said, ‘you won’t like to see the police killing me in front of you, so it will be better for me to go somewhere else so that you can only find my corpse but not see them killing me.’ And he left home, and the following day a police arrived at home. I could feel it, I could just sense it that my child was gone, because the police came with his pocket book. I said to him ...more | Full Transcript and References | | 28:32 | The names of some policemen keep coming up during the Commission hearings. This is warrant officer Joe Mamasela. He’s already confessed to being part of the murders of three Port Elizabeth community leaders and Durban lawyer, Griffiths Mxenge. He was mentioned again by the relatives of three Mamelodi men who died in 1987. Jocob Maake, Andrew Makope and Harold Sefolo’s bodies were packed with explosives and blown up by members of the hit squads. This week, the widows of Sefolo and Makope, and the widow of Maake told of how the disappearance of their loved ones changed their lives. Mrs Sefolo first heard about her husband’s death when she read the newspaper City Press in January this year. // I’d like to tell the Truth Commission there’s a man that arrived, called Mamasela. I’ve also read that on the 28th January newspaper Mamasela said he took him at Witbank. They took him to some place which I can’t remember ‘cause I don’t have the paper with me, and he said they ...more | Full Transcript and References |
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