| Time | Summary | |
| 00:29 | But we start with an evil military organisation with a most cynical name. A unit specialising in assassination, terrorism and dirty tricks called the Civil Cooperation Bureau. The CCB was in the news twice this week, with the arrest of one of its operatives, Ferdi Barnard, on charges including the murder of activist David Webster and with the refusal of CCB members Joe Verster, Slang van Zyl and Wouter Basson to give evidence to the Truth Commission about their activities outside the country’s borders. | Full Transcript |
| 01:02 | Former ANC lawyer and now Constitutional Court Judge, Albie Sachs, is blown up with a car bomb. The explosion left him without an arm and a body full of shrapnel. And this is the man who afterwards boasted that he blew Sachs’ right arm off, Pieter Botes, a former regional manager of a sinister Defence Force death squad called the Civil Cooperation Bureau. | Full Transcript and References |
| 01:52 | ‘The bomb went off at 6:25 last evening. It blew out the roof and western wall of number 7 Earls’ Court. The one unfortunate person was 24 year old Tsitsi Chiliza, born Marechera, a mother of two and a stenographer in the ministry of justice. Tsitsi Chiliza died instantly when the bomb went off in the ceiling above her bedroom. When her body was recovered it was so badly mutilated and burnt she was almost unrecognizable.’ | Full Transcript and References |
| 02:27 | This man spent 4 years in the Zimbabwean jail for the bomb attack. Leslie Lesia, a former shebeen keeper from Bloemfontein. When he was arrested by the Zimbabwean central intelligence organisation shortly after the murder he had a silenced weapon, poison and this poisoned ring with him. He managed to poison, amongst other, this man in Maputo, Gibson Ncube. Lesia confessed to have worked for the Civil Cooperation Bureau. | Full Transcript |
| 02:59 | Zimbabwean activist, Jeremy Brickhill, is blown up with a car bomb. Today, these four men Barry Bawden, Michael Smith, Philip Conjwayoand Kevin Woods are still incarcerated in Zimbabwe’s Chikurubi Security Prison for sentences ranging from 25 years imprisonment to life, for murder and sabotage. The men all worked for the Civil Cooperation Bureau. | Full Transcript and References |
| 03:33 | Anti apartheid activist, David Webster is gunned down in front of his Johannesburg home. The Harms Commission of inquiry, tasked to find Webster’s killers, failed to do so as it failed to find evidence of police hit squads. But even the blundering Mr. Justice Louis Harms launched this scathing attack on the CCB. | Full Transcript and References |
| 03:57 | The report says however that some members of the Civil Cooperation Bureau did commit acts of sabotage and did conspire to commit murder. The Commission found that members of Region 6 of the CCB were involved in planting a bomb at the early learning centre at Athlone in Cape Town. No documentation or evidence could be obtained linking the CCB to the murder of human rights activist, Doctor David Webster. | Full Transcript |
| 04:24 | The CCB was eventually exposed as a sinister monster, the creation of former minister of defence Magnus Malan and his securocrats. In its final form the CCB’s tentacles stretched all over Southern Africa and even to Europe. It was an organisation that made extensive use of criminals and convicted murderers like Ferdi Barnard and the Irishman Donald Acheson. Acheson was implicated in the murder of SWAPO leader Anton Lubowski in September 1989 when he died in a hail of bullets in front of his Windhoek home. Although his killers have not been brought to book, Namibian Judge Harold Levy found in the Windhoek Supreme Court in June 1994 that the internal region of the CCB headed by Staal Burger assassinated him. Lubowski died during a CCB campaign in Namibia to discredit SWAPO before the 1990 independent elections. The campaign included assassinating SWAPO leaders, infecting drinking water with cholera germs and planting bombs at SWAPO rallies. | Full Transcript and References |
| 05:34 | This is the man who commanded the CCB, Colonel Joe Verster, for long one of the country’s most secretive people until his appearance before the Truth Commission where he had to face the cameras for the first time. | Full Transcript |
| 05:48 | In his submission to the Truth Commission in May this year this is how Magnus Malan described the CCB. | Full Transcript |
| 05:58 | The role envisaged for the CCB was the infiltration and penetration of the enemy, the gathering of information and the disruption of the enemy. // You refer to the fact that the role envisaged for the CCB was amongst other things the disruption of the enemy. What did you have in mind when you approve this structure, what did you have in mind by the disruption of the enemy? // Well sir, you can disrupt the enemy, there are various things. You can throw sugar in its petrol. // Absolutely, but what did you have in mind? // That’s disruption. The situation will dictate. | Full Transcript |
| 06:40 | The CCB was nothing but a murderous, ill organized unit that killed and maimed innocent people. | Full Transcript |
| 06:47 | The CCB provided the South African Defence Force with good covert capabilities. During my term of office as head of the South African Defence Force and as minister, instructions to members of the South African Defence Force were clear. Destroy the terrorist, their bases and their capabilities. This was also government policy. | Full Transcript |
| 07:12 | For many years CCB operatives inside South Africa acted with complete impunity and without fear of prosecution. But this week, the Transvaal Attorney-General pounced on Ferdi Barnard and arrested him for the murder of David Webster. According to the indictment the man who was with him in the car on the day he pulled the trigger was his friend and former Transvaal rugby forward, Calla Botha. | Full Transcript |
| 07:41 | If they have the evidence I’m prepared to go to trial, because like I said to you earlier on, it’s not a newspaper, it’s not a newspaper article, or a TV interview that’s going to send me to jail. At the end of the day there’s a judge and all witnesses must be examined by cross examination and that to me is at the end of the day the ultimate. | Full Transcript |
| 08:07 | Ferdi Barnard is the first CCB operative to be charged in the organisation’s sordid history of violence. He’s charged with altogether 24 crimes including another murder and trying to kill Minister of Justice, Dullah Omar. | Full Transcript |
