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BOTHA, JHAge Description The former State Security Council; PW Botha fails to arrive at Cape Town hearing PW Botha was not the architect of apartheid, but he was a fervent believer in separating races by force and rule by whites only. As a Cabinet Minister he was personally responsible for forced removals, among other places District Six. But Botha was the architect of destabilisation of neighbouring ... On Friday morning as TRC officials waited for PW Botha to arrive at the State Security Council hearing the ‘groot krokodil’ was casually strolling in his garden at his home in Wilderness in the Southern Cape, seemingly unperturbed by his role in this country’s recent history. At around the ... ... decade of the eighties, especially after the states of emergency. One figure dominated this period, the architect of total onslaught, Pieter Willem Botha. Botha also dominated much of the testimony at the Truth Commission this week, at the former Defence Force submission in Cape Town and at the ... Eugene de Kock also named former president PW Botha as a man who was directly involved, who gave orders; who had intimate knowledge. Can the Truth Commission afford not to call Mr. PW Botha? // I don’t think we can afford not to call him quite frankly. // But he has said that he won’t come. ... Piet Botha and Eugene Marais applied for amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in Durban this week. The killing of seven people on the night of 9 October 1990 was a politically motivated act of war, they said. In June of that year Piet Rudolf, leader of the right wing ... ... 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 ... to the airfield from which the planes would take off. It was coincidence, but you had a Reagon government, you had a Thatcher government and you had Botha coming in at about the same time. And that set us up for the eighties. And they obviously had a fairly sympathetic hearing in the sense that ... ‘No Crocodile Tears’ // It was unthinkable for the Truth Commission to complete its task without having listened to the architect of total onslaught, former state president PW Botha. Tutu handled him with kid gloves from the beginning. Amnesty was granted to Koos Botha, former Conservative Party MP, for bombings committed during 1990 and 1991. These included the Hillview Primary School in Pretoria, post offices in Verwoerdburg and Krugersdorp and COSATU House in Pretoria. This was one of only two cases that Genl Johan van der Merwe testified about this week. He is applying for amnesty. So is Adriaan Vlok. Shirley Gunn, who has brought a civil claim against Vlok, will now sue former state president PW Botha as well. Alright, Benedict you wanted to come in? // Benedict from Special Report, SABC. Why have people like PW Botha not been subpoenaed to come to the TRC? // Well they don’t have to be subpoenaed. You see, I think the whole idea of subpoenaing people is only for purposes of investigating and ... We want the truth, nothing else but the truth comrades and while that Botha does not want to go to the TRC or the court the truth is going to come out comrades, because our people want to know what happened to their sons and daughters, the mothers and fathers, Maqabane. ... head of Region 6 of the CCB, Staal Burger and his men were eager to launch into this new adventure. They were Ferdi Barnard, Chappie Maree, Calla Botha and Slang van Zyl. Members we don’t have pictures of are Wouter Basson and Johan Niemoller. In May 1989 Donald Acheson was caught shoplifting ... was given to me in Springs by Gen van der Merwe, and he specifically told me that the order came from Minister Louis le Grange and that President PW Botha as well as ex-commissioner General Johan Coetzee knew about it. And approved it. ... PW Botha suffered a stroke in 1989. He was succeeded by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk was faced with this choice: more radical reform or more radical repression. He chose reform. // ‘Tomorrow will bring us to the end of a long chapter. What I’ve announced today was started by my ... many. To me it sounded as though he had emptied the whole magazine on Brian Ngqulunga and killed him. I cannot remember, but I later heard that Piet Botha had also fired several shots at him with a pistol. I looked away because I could not handle it. I cannot remember exactly how it happened, but ... We stay in KwaZulu-Natal for our next report and the names Andy Taylor and Hentie Botha come up again. In 1988 police said three terrorists had accidentally blown themselves up at the Phoenix Railway Station. No names were given. The police simply said they were terrorists. Tonight we can tell you ... His grandmother says that PW Botha must release information on how many servicemen were killed during the war. ... up. // This is my flag. Nobody, Mandela to the grassroots people, will take it away. It’s my flag, it will stay with me. // Do you support PW Botha? // Too much. Let them touch him then they’ll see who the real Afrikaner is, regardless if he is DP or NP. He’s an Afrikaner. ... |
