BOTHA, JJ

Friday morning, 23 January 1998. PW Botha’s day in court had come. Photographers are waiting to catch Botha of taking his early morning customary walk outside his Wilderness mansion.

The other dimension of course was a perception which was deeply held, particularly by PW Botha and the State Security Council up until 1985 and that was that the primary threat to South Africa was external.

... nie almal onder die bome staan nie. Ons moet saam wys dat ons het pyn van onse comrades wat in die verlede doodgemaak was deur die ou regime van PW Botha’ [Comrades, today is a significant day, our people have been heavily hit by the past … I would like us to show solidarity with our ...

... anger continues to grow in the wake of the commando raid on alleged ANC bases in the Botswana capital of Gaborone. Foreign minister, Minister Pik Botha said in September last year that the Botswana government had not been able to reach acceptable understanding with the South African government ...

other large external operation, was sanctioned personally by the Prime Minister, PJ Vorster, under the advice of the Minister of Defence, who was PW Botha and of course advised by the chief of the National Defence Force, General Malan, and the chief of the army, General Constant Viljoen. But ...

The raids in Lesotho, 1982, 1985; the raids in Matola 1981; the raids in Swaziland; the raids in Mozambique; the raids in Angola; the raids in Zambia; the raids in Zimbabwe; the raids in Botswana; all were because of the policies of PW Botha. We must never forget our history.

Callas Botha owns a successful insurance brokerage in Roodepoort. Staal Burger is a sugar farmer. Slang van Zyl has turned his CCB cover as a private eye into his own lucrative business. And the three old friends got together again a few weeks ago, just before Slang van Zyl appeared at the Barnard ...

Right next to the Magistrate’s Court and the area where the people demonstrated is the George Museum. A large part of the Museum is taken up by an exhibition of the life of PW Botha, but this exhibition will not remain untouched for long.

Fifty percent of the comrades, believe you me, they believe that PW Botha should go to jail. They say that if PW is young enough to take a wife, he’s young enough to go to jail. This is their point of view and they say that ‘hy is te oud vir die TRC maar hy’s nie te oud om ...

Badenhorst said Webster’s killing came up again, often. // I began to take it seriously when he told me in about 1995 that Calla Botha was the driver of the car. He said Calla was so shocked that he had to threaten him with a gun to get him to drive away. He told me Webster was an ANC ...

... the law was cracking under the strain. It was becoming too expensive to implement a law that people were defying more and more openly. In 1986 PW Botha repealed all pass and influx control laws. The tyranny of the dompas had finally come to an ...

‘Things Gone Horribly Wrong’ // But PW Botha was not the only difficult politician the Truth Commission had to deal with. It was clear from the beginning that the escapades of Winnie Mandela’s Football Club in Soweto in the 1980s would have to be investigated by the Truth ...

... 6 people including Anton Lubowski and David Webster who both died and Dullah Omar who survived plans to shoot and poison him. Staal Burger, Callas Botha and Slang van Zyl worked for the SADF Civil Cooperation Bureau in the late eighties and formed the core of the CCB’s Region 6, South ...

The raids in Lesotho 1982, 1985; the raids in Matola 1981; the raids in Swaziland; the raids in Mozambique; the raids in Angola; the raids in Zambia; the raids in Zimbabwe; the raids in Botswana; all were because of the policies of PW Botha.

... Levy found that there was prima facie evidence that these men were accomplices to the murder: Ferdi Barnard, Chappie Maree, Staal Burger, Calla Botha, Slang van Zyl, Joe Verster, as well as Johan Niemoller and Wouter Basson. The controversial part of Judge Levy’s finding was that ...

The oppressed in the scheme of reconciliation must not bear the burden of such horror, I would say, as the nine days that Mrs. Mandela went through and Mr. Botha can thumb his nose at such Truth and Reconciliation.

... his house and tapped his home and office telephones. And on the 1st of September 1989 CCB boss Joe Verster, Staal Burger, Chappie Maree, Calla Botha and Wouter Basson watched the videos in this hotel room in Johannesburg and decided on a plan of action. // Around 8 o’clock the evening ...

The mere fact that PW Botha can walk into that hall, the mere fact that he had to face a black magistrate and a brown prosecutor, the mere fact that he stood there and that the new SA saw him in his own court room of which he was such a notorious symbol – for me that was more than just a ...

... the Truth Commission, calling it ‘a circus.’ The Commission had no choice to refer the matter to the Attorney-General who charged Botha with contravening the Truth and Reconciliation Act. Botha’s first court appearance turned out to be a ...

In 1985 the then State President PW Botha declared the state of emergency in response to the growing internal unrest inside the country. In 1986 the second State of Emergency followed. For the first time in its history the South African Defence Force was deployed on a massive scale inside the ...