BOTHA, JJ

... and it seemed to us to be a suitable target. We followed the bus, and in a quiet road where there were no other cars, we overtook the bus. Mister Botha gave the command: Fire., We shot at the bus, we fired; we passed the bus. About 500 meters further we turned round, we passed the bus again, we ...

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.

We’ve come to the end of tonight’s report. This coming week we’ll see former cabinet ministers like Pik Botha, Adriaan Vlok, Magnus Malan, Leon Wessels and Roelf Meyer testifying before the Truth Commission’s special hearing on the inner workings of the State Security Council that ...

... They said, says who? So Claasen was there, Jimmy Claasen and he said it’s the Prime Minister’s instructions. The Prime Minister then was PW Botha. Then they say. Where’s the documents? So they didn’t have the documents, so Claasen left and got a letter from the Prime Minister saying ...

... If the Defence Force can say there was no secret, it was an open thing, no it can’t be, because when they took these people from Ulundi to Louis Botha they were put in a truck with dark windows; on our way to that base everything were … with black plastic bags, so that they mustn’t see and ...

be damaged by explosives to such an extent that it could no longer be utilized. According to mister Vlok this instruction had come from President PW Botha personally. It was common knowledge within security circles at the time that the building served as a sort of internal headquarters of the ANC ...

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.

In George, the local ANC is getting ready for their day of showing their anger and protest. // Comrades, if we were to put down all the crimes of PW Botha, this wall is too small. We left out Ashley Kriel, we left out District Six, we left out Sophiatown; we left out Cato Manor. We left out so many ...

another ally, Malawi’s Hastings Banda, who was supporting RENAMO. In fact, documents to this effect were according to then Foreign Affairs Mr. Pik Botha found in the Machel ...

Our subpoena to Mr. PW Botha is in fact defective in that, although we have the date and place, we omitted to state the time and for lawyers that is not just a minor technicality.

... that South Africa might want to have a black President. Now you know I was right, I know I was right, everyone knows I was right. President Botha thought I was left. And so I was forced to say sorry in order to keep my job in the cabinet so I could fight apartheid from within ‘en nee ...

... 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 Africa. ...

disintegrated, but both his legs remained. One was 64 meters away from the explosion. Again, no head was found. Specialist pathologist professor Jan Botha said in his post-mortem reports that ‘the fact that the legs of the deceased were relatively spared suggests that they were standing at the ...

... sprees. Between September 1987 and January 1988 six people were wounded. On January 10, 1988 another mini-massacre took place. Three people: Selvyn Botha, Johnny Carelse and Soyisile Douse were shot and killed; ten others wounded. // He was one of them, Soyisile was one of them, the one of the ...

‘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 Commission. The ...

... did not support the system of apartheid. // Chairperson, the culture was that the organisation stood for change. I mention the 1979 meeting with PW Botha, I wasn’t there but I know many people, who were, and I recall at that time him pointing at businessmen and saying you keep out of politics, ...

and knew everything that went on in the ANC’s Quatro camp in faraway Angola but nothing about Vlakplaas ten kilometres from him. In the days of PW Botha the State Security Council was the highest decision making body, made up of cabinet ministers and generals. Goosen showed De Klerk minutes of a ...

... 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 ...

... men over a period of nearly ten years? And above all, they must be able to tell the Truth Commission whether politicians like Adriaan Vlok and PW Botha knew of and ordered certain operations. General Engelbrecht was known as the Vlakplaas sweeper. He was the policeman who had to cover up police ...

my mother that I would give her beautiful things. I would work for my mother. Now I did not get that chance to work for my mother. The government of Botha made me like this, like you see me ...