 |
News | Sport | TV | Radio | Education | TV Licenses | Contact Us |
|
News | Sport | TV | Radio | Education | TV Licenses | Contact Us |
COETZEE, AJAge Description I don’t expect the Mxenge family to forgive me because I don’t know how I ever in my life would be able to forgive a man like Dirk Coetzee. Alright, thank you, let’s go to the first question, Adri. // Adri Coetzee from Beeld. Mr. Ntsebeza, to follow up on that, are we ever going to know what happened in neighbouring states? Is that being investigated? // Yes it is being investigated. In fact, I have been in discussions with high ... ... commander of the police anti-terrorist unit at Vlakplaas lifted the lid on police death squads. ‘I murdered Mxenge’, confessed Captain Dirk Coetzee. ... Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee was supposed to testify this week, but he was prevented by legal technicalities. This is what he would have told the Commission. // Nick van Rensburg and his men poisoned him upon release, poisoned him and apparently he did not add enough poison according to ... ... and he was in pain. // Shortly after the morning’s ”Sanhedrin’ meeting at eight o’ clock, where the section chiefs met with General Johan Coetzee and Brigadier Jan du Preez, his second in charge, General van der Hofen personally congratulated me on the successful mission without him ... They weren’t the best behaved guys we had. They all smoked and all drank heavily. And everyone that smoked also smoked dagga. // You were not smoking at that stage? // No, I was not smoking, but drinking a lot. // Pillay was delivered into the hands of Dirk Coetzee at Vlakplaas. ... squads in South Africa in a South African court with the South African laws. It was just impossible. And the way they dealt with people like Dirk Coetzee; they made you part of the atrocities then once they push you to the side you’re isolated. If you might stand up and speak out inside South ... To make the assassination look like a robbery Mxenge’s car was driven to the Swazi border and set alight along with his personal belongings. // I don’t expect the Mxenge family to forgive me because I don’t know how I ever in my life would be able to forgive a man like Dirk Coetzee. Human rights lawyer and United Democratic Front activist, Griffiths Mxenge was killed by three askaris: Almond Nofemela, David Tshikalanga and the late Brian Ngqulunga. Dirk Coetzee and David Tshikalanga were convicted for the killing. Both have been granted amnesty. What I think we find difficult to understand is how this could take place, how people could die, could be tortured, could be abducted, could be buried and many of them; and people like yourself and others just didn’t know, weren’t aware of that these people were acting unlawfully or illegally ... Who gave you the instruction, to go and kill Mxenge? // Brigadier H. R. van der Hofen who was the then the regional commander of security, Port Natal, Durban. I was called in, or reported every morning at Brigadier Van der Hofen’s office and also in the afternoon for instructions, briefing and ... The second Maseru is a different operation. It was a Vlakplaas operation; it was led by Eugene de Kock. The operatives were all Vlakplaas operatives, a number of whom have applied for amnesty. The second raid occurred at a time in December of 1985 when the South African government was extremely ... As we entered into Gaborone I left Paul van Dyk and David Tshikalanga with a bakkie about one and a half street blocks away under a tree from the target house whilst Koos Vermeulen and myself with Almond Nofemela and Joe Mamasela proceeded to the house on the corner, right next to the target house. These are some of the faces of South Africa’s political killers. They want the Truth Commission to grant them amnesty. But why should they be set free instead of going to jail? The answer lies in the political settlement that brought us our democracy in 1994. I do believe in myself. I want to get truth, what happened in those days and in future, our children must know what happened in those days when our parents were still alive. All I remember is that in the morning the neighbours, I think the neighbours next door to me, came to the house and look me ... No plan, no envisaged plan, no joint venture of that nature was ever discussed with me at all. // I’m not aware of any case where the Defence Force and the police would have acted together internally and where people had been killed and had not been discussed with me. // I in my more than 35 ... Why did you kill Mxenge so brutally? // The intention was not to kill him brutally. It was to make the whole thing appear … it was to simulate robbery. But unfortunately in the scene of crime certain things develop that you don’t expect. Mxenge’s physical strength was undermined but when he ... Here is the place which they then later built where the ministers and Basie Smit and them braaid, had their Chivas Regal whiskey, congratulated the guys where the ‘potjiekos’ was made, you can see big fireplaces. If you have all the liquor and the meat that was absorbed here you can open a ... There’s one thing that I will have to live with till the day I day, it’s the corpses that I will have to drag with me to my grave, of the people whom I’ve killed. Remorse, I can assure you a lot, a hell of a lot. You have said that you would like one day to meet Mrs. Kondile and look her in the eye. // I would like to do that in future, yes sir. // Mrs. Kondile asked me to convey to you that that is an honour that she feels you do not deserve and that if you were really remorseful you would have not applied ... |
