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DU PLESSIS, PCAge Description Mining was South Africa’s first modern industry and was crucially shaped by the colonial and the racial hierarchy of the day. Migrant labour, job reservation, wage distribution, housing, health care and other conditions of service were racially described. The racial organisation of work was ... Two men dominated this week’s amnesty hearing into the 1985 murders of the Port Elizabeth leaders known as the Pebco Three. The Centenary Hall in New Brighton was cramped daily by residents and activists who came to hear security policemen Gideon Niewoudt and Vlakplaas askari Joe Mamasela speak ... When you reported that death to Mr. Snyman you were speaking about something you do not have factual knowledge of, because you did not witness it - the death. // That’s correct. // I put it to you that the applicants accepted Mr. Koole and Mr. Mogoai and to a lesser extend Mr. Beeslaar did ... It was, as I said, a very very unpleasant event in my life and I would not have been able to put them through unnecessary physical pain. // These people were high-profile people; they were learned people. They were politically active and they had no fear of the security branch, neither did they ... The fact that he was in a wheelchair, did he attend meetings in his wheelchair and address the meetings from his wheelchair? // Yes that is correct. They transported him from one meeting to the next where he addressed these meetings and used as an example that whatever the system wished to do to ... It sounds to me like a totally different incident Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mamasela was not there. // Was he one of the askaris? // I believe so, I am not a 100 percent sure, but I believe he was present. // I had no knowledge or information in that regard. … Captain Hechter, Sergeant Van der Westhuyzen and Slang, his name was Danny Sihlale questioned him. We used a gas mask, assaulted him and executed electrical shocks on him to gain information. He was a great ANC activist. He had thrown several petrol bombs in Mamelodi and he was involved in ... On the night of June 27, 1985 Matthew Goniwe, Sparrow Mkonto, Fort Calata and Sicelo Mhlauli left a UDF meeting in Port Elizabeth and set out to drive home to Cradock. They were never seen alive again. Their mutilated, charred corpses were discovered days later in three different places along the ... And do you believe that the murder of the Pebco Three was warranted. // At that stage yes. What was the content of this note? // It was to inform the ANC, it was directed to a person to inform the ANC that firstly he had been arrested and secondly that he pretended to be an informer, that at this stage he had provided no information which would harm any ANC member. Port Elizabeth was ungovernable. And I want to go even further and say that Pebco was in control here. // The activists were winning the war, or had already done so. There was feedback from the secretariat, the Security Council, which was received by the JMC to the effect that the government was ... Twelve years, Mr. Mamasela you were part of the security police in South Africa. Is that right? // I was made part of I was not part of, I was made part of against my will, against my political conviction. // Yes, we’ll get to that … against you political conviction. // Yes. So what was your ... What I’m saying is that we didn’t kidnap them to interrogate them. We kidnapped them to kill them. ... it that copies will be made for the Committee, but may I read out the relevant passage? Listen carefully Mr. Derby-Lewis what your colleague Mr. DP du Plessis said. Who is mister DP du Plessis? // He was the member of Parliament for Wonderboom. // It’s Wednesday the 21st of October 1992 at page ... ‘I call the applicant Mr Hermanus Barend du Plessis as the first witness in these proceedings.’ // Captain Hermanus du Plessis, Gen Nic van Rensburg, Gen Gerrit Erasmus and Sgt Johannes Raath, who have all since retried are seeking amnesty for their part in Sizwe Kondile’s death. Former ... Snyman interpreted his conversation with Minister Le Grange as sanction to eliminate activists. Colonel Hermanus du Plessis came to him and said they’d run out of legal options to contain militants in the Port Elizabeth area. Du Plessis suggested that the only option was elimination. Snyman did ... This week, almost a year later, the four policemen Nicolas Janse van Rensburg, Hermanus Barend De Plessis, Johannes Gottfried Raath and Gerhard Nicolas Erasmus came to ask for amnesty for the murder. They never spoke at the hearing. Their lawyers argued that Dirk Coetzee’s amnesty application ... Coetzee also contradicts the policemen on other crucial aspects such as who was the man who pulled the trigger. Van Rensburg, Du Plessis, Erasmus and Roth all insist that it was a Sgt Roy Otto of Vlakplaas. Dirk Coetzee denies this and Sgt Otto has since committed suicide. The former Vlakplaas boss ... Snyman and Du Plessis were not there when the three were executed. The sequence of the executions was reported by Van Zyl who says after their abduction the men were taken to Post Chalmers, a disused police station in Cradock. The next day, May the ninth they were fed, drugged, shot dead and their ... Du Plessis and Van Rensburg presented a plan to General Erasmus to have the two activists eliminated. // And what is the ultimate conclusion which the three of you reached? // Our final conclusion was that there was no other way, detention or any other thing than to eliminate this people. // And ... |
