Apartheid rulers named

October 30, 1996
Issue 

Apartheid rulers named

Hard on the heels of the acquittal of the Magnus Malan and other senior military and political officials of the apartheid regime have come further accusations of former apartheid rulers ordering violence against anti-apartheid activists.

Testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on October 21, South Africa's former police commissioner, General Johan van der Merwe, said that in 1988, law and order minister Adriaan Vlok ordered him to organise the bombing of Khotso House in Johannesburg — which housed the South African Council of Churches and several trade unions — so that it would be damaged "to such an extent that it could no longer be utilised". Vlok told van der Merwe the order came direct from state president PW Botha. The bombing injured 23 people.

Two years earlier, police minister Louie le Grange approved a proposal from van der Merwe, then head of the security police, to covertly supply booby trapped grenades and landmines to activists. Van der Merwe believed Botha had also personally approved the operation. At least nine activists were killed by the devices.

Van der Merwe was testifying on behalf of five police operatives, members of the notorious "Vlakplaas" assassination squad, who are applying for amnesty for their role in at least 40 murders. The most senior among the group is Brigadier Jack Cronje, the former commander of the Vlakplaas police base from 1983-85. He is the highest ranking police officer to have applied for amnesty so far.

The five officers' lawyer told the commission that they "seriously doubted" former president FW de Klerk's claim to the TRC earlier this year that he and his cabinet were unaware of government-sponsored assassinations, murders, tortures, rapes and assaults. "We call upon the previous government and our superiors to explain certain orders given to us", the officers appealed.

In September, former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Koch, who has been charged with multiple counts of murder, told a court that the orders for his most reprehensible missions came from the highest offices in South Africa. He named two state presidents, four cabinet ministers and more than a dozen generals. De Koch said that in 1988 Botha ordered the bombing of Khotso House and, in 1993, de Klerk ordered an attack in the Transkei bantustan which resulted in the murder of five youths.

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