TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 6

Subsection 12

POST-1990 VIOLATIONS

Sabotage of the transitional process

121. The Committee received thirty-five applications from members of right-wing organisations in respect of a range of violations committed with the aim of sabotaging the process of negotiations in the country. The violations, for the most part, consisted of attacks on individuals and included targeted assassinations. Most (71 %) were refused amnesty.

122. The Committee received forty-one applications in respect of attacks on symbolically important targets such as schools, business premises and court buildings. Most of these (95 %) were granted.

123. The lifting of the banning orders on the liberation movements in February 1990 triggered a spate of attacks by right-wingers on black persons around the country. At the end of November 1990, the AWB adopted the so-called ‘white-by-night’ policy, in terms of which black people were denied the right to remain in the then ‘white areas’ after 21h00. AWB members set up roadblocks and tried to enforce a ‘white-by-night’ curfew in the small towns in which they were most organised.

124. Photographers and journalists were thrown out of AWB meetings, some severely injured in beatings and attacks.

125. Schools were targeted for sabotage attacks. Following announcements that the Group Areas Act was to be repealed and schools would be opened to all race groups, a number of schools were destroyed in a series of bomb blasts.

Targeted killings

126. In 1990, two AWB members from Potgietersrus killed a civic member, Mr Max Serame, because of his alleged role in a boycott action in the town. Mr Jan Harm Christiaan Roos [AM0801/96] and Mr A J Vermaak [AM0818/96] claimed they were in a position to make their own decisions, even though direct commanders did not ask them to kill Serame. Amnesty was refused on the grounds that the attack had no political objective.

127. Earlier that year, J W Rautenbach [AM0412/96] murdered Mr Iponse Beyi Dlamini in Lamontville. He was refused amnesty on the grounds that the attack had no political objective.

The killing of Chris Hani

128. SACP and ANC leader Mr Chris Hani was one of the most popular and influential political figures in South Africa. He was gunned down in the driveway of his home in Dawnpark, Boksburg in the former Transvaal on 10 April 1993, the Saturday of the Easter weekend. Polish immigrant Mr Janusz Walus [AM0271/96] was found to have fired the shots that killed Mr Hani and Conservative Party member of the President’s Council, Mr Clive Derby-Lewis [AM0271/96], was found to have planned and conspired with Walus to execute the assassination. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment and applied for amnesty.

129. Walus and Derby-Lewis were both thought to have strong ties with members of two international right-wing organisations, namely the World Preservatist Movement (WPB) and the World Apartheid Movement (WAM). Despite suspicion of a larger conspiracy behind Hani’s death, the Commission found no evidence that the two convicted killers took orders from either of these international groups, nor from members of the security forces or higher up in the right-wing echelons.

130. Both applicants and numerous other witnesses testified at a hearing that lasted for several weeks. In addition, a substantial volume of documents and exhibits as well as full written arguments were placed before the Amnesty Committee.

131. The application was strenuously opposed by the Hani family and the SACP.