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Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
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Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
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Special Report
Transcripts for Section 2 of Episode 10
| Time | Summary | | | 01:33 | Dirk Coetzee’s death squad revelations in the weekly newspaper Vrye Weekblad in November ’89. According to Coetzee he and his four man death squad assassinated this man, Griffiths Mxenge in 1981. ‘Nonsense’, police said. ‘The man was crazy, Vlakplaas never killed anyone.’ // A claim by a former police captain that he led a hit squad that eliminated government opponents has been firmly rejected by former Police Commissioner General Johan Coetzee. | Full Transcript and References | | 02:03 | Attorney-General Tim McNally was first appointed to investigate the death squad revelations. He found no substance in the allegations. After state president FW de Klerk received the McNally report the Harms Commission of inquiry was appointed. Coetzee testified before the Commission in South Africa house in London. // ‘Coetzee het getuig voor die kommissie dat hy van Brigadier Van der Hofen - Johannes van der Hofen - wat die veiligheidshoof was in die Durban gebied, opdrag gekry het om Mxenge te laat vermoor. Dit moes glo na ‘n rooftog lyk en daarom moes hy nie geskiet word nie.’ [Coetzee testified to the Commission that he received orders from Brigadier Van der Hofen - Johannes van der Hofen - the head of security in the Durban region, to have Mxenge killed. It had to look like a robbery and so Mxenge was not to be shot.] | Full Transcript | | 02:38 | McNally was appointed to lead evidence at the Harms Commission. Louis Harms also found that Coetzee had lied and was mentally unstable. Despite the fact that two of Coetzee’s death squad members David Tshikalanga and Albert Nofemela also admitted their complicity in the murder of Mxenge, nobody was ever charged or apprehended. // McNally decided not to prosecute me because he didn’t feel like it. He was part of the cover up from the Justice Department to assist the very security police and the then government to cover up. There’s no other explanation for it. | Full Transcript | | 03:11 | As a result of Coetzee’s revelations the Vlakplaas counter-insurgency unit was exposed and its commander Col Eugene de Kock charged with murder. // De Kock said recently in Port Elizabeth Supreme Court that Vlakplaas was a death squad and that he was apartheid’s most effective assassin. This week, seven years after Coetzee’s revelations he is suddenly charged with the murder of Mxenge, by the same man who found him to be a liar, Tim McNally. Albert Nofemela and David Tshikalanga are charged with him. | Full Transcript | | 03:44 | Politics has got something to do with it. That’s my feeling, my gut feeling. Because, you must also remember that my application for amnesty was submitted by hand to Dr Alex Boraine at quarter to three on the 5th of March this year in Cape Town, and I took Albert Nofemela’s application with, as well as David Tshikalanga’s. So, there must be an ulterior motive for this or some sinister motive. | Full Transcript | | 04:10 | The other member of the death squad, Joe Mamasela, has always publicly denied any complicity. Until two months ago when he admitted on this programme that he had participated in killing Mxenge at a soccer field in Umlazi, near Durban. // Who was the first man you had killed? // It was Griffiths Mxenge. | Full Transcript | | 04:30 | Despite Mamasela’s very recent confession he is the state witness against Coetzee. The three policemen who spilled the beans on police atrocity seven years ago are being charged. Mamasela refuses to apply for amnesty, while the other three have done so. // Mamasela only came out recently with the truth after misleading the Harms and the McNally Commission. He had no other choice. Why he was then state witness, if you want to stick to black and white, and not David Tshikalanga and Albert Nofemela too, I can’t say. Why, in the Motherwell case, in the Magnus Malan trial, in the Eugene de Kock trial perpetrators had stood up for the truth was used as state witnesses and Dirk Coetzee who is the first one and so far, the only one, the only perpetrator who stood up for the truth, as a witness is not used as a witness but is charged, I would like that […] from McNally. | Full Transcript | | 05:27 | The decision to charge Coetzee raises an important question for perpetrators. Is it worthwhile to confess? // I can tell you, my message to the rest of the Dirk Coetzee’s still sitting out there and didn’t stand up so far is: wait, look at what happened to Dirk Coetzee, watch me close, see what’s happening in the next few weeks and months and then make your decision. Then decide for yourself whether it’s really truth and reconciliation, whether it’s really transparency, whether there’s really a will in the new government and a new South Africa towards peace and reconciliation and whether it’s a question of revenge. | Full Transcript |
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