Special Report Transcript Episode 25, Section 5, Time 35:19

At the amnesty hearings this week Gen Johan van der Merwe and Brig Jack Cronje told the nation why the grenades were booby trapped and who gave this order. It was a time when the ANC had stepped up the armed struggle. General van der Merwe said it was a reaction to an intensifying people’s war. In this war he said 270 policemen had been targeted and killed in townships between 1980 and 1990. Van der Merwe said reliable information had been received that a group of activists were planning a hand grenade attack on the house of a policeman and were awaiting the delivery of the grenades. It was his idea to jump the gun and provide the activists with the ammunition for their own deaths.

Notes: Gen Johan van der Merwe.; Scenes from violence on East Rand

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