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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 3 of Episode 28
| Time | Summary | | | 09:27 | The raid into Botswana that Craig Williamson was involved in was sadly not the only attack by the South Africans in that country. There were two others and the human toll of the three operations was heavy. | Full Transcript | | 09:40 | Good evening. Units of the South African Defence Force carried our raids on ANC targets in Gaborone, Botswana today. // Gen Viljoen told the news conference that the death toll included three trained women terrorists while two unidentified persons who fired on the South Africans from a vehicle might also have been killed. One woman and two children were injured in the cross fire. | Full Transcript and References | | 10:09 | At four o’clock that very afternoon after they were killed I opened the TV. They used to have news at four o’clock. At six o’clock I did the same, at seven the same and all the time they were showing the same pictures in Botswana of his bed. The one bedroom full of blood where they were lying and the TV shattered and so on, and things just thrown all over. And the cars damaged in the yard. And then I phoned Botswana and there was nobody to reply the phone and then I just told the father that I think they’re gone. | Full Transcript | | 10:51 | Most white South Africans were very proud of these actions of the Defence Force. But for Hilda Phahle it was her worst nightmare come true. Her son George lived in Gaborone. George’s brother Levi watched his family being killed by SADF special forces commandoes. // Levi watched from under the bed he was hiding when he saw them killing the brother and the wife and he heard them when one said, [are they dead] and the other one said ‘morsdood’ [stone dead]. Levi says from the time they got out of the kombi it was … ”George jou ma se die en jou ma se daardie, maak die deur oop, maak die wat-wat deur oop’ [George, you mother…, open the door!] and so on you see. So they knew where they were going, who they were going to kill there. They knew it was George. | Full Transcript | | 11:46 | George Phahle had worked as a courier for the ANC underground in Botswana. But the SADF raid was by no means as surgical as the SADF claimed. In his recent court case the former commander of Vlakplaas, Eugene de Kock testified that the commandoes involved in the raid were not able to bring back any evidence that those they killed had in fact been ANC members. They found no weapons or ANC literature in the houses they attacked. The sophisticated night sight for a RP7 rocket launcher they displayed to the media had in fact been De Kock’s farewell gift from Koevoet. And the two hand grenades they produced were also on loan from the Vlakplaas arsenal. | Full Transcript and References | | 12:33 | Botswana was never a training area. Most of the training was done in Angola and in Zambia. Botswana was a conduit I would say where people when they passed, coming from Zambia, from Zambia they’d pass through Botswana but without the Botswana government’s knowledge. We had to do this, we had no other alternative, because the war was not waged in Zambia, it was not waged in Botswana but it was waged inside the country. And so we had to find ways of infiltrating these people, our trained cadres from Botswana into, trained cadres from Zambia into Botswana and from Botswana they would hide them in different houses in Botswana and send them into the country. | Full Transcript | | 13:15 | Botswana was a crucial country for the ANC’s armed struggle, but living there was extremely dangerous. In 1986 the SADF again attacked Gaborone. // In the early hours of this morning strike aircraft and helicopters of the South African Air Force as well as a ground unit attacked ANC facilities in Harare, Lusaka and Gaborone. [We attacked two targets in Zimbabwe and one in Gaborone]. // And behind this clinical news report lays yet another intricate web of deception and lies. The 1986 raid into Botswana had been triggered by the discovery of this huge arms cash near Krugersdorp. But it was not an ANC’s arms cash as the generals claimed. Eugene de Kock says his Vlakplaas unit had in fact been asked to supply the weapons that were then planted. It was done in order for the SADF to justify their second attack on Gaborone. He says politicians like Pik Botha and President PW Botha knew about this elaborate plan. During the raid no weapons or literature was found in the houses that were ...more | Full Transcript | | 14:53 | When we read it we were shocked but that is what we always expected, because we knew we were dealing with a very brutal regime. So all the time our nerves will be up and we knew very well that anything could happen to us. And so if something has happened to a comrade we knew that of course it was coming, but when? We kept on asking, when is it going to happen to me? And so that’s how we used to live. | Full Transcript | | 15:15 | In 1988 the war came back to Gaborone. The SADF raid left people dead once again. // The four people killed in the raid were buried today. // This year the South African Defence Force made a submission to the Truth Commission acknowledging the Botswana raids. // The following external operations were carried out against the ANC and PAC bases and facilities: Mozambique, 30 January 1981, an attack on the ANC headquarters in the Matola area, Mozambique; Lesotho, 9th of December 1982… | Full Transcript and References | | 15:48 | As Christians we’ve got to accept what has come our way, more so that we cannot repair the damage. The only thing is for us to accept it and pray that such a thing never happens again. That’s all. | Full Transcript |
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