| Time | Summary | |
| 01:24 | In 1986 the security police were notching up so-called anti-terrorism successes all over the country, but in the Western Cape their record was poor and this man, Capt Riaan Bellingan was dispatched from the special counter-terrorism unit at Vlakplaas to help Cape Town security police improve their intelligence gathering network and their counter-terrorism strategies. | Full Transcript and References |
| 01:50 | [Vlakplaas placed Cape Town on the map] // He was accompanied to Cape Town by this Vlakplaas colleague, Constable Thapelo Mbelo and two askaris. Shortly after their arrival in Cape Town their first high profile operation in collaboration with Cape Town security police took place, the killing of the Gugulethu Seven. This week they applied for amnesty for those killings. | Full Transcript and References |
| 02:20 | There are different versions of what happened there that day. The police say they wanted to arrest the cadres but that things went wrong and they had to shoot them in self defence. The families say the cadres were ambushed and executed. We are here now with the Amnesty Committee of the Truth Commission to try and figure out what happened that day, because the problem facing the Truth Commission is that they have to make sense of conflicting versions coming from different policemen. | Full Transcript |
| 02:46 | While I was running in the direction of the crossing I came near a kombi and one of the so-called people identified by the askaris, these freedom fighters, it seemed as if he was throwing a hand grenade in my direction and then I shot him from near and he fell down. What precisely happened there I can’t remember. At that stage I thought my life was in danger. // It’s a bit awkward but just give us the details. When you shot this man, what did you see, where did you shoot him? // I shot him on the side of his head; that is what I gathered from the inquest. There was blood spouting out on the tar road and there was a lot of blood coming from his head. | Full Transcript |
| 03:48 | He shot twice. He first dragged him out then he shot him. // Mr. Chairman, I deny … I did not drag him from the vehicle. I deny his allegations. | Full Transcript |
| 04:05 | A man approached us raising his arms and he was talking in Xhosa saying that he’ll take us to where the rest of the group is. One sergeant from the riot unit, he was a white sergeant, said I should shoot this man. And before I shot this man, as he was raising his arms I saw his firearm, and therefore we disarmed him. The white sergeant, I told him that this man is going to take us to where the rest of the team is, but he just said I must shoot him. I shot him whilst he was lying on his back. I shot him in the head. Thereafter this sergeant told me that I should shift and he shot him in his stomach with the R1 rifle, whilst still lying on his back. // Could you please show us how he raised his arms? The applicant stood up holding his arms raised in the manner traditionally assumed when wishing to surrender, the hands-up position. // And is it correct that this person who approached you at no time attempted to shoot you? // He never tried to shoot us or even to reach for his firearm. | Full Transcript |
| 05:58 | But beyond the gruesome admissions to the fatal shots that each fired, Bellingan and Mbelo’s testimonies differ dramatically as to the wider circumstances. | Full Transcript |
| 06:08 | I knew that it would be impossible to arrest armed men. I knew that these men were going to shoot, because the words that were used are that they should be ‘eliminated.’ // What other words were used? // To be ‘taken out.’ // What other words were used? // They had to be ‘swept.’ // Now, according to your knowledge, what do these words mean? // It means killing. | Full Transcript |
| 07:00 | Mbelo at times contradicted Bellingan’s version that the shooting took place only when the plans to arrest went wrong and the police came under threat. He seemed to confirm the allegation that a deliberate ambush had been laid with a clear aim of killing the ANC cell. | Full Transcript |
| 07:18 | So is it correct then that your mission clearly was that you should go out there and that you should kill the freedom fighters? // According to the situation, yes it was so. | Full Transcript |
| 07:33 | Bearing in mind what is in our opinion, or in the opinion of the families, a poor attempt to arrest these individuals and bearing in mind that in the opinion of the families you had set out to counter ambush these individuals; it would appear that you in fact succeeded in doing so. What do you say about that? // After we set up the original ambush for them, we then withdrew from the operation. Thereafter they shot at us first; they attacked us and we were simply a lot more successful in actually countering this attack. That’s the way I see it. // That’s one perspective. The other perspective is that these individuals were simply unaware of the fact that you were going to launch this attack on them. What do you say about that? // I can’t comment on that. | Full Transcript |
| 08:43 | Bellingan admitted under cross examination that he could have given the order to shoot to kill but denied that it was a carefully planned ambush. He says the Gugulethu operation was the kind of operation that the police would carry out to pre-empt a bank robbery. | Full Transcript |
| 09:00 | My personal feeling was almost that is was a situation similar to having to foil a bank robbery. If you know that the people are armed, and the situation in the black townships was ungovernable at the time, I was of the opinion that this was not going to be a Sunday school picnic and that we would be shot at and we would not allow a single policeman to be killed that morning. So, I might have said to my juniors, look we are actually going to shoot them dead if they should raise their weapons and aim it at us, because I didn’t want to have a sort of a Trojan horse situation to the detriment of innocent people. We would have shot them dead. // And this group consisted of about 20 policemen, people with counter insurgency training. // That’s correct. And I approached people who had fought in the Rhodesian bush war and perhaps also in Namibia and who had been in the task force; I didn’t go there with a group of administrative staff. I used people who had experience, of thinking on ...more | Full Transcript |
| 10:05 | A strange twist in the horrible tale of the Gugulethu Seven is that of a video that police were compiling for the then State President PW Botha. The video was designed to illustrate Cape Town’s new success in counter-terrorism. Serious questions were asked about why the video crew was on standby to film the aftermath of the Gugulethu shooting if the plan was a simple one to arrest. | Full Transcript |
| 10:32 | The situation in Cape Town was such that the video unit was always present at scenes of unrest. | Full Transcript |
| 10:42 | But the Commission also wanted to know about responsibility. Bellingan took responsibility for the orders he gave although exactly what the nature of those orders were is still not clear. | Full Transcript |
| 10:53 | You must then accept the responsibility for the deaths of all seven individuals if your juniors in fact acted upon your instructions. // Mr. Williams is 100 percent correct, I Riaan Bellingan who was a sergeant at that time take full responsibility for everybody who cooperated with me: the askaris, Mbelo, and also the responsibility for those seniors who today are saying there was nothing wrong, they did not know me. Today I accept full responsibility for this whole operation. | Full Transcript |
| 11:33 | I want to put it to you Mr. Mbelo that you have tried to hide behind orders and circumstances to justify your conduct. // The main reason that I have come before the Commission is to tell this Committee as to what I know about the shooting and the part that I took, because the nation at large doesn’t know about what we were doing at that time. And I have come here prepared to face the music of whatever I’ve done in the past. | Full Transcript |
| 12:10 | Beyond the contradictory accounts and the spine chilling facts, both Mbelo and Bellingan gave an insight into the emotional effects and anger they feel now about the operation then. | Full Transcript |
| 12:24 | After what has been done to a person for what we’ve gone through everything for, we’ve given everything for a country and a political party. We came from Christian homes and then what happened to us afterwards, when the Generals and the Ministers did not support us, and I decided never ever again will I be interested in politics again and I’m educating my children also in that respect. | Full Transcript |
