BOTHA, JJ

Amnesty was granted to Koos Botha, former Conservative Party MP, for bombings committed during 1990 and 1991. These included the Hillview Primary School in Pretoria, post offices in Verwoerdburg and Krugersdorp and COSATU House in Pretoria.

... to the indictment the man who was with him in the car on the day he pulled the trigger was his friend and former Transvaal rugby forward, Calla ...

This was one of only two cases that Genl Johan van der Merwe testified about this week. He is applying for amnesty. So is Adriaan Vlok. Shirley Gunn, who has brought a civil claim against Vlok, will now sue former state president PW Botha as well.

Alright, Benedict you wanted to come in? // Benedict from Special Report, SABC. Why have people like PW Botha not been subpoenaed to come to the TRC? // Well they don’t have to be subpoenaed. You see, I think the whole idea of subpoenaing people is only for purposes of investigating and ...

This one guy he was just so bossies, he was actually amusing. I mean whenever you heard helicopters, I mean this is Voortrekkerhoogte; it’s like a military town, helicopters going all the time. This guy heard a helicopter, he would shoot under his bed and he would go into … this guy was … his ...

‘Elimineer,’ eliminate, ‘neutraliseer,’ neutralise, ‘uitwis,’ obliterate or wipe out.

Jack Cronje and four other security policemen, Jacques Hechter, Wouter Mentz, Paul van Vuuren and Roelf Venter are applying for amnesty for more than 40 murders. These were mostly Vlakplaas operations. Vlakplaas and the death squad activities of the police have been the focus of the most recent ...

‘This man, PW, is quite fearless, sometimes to a point that drives his security men to distraction. Threats, bomb scares, even two actual bomb explosions in Paris, but PW wants to go for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne.

We prepared ourselves for an onslaught against our people and on the morning of the 9th of October 1980 I heard on SABC news that a group of about 30 black people clad in PAC T-shirts had attacked whites on the Durban beach front. Since we’d already declared war against the National Party and as ...

The Seychelles, a tourist heaven. For years holiday makers have flocked to these islands strung out like jewels in the Indian Ocean. But in 1977 trouble came to paradise. Seychellois President Sir James Mancham was ousted in a coup led by Albert René. Mancham had been a friend of apartheid South ...

In 1987 Samuel Thwane joined Rocky Malebane Metsing’s People’s Progressive Party that opposed the government of Lucas Mangope in Bophuthatswana. // We had the support of the people. The whole of Bophuthatswana supported us. We were confidant until after the elections. After the results were ...

But I’m not here to apoligise, that’s my point with the so-called Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They want me to apologise. I’m not prepared to apologise.

There is not the slightest question as to its authenticity. There are even notes pasted by themselves at the back of this document in the handwriting of members of the delegation or members who attended the meeting. These are obviously notes as it’s only normally done at meetings of this nature ...

These words and phrases reflected the general reaction amongst the majority of white South Africans whenever a murder or bomb explosion by terrorists was announced. It was reasonable therefore that members of the security forces would have interpreted a phrase like ”wipe out the terrorists” to ...

‘Third Force: Operation Marion’ // Now how did it happen, why did it happen?

Did you know that there were no tigers in Africa? // If there were, you wouldn’t have been one of them.

I have no evidence to indicate to me that on any occasion the cabinet that approved the State Security Council decisions ever approved any unlawful act. It would in any case not have been recorded.

No but you [Max du Preez] are always in front to do wrong things. He’s one of the gentlemen I don’t like.

‘He’s a very neat and a very tidy man. That is, I suppose, the reason why he always chooses and selects his own clothes.’

Massacre has become a cheap word in South Africa. There have been too many instances where a dozen or more people were killed in one incident of political violence. But there is no other word for what happened in the Natal midlands in 1990. 200 people died in the single biggest massacre in our ...