FOUR YOUTHS

... with poet / journalist Sandile Dikeni who provides some background on this practice. The programme also profiles the killing of three Bongulethu youths by police and evidence on the brutality of Bongulethu kitskonstabels. The episode ends with Gen Leon Mellet, former spokesperson of the ...

... April 1990 murder of Sam Chan and his family in Botswana; and a 1991 joint Vlakplaas operation that employed ex-Koevoet soldiers to attack and kill four alleged gun smugglers. The episode concludes with a segment on the former security policemen?s psychological ...

The Bongulethu three: three youths shot dead by police

On the 27th of April 1993, exactly one year before our first national democratic elections Nohombile Mphambani was killed by these seven youths. They said she was a member of the ADM, supported the tribal system and she was part of a plan to assassinate ANC leaders. // We went to her house. They ...

... and the father of one of the youths, Alfred Buthelezi. Buthelezi, the SDU allege, had given the order to kill Blanco and was an IFP sympathizer. Four youths were set free and Thusanang Rikabe managed to escape. The other seven were taken from this shack in which they were held captive and ...

Can you give us a reason why your policemen did not act regarding the abduction of either the four youths from the manse or of the two youths Lolo Sono and Sibuniso Tshabalala timeously? Can you give us a reason? // In that case it is negligence on the side of the public who knew but wouldn’t ...

Winnie’s sting was now in full flow. Football club members were sent to abduct the youths from Verryn’s church on the 29th of December 1988. With the others, he was hustled through the house to rooms here in Winnie’s back courtyard. Among the youths was the 14 year old activist Stompie ...

Next was Methodist Bishop Peter Storey who had been involved in trying to secure the release of the four kidnapped youths. Bishop Storey provided the Commission with details and diary entries, which gave a blow by blow account of events around the whole kidnapping drama.

... Together, they killed at least 65 people in the name of the apartheid state. We’ll tell you about 21 of these murders tonight. In July 1986 nine youths, the youngest 15 years old, were gunned down in KwaNdebele. They wanted to go into exile and become trained guerrillas Jacques Hechter told ...

Bishop Verryn told the Truth Commission that the youths had been abducted from his mission house while he’d been on holiday. For the first time in the eight years since Stompie’s death Bishop Verryn apologised to the boy’s mother for not having done enough to keep him safe.

Asvat told Winnie there was nothing he could do. Stompie and the other youths must be taken to hospital immediately. Winnie refused and the next day she summoned Asvat to her house.

Back at Winnie’s, Stompie and the other terrified youths were under guard. The effects of the previous night’s beatings were seen by Katiza.

According to Hechter the youths had already gone to KwaNdebele to escape harassment by the security police in Mamelodi. Mamasela knew where to find them. Mamasela took us to the address. Mamasela, Gouws and Oosthuizen then entered the house and the next moment I heard gunfire. It was organized, it ...

Soon after two youths entered the surgery and registered as patients. Two shots were fired. Four weeks after examining Stompie in this very same room, Dr Asvat laid dead on the floor. The funeral ceremonies were led by Dr Asvat’s elder brother, Ebrahim. Police swiftly said the motive for the ...

The pre-emptive strike has been argued as a political motive before. Last year we heard the story of the Nietverdiend Ten. Again youths from Mamelodi allegedly asked for guerrilla training and again they died a gruesome death. Whether the Committee grants these men amnesty or not there will, ...

It is true that most of the witnesses who testified here were lying. As far as I am concerned Richardson was lying. As far as I am concerned the two youths who claim that I gave them money to kill Dr Asvat were lying. As far as I’m concerned Morgan’s ludicrous statements made before you here ...

Today she is sad rather than bitter that her sister and mother died at the hands of her comrades. She believes the perpetrators were ill-disciplined youths who regarded anyone who did not toe the line as the enemy. // That time there was a misunderstanding between the youth in Duncan Village. So ...

... parents who continued to ask questions about where their children were. Perhaps the most sickening case to my memory involved the abduction of two youths by members of the club who were then brought to the Mandela home, where they were accused of being informers. On one of them the letter M was ...

Within days two Zulu youths were brought here, to Winnie Mandela’s house. She asked they be shown the location of Dr Asvat’s surgery. Their guide was Katiza.

... MK that is Umkhonto we Sizwe name of Mike to move around Mamelodi. He came to me one day and told me he was approached by some of the more militant youths who asked if he could not possibly organise for them to leave the country for ...