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Topic: Vlakplaas

In the News (Thu 16 Feb 12)

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	Vlakplaas and the murder of Griffiths Mxenge
		While I was at Vlakplaas, the chief of Section C was G.G. Viktor, later to become Maj. Gen.
		Vlakplaas is a farm, seven kilometres from Erasmia, on the Schurveberg road west of Pretoria which had been hired by the police in 1978.
		At Vlakplaas I was present during various conversations between Viktor and friends from the Rhodesian Special Branch.
	www.geocities.com /odjobman/coetzee.htm?200516 (4333 words)

	man
		PRETORIA -- A former Vlakplaas operative yesterday told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission here that he was instructed to discharge himself from hospital in order to assist with the elimination of a colleague.
		Vlakplaas, a farm outside Pretoria, was a security police base during apartheid.
		The TRC earlier heard from former Vlakplaas commander Eugene De Kock that Ngqulunga was killed after he had become emotionally unstable and made contact with the African National Congress.
	www.dispatch.co.za /1999/09/16/southafrica/MAN.HTM (338 words)

	Telegraph \| News \| Witch doctors 'cleanse' Vlakplaas
		VLAKPLAAS, the notorious farm used covertly by the South African state for murder and torture under apartheid, saw blood spilled again yesterday as witch doctors slaughtered livestock to exorcise its evil spirits.
		Vlakplaas, a pretty, 250-acre farm only 20 minutes' drive from Pretoria but hidden by a ring of mountains, has yet to have its full history revealed.
		The event at Vlakplaas was intended to pave the way for the farm being turned into a museum and a centre for the training of witch doctors.
	www.telegraph.co.uk /news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/17/wvlak17.xml (467 words)

	vlakplaas
		De Kock, who was giving TRC members a guided tour of Vlakplaas, said he had "quite a lot of mixed feelings" about being back on the farm -- which he last visited in 1995.
		Smit, who lives on the farm with his wife and two children, said he was not aware of Vlakplaas' history when he became the caretaker about three years ago.
		Vlakplaas, which became a special police base in 1979, is still owned by the state, Smit said.
	www.dispatch.co.za /1999/06/17/southafrica/VLAKPLAA.HTM (251 words)

	The Herald : News
		A FORMER Vlakplaas operative who testified against Motherwell bomber Gideon Nieuwoudt in his trial for the 1989 killings, has been called to testify by Nieuwoudt’s defence team at the special amnesty hearing in Port Elizabeth today.
		The evidence of former warrant officer Lionel Snyman — who was once sent for psychiatric observation for “hearing voices” in his head — is expected to be the last witness to be called in the hearing before the various legal teams present their closing arguments in September.
		Nieuwoudt and former Vlakplaas members Wahl du Toit and Marthinus Ras are making a second attempt at amnesty for the 1989 Motherwell bombing in which three fl security policemen and an “askari”.
	www.theherald.co.za /herald/2004/07/22/news/n12_22072004.htm (468 words)

	SABCnews.com - entertainment/culture (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Some 700 traditional healers are going to camp along the Hennops River bank at Vlakplaas this weekend to debate its future and to perform reconciliation rituals.
		But by the time he got to see Vlakplaas himself, the cells were gone and only the caretaker, Louis Smit, was there.
		in Vlakplaas, that death affects a whole lot of people, I don't know how many died and were tortured, and carry this thing in their head, but it's deep-seated in the nation, we have to uproot it.
	www.sabcnews.com /entertainment/culture/0,2172,25276,00.html (543 words)

	The Herald : News
		Lionel Snyman, one of three Vlakplaas operatives involved in the 1989 incident, was called by Nieuwoudt’s legal team to endorse the claim by the former Port Elizabeth security police intelligence chief that the bombing was politically motivated.
		He testified how Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock had sanctioned the involvement of Snyman and his colleagues in the 1989 operation, in which three security policemen and an askari died.
		In a statement issued at the hearing by lawyer Jan Wagener, who represents both him and Nieuwoudt, the former commissioner said he was not involved in a single incident brought against De Kock in his criminal trial in 1995 and 96.
	www.theherald.co.za /herald/2004/07/23/news/n11_23072004.htm (667 words)

	AEGiS-AFP News: SAfrica-Vlakplaas: S. African traditional leaders 'transform' former death squad base - ...
		VLAKPLAAS, South Africa, Dec 16 (AFP) - Some 600 South African traditional leaders, wearing animal skins and beating drums, gathered on national reconciliation day Sunday for a healing ceremony at Vlakplaas, once the secret base of apartheid-era hit squads infamous for torture and executions.
		From Vlakplaas they deployed "Askaris", captured fighters from the liberation movements who were turned against their former comrades, on deadly missions.
		He also testified that another Askari who had threatened to go public about Vlakplaas was murdered and buried on the farm by his white bosses.
	www.aegis.com /NEWS/AFP/2001/AF0112A9.html (647 words)

	SABCnews.com - south_africa/crime1justice (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Vlakplaas was fighting for the National Party government.
		One person paying with his life for every violation that Vlakplaas committed in the name of the National Party, Christianity and apartheid is Eugene de Kock.
		However despite this dark past of the place, traditional healers who met at the area over the weekend to talk about Vlakplaas future and its cleansing, agreed that it should become a centre for traditional healing and reconciliation.
	www.sabcnews.com /south_africa/crime1justice/0,2172,25567,00.html (950 words)

	Summary of Events in Lesotho - 2nd quarter 1996
		Vlakplaas is a farm south-west of Pretoria, which, as had now become well-known from the TRC, had been the centre of covert operations of an apartheid murder squad led by Eugene de Kock, together with white police and paid fl associates known as ‘askaris’.
		Instead an article signed by S. Ramonate made new allegations, in particular that dissident members of the LLA (one such was Lethole Matela) were ‘sold’ at Vlakplaas to be given to Leabua Jonathan to be killed at Setibing, the mountain training area of the army.
		For example the Vlakplaas ‘askari’ Joe Mamasela alleged that Ntsu Mokhehle had been at Vlakplaas early in 1981, but he was not used against South Africans, rather he was directing his action towards Lesotho.
	www.trc.org.ls /events/events19.964.htm (6412 words)

	Vlakplaas link to Zuma raids: South Africa: Zuma files: News24 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Johannesburg - A former boss of the notorious Vlakplaas has been drawn into last week's raids on the properties of dismissed deputy president Jacob Zuma.
		Former general Krappies Engelbrecht, who was also the commanding officer of Brixton murder and robbery unit, works for a company the Scorpions use for the forensic analysis of computer information.
		At his trial, Eugene de Kock, former commanding officer of Vlakplaas, accused Engelbrecht of being present when De Kock was told to "flatten" the house of Sam Chand and his family in Botswana.
	www.news24.com /News24/South_Africa/Zuma/0,,2-7-1840_1759294,00.html (415 words)

	Sites
		The role of “turning” ANC operatives into Askaris, the role of “fighting organised crime in Hillbrow” and the role in crime and gun-running as well as the Third Force activities culminating in the arrest of Eugene de Kock in 1994 and his subsequent sentencing to 212 years plus two life sentences in prison.
		The Governments role in the activities at Vlakplaas are examined and the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission discussed.
		The link between the attitudes of the operatives at Vlakplaas with the 16th December are made.
	www.spearofthenation.co.za /One_Site.asp?SiteID=10 (313 words)

	Violence: The role of the security forces - Jacques Pauw
		He was the founder of the Vlakplaas hit squad unit where he was implicated in various atrocities and the killing of anti-apartheid activists.
		He was the architect of using "turned" guerillas against the ANC and masterminded the raids on Matola in Maputo and Maseru in the early eighties.
		Unless the authorities remove the Hermanus du Plessis's from the force, disband units like Vlakplaas and start a healing process among policemen emerging from the previous era, the deep distrust in the SAP and their complicity in the violence will continue.
	www.csvr.org.za /papers/pappauw.htm (2456 words)

	PR - 13 Mar 98 - ADVISORY: EXHUMATION AT VLAKPLAAS (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Ngqulunga was later tortured and killed by his own handlers at Vlakplaas in 1987, allegedly under orders from Colonel Eugene de Kock, when they felt he was becoming a security risk to them.
		All journalists who wish to cover the exhumation should meet the TRC team at the farm gate in Vlakplaas from 10 in the morning or they should ask for directions at the nearby Erasmia Police Station.
		The Vlakplaas farm is midway between Brits, Johannesburg and Pretoria.
	www.doj.gov.za /trc/pr/1998/p980313b.htm (303 words)

	BIACS2
		The DVD Vlakplaas (1999/2000) is the sequel of Vlakplaas: 2 June 1999 (drive-by shooting) the panoramic photographic series which Ractliffe ended up realizing with shots taken on the day of South Africa’s second democratic elections and with TRC audio footage for sound.
		Taken together, the many iterations of the Vlakplaas project form a counter-monument to the memory of the victims of the segregationist regime.
		By substituting fantasmatic representations of horror with banal images of normalcy, it also uses the de-historicized and de-dramatized landscape of Apartheid crimes as a blank canvas onto which to project the scenes of others crimes that are currently beeing perpetrated worldwide.
	www.fundacionbiacs.com /site_en/artist-pages/69_artist.htm (319 words)

	Assassin recounts missions against foes of apartheid (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		But the former death squad leader, who was convicted of six murders and 83 other charges last month, offered no apologies and showed no remorse as he testified in court for mitigation of sentence.
		Indeed, the head of the infamous police counterinsurgency unit at Vlakplaas, a grassy farm west of Pretoria, boasted of his macabre exploits -- from kidnapping to sabotage.
		He said, for example, that he secretly provided anti-apartheid guerrillas with grenades that would explode as soon as the pin was pulled.
	www.chron.com /content/chronicle/world/96/09/17/safrica.html (644 words)

	Toward Freedom - Inside the TRC (6/99) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		DeKock's trial provided significant insights into the modus operandi of Vlakplaas, a government-sponsored hit squad responsible for a 12-year reign of terror, as well as crucial information about several acts perpetrated by operatives working within what was then known as C Section in the South African Police.
		To confirm DeKock's charges about Vlakplaas and its operatives, it was essential to corroborate his statements and present allegations by victims and survivors to the key commanders and operatives.
		Conceding that the ambush which led to the killings was planned and orchestrated by Vlakplaas operatives working with Lt. Liebenberg of the Cape Town security police, Mbelo stated that the order was to "sweep" (kill) the intended targets.
	towardfreedom.com /home/content/view/101/63 (4414 words)

	ZA@Play
		I thought there would be enough material there to evoke the image “Vlakplaas” had activated in the public imagination.
		But when I got there, the Vlakplaas I was looking for was nowhere to be found — just an innocuous farmhouse, surrounded by a country landscape with flowering cosmos, next to the Hennops river.
		I decided to go back on June 2 1999, the day of the second democratic election, to use that day to mark something of the significance of Vlakplaas in relation to the shift to democracy.
	www.chico.mweb.co.za /art/2004/2004jul/040716-framed.html (1555 words)

	Title page for ETD etd-03232005-132023
		The study was carried out between August 2000 and June 2001, in the Northern Province of South Africa at Nooitgedacht ranch (24° 33’ S and 28° 36’ E), where calves were vaccinated against B.
		Vlakplaas, which had been operated for 14 years with relaxed tick control, probably had sufficient numbers of vector ticks for frequent transmission and maintenance of endemic stability to B.
		At Nooitgedacht, however, livestock farming had been interrupted for three years before it was resumed in 1999 and it is postulated that the tick population had been substantially reduced due to lack of hosts to a level insufficient for the establishment and maintenance of endemic stability to B.
	upetd.up.ac.za /thesis/available/etd-03232005-132023 (377 words)

	Business Day - News Worth Knowing
		Vlakplaas victims’ relatives gather to mark ‘day of the disappeared’
		RELATIVES of activists who disappeared at the hands of the security forces during apartheid gathered at Vlakplaas in Erasmia yesterday mark the International Day of the Disappeared.
		The outhouses have barred windows, where blindfolded prisoners — mostly Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres — were kept to await torture.
	www.businessday.co.za /articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A86816 (567 words)

	GOLDEN HANDSHAKES PAID TO VLAKPLAAS MEMBERS (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		The African National Congress is deeply concerned about allegations that three senior members of the Vlakplaas "Askari" counter-intelligence unit each received a "golden handshake" of R1,2 million on retirement from the police earlier this year.
		Lieutenant-Colonel Eugene De Kock, Lieutenant-Colonel Koos Vermeulen and Captain Paul van Dyk have all left the South African police under a cloud of very serious allegations that they were involved in the planning and execution of attacks and murders against pro-democracy activists and ANC members.
		The ANC gives notice that we will not rest until the full truth about the Vlakplaas "Askari" counter-intelligence unit is made public and those who have committed crimes are brought to book.
	www.anc.org.za /ancdocs/pr/1993/pr1108.html (331 words)

	The Militant - 10/7/96 -- Apartheid Killer Turns On Masters Hit squad commander names former South African ...
		Col. Eugene de Kock, commander of the notorious Vlakplaas police death squad, named in court former South African presidents P.W. Botha and F.W. de Klerk as having approved "hits" against apartheid's opponents.
		In August de Kock was convicted of six murders, two counts of conspiracy to murder, one of attempted murder, one of culpable homicide, and other charges, including 66 counts of fraud.
		The Vlakplaas unit took its name from a farm outside Pretoria where anti-apartheid fighters were taken to be tortured and killed.
	www.themilitant.com /1996/6035/6035_6.html (1530 words)

	Green Left - Apartheid rulers named
		Van der Merwe was testifying on behalf of five police operatives, members of the notorious "Vlakplaas" assassination squad, who are applying for amnesty for their role in at least 40 murders.
		The most senior among the group is Brigadier Jack Cronje, the former commander of the Vlakplaas police base from 1983-85.
		In September, former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Koch, who has been charged with multiple counts of murder, told a court that the orders for his most reprehensible missions came from the highest offices in South Africa.
	www.greenleft.org.au /1996/252/13146 (388 words)

	Summary page
		This episode consists of a number of segments: Brian Mitchell tries to reconcile with the Trust Feed community in a face-to-face meeting; HRV hearings into torture; and a segment on the history of unequal education and whether the TRC ought to have dealt with that as a gross human rights abuse.
		There is a segment on the criminal conviction of Vlakplaas operatives Dirk Coetzee, Almond Nofomela and David Tshikalange, which occurred before the decisions on their amnesty applications have been made.
		The first segment attends to the process of exhumations, discusses the role of the TRC investigative unit, and shows footage of bodies unearthed at Vlakplaas, Boshoek farm (where more bodies than expected are found), and Thabazimbi.
	www.law.yale.edu /trc/view_all_requests.asp (6759 words)

	iafrica.com \| news \| sa news De Kock claims rejected
		Former police commissioner Johan van der Merwe has rejected allegations by former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock that he is protecting police generals of the apartheid era, the SABC reported on Thursday.
		However, Van der Merwe said he was still of the opinion that De Kock should be pardoned and get amnesty in the light of the 33 Pan Africanist Congress members who received a presidential pardon in 2002.
		A former Vlakplaas member Lionel Snyman was to give evidence at the amnesty rehearing on Thursday.
	iafrica.com /news/sa/336650.htm (284 words)

	AMNESTY HEARING: FORMER VLAKPLAAS OPERATIVES
		The amnesty hearing of two former Vlakplaas operatives in relation to the Guguletu 7 incident in 1986 will continue tomorrow, Tuesday 3 February, in Cape Town.
		The hearing was postponed in November last year, when the Amnesty Committee decided to give one the witnesses, from former Vlakplaas operative, Mr Jimmy Mbane, an opportunity to obtain legal representation before he is questioned.
		The two amnesty applicants are a former sergeant at Vlakplaas, Wilhelm Riaan Bellingan and Constable Thapelo Johannes Mbelo.
	www.info.gov.za /speeches/1998/98205_0w5699810178.htm (397 words)

	ACCUSATIONS LEVELLED AGAINST ANC PROVINCIAL CHAIRPERSON, CDE SBU NDEBELE BY CLIFFORD NKUNA, FORMER VLAKPLAAS OPERATIVE (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		The African National Congress has been observing and analysing with interest, developments surrounding the allegations propagated by a discredited former Vlakplaas operative, Clifford Nkuna against Cde Sbu Ndebele, Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Kwa - Zulu Natal, implicating him in the trial of the murder of KwaNongoma mayor.
		These fabrications, from an untrustworthy former Vlakplaas operative came as a bolt from the blue to the ANC.
		Nkuna's statements in court, a former Vlakplaas operative are fully understandable as half of his entire life has been dedicated to serving the interests of those hostile to the ANC.
	www.anc.org.za /ancdocs/pr/2001/pr0719.html (396 words)

	South African Policeman Found Guilty of Five Murders
		Now 48, the burly, bespectacled officer headed the Vlakplaas police anti-insurgency squad - known as the C-10 unit - from a placid farm west of Pretoria for a decade until the group was ordered disbanded in 1993.
		The unit's most infamous action was sending a booby-trapped tape cassette player to Dirk Coetzee, who preceded De Kock as commander of Vlakplaas but later went public about its illegal operations.
		Coetzee refused to accept the mailed package but his lawyer was killed when it was delivered to him.
	www-tech.mit.edu /V116/N35/southafrica.35w.html (460 words)

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