TRC Episode 17, Part 01

This episode focuses on the HRV Committee hearings held in Uitenhage and Durban during the last week of August. Segments from Uitenhage include the March 1985 Langa township massacre and the violent clashes between UDF supporting Amabutho and Africanist Ama-Afrika groups, following the forced removal of thousands of Langa residents to KwaNobuhle. The Durban hearings cover the August 1985 Umlazi cinema massacre - when armed IFP soldiers attacked mourners during a memorial service for human rights lawyer Victoria Mxenge -- and the January 1987 KwaMakhutha massacre - implicating the SADF and IFP Caprivi trainees. A segment on the Amnesty Committee hearings held in Durban (12 to 14 August) focus on the killing of ANC members Samuel Msweli and Michael Mthethwa by former policeman Hendrik Steyn. The final segment explains the structure of the TRC and covers the first amnesty granted to Boy Diale and Christopher Makgale, who were imprisoned for kidnapping and killing Chief Glad Mokgatle. // Two convicted murderers walked free this weekend. They were the first perpetrators of gross human rights violations to be granted amnesty by the Truth Commission. Amnesty is our focus later on in this programme. Tonight we take you to KwaZulu-Natal where the Truth Commission and the Supreme Court concentrated on the KwaMakhutha massacre of 1987. But first, the Truth Commission hearings in the Eastern Cape on resistance and repression in the mid-eighties. By early 1985 tension in Uitenhage's townships had reached boiling point. On February 19, Minister of Law and Order, Louis Le Grange visited Uitenhage with police Commissioner Johan Coetzee. The town's senior police officers, known as the order group, explained that soft weaponry for riot control was no longer effective and stronger measures should be used. As from March 15 police patrols were no longer issued with teargas, rubber bullets and birdshot; they were given real ammunition. They knew it wouldn't be long before their new methods were tested. But perhaps they didn't predict the outcry that ensued. Jann Turner reports on the funeral march that turned into mayhem.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• truth
• reconciliation
• sabc
• special assignment
• max du preez
• south africa
• apartheid
• human rights
• violations
• murder
• abduction