TRC Episode 10, Part 01

This episode focuses on the HRV Committee hearings held in Mmabatho on the 8th of July 1996. A large proportion of cases heard at the TRC occurred in the Huhudi township near Vryburg in the former 'independent' homeland of Bophuthatswana. Segments include the killing of Frieda Mabalane by comrades, incidents of Huhudi youth and civic organisation members tortured by police, an interview with a group of former vigilantes, the February 1988 Bophuthatswana coup attempt headed by Rocky Malebane and the People's Progressive Party, and lastly, the March 1994 invasion of Bophuthatswana by armed AWB members, who were forced to withdraw by the Bophuthatswana Defence Force (BDF) with support from the SADF. AWB members opened fire on civilians and were themselves injured in the ensuing shootout, during their retreat two injured AWB members were shot in cold blood by a BDF soldier. Other segments include Vlaakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee being charged for the murder of Griffiths Mxenge, seven years after Coetzee's death squad revelations and an interview with former security police general, Herman Stadler, who submitted a document to the TRC defending the crimes committed by security police agents during apartheid. // For three months the little people, the ordinary citizens, have been showing their pain in public. It seemed for a while as if the Truth Commission was little more than group therapy for victims. It is becoming a new ball game now. Cynicism and mockery are making way for a realisation that the Truth Commission might be the only option for those with blood on their hands. Dozens of security policemen are now running to lawyers to ask about amnesty. And this week, a former security police general submitted a weighty document to the Commission to try and convince South Africans that the liberation movements were also evil. We give General Herman Stadler an opportunity to speak at the end of the programme. // Bophuthatswana, March 1994, the dishonourable death of these three AWB militiamen along a dusty Mafikeng road signifies the demise of militant white supremacy. The former Bophuthatswana was where the Truth Commission's Human Rights Violations Committee had its hearings this week. The jewel and the crown of grand apartheid stood exposed as a brutal, private fiefdom. But first, the bizarre story of the man who pleaded for seven years to be believed. This week the very same people who called him a madman and a liar used his confessions to charge him with murder.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

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