Mass murderer Barend Strydom yesterday gave the first description of the Wit Wolwe (WW), the organisation he says mandated his shooting spree last year. Giving evidence in mitigation of sentence, Strydom told the Pretoria Surpeme Court he was not the leader of the organisation but only of a three-man cell. The WW was composed of cells of up to five members, and cell leaders (known as stuurders) met under the leadership of a hoojbestuurder.
He refused to identify his cell members or the hoojbestuurder or to say how many members there were in the WW. It was at a bestuurders meeting that the WW supported his plan to commit the shooting that led to his conviction this week on eight counts of murder and 16 of mass murder. His “mandate” was to do the shooting at Church Square because the Delmas Treason Trial was in progress and United Democratic Front leader Allan Boesak was expected to attend. However, when he drove past the square that morning, there was a heavy police presence and few blacks. He said he started his killing spree at Strijdom Square to draw the police away from the court. “I expected there would be more blacks at Strijdom Square. Hence I took to Prinsloo Street,” he said.
Asked why he had shot a women seated in a hospital bus, he said there were no other blacks in the area. He had opened the bus window when the bus halted at a stop street and shot the women, a cancer patient. Strydom said he had hidden a change of clothing near Church Square and hoped to get away with his “plan”, either by giving police the slip or by being granted clemency if captured. Asked why he had previously called himself “king” of the WW, he admitted he may have been boasting.
However, Colonel Karel Johannes Brits, head of the Pretoria Murder and Robbery Squad, told the court that he had investigated the WW and had found no evidence that it existed. Following leads given to him after the arrest of Strydom in November last year, Brits had travelled to Secunda and Hillbrow, where Strydom told him the WW had been involved in teargas incidents. However, at both places he found no evidence of the WW. “I’m absolutely convinced that there is nothing like the WW, following my investigations,” he told the court. Strydom had told him “many stories which could not have been true”.
The accused’s father, Nic Strydom gave the court an extraordinary insight into his son’s background. He said his wife had committed suicide when the boy was only 18 months old. A policeman, he said he had arrived home to find his wife dying on the bed and his son lying next to her with “visible marks” on his neck. The father told the court he had been a member of the Herstigte Nasionale Party and a regional leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging from 1973. He had stopped paying AWB fees last year because of “personal differences” with other members. His son had attended rightwing public meetings with him since he was in Standard 8 and had adopted his father’s views. “My relationship with my son is very close,” he said.
Asked about his wife’s politics, the father said she would “strive for freedom, for volkstaat and boerestat in the land of our forefathers. The accused told the court he did not regard his action as murder, although he conceded that in terms of law it was murder. He said although he had carried a gun when he went to a public meeting last year which State President PW Botha also attended, he had not intended to assassinate the president. He had left his gun in his car boot.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.