Eddie Koch
A SPECIAL police unit this week arrested Colonel Louis Botha — the man who masterminded covert security police backing for Inkatha in the 1980s — and charged him with several political murders carried out at the
Sources close to the Independent Task Unit (ITU), a team of detectives who operate out of Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi’s office, say more arrests are imminent. These are likely to be high- ranking Inkatha Freedom Party officials.
It is known that Nelson Mandela has been fully briefed by the unit in recent weeks and that information passed to him partly explains the tough stance that the president has taken on sectarian violence in Natal.
Colonel Botha is the police officer who drafted the “Inkathagate document”, exposed by the Weekly Mail in 1991, which says clandestine police support for Inkatha was designed to “show everyone that he (Mangosuthu Buthelezi) has a strong base”.
When the police officer worked as a major in Durban, he was known to have close links with Buthelezi. In the words of one source, “wherever Buthelezi was, Botha was”.
The expose of Botha’s top-secret document, entitled “Strategic Perspectives: Chief Minister Buthelezi and Inkatha: Implications For Current Negotiations Politics”, was the first concrete proof that Inkatha collaborated with the security forces to undermine the ANC in Natal during the 1980s.
The Weekly Mail’s publication of the document led to the axing of Adriaan Vlok, then minister of police in the National Party government. In it, Botha says police support for Inkatha was vital to secure a bulwark against the African National Congress.
“During our discussions it became very clear that the actions and political manoeuvres of the ANC were a matter of concern to the chief minister (Buthelezi), especially if one considers the shrinking Inkatha membership figures,” it says.
Other secret police correspondence confirms R100 000 was paid to Inkatha so that mass rallies could be organised in Natal. One of them says: “Chief Minister Buthelezi was very emotional when a copy of the receipt was given to him. He could not say thank you enough
A press release issued by the ITU this week says Colonel Botha was “arrested and charged with several counts of murder that took place in KwaZulu/Natal in the late 1980s. Botha… is presently based in the Department of Community Policing in Port Elizabeth. Intensive investigations by the ITU are continuing (and) further arrests are expected.”
The colonel appeared on Wednesday in the Durban regional court and was not asked to plead. He was released on bail of R10 000 combined with conditions that he surrender his passport and report to a police station in Port Elizabeth twice weekly.
The ITU would not provide details about the murders that Botha was charged with but it is believed these relate to an attack in KwaMakutha in 1987 in which members of an paramilitary Inkatha unit killed 13 people including seven children.