Mail & Guardian reporter
For some, acknowledging the terrible deeds committed by the custodians of law and order in south Africa has been a painful process. To discover tax payers’ money had been secretly used to fund a civil war. And that the Christian Government had repeatedly lied when questions were asked both inside and outside parliament. The Weekly Mail’s revelations were dismissed out of hand.
And during the early days of the Goldstone Commission some of its investigators both from the police and the Department of Justice couldn’t bring themselves to believe allegations about a third force.
Even those in the commission who knew the revelations were true were surprised at the extent of security force involvement in the violence in KwaZulu-Natal and the old PWV.
But for many the truth was almost too terrible to admit.
Dr Jackie Cilliers, director of the Institute for Defence Policy readily admits he didn’t, couldn’t believe The Weekly Mail’s disclosures five years ago. A former career soldier with considerable active service in the South African Defence Force (SADF), he had joined the military because he admired it. “I really respected, loved being in the SADF.
“But I believed we should only kill the enemy on foreign soil. But by 1983 the National Party had run out of all options at home. They then had to rely on security force coercion.
“The culture which had been practiced in Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, was then brought back by the military into South Africa … Finally the weight of evidence was so overwhelming I had to believe what was being said.”
KwaZulu-Natal MP Kobus Jordaan asked questions about security force involvement with Inkatha in parliament even earlier than the Weekly Mail’s investigations. “I asked questions about training of Inkatha. The Minister of Defence (General Magnus Malan), told Parliament there was no training. I will wait for this trial and the truth commission and if need be I might spur some people to come
Suzanne Vos, Inkatha Freedom Party MP who was the main press voice during the run-up to the election at the height of third force allegations, said the media in general and the Weekly Mail in particular had been “less than fair” in its coverage of the IFP.
“I have been involved with Inkatha since 1975, a member of the central committee, and I can swear I have never heard any discussion whatsoever about plans to kill people. Everyone was caught up in a spiral of violence, but if Inkatha was so much on the offensive, how come so many of our people were dying? I think the Weekly Mail went out of its way to get Inkatha.”
l Two international police observers attached to the Independent Task Unit, the special police investigation team that “cracked” the Malan case, said in a statement last week that the unit appeared to be independent. The IFP has often accused it of pro-African National Congress bias.
Niels Brodersen of Denmark and Simon Molenaar of Holland said in a statement they had seen “no sign of one-sided bias regarding any political party or movement”.