The police have finally said there may have been a plan behind the Shell House violence, reports Angella Johnson
Police have finally accepted the argument that there may have been a conspirac y to attack the African National Congress’s headquarters in Johannesburg, whic h led to the shooting of eight Zulu marchers by ANC security personnel at the headquarters.
Andrew Leask, head of the police unit carrying out special investigations for Gauteng, said his office was now prepared to look into the claims and report i ts findings to the Witwatersrand attorney general, who has to make a decision on possible prosecutions.
He argued that documents filed with the Pretoria Supreme Court this week are t he first “factual evidence” put before the police of a plot to destabilise the country by killing senior ANC members on March 28 1994.
“We have had allegations slung from both sides during our two-year inquiry, bu t no one has brought us any proof before now,” Leask explained .
“This is the first solid thing we have had on the table and we will investigat e it vigorously.”
However, the Mail & Guardian has information that Transvaal Attorney General J an D’Oliveira’s office has been in possession of statements about these allega tions for the past two years. The information was first obtained during the de briefing of former Vlakplaas operative Andries “Brood” van Heerden by investig ators of the Goldstone Commission in Denmark in early 1994.
The information was passed on to D’Oliveira’s special team investigating “thir d force” activities, established to continue investigations not completed by J udge Richard Goldstone’s commission.
Included in the information given by Van Heerden to investigators was that the march would be routed past the ANC’s headquarters at Shell House in central
Johannesburg. In the expected commotion, it was planned that an armed group wo uld enter the building pretending to seek sanctuary, then try to kill as many people as possible.
The ANC is being sued for R10-million by 101 people, some of whom were injured on the day, and others who are dependents of those killed. A total of 54 peop
le died during numerous incidents of violence which erupted during the day.
Inkatha Freedom Party MP Themba Khosa (already implicated in gun running to th e IFP during the trial of former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock) along wit h several of his party’s Gauteng leaders — including Humphrey Ndlovu, Victo r Ndlovu and James Ndlovu — have been named as co-conspirators. Their polic e partners are said to include Van Heerden, Willie Nortjie, Charlie Chait and De Kock.
Although Vlakplaas had been disbanded in 1993 De Kock was still its de facto c ommander. He apparently continued to work informally for the SAP, was a regula r visitor to Pretoria police headquarters and could even be contacted on his p olice pager.
According to papers before the court, the group held secret meetings at which it was decided to use the IFP’s anti-election march as a cover for storming Sh ell House. The aim was to kill senior ANC leaders including Thabo Mbeki, Walte r Sisulu and Winnie Madizikela-Mandela, who were holding meetings in the build ing at the time.
ANC deputy secretary general Cheryl Carolus described the Shell House tragedy as a “desperate last stand” by people who were prepared to use innocent Zulus and IFP members as “cannon-fodder”.
She said the ANC knew beforehand about the alleged plot and that was the reaso n Nelson Mandela, then party president, ordered security guards to defend the building.
“We got information from hostel members and from our own intelligence people w ithin the IFP. That was why Madiba asked President de Klerk for extra police p rotection — which we were promised but never got.”
On the day of the march, Carolus said people in the building became particular ly worried when reports reached them that 30 people had been killed in Soweto as the marchers made their way to Johannesburg.
Despite several frantic calls to senior police officers by ANC members includi ng Winnie Madizikela-Mandela, no police reinforcements arrived. The handful of officers on duty fled in the face of the marchers armed with an assortment of
“traditional weapons” and chanting, “Today someone will die, you dogs.”
“I was at Shell House and can tell you that I was very scared,” said Carolus. “Although we very much regret the loss of life, those of us within the buildin g on the day were in no doubt what would have happened had the guards not fire d when they did,” she insisted.
The ANC has, however, failed to convince many people and much of the media tha t its guards acted in self-defence and the shooting was not just a “massacre” of innocents.
“We have definitely not been winning the propaganda war,” said one ANC spokesm an, who described the incident as a dark shadow which has loomed over the part y.
He recalled that the shooting came about during a backdrop of paranoia and fea r as the general election approached and the country seemed poised on the brin k of widespread violence.
“You must remember that only two weeks earlier the Goldstone Commission had an nounced the existence of “third force” activities headed by senior police offi cers, including the then deputy commissioner Lieutenant General Basie Smith,” he added.
Goldstone later looked into shooting and other public violence which took plac e on the day of the march. Although his inquiry made no findings, it rejected a submission from the IFP and the KwaZulu government that the gathering had be en on behalf of the Zulu people and was apolitical.
“There can be no doubt that the purpose of the gathering was party political a nd for the purpose of launching its anti-election campaign,” the commission sa id.
A spokesman for the Witwatersrand attorney general said this week everyone con nected with the criminal case surrounding the march was away.
l Police forensic scientists are checking two AK47 rifles which former SAP ser geant Pedro Peens say were used in the 1994 Boipatong massacre. Peens’ lawyers have told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the weapons were handed to
him in May 1994 by a prominent businessman from Vereeniging, who wanted them ” lost” in the system.
He said he then handed them over to a distant police station in Emangus, in No rthern Kwazulu-Natal, where they remained for six months before ending up at t he police logistics department in Pretoria. The matter is now being investigat ed by the truth commission.