Confessions by five former policemen have revealed the devious operations of the security police, including the murder of a man working clandestinely for the military. Peta Thornycroft reports
FORMER northern Transvaal security policeman captain Jacques Hechter has the dubious honour of admitting to more murders than any other confessor to the truth commission.
In his weeks of testimony before the commission, Hechter has confessed that he strangled, burned, shot, kicked and blew up 35 people.
He and his four colleagues – former brigadier Jack Cronje, former warrant officer Paul van Vuuren, former colonel Roelf Venter and warrant officer Wouter Mentz – have collectively admitted to their involvement in the murder of 65 people during their reign of terror in the north.
The five dashed to the truth commission’s amnesty committee when they learned that the Transvaal attorney general was charging them with 27 murders. Confessing to the amnesty committee was their only hope for protection from prosecution, though it is not a guarantee.
The five started to talk after one of their former askaris, Joe Mamesela, began telling his story to investigators at the attorney general’s office. He told of a five-year killing spree with his white bosses in the former northern Transvaal security police.
Mentz, who was a member of the squad that went killing across the border into Botswana, this week partially opened a window into the intrigues within the security forces in their reckless pursuit of their enemy.
Mentz was asking for amnesty for the part he played in the murder of Sam Chand and his family, killed in April 1990 in their home across the Botswana border by a squad led by Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock.
What was odd about the murder of Chand, who was identified as Kahn in Mentz’s testimony, was that he was a paid agent for the Directorate of Covert Collection (DCC), a unit within the Department of Military Intelligence.
With the information they got from agent Chand, the DCC kept track of weapons leaking across the border from the Pan Africanist Congress’ military wing and its Muslim counterpart, Qibla.
To this day Chand’s former handlers are furious about the murder, and mystified as to why a squad from General Basie Smit’s security police killed their agent. Not only did the police murder Chand, they also killed his wife, two children, a guard and the family dog. With the death of Chand, the DCC lost their most valuable agent in Botswana. And the policemen who killed him went to elaborate lengths to cover their tracks, to make sure the DCC didn’t find out they were involved.
The story of Chand’s murder was first told by former policeman Willie Nortje in Denmark when he was on a witness protection programme.
In early 1994 Nortje told investigators for the Goldstone commission how he had taken part in the Botswana raid. He admitted he had shot Chand’s wife and then killed another “person” (who turned out to be one of the children) in their beds. He said the group of killers, based at Vlakplaas near Pretoria, had a good relationship with the DCC and laid a false trail to Richards Bay. De Kock hurt his leg during the raid and had to be carried out by his men.
This week Mentz, who was a junior policeman at the time of Chand’s killing, confirmed much of what Nortje had told the Goldstone commission.
But what was never explained, by Nortje in 1994, nor by Menz this week, was why the South African police wanted to kill Chand. Was it rivalry with the military? Was Chand working for the police as well as the DCC and collecting a double pay cheque? Was it a grotesque mistake?
After the truth commission hearing, and through Willem Brits, the lawyer for the five, Mentz said he didn’t know Chand had worked for the DCC.
The five said they had also nearly killed another informer, a white member of the National Intelligence Service (NIS)who at the time was involved with anti-apartheid groups at Pretoria University.
The Mail & Guardian spoke to the man who was part of the End Conscription Campaign at the time but denied he ever worked for NIS.
The five men concluded their testimony this week – possibly the longest and most gruesome for the amnesty committee. Hechter and Cronje are retired from the police, while Van Vuuren and Venter both farm near Warmbaths. Mentz, who wept at the memories of his part in the killings, is still employed by the police.