Sarah Bullen in Pretoria | Wednesday 6.30PM.
FORMER Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock on Wednesday told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty committee that he was ordered to “just shoot” any regular police who might stumble upon the clandestine operation to bomb Khotso house in 1988.
De Kock testified that during a briefing before the bombing, when he asked police general Gerrit Erasmus what he should do if approached by a policeman “on the beat” during the operation, Erasmus told him to “just shoot them”.
“I took it literally. I may have been wrong,” De Kock said.
Questioned on this order in his own amnesty application last week, Erasmus said he couldn’t remember giving the order, but if he had, he had not meant it literally.
De Kock gave details of how, as commander of the secret police unit C1, or Vlakplaas, he orchestrated the bombings of both Cosatu House in 1997 and the South African Council of Churches headquarters, Khotso House, in 1988. After being given orders by Vlakplaas controller Willem Schoon, De Kock said he used money from a secret security police fund combined with cash obtained through “false claims” to buy balaclavas, rope, torches, knives and a bolt-cutter. Weapons — AK47 Ms with collapsible butts preferred — were taken from Vlakplaas’ own extensive stock of 150 to 200 weapons.
“We were instructed that the explosives had to be Eastern Bloc. No South African explosives could be used as it had to appear that the explosives were the property of [Cosatu and Khotso House] — stored there and detonated,” De Kock said.
Thirty former police are applying for amnesty for their part in the bombings.