Peter Dickson
Early next year, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty committee will ask a feared ex-security policeman if guns smuggled from Mozambique were used to kill hundreds of people in the Transkei killing fields of Tsolo and Qumbu.
TRC spokesperson Vuyani Green said controversial Superintendent Frans “Lappies” Labuschagne, withdrawn from the Robert McBride investigation once his shadowy past was revealed by convicted Vlakplaas killer Eugene de Kock, had applied for amnesty for “various incidents” in the 1980s.
Green said Labuschagne, who appeared before the amnesty committee in Durban weeks ago in connection with an apartheid era assassination, would appear again next year in the Eastern Cape.
Labuschagne, now a top Mpumalanga detective, was quizzed by the TRC at an emotional inquiry in Cape Town in June this year regarding guns and ammunition given to him by De Kock, hit squads, how well he knew McBride’s police spy accuser Vusi Mbatha, and his “role in the internecine violence in Tsolo and Qumbu”. He applied for amnesty during the hearing.
More than 600 people — largely the elderly, women and children – died in the remote and poorly policed areas north of Umtata since 1993. Rampant stock theft and witchcraft are some theories advanced for the motive, but most victims have been killed by contracted gunmen from Gauteng and Free State mines.
Police have set up a network throughout the country to end the killings, says Superintendent Gary MacLaren of the 50- strong special police task team for Tsolo and Qumbu, and for two years have believed the seemingly random violence is fuelled by a mysterious Mozambique gun- running ring.
TRC investigative sources said that links had long been suspected between Mozambique gun-running – also linked to pre- election activities by the infamous Vlakplaas security police hit squad run by De Kock, the mines and Tsolo and Qumbu.
Eastern Cape MECfor Safety and Security Dennis Neer, who could not be reached for comment this week, has publicly stated that a third force-type operation has been behind the killings.