Piers Pigou
Until a few weeks ago the African National Congress never unequivocally admitted responsibility for the bomb that exploded near Ellis Park on July 2 1988, killing Clive Clucas and Linus Mar and injuring another 30 as they left the stadium following a rugby game.
An incident which clearly “crossed the line” in terms of ANC policy, this attack had all the trappings of a mission designed to invoke terror among the civilian population.
Not so, claim four Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) amnesty applicants who last month told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that they simply wanted to send a message to whites that the conflict was in their own backyard and that they could also die.
They wanted whites to tell their government to stop killing people in the townships. The bomb, they insisted, was not intended to kill or injure. It was timed to detonate at 5pm when the match would still be on. No one would be hurt and thousands of white spectators would get the message.
The applicants claimed the operation was planned and sanctioned by MK chief of staff Chris Hani. Ellis Park stadium, they claimed, was a legitimate target.
The unit consisted of four cadres: the commander Lester Dumakude, second-in- command John Dube, and two junior cadres Aggey Shoke and Harold Matshididi. They reconnoitred the area for a place to park the car bomb during the week before the match, and picked an area close to the stadium that appeared uninhabited.
Dumakude, with the assistance of the other cadres, secured materials to make the bomb. They assembled 48kg of explosives, “many” limpet mines and two full 18kg gas cylinders in the boot of the car, with three different timing devices. Two were set for 5pm and the third was a remote.
Dumakude and Matshididi drove the stolen BMW to a spot on Upper Meyer Street, 50m from the stadium’s north-east exit. Matshididi was dropped off. Dumakude parked, activated the bomb by reattaching some wires and got out of the vehicle.
He noticed two men approaching him and then showing interest in the BMW. “They were acting as if they were part of the [security] system,” Dumakude told the amnesty committee.
He didn’t see anyone else on the road. If he didn’t act now, many more people would die, he said.
Knowing the “security men” would be killed, he triggered the radio signal and the bomb exploded. He met up with Matshididi and they hurried back to their rendevouz outside Checkers in Hillbrow. Mission accomplished.
The applicants say they are sorry that two civilians died and others were injured, but this was not their intention. If they had wanted to kill civilians, one applicant testified, they would have driven the vehicle into the stadium. As for the other injured they did not know other spectators were on the street and were hearing for the first time that the game had already ended.
The four claim they fulfil the requirements of the TRC Act and should therefore be granted amnesty.
It is understandable on face value how some people could accept this as a plausible story. On closer examination, however, the versions presented are littered with improbabilities and impossibilities, seemingly contrived and at times conspicuously dishonest.
At earlier hearings in 1998 Shoke and Matshididi testified they had already met in Hillbrow when the bomb exploded. Dumakude’s subsequent version that he and Matshididi were present at the site of the blast was a massive contradiction.
Matshididi, however, told the amnesty committee under re-examination last week that he had previously been mistaken and that Dumakude’s version was correct. To account for his apparent lapse in memory he asked the committee to take into consideration that the incident took place 10 years ago and he that hadn’t had the chance to talk with his former colleagues.
Is it really possible that Matshididi has such a bad memory of this event? Could he really not remember that he was so close to the detonation?
The applicants claimed that the area was uninhabited, yet the bomb caused serious damage and injuries to houses and people living in the area. When Dumakude set off the bomb he says he had a clear view of the BMW.
He maintained he saw no one else on the street except the two who died, despite the fact that 11 people were injured in the vicinity between the explosion and where he stood, some within a few metres of him. He claimed he was focusing on the two who died, but was unable to provide a description of either man.
When asked why the device was not set for 4.30pm if all he wanted to do was warn people, Dumakude said that they did not want to disrupt the rugby game. Dube who provided the intelligence for the timing insisted the newspapers had shown the game would still be on at 5pm.
A simple phone call to Ellis Park would have told him that the match would be over by then. Spectators had enough time to leave the stadium following the final whistle and walk several hundred metres, when the bomb exploded.
Hundreds of people were on their way out of Ellis Park and walking into or towards Upper Meyer and adjacent streets. Dumakude must have seen this. If he did not intend to kill, he certainly had no real control over the situation at this stage.
The hearing heard expert testimony that once limpet mines were activated they could only be stopped by an elaborate operation. Dumakude’s explanation that more people would have been killed if he did not detonate the bomb when he did is ironically true.
Once the device had been activated there was no turning back. If he had not triggered the remote many more may have been hurt with a later detonation from the limpet mines. No explanation was provided when asked why such a powerful and deadly bomb was used, and why it was so necessary to plant the bomb so close to the stadium if it was only intended as a message.
The legitimacy of this operation is also questionable. The ANC last week admitted that: “After thorough consultation and research we are satisfied that [this] was an ANC operation carried out by members who are now before you.”
No acknowledgment was given to Dumakude’s claim that Hani helped plan or authorised the mission, raising the question of who else within senior ANC and MK circles was aware of it or participated.
Former rugby boss Louis Luyt, however, told the amnesty committee that he had been in talks with the ANC a month or two before the bombing, and had signed a statement with Thabo Mbeki calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and for political negotiations.
A few weeks after the bomb, Luyt flew to Harare to meet senior ANC leaders. “Mr Mbeki made it quite clear he didn’t know who authorised [the attack], if indeed it was the ANC.”
ANC leaders undertook to look into the matter. In August 1988 the ANC’s national executive committee issued a statement in which it “expressed concern” about the spate of attacks in which civilians were targeted.
It admitted its cadres were responsible for some of these, and blamed Pretoria for others. Ellis Park was not mentioned.
Luyt said he assumed and personally thought that they were not responsible. Mbeki had told him it “could not be acceptable to them”.
The ANC statement reaffirmed that it was “contrary to our policy to select targets whose sole objective is to strike at civilians. Our morality as revolutionaries dictates that we respect the values underpinning the humane conduct of war.”
The ANC responded to Luyt’s testimony charging that his ” personal views on the Ellis Park bombing are irrelevant to the TRC hearing. What needs to be determined in this case, is whether the Ellis Park bombing was politically motivated or not.”
But Luyt’s observations are germane. The operation did not conform to the ANC’s policy regarding civilian targets. The ANC told the TRC: “it was expressly not the policy of MK to use methods involving the killing of civilians”, but acknowledged that cadres did violate policy.
They submitted a range of circumstances and examples in which such deviations did, or might have occurred. No explanation was provided for Ellis Park.
The Ellis Park bomb, whatever the applicants’ stated intentions, was an act of terror. As with many other incidents during this period there was no “real” security component to the target.
Dumakude’s suggestion that the deceased acted as if they were plain-clothes security men, in the context of people leaving a game of rugby and walking towards him, appears conveniently contrived. If their intention was not to kill, what transpired can only be described as a monumental act of incompetence. Or was it a deliberate attempt to kill civilians?
Either way, the public has a right to know at what level this major policy deviation was authorised. Dumakude was a very senior cadre, in charge of MK’s elite special operations unit. Unlike many others inside the military underground he had a “hotline” to the leadership.
If, as he testified, Hani had prior knowledge and had in fact authorised the operation, who else inside MK headquarters and the command structure of special operations was involved? Were the ANC’s political leadership kept in the dark or were they complicit in violating their own policy and then denying it?
Or are Dumakude and his colleagues simply another group of lying amnesty applicants?
Piers Pigou was an investigator for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission