Another controversial finding by the truth commission is threatening the credibility of the amnesty process
Piers Pigou
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)came to yet another controversial finding last week when it granted amnesty to 10 former security policemen for their role in the murder of Mamelodi activist Stanza Bopape in June 1988.
The decision follows an equally controversial amnesty award to the killers of Soweto youth activist Sicelo Dlomo last month, threatening the credibility of the amnesty process as the commission winds down to a close.
The disappearance of Bopape will go down in history as one of apartheid South Africa’s most elaborate cover-ups. Despite having vanished in 1988, Bopape’s death was only confirmed after the matter came before the TRC. It is the only case before the commission in which a full array of police ranks – from constable to the then head of the security police (and South Africa’s first post-apartheid police commissioner) General Johannes Velde van der Merwe – applied for amnesty.
According to the amnesty applicants, Bopape was arrested in early June and died of a heart attack during interrogation on the notorious 10th floor of John Vorster Square police station. Colonel AP van Niekerk, who authorised the use of electric shock torture on Bopape, contacted the head of the Wit- watersrand security police, General Gerrit Erasmus, who in turn consulted with Van der Merwe. The latter authorised the cover-up, in his words, to protect the image of the police and the government. With June 16 commemorations only a few days away, a death in detention of this nature was bound to have serious consequences.
Arrangements were made with the head of the Eastern Transvaal security police, Brigadier Schalk Visser, and the body was handed over late at night to one of Visser’s officers, Captain Leon van Loggerenberg, at Bronkhorstspruit. Van Loggerenberg subsequently dumped the body in the crocodile- infested Komati river near the Mozambican border. Four of the applicants then staged a mock escape near De Deur in the Vaal Triangle.
The TRC found that the applicants were compliant with the amnesty criteria, having made full disclosure of all the relevant facts. But a closer examination of the amnesty transcripts and judgments reveals a selective use of available evidence and no attempt to make further inquiries regarding a wide range of relevant issues.
The applicants presented a well-oiled account of events that carefully interlocked and reinforced each other’s versions. Some sections of the written applications used identical script and turns of phrase leaving the impression that they could have been contrived and selective on detail.
A number of other contentious issues remain unresolved:
l The five applicants involved in the physical torture of Bopape maintained that the application of the shocks had been relatively mild – “two or three turns of the crank [of the hand-held shock machine], three of four times over a period of three of four minutes”. They all claimed that they were amazed that this had killed Bopape. The TRC was not convinced and wrote that it was left “with the uneasy feeling that [the applicants] may be protecting themselves by playing down their culpability”. However, the committee found that without a post-mortem the applicants’ version was “not so inherently improbable so as to justify its rejection as being false”.
l The applicants’ account of their treatment of Bopape stands in sharp contrast to the police’s brutal treatment of Bheki Nkosi, an activist arrested with him. Nkosi was subjected to severe electrical shocks over a period of nearly two hours with electrodes attached to various points on his body, which had been doused with water to enhance conductivity. On his release Nkosi was barely able to walk, his right hand was in spasm and he suffered medically attested trauma and psychological disruption. The arresting officer also attempted to strangle him. While both Bopape and Nkosi were suspected of involvement in cell structures operated by Umkhonto weSizwe commander Oderile Maponya (whose brother Japie was kidnapped and killed by members of the Vlakplaas unit in 1987), Bopape was the key suspect. Having been subject to detention and harassment for several years, Bopape was well known to the security police who knew that he was working with Maponya in the underground structures. This has subsequently been confirmed by others who worked in these structures. That Nkosi was brutally assaulted and Bopape treated with “kid gloves” is incongruous. A lawyer associated with the Bopape case said there was testimony that the room in which Bopape was last known to be interrogated had to be washed down after his removal.
l The committee did not comment on the applicants’ contention that Bopape had a heart condition and that this had been “confirmed” by records at the Princess hospital where Bopape had received treatment. The hospital is no longer operative and the files have been destroyed. The family maintains that Bopape was in the hospital for a sinusitis condition.
The credibility of the family’s contention that Bopape was hospitalised for sinusitis was bolstered by testimony from one of the amnesty applicants that he had obtained medication for Bopape’s sinus problem. It seems more likely that the heart attack version was concocted to support their claim that their treatment of Bopape was “reasonable”.
l The TRC apparently failed to investigate adequately the likelihood that only 10 men were involved in the cover-up. The applicants claimed that the Vaal Triangle police had no knowledge that the escape had been fabri- cated. An examination of the “escape” docket reveals the fundamental implausibility of this version. No disciplinary action was taken against the officers who claimed that Bopape had managed to escape from the back of the police car as his three police escorts changed a punctured tyre.
The investigating officer (whose name is known to the Mail & Guardian) was himself subject to investigation in the early 1990s for his role as commander of the notorious Yankee Squad which was accused of brutalising and terrorising communities in the Vaal. Overall responsibility for the “investigation” was given to the late General Jaap Joubert, who was also responsible for a number of investigations in which political manipulation and cover-ups are suspected or admitted. These include “investigations” into the bombings at Khanya, Cosatu and Khotso House, and the murders of David Webster, Anton Lubowski and Stompie Seipei.
In 1988, former minister of law and order Adriaan Vlok told Parliament that the police had witnesses stating “under oath” that they had seen Bopape at the site of a terror attack in Johannesburg. Vlok was referring to the Ellis Park bombing in July 1988, almost a month after Bopape’s murder. Colonel van Niekerk told the amnesty committee that this “sighting” was a fortuitous coincidence that had conveniently reinforced the legend of Bopape’s escape.
But the “sighting” referred to was presumably part of a wider cover-up regarding Bopape’s death. No mention of the sighting, affidavit and pointing out is contained in the Ellis Park docket. The witness involved subsequently provided the TRC with a statement in which she said that she was told to point at a picture of Bopape while her photograph was taken, and that she had not positively identified him at the scene of the bombing. No information was proffered by the applicants about this part of the cover-up.
l The TRC accepted that Bopape’s body had been thrown into the Komati river. Although several other versions were put forward, these were dismissed on the basis that they had not been substantiated.
Former police officer Johnny Mokaleng claimed he had seen Bopape’s grave on the outskirts of Phokeng. His allegations led to a high-profile “investigation” and exhumations in 1993. Van der Merwe, in his capacity as police commissioner, put General Krappies Engelbrecht in charge of the investigation. Engelbrecht, who was formerly the head of the security police’s counter-insurgency unit, C Section, and Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock’s immediate superior, is implicated in a number of incidents and widely believed to have been involved in systematic cover-ups of police abuses. Engelbrecht was not questioned and has not applied for amnesty.
Mokaleng’s version was supported by another witness who told the Human Rights Violation Committee that he was present when Bopape was tortured at the same spot. Subsequent exhumations in the area carried out by the TRC found nothing. Alternative explanations that Bopape’s body was dumped in a mine shaft or blown up with explosives were not investigated.
Notwithstanding the contested versions regarding the level of torture and method of disposing of Bopape’s body, it is evident that many more people could have been involved in the cover-up. In its apparently selective approach to determining what are “relevant facts” for disclosure, the amnesty committee has apparently once again delivered amnesty to applicants on the basis of their own, largely untested versions.
Piers Pigou is a former TRC investigator