THE former Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) commander who ordered the killing of three people in Eikenhof, Gauteng in 1993, regarded children as legitimate targets. This emerged during Apla commander Phila Dolo’s testimony during his amnesty bid at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission this week. Zandra Mitchley, 38, Shaun Nel, 14, and his friend Claire Silberbauer, 13, were slain in the early morning massacre. African National Congress activists Boy Ndaweni, Siphiwe Bholo and Sipho Gavin were jailed for the murders but released last year. Dolo had ordered his operatives, all members of the Pan Africanist Congress, to attack a school bus carrying white children. But they overslept on the morning of the attack and instead opened fire on Mitchley’s vehicle. Apla made no distinction between “hard” and “soft” targets and a vehicle carrying “settler children and their parents” was a legitimate target, Dolo told the TRC. Committee chair Denzil Potgieter reserved a decision.