ZENZELE KUHLASE, Nelspruit | Wednesday
THREE former Security Force members who operated under notorious Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock have applied for amnesty for several crimes, including burning houses in search of alleged activists.
Police officers Izak Bosch and Willie Nortjie and former soldier Eugene Fourie applied for amnesty for political crimes committed between 1986 and 1987 in the former Eastern Transvaal province.
Bosch this week told the amnesty committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that De Kock instructed that a house belonging to an African National Congress (ANC) activist near the Oshoek border post in Swaziland be burned.
He said they were given information that the house, known as SIDA, was used to keep weapons for activists before they were sent to South Africa.
Members of the ANC’s armed wing, MK, managed to escape before security force members found them there.
Bosch said De Kock fired several shots inside the house, and “he even requested that I gave him my extra magazine, before burning the house”.
He said they also received an order from De Kock to kidnap an ANC activist from the former KwaNdebele homeland area.
Bosch said they went there with ten black askaris to kidnap the man, who was also a businessman from the area.
“He was taken to a holiday resort where the askaris interrogated him. They also beat him but we [security force members] did not take part in the assaults,” said Bosch.
Bosch said they also burnt a house at KaNyamazane township and a Vryburg church where the ANC allegedly held meetings and reproduced propaganda documents for distribution.
Nortjie applied for amnesty for his role in the burning of Vryburg Church, and for setting alight the bakkie of the alleged ANC activist.
Former soldier Fourie confessed to illegally crossing the border to Swaziland to search and kill a prominent MK member, Muziwakhe Boniface Ngwenya, who was regarded as second in line to slain SACP secretary Chris Hani. – African Eye News Services