Three rightwingers who were foiled in their plot to blow up the Vaal Dam last year, were convicted of sabotage in the Bloemfontein Regional Court on Monday.
Testimony was earlier heard that Leon Peacock, Hercules Viljoen and Alan Rautenbach wanted to blow up the dam in order to cause anarchy. This was to expedite the so-called ”Night of Terror”, predicted by 19th century Boer prophet Siener van Rensburg.
Some radical groups believe the ”Night of Terror” will precipitate a right wing coup d’etat in South Africa.
Regional Court President WA de Klerk also convicted Peacock on Monday of the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, including 202 9mm rounds and 732 R4 rounds. De Klerk said in his ruling no evidence indicated any of the three tried to discourage or prevent the planned blowing up of the dam.
The inevitable conclusion was that accounts to this end by Peacock and Viljoen were aimed at evading guilt, De Klerk said.
In his judgement, De Klerk quoted from a damning conversation between the three accused and some police informants in a chicken coop on a smallholding outside Bloemfontein.
This conversation, recorded by an informant, took place while they were on their way to Parys in the northern Free State to execute their plan.
”Everybody thinks we are nothing, that we only have the potential to do it. We’ll surprise them. We’ll work like in the army, on a buddy system,” Peacock was recorded in the chicken coop.
He was also recorded as saying their plot could start a third world war.
”They thought the Twin Towers would have started World War III. I tell you, this may start World War III. We’ll hit the mining industry, the Anglos. The rand will collapse.
”This can be much bigger than we think. We are not going back, we cannot go back,” Peacock said in the coop.
De Klerk said the trial evidence in its totality indicated the accused had plotted to blow up the dam in order to achieve what was planned in the smallholding chicken coop.
Evidence was overwhelming that Peacock was the group’s leader, with Viljoen his pillar of strength, ”like Aaron who held Moses’s arms up high”, De Klerk said.
Peacock, Viljoen and Rautenbach were arrested in March 2002 on a smallholding near Parys, shortly before their plan was to be executed.
Eleven firearms and more than 4 000 cartridges were confiscated.
Three undercover police informants testified against them. Mitigating evidence was to be heard later on Monday, before De Klerk was expected to sentence them on Tuesday. – Sapa