They became known as the Cradock Four: Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli. On the 27th of June 1985, these four men left the small Eastern Cape town of Cradock for a meeting of the United Democratic Front in Port Elizabeth. A few days later, their mutilated and charred bodies were found in the bush outside the city. Convicted Vlakplaas commander Colonel Eugene de Kock recalled that Goniwe's death was "the beginning of the end of apartheid". "Who killed Matthew Goniwe?" was a constant refrain for 13 years until February 1998, when a group of former security policemen finally stepped forward and said: "We killed the Cradock Four."

Credits: Zola Ntutu, Darren Taylor, Thapelo Mokushane, Angie Kapelianis, Sally Burdett and Danny Booysen.

Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#cant

From the series South Africa's Human Spirit. Available wherever you find your podcasts.

© SABC 2021. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

The media painted him as the arch-villain of the apartheid era and labelled him "Prime Evil". The Truth Commission singled him out as the man who broke the code of silence and forced security policemen to seek amnesty. He was Eugene de Kock, former commander of the Vlakplaas death squad, convicted murderer serving two life sentences and 212 years in jail for apartheid crimes, and amnesty applicant who helped convict former president PW Botha for contempt of the Truth Commission. Eugene de Kock waged war against liberation movements in Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola in the seventies and eighties. When he returned home to fight the ANC, he said: "My war is only just starting." At Vlakplaas, the colonel led his men from the front. At various amnesty hearings, the prisoner still refused to abandon them. But for his former masters, the politicians and the generals, Eugene de Kock had only bitter venom.

Credits: Angie Kapelianis, Darren Taylor, Sally Burdett and Danny Booysen.

From the series South Africa's Human Spirit. Available wherever you find your podcasts.

Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#thousand

© SABC 2021. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

Additional music by Whitesand - Do You Feel What I Feel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM7qA8n9S88&list=RDkQSoW1VnkH4&index=47 

The apartheid government’s top-secret Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme sealed the Truth Commission’s investigations into gross human rights abuses on the 31st of July 1998. South Africans and the world listened with disbelief and then shock to a group of doctors who perverted science to entrench white supremacy. Truth Commission Chairperson Desmond Tutu described the public testimony on the programme, code-named Project Coast, as "the worst evidence I’ve ever heard". Some of the apartheid scientists disclosed how they tried to produce a vaccine and a bacterium to sterilise and kill only black people. But the most disturbing allegation was that the apartheid government planned to poison jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela in the eighties.

Credits: Darren Taylor, Angie Kapelianis, Manana Makhanya and Danny Booysen.

Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#doctor 

From the series South Africa's Human Spirit. Available wherever you find your podcasts.

© SABC 2021. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

Additional music by Whitesand - Do You Feel What I Feel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM7qA8n9S88&list=RDkQSoW1VnkH4&index=47 

One incident that pushed South Africa to the brink of anarchy was the assassination of Communist Party leader Chris Hani. Millions loved him for his role in the ANC's armed wing, his militant speeches against white supremacy and his promise to uplift the poor. For these same reasons, apartheid supporters detested him. And on the 10th of April 1993, he was dead. Polish right-winger Janusz Walus and Conservative Party member Clive Derby-Lewis were sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment, for murdering Chris Hani. When Derby-Lewis and Walus testified for amnesty in June and August 1997, they were forced to explain why they had gunned down the man who called for peace only four days before his death.

Credits: Angie Kapelianis, Darren Taylor, Antjie Samuel, Danny Booysen and the SABC Media Libraries.

Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#believe

From the series South Africa's Human Spirit. Available wherever you find your podcasts.

© SABC 2021. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

The Truth Commission was a bitter pill to swallow for the family of black consciousness leader Steve Bantu Biko. But it was even harder for them to accept when five former security policemen applied for amnesty in 1997 for "causing" Biko's death 20 years earlier. It seemed as if Biko's killers would finally tell the truth about how he suffered brain damage and died in detention. But when they appeared before the Amnesty Committee in September and December 1997, they again denied "killing" Biko. Harold Snyman, Daantjie Siebert, Rubin Marx, Johan Beneke and Gideon Nieuwoudt maintained that Biko's death was an "accident" for which he had been partly responsible. Darren Taylor Zola Ntutu and report.

Credits: Angie Kapelianis, Darren Taylor, Zola Ntutu, Sally Burdett and Danny Booysen.

Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#fatal

From the series South Africa's Human Spirit. Available wherever you find your podcasts.

© SABC 2021. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

Convicted former president PW Botha was the one crucial apartheid politician who could have shed more light on the official sanctioning of gross human rights violations. Botha chaired the State Security Council from 1978 to 1989. But instead of succumbing to the Truth Commission, Botha chose to face the court system for eight months and lost. George Magistrate Victor Lugaju found Botha guilty of contempt on the 21st of August 1998 for repeatedly ignoring subpoenas to testify in public. Lugaju said Botha’s failure to testify was unlawful, intentional and without sufficient cause. His sentence was a R10 000 fine or one year in jail. An additional 12-month prison sentence was suspended for five years. This is an extract from Botha’s media briefing at the start of his expensive trial in January 1998.

Credits: Angie Kapelianis, Darren Taylor, Manana Makhanya, Cobus Bester and Danny Booysen.

From the series South Africa's Human Spirit. Available wherever you find your podcasts.

© SABC 2021. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

Additional music by Whitesand - Do You Feel What I Feel? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM7qA8n9S88&list=RDkQSoW1VnkH4&index=47 

PW Botha personified apartheid and the old National Party for most South Africans. For eleven years between 1978 and 1989, he ruled the country as prime minister and then president with a wagging index-finger, two States of Emergency and his repressive security forces. Although Botha introduced limited reforms, he failed to cross his own Rubicon by not abolishing apartheid.

Credits: Angie Kapelianis, Anita Visser and the SABC Media Libraries.

© SABC 2021. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

Veteran activist and sociologist, Professor Fatima Meer championed equality and social justice. Under apartheid, she was banned, detained and held in solitary confinement. She also survived an attempted assassination and arson attack on her Durban house.

Credits: Thrishni Subramoney, Dumisani Shange, Angie Kapelianis and the SABC Media Libraries.

© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

Seamus Heaney called her "one of the great guerrillas of the imagination"; the Nobel Committee called her "a magnificent epic writer" and the Independent newspaper says she's "one of the world's greatest writers".

Credits: Angie Kapelianis

© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.

They were warriors, not soldiers. Black South Africans recruited as labourers to serve in World War One under the British flag. But, they weren't allowed to carry arms. Not even their assegais, shields or sticks. And instead of dying in battle, they drowned aboard the SS Mendi at sea. Unknown and forgotten. But, these men was remembered in their own country in 1995 when Queen Elizabeth the Second unveiled a plaque in their honour at Soweto's Avalon Cemetry. This is their story and the story of their children.

Credits: Angie Kapelianis

© SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.