The End of Apartheid - South Africa’s Human Spirit

The first apartheid security force member to testify in public and be granted amnesty was police captain Brian Mitchell of New Hanover in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. Mitchell appeared before the Amnesty Committee in Pietermaritzburg in October 1996. His 30-year prison sentence was expunged within two months, on the eve of the initial deadline for amnesty applications. Mitchell wasted no time in revisiting the village that he and his special constables had destroyed in December 1988, when he ordered them to kill ANC supporters on behalf of the Inkatha Freedom Party. And when, instead, they killed 11 people, mainly women and children, at a night vigil in Trust Feed. Dumisani Shange, Angie Kapelianis and Darren Taylor report.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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Additional music: B - Somber Ballads by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://incompetech.com/ 

They became known as the Five Cops: Jack Cronje, Jacques Hechter, Paul van Vuuren, Wouter Mentz and Roelf Venter. Between them, they committed more than 60 gross violations of human rights while attached to Vlakplaas and the Northern Transvaal Security Branch in the late eighties. These included the murders of Dr Fabian and Florence Ribeiro in Mamelodi, Richard and Irene Motasi in Hammanskraal, as well as the killing of activists known as the KwaNdebele Nine and the Nietverdiend Ten. The public amnesty hearing of the Five Cops was one of the longest, stretching from October 1996 to March 1997. It was held in three cities and at six different venues, one of which was destroyed by fire. This hearing also presented the Amnesty Committee with a unique dilemma: Can amnesty be granted for amnesia and memory loss, such as in the abduction, interrogation, torture and killing of three men: Jackson Maake, Andrew Makupe and Harold Sefolo?

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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

He was unknown to the Security Police at Vlakplaas near Pretoria until they were told to "make a plan" with him. Several banning orders, long days in detention and a spell on Robben Island had failed to break his spirit and crush his fight against apartheid. He was Griffiths Mxenge, the human rights lawyer who vigorously defended ANC comrades. So they abducted, stabbed and hammered him to death at Umlazi, south of Durban, in November 1981. Fifteen years later, in October 1996, three of Mxengeís awaiting-trial murderers appeared before the Amnesty Committee in Durban. They were Dirk Coetzee, Almond Nofemela and David Tshikalanga. Although they had already broken their oath of silence on the apartheid governmentís death-squads seven years earlier, they had never buried their skeletons. Angie Kapelianis and Dumisani Shange report.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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

Additional music: B - Somber Ballads by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Blue Feather - Reunited by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200068 Artist: http://incompetech.com/

The murder of Sizwe Kondile - Dirk Coetzee

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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One of South Africa's most sacrilegious violations of human rights was the July 1993 rifle and grenade attack on the St James Church in Cape Town. Eleven parishioners were killed and about 60 others seriously injured or maimed for life. Three of the men responsible for the Sunday massacre were Apla cadres: Khaya Makoma, Bassie Mkhumbuzi and Thobela Mlambisa. In July 1997, they publicly told the Amnesty Committee that they had simply been following orders. Their attack was meant to shock and force the white government into returning the land to the Africans. After the Amnesty Committee reconciled their side of the story with the law, they were granted amnesty in June 1998. But a rare and unforgettable moment in that story was written by an unlikely protagonist, who decided to make reconciliation a public reality. Zola Ntutu, Darren Taylor and Angie Kapelianis report.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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Additional music: Dark Walk by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100468 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ 

Surviving victims of gross human rights abuses continued to steer the Truth Commission's Amnesty Committee into uncharted territory in mid-July 1997. Until then, the amnesty script was predominantly couched in legalities, with only judges and lawyers jogging the memories of both perpetrator and victim. But all this changed during the amnesty hearing of former Western Cape security policeman Captain Jeff Benzien, the man whose name sent shivers down the spines of young freedom fighters, and whose name became synonymous with the "wet bag" and sadistic torture. Antjie Samuel and Kenneth Makatees report.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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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. Angie Kapelianis, Darren Taylor and Antjie Samuel report on the amnesty hearing that could become a test case for reconciliation.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

© SABC 2020. 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 and Zola Ntutu report.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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

Additional music: Dark Walk by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100468 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ 

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." Zola Ntutu, Darren Taylor and Thapelo Mokushane report.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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The ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, bombed various places in South Africa in the 1980s. The late ANC president, Oliver Tambo, better known as "OR", had formed the Special Operations Unit to take the liberation struggle to the white areas of the country. The apartheid government seized on these explosions as proof of the ANC's "terrorist" campaign to maim and murder innocent white civilians. These, it believed, were in a different league from Defence Force raids into the frontline states that often killed black women and children. In May 1998, former MK [Umkhonto we Sizwe] Commissar Aboobaker Ismail and some of his cadres sought amnesty for bombings that had killed 30 people and injured 350 others. Andries Sathekge and Darren Taylor report.

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

worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape

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

Additional music: B - Somber Ballads by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://incompetech.com/