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Vlakplaas
Vlakplaas (trans. "shallow farm") is a farm 20 km west of Pretoria that served as the headquarters of counterinsurgency unit C1 (later called C10) of the Security Branch of the apartheid-era South African Police. Though officially called Section C1, the unit itself also became known as Vlakplaas. Established in 1979, by 1990 it had grown from a small unit of five policemen and about fifteen askaris to a unit of nine squads. The unit functioned as a paramilitary hit squad, capturing political opponents of the apartheid government and either "turning" (converting) or executing them. Vlakplaas farm was the site of multiple executions of political opponents of the apartheid government. The unit is known to have carried out the murders of Griffiths Mxenge in 1981 and the so-called " Chesterville Four" in 1986, among many others. C1 officers were also notorious for allegedly routinely defrauding the state, siphoning off government funds to pay agents or for their personal use. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Security Branch (South Africa)
The Security Branch of the South African Police, established in 1947 as the Special Branch, was the security police apparatus of the apartheid state in South Africa. From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was one of the three main state entities responsible for intelligence gathering, the others being the Bureau of State Security, Bureau for State Security (later the National Intelligence Service (South Africa), National Intelligence Service) and the Military Intelligence division of the South African Defence Force. In 1987, at its peak, the Security Branch accounted for only thirteen percent of police personnel, but it wielded great influence as the "elite" service of the police. In addition to collecting and evaluating intelligence, the Branch also had operational units, which acted in neighbouring countries as well as inside South Africa, and it housed at least one paramilitary death squad, under the notorious Section C1 headquartered at Vlakplaas. It is also well known for recruiting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirk Coetzee
Dirk Coetzee (15 April 1945 – 7 March 2013) was co-founder and commander of the covert South African Security Police unit based at Vlakplaas. He and his colleagues were involved in a number of extra judicial killings including that of Griffiths Mxenge. Coetzee publicly revealed the existence of the Vlakplaas death squads in 1989, making himself a target of a failed assassination attempt. Early life Coetzee was born in April 1945 in Phokwane Local Municipality. His father was a postal worker. The younger Coetzee also worked for the postal service before becoming an investigator in 1969. Career Starting out as a constable in 1972, he rose through the ranks, and advanced his cause on secondment with the Rhodesian Armed Forces. He was promoted to captain in the security police and, in 1980, became the first commander of the secret police base on the Vlakplaas farm near Pretoria. In 1981, he was "assigned" to the murder of Griffiths Mxenge. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Police
The South African Police (SAP) was the national police force and law enforcement agency in South Africa from 1913 to 1994; it was the ''de facto'' police force in the territory of South West Africa (Namibia) from 1939 to 1981. After South Africa's transition to majority rule in 1994, the SAP was reorganised into the South African Police Service (SAPS). History The South African Police were the successors to the police forces of the Cape Colony, the Natal Colony, the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal Colony in law enforcement in South Africa. Proclamation 18 formed the South African Police on 1 April 1913 with the amalgamation of the police forces of the four old colonies after the founding of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The first Commissioner of Police was Colonel Theo G Truter with 5,882 men under his command. The SAP originally policed cities and urban areas, while the South African Mounted Riflemen, a branch of the Union Defence Force, enforced the state's wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene De Kock
Eugene Alexander de Kock (born 29 January 1949) is a former South African Police colonel, torturer, and assassin, active under the apartheid government. Nicknamed "Prime Evil" by the press, De Kock was the commanding officer of C10, a counterinsurgency unit of the SAP that kidnapped, tortured, and murdered numerous anti-apartheid activists from the 1980s to the early 1990s. C10's victims included members of the African National Congress. Following South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994, De Kock disclosed the full scope of C10's crimes while testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 1996, he was tried and convicted on eighty-nine charges and sentenced to 212 years in prison. Since beginning his sentence, De Kock has accused several members of the apartheid government, including former State President F. W. de Klerk, of permitting C10's activities. In 2015, he was granted parole, and is currently released . Early life and service Eugene Alexander d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Cooperation Bureau
The South African Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), was a government-sponsored counterinsurgency unit, during the apartheid era. The CCB, operated under the authority of Defence Minister General Magnus Malan. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee, pronounced the CCB guilty of numerous killings, and suspected more killings. Forerunners and contemporaries When South African newspapers first revealed its existence in the late 1980s, the CCB appeared to be a unique and unorthodox security operation: its members wore civilian clothing; it operated within the borders of the country; it used private companies as fronts; and it mostly targeted civilians. However, as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) discovered a decade later, the CCB's methods were neither new nor unique. Instead, they had evolved from precedents set in the 1960s and 70s by Eschel Rhoodie's Department of Information (see Muldergate Scandal), the Bureau of State Security ( B.O.S.S.) and Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Askari
An askari (from Somali, Swahili and Arabic , , meaning "soldier" or "military", which also means "police" in the Somali language) was a local soldier serving in the armies of the European colonial powers in Africa, particularly in the African Great Lakes, Northeast Africa and Central Africa. The word is used in this sense in English, as well as in German, Italian, Urdu and Portuguese. In French, the word is used only in reference to native troops outside the French colonial empire. The designation is still in occasional use today to informally describe police, gendarmerie and security guards. During the period of the European colonial empires in Africa, locally recruited soldiers designated as askaris were employed by the Italian, British, Portuguese, German and Belgian colonial armies. They played a crucial role in the conquest of the various colonial possessions, and subsequently served as garrison and internal security forces. During both World Wars, askari units also served ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death Squad
A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are formed by an insurgency, domestic or foreign governments actively participate in, support, or ignore the death squad's activities. Death squads are distinct from assassination from their permanent organization and the larger number of victims (typically thousands or more) who may not be prominent individuals. Other violence, such as rape, torture, arson, or bombings may be carried out alongside murders. They may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary militia groups, government soldiers, policemen, or combinations thereof. They may also be organized as vigilantes, bounty hunters, mercenaries, or contract killers. When death squads are not controlled by the state, they may consist of insurgent forces or organized crime, such as the ones ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Griffiths Mxenge
Griffiths Mlungisi Mxenge (27 February 1935 – 19 November 1981) was born in KwaRayi, a rural settlement outside of King Williams Town, Eastern Cape. He was a civil rights lawyer, a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and a South African anti-apartheid activist. Early life Griffiths Mlungisi Mxenge was the eldest son of Johnson Pinti and Hannah Nowise Mxenge. His parents were farmers in KwaRayi. He began his high schooling at Forbes Grant Secondary school in Ginsberg but matriculated from Newell High school in Port Elizabeth in 1956. ona G.V. New Dictionary of South African Biography Mxenge, Griffiths Mlungisi. Online. Accessed 17 August./ref> In 1959, he received a bachelor's degree from Fort Hare University majoring in Roman Dutch Law and English. He joined the African National Congress Youth League while he was studying. The Defiance Campaign and the Congress of the People in Kliptown contributed to his political consciousness He enrolled for an LLB degree at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbalism
Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from '' Artemisia annua'', a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of plants used in 21st century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine commonly includes fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Herbal medicine is also called phytomedicine or phytotherapy. Paraherbalism describes alternative and pseudoscientific practices of using unrefined plant or animal extracts as unproven medicines or health-promoting agents. Paraherbalism relies on the belief that preserving various ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Pauw
Jacques Pauw is a South African investigative journalist who was an executive producer of the ''Special Assignment'' current affairs programme on SABC. Pauw was a founding member and assistant editor of the anti-apartheid Afrikaans newspaper Vrye Weekblad. He began his television career in 1994, specializing in documentaries around the African continent. Throughout his journalistic career, Pauw investigated lethal criminal activities in the underworld of southern Africa and exposed atrocities committed by governments around the African continent. Affairs covered by Pauw's documentaries include the Rwandan genocide, the War in Darfur, and the police death squads in South Africa under apartheid. In November 2017, South Africa's state security agency (SSA) brought criminal charges against Pauw because of claims made in his book, " The President's Keepers." His house was raided by the South African police in February 2018. Retirement In 2014, Jacques Pauw retired from journali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob Dlamini (author)
Jacob Dlamini is a South African journalist, historian and author. He is currently an assistant professor of history at Princeton University, specialising in African history. He has written four books about South African political and social history, each of which seeks to complicate popular narratives about Apartheid and black experience in South Africa. Biography Dlamini grew up in Katlehong, a township outside of Johannesburg, during Apartheid. He studied English literature and political science at the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits), graduating in 2003 with a Bachelor's degree and Honours degree, and has Master's degrees from the University of Sussex and Yale University. At Yale, he had planned to research the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the political science department, but switched to a course of study in the history department. In 2012 he received a doctorate in history from Yale. Before becoming a historian, he had been a journalist in South Africa – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bureau Of State Security
The Bureau for State Security ( af, Buro vir Staatsveiligheid; also known as the Bureau of State Security (BOSS)) was the main South African state intelligence agency from 1969 to 1980. A high-budget and secretive institution, it reported directly to the Prime Minister of South Africa, Prime Minister on its broad national security mandate. Under this mandate, it was at the centre of the Apartheid state's domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence activities, including counterinsurgency efforts both Internal resistance to apartheid, inside South Africa and in neighbouring countries. Like other appendages of the Apartheid security forces, it has been implicated in human rights violations, political repression, and extra-judicial killings. For most of its existence, BOSS was headed by General Hendrik van den Bergh (police official), Hendrik van den Bergh, who, while special Security Adviser to Prime Minister John Vorster, was instrumental in its establishment. The Truth and Reconc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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