EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a =REE SOUTHERN AFRICA · ·~E c 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y. 10012·2725 s (212) 4n.0066 FAX: (212) 979-1013 A #94 15 December 1989 SOUTH AFRICA - TOWARD A DEMOCRATIC FUTURE The Conference for a Denocratic Future on 9 December in Johannesburg brought 4600 delegates of over 2000 organizations together to concentrate on building a new South Africa out of its present shambles . Here are voices of participants: 'Mr. De Klerk, your back is to the wall. When you raise your eyes now, you can look only in one di­ rection. In so doing you meet the eyes bf the peo­ ple. There is much in our steady gaze that you must envy. You see our unflinching commitment to the cause of liberty, justice and equality. This is a noble cause, sanctioned by the world community. Like us , you must long for these things . Yet, you have excluded yourself from them. · 'Come stand on the floor of a conference like this . Like the rest of our delegates , bring a mandate from those who want you to represent them. Submit to the processes of denocracy. It is true that you will be only one anong many delegates . But you will not be lonely. Come and feel the power of unity and action with the people of South Af­ rica, instead of againSt them. ' THE INDEPENDENT Monday 11 December 1989 - ANC leader Walter Sisulu~ in the keynote addPess 'We have suffered too long under apartheid. We want to break the present log jam be;tween the forces of social progress and peace· and those who represent the violence of apartheid. Intensified international pressure will operate decisively in favour of the forces of so­ cial progress and peace. There is today a new climate of peace and friendship in the world. We welcome that because we have seen that historically our struggle against apartheid is ultirnately a struggle for peace and justice. If the Pretoria regime is serious about nego­ tiations they should create the climate for free political activity as put forward in the OAU Declaration adopted in Harare and which represents the views of the overWhelming major­ ity of people in South Africa .... The delegates (to the Conference for a Denocratic Future) were united in their commitment to isolate and destroy apartheid. The Conference resolved ·to intensify the struggle to transform our country. ' - Jay Naidbo, Gene~l Secretar-y of the Congress of South African Trade Unions~ at the United Nations, l2 December l989 'Informal repression, falling outside the official controls of formal security legislation ,is assuming increasing importance for the apartheid regime. Its most open form, the National Se­ curity Management System, recently downgraded but largely intact, serves to gather infonnation on the ground, feed this to the State Security Council and carry out instructions for the neu­ tralising of political activists and organisations. Lower down in profile.· are sponsored vigi­ lante groups who violently prop up apartheid-created structures of homeland goverrunents and black local authorities , by eliminating their opponents and creating the image of black-on­ black violence. At the bottom of the scale are the shadowy hit squads , several of which have recently been shown beyond doubt to be police and anry-based structures operating through a line of command which may very well emanate from the top. ' - Dr Max Coleman of the Human Rights Commission~ Johannesburg~ at the United Nations, l2 December l989 . d 'The govemment has fuZZ confidence that the tried and r>espected pr>ose- cution mechanisms of the state wi U be sufficient to bring the accused m U r e r .hefor>e the cour>t~ impar>tiaUy and objectively. ' - President F. W. De Klerk , 7 December 19 89 The protective cover is being peeled away from one of Pretoria's most closely guarded secret and gruesome - weapons in its effort to survive. Outright murder of opponents of apartheid and minority rule is a feature in South Africa and among exile corranuni ties throughout the world. Over 100 anti-apartheid activists have been killed inside the cmmtry in the past 10 years and other South Africans abroad have met the same fate. At home the South African Po­ lice have been assigned to investigate and have yet to solve one of these 'mysterious' deaths. South Africans struggling for a free society have long assumed the existence of officially pro­ tected and sanctioned hit squads 0 On the eve of his scheduled hanging for killing a white farmer, a 32-year-old former policeman, Butana Almond Nofomela, confessed in writing that he had been a member of a security police assassination squad. Nofomela reasserted his innocence in the fanner's murder but related in great detail his work with the hit squad since 19 81. He told how security police brass visited him while he awaited sentence to urge him not to reveal information about the murder unit and that they would 'help me out of this problem'. The death sentence came down and his security police visitors told him 'that the instruction from Major De Kock was that I should take the pain' . Nofomela sent for a lawyer and a stay of execution ensued. Nofomela says late in 19 81 he was briefed in Pretoria by a Brigadier Schoon and his squad coiiDIJander, Captain Johannes Dirk Coetzee 'to eliminate a certain Durban attorney, Griffiths Mxenge' . Nofomela and three other squad members stopped the prominent civil rights lawyer along a road, took him to a near­ by stadium and beat and stabbed him to death .. 'we carried on butchering his body'. Following Coetzee' s orders the four cops took Mxenge 's money and valuables 'in order to simulate a rob­ -~ry'. Back in Pretoria each of the murderers was given 1,000 Rand. Soon there was confirmation of Nofomela' s 19 October affidavit. VRYE WEEKBLAD, an Afrikaans­ ianguage newspaper, published the confession of Captain Dirk Coetzee, who revealed further details of the operations of his and other Askari killer squads . From exile, he named names - of South African Police generals. Coetzee tells how he and another officer put poison in the drinks of two captured .ANC suspects , poison supplied by General Neethling, who averred that 6 0 grarnmes would suffice. They didn't. 'We increased dosage to 36 0 grammes , but nothing happen­ ed' . A sleeping potion was then applied and the two confused men were then shot and their bod­ ies burned. Neethling asked for careful notes on the effect of the soporific. Lt. Gen. Lothar Paul Neethling is head of the Criminalistics branch of the South African Police and in charge ·-of the SAP laboratory in Pretoria. Then Brigadier Neethling spent ihe years 1959-1963 study­ ing in the United States and since has made repeated visits to this country. General Neethling claims he has been defamed, he is unable to travel in South Africa and surrounding countries because he is in mortal danger, his family is imperiled, and is suing VRYE WEEKBLAD. Another USA connection crops up in Coetzee' s lengthy confession. A plan to murder a South Afri­ can activist in exile in Angola was to have involved use of a special weapon. 'Genl Johan Coet­ zee received a Scorpio machine pistol from the .Americans as a present. He donated it to secur­ i ty. The machine pistol fitted with a silencer, was built into a black briefcase. The barrel was hidden with a sticker and a container was built in into which t..'le empty catridges had to fall. It was fired with a trigger mechanism outside the case.' General Johan Coetzee, then head of the security police,went on to become Corranissioner of Police. Now retired, he has been a frequent visitor to the United States. A third hit squad member, David 'Spyker' Tshikalange, also having fled South Africa, affirms his participation in the Mxenge murder. He explains how he was taught to turn the knife after having stabbed someone. 'Apparently one leaves a bigger hole then. And when I slit a throat I had to cut until I felt the bone. Then someone was stone dead. ' Pretoria says it. will seek to extradite Dirk Coetzee, said to be hiding in Europe. .Al.rrond Nofo­ mela has pled ~l ty ·to Mxenge 's murder; his testimony - if he makes it to the witness stand - sh'?uld be explo~~ve. South Africans have called for a judicial inquiry, even an international tribur;al: Pres~dent De Klerk is trying to keep the murder squad issue among the lower ranks and w~ thin controllable departmental confines - lest the trail of blood is revealed all the way to the generals - and beyond. ecsa dec 89 QJ;J;;: L B.B.P.! T I 0 ~ !;O~FERENJ;_~QJ3_A_Q~M.Qt;.BAT I C FUTUR~ 1. The s£ruggling people of our motherland stand at the threshold of a new S.A. CentLlries of struggle against the forces . of evil and oppression are now bearing fruit. We are certain of our future and_through our concerted will, SA will be free and democratic. 2. We~ the thousands of represent~. tives of organis-ations from throughout SA, gathered here in Johannesburg to plan the Aext steps of our march to fr~edom, find our country in a chaotic state in that: * The minority rulers hold onto power ag~inst the will of the majority. * They perpetrate violence against our people. * 1he economv is in total ruin. * The su1fering of our people increases daily unemployment~ low wages~ high rents, high cost of living. 3. Our people have made it clear that: * No minority government is acceptable .