THE e-NONGQAI Un-official Police Gazette for VETERANS of the former South African Police Force and for those interested in the history of our Police, Defence and our National Security February 2014; Vol 5 no 2 DIE e-NONGQAI Nie-amptelike Polisiekoerant vir VETERANE van die ou Suid-Afrikaanse Polisiemag en vir diegene wat belangstel in die geskiedenis van ons polisie, verdediging en nasionale veiligheid Februarie 2014; Vol 5 Nr 2
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Your national security history magazine without malice. U nasionale veiligheidsgeskiedenistydskrif sonder kwaadwilligheid. Om die verlede te bewaar sonder om in die verlede te leef.
To preserve the past without living the past.
WIE IS ONS? / WHO ARE WE? We are an informal group of police and defence veterans who would like to foster an interest in South Africa’s police, defence and national security history from 1652 with cut-off-date 1994; when the new South Africa came into being. We only tell and explain what we did; for we were the “on the spot” eyewitnesses! In fact we are the ones you saw in the news reels of the time following orders from parliament. However we have to debate the incidents because our memory is fallible as we grow older. In the terms of the day "we earned the T-shirt and right to tell our stories for you to enjoy with malice towards none." In the suburbs we see so many gardeners wearing those T-shirts! We all can learn from the past.
Genl Johan van der Merwe Beskermheer Patron
Ronnie Beyl
Johan Jacobs
Lt-Col W Marshall
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Anemari Jansen
Adv Len Els
HBH
• The Editorial Team Editor: HB “Hennie” Heymans, MA (Brigadier, SAP & SSSC - Ret) Ass-Editor: J Jacobs (CPO SA Navy & Marines - Ret) SA Railway Police: Brig R Beyl Legal Advisor: Col Len Els, MMM, LLD, SC Special Correspondent: Anemarie Jansen (MA) Defence: Lt-Col W Marshall •
Skrywers van Rubrieke / Authors
Gawie Botha
Dave Holmes
Kol Van Rensburg
Genl Westraat
LEGALITIES This publication is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all developments in policing/ national security or to cover all aspects of those referred to. Readers should take legal and other advice before applying the information contained in this publication to specific issues or transactions. The eNongqai contains various and sundry personal opinions of different correspondents and neither the compiler of eNongqai nor eNongqai will be held responsible for any of their comments which is entirely their own and not necessarily that of eNongqai or its publishers. • To all future correspondents This condition must be placed at the end of your article: "The author of this article shall indemnify and hold harmless eNongqai and its publishers from any and all 3
third-party claims, proceedings, actions, expenses, and damages (including attorney fees) in connection with a breach or alleged breach of the representations and warranties made in this article." This is not a literary magazine, but a magazine by; and for veterans of the SA Security Forces; we want to capture the words and moods as written by our former veterans. Beware of graphic language
CONTENTS WIE IS ONS? / WHO ARE WE? ............................................................................................ 2 •
The Editorial Team ...................................................................................................... 3
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Skrywers van Rubrieke / Authors ............................................................................. 3
LEGALITIES ............................................................................................................................ 3 •
To all future correspondents................................................................................... 3
WELCOME & GOOD WISHES / WELKOM & GOEIE WENSE ...................................... 8 •
AFRICA POLICE JOURNAL ..................................................................................... 8
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Suid-Afrikaanse Polisie – Afgetrede Lede: Kaptein Patrick Coetzee ................... 9
OUR FRONT PAGE ................................................................................................................ 9 MOMENT OF SILENCE / OOMBLIK VAN STILTE ....................................................... 10 PERSONALIA VANAF 05 JANUARIE TOT 26 JAN 2014: JOHAN JACOBS ............ 11 •
Afsterwe ...................................................................................................................... 11
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Siekboek....................................................................................................................... 11
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Verjaarsdae.................................................................................................................. 12
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Verlowings, huwelike & geboortes ......................................................................... 12
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Allegaartjie .................................................................................................................. 12
Nog personalia (HBH).......................................................................................................... 13 •
Kol Japie Maree en mev Elize Maree ................................................................... 13
+ Dries Struwig .............................................................................................................. 14 •
Ferdie Vermaak ...................................................................................................... 14
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM / SAL ONS OU KENNISE OOIT VERGEET? ............ 16 •
South African Police Officer Memorial: Gerhard Engelbrecht, NZ.................... 16 4
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Huldeblyk aan genl. Dolf van Vuuren : Johan van der Merwe ........................ 16
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“To Absent friends!” Piet ‘Walk Tall’ van Zyl ....................................................... 19
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Special Remembrance Tribute: B.S.A.P. Page via Mark Newham ..................... 20
SA POLICE / SA POLISIE .................................................................................................... 20 •
Boek: Die Gloriejare van die Suid-Afrikaanse Polisiemag ................................... 20
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Die Donkielong is stil: Manie Bodenstein: Genl Hennie Westraat ..................... 21
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Aanval op Chisuma: Kol Roelf du Plooy................................................................ 21
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Police Pets & Mascots / polisie troeteldiere & gelukbringers - HBH ................. 23 •
Natal Police: Zebra ................................................................................................. 23
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SAP: 1914 Monkey.................................................................................................. 23
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Koevoet: Elephant .................................................................................................. 24
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SAP Choppers – Lt-Col W Marshall (SANDF) ...................................................... 25
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Kameelpolisie: Japie de Jager ................................................................................... 27
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Oud-sers Dirk van der Merwe: Adv Len Els ......................................................... 30
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Durbanville Police Station: Phil Beck ...................................................................... 30
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1974 PATU 6/974: SAP / BSAP: Jeff Manning ....................................................... 32
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Ongulambashe: Gawie Botha ................................................................................... 33
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Herinneringe: So was die SAP en die SAP (V): Andre Grobler, MSc................. 45
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Landmyn: SAP Voertuig: Ferdie Vermaak............................................................. 49 •
Oubrig Flêtgert Booysen ....................................................................................... 53
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Wyle konst Dobbin................................................................................................. 54
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Telefoonhokkie: Kapt Tiny Nortjè ........................................................................... 56
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1952: Maj GD Pienaar: DK van Pretoria.................................................................. 56
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SAP Hillbrow: Kapt Patrick Coetzee....................................................................... 57
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Die Bosoorlog: Johan Herselman ............................................................................. 61
SA RAILWAYS POLICE / SA SPOORWEGPOLISIE....................................................... 69 •
SASP Reunie : Addo : Oos-Kaap.............................................................................. 69
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Photo: S A Railway Police: Les Pivnic..................................................................... 70 •
Foto’s verskaf deur Ronnie Beyl .......................................................................... 71 5
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Vrystaat: Thys du Plessis .......................................................................................... 72
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JG Strijdom-lughawe: “Die Spoke loop”: Fanie Kruger ....................................... 72
SA DEFENCE FORCE / SA WEERMAG ........................................................................... 75 SA Lugmag: Probleem oor twee Le Roux’s met DFC’s opgelos deur “SAAF
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Roll of Honour” ................................................................................................................. 75 •
Inquiry: Oxford Harbour View Project - East London ......................................... 76
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New SA Navy Chief .................................................................................................. 79
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Refueling in Flight: South African Airforce ........................................................... 80
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1914: Duits-Suidwes se Lugmag: Kmdt Willem Ratte .......................................... 81
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Om ʼn “Boyscout” agtergrond te hê, werk nie altyd nie: At Spies ...................... 84
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Dis ‘n klein wereld waarin ons leef: At Spies ........................................................ 86
NATIONAL SECURITY / NASIONALE VEILIGHEID .................................................. 88 •
1964: Extracts: Rivonia Trail: Justice Quartus de Wet .......................................... 88
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President Mandela and The Security Police: Piet Swanepoel ............................. 91
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Det/Sgt Pieter Swanepoel ...................................................................................... 91
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Detective Head Constable Truter......................................................................... 93
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The chronology of struggle ................................................................................... 95
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Mandela and the SACP ......................................................................................... 97 Z 204: Security Clearance: Pieter Groenewald....................................................... 99
BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA POLICE ................................................................................. 100 •
The Realisation: Dave Holmes ............................................................................... 100
REGSPLEGING ................................................................................................................... 104 •
Man oortree Erfeniswet ........................................................................................... 104
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AfriForum verkla 2 dokters by RGSA oor ANC-bomme ................................... 104
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Vraag oor ammunisie: The New Ammunition That Has Gun Owners Drooling:
Marius Avenant ............................................................................................................... 105 •
Artikel 113 van die Strafproseswet........................................................................ 106
SILENCE IN COURT / STILTE IN DIE HOF .................................................................. 107 •
Adv Len Els : Uit Aquila Bundel 2 (in wording). ............................................... 107
MILITARY HISTORY / MILITÊRE GESKIEDENIS ....................................................... 107 6
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WW1: Brave & Essentric Journalist ....................................................................... 107
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WW1: Old Photographs: Louis Lubbe .................................................................. 115 •
South Africans in Egypt?..................................................................................... 115
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“I will never surrender” – Japanese Soldier ......................................................... 117
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Naval Hill in Bloemfontein se Witperd ................................................................ 121 •
Perd in die oorlog ................................................................................................. 123
BOOKS / BOEKE ................................................................................................................. 124 •
Unmaking of the torturer: Elaine Bing.................................................................. 124
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To Cath a Cop: M Thamm ...................................................................................... 126
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External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990: Stephen Ellis ......................... 127
MILITARIA / MEDALJES, UNIFORMS ETC/ ENS ....................................................... 127 •
No 30861 Maj HC du Preez: Paul du Preez (Greytown) .................................... 127
INTERNATIONAL FORCES / INTERNASIONALE MAGTE ..................................... 129 •
International: The Casspir ...................................................................................... 129
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New 20 Seat Concorde ............................................................................................ 131
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Afghanistan appoints a woman as its top police officer in district of Kabul .. 133
NICE TO KNOW................................................................................................................. 135 •
Bad cops, assassins, Czech fugitives: The meaning of Paul O’Sullivan -
Marianne Thamm............................................................................................................ 135 •
Incredible Journey: Box of lost Memories: Don Pinnock ................................... 140
LETTERS / BRIEWE ............................................................................................................ 143 •
Willie du Plessis: Standerton .................................................................................. 143
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Andre Grobler: Pretoria .......................................................................................... 144
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AO Dirk Coetzee: Leon Coetzee ............................................................................ 146
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Brig Kalfie Broodryk: Hanlie van Staaten: Nigel................................................. 146
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Willie du Plessis: Tydverdryf: Standerton ........................................................... 146
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Johan Kriel: Oman.................................................................................................... 146
VERSOEK MBT INLIGTING EN FOTO’S...................................................................... 147 •
Gideon Lotz: Oos-Kaap ........................................................................................... 147
THE MARKET PLACE / DIE MARKPLEK ..................................................................... 147 7
OOR ‘N KOPPIE KOFFIE .................................................................................................. 147 Die slakkepaskantoor ..................................................................................................... 147 CONCLUSION / SLOT ...................................................................................................... 149 KONTAKBESONDERHEDE / CONTACT DETAILS ................................................... 149 Greetings – Groete ...................................................................................................... 149 Salute! Saluut! .............................................................................................................. 149 WELCOME & GOOD WISHES / WELKOM & GOEIE WENSE Baie welkom by die 2de uitgawe – 5de jaar - van ons elektroniese tydskrif die eNONGQAI. Die ou Natal Police se NONGQAI is gedurende 1907 in Natal uitgegee. Met uniewording het al die verskillende magte en die gevangenisdienste gestem dat die Nongqai die Uniemagte se lyfblad sal wees. Die Nongqai is vanaf 1913 nasionaal uitgegee en dit staan vandag as die SERVAMUS bekend. Gedurende 2007 het ek die voorreg gehad om die 100ste jaar se gedenkuitgawe vir SERVAMUS op te stel. Na ‘n paar jaar het ek besluit om die ou tradisie van die NONGQAI te laat herleef; om so hulde te bring aan ons voorgangers en ons geskiedenis vir die nageslag te bewaar. Ons ander doel is om ook weermagstories op te vang en te bêre vir die nageslag. Ons stel nie in die huidige politiek belang nie; maar wel in die geskiedenis van SuidAfrika. Wat is die raakpunte van die die ou SAP met die geskiedenis van SuidAfrika? Ons probeer antwoorde vir ons optrede vind. Ook het ons gevind dat appels met appels vergelyk moet word. Dit is ‘n tergende kwessie om “alles” te verstaan en in die korrekte konteks te sien. (Ek weet ook soms nie wat is die “regte” konteks nie?) Ons moet ook eerlik antwoord op die valse beskuldigings wat teen ons ingebring is. Beskuldigings wat glad nie aan die toets van kruisondervraging onderwerpe was nie. Ons moet ook ‘n vertolking van die geskiedenis gee. Van al die magte en dienste het die ou SAP sonder twyfel seker die moeilikste taak gehad. Alle beskuldigings teen beskuldigdes en rewolusionêre persone in die hof moes bo alle twyfel bewys word. Die rol van die ou NP se behandeling van sy magte moet ook onder die loep geneem word. Het die NP het klaaglik misluk om na die belange van sy lede om te sien? Ek weet nie, dit lyk egter so. Geen wonder Boetman het so kwaad geword nie!! HBH.
• AFRICA POLICE JOURNAL http://issuu.com/hennieheymans/docs/police_for_africa_vol_1_no_1 ‘n Groepie vriende wat in Afrika, sy polisiëring, sy unieke probleme en sonderlinge uitdagings belangstel het besluit om ‘n elektroniese-tydskrif oor die interessante 8
onderwerp uit te gee. ‘n Paar dae was daar reeds meer as 1000 trefslae op die tydskrif. Weereens stel ons nie in politieke of godsdienstige kwessies belang nie. Ons het gevoel daar is baie kundigheid in Afrika. Wanneer ‘n probleem ontstaan word daar altyd buite Afrika, na kundiges gesoek. Baie van hulle is self pateties onkundig oor Afrika, sy mense en sy kultuur. Ons mense hier van Afrika moet ons eie probleme hanteer. Ons wil meer weet oor die polisiemagte in Afrika en hul doen en late en ook watter probleme hulle in die gesig staar. Ervare speurders sal dit bevestig. Ons rig ‘n ope uitnodiging aan kundiges en besoekers aan Afrika om hul insigte en foto’s met ons te deel. Die tydskrif word, om dit meer toeganglik te maak, in Engels uitgegee. Vir meer besonderhede kontak vir HBH. •
Suid-Afrikaanse Polisie – Afgetrede Lede: Kaptein Patrick Coetzee Ons het ‘n paar jaar gelede ‘n FACEBOOK bladsy geskep met die naam: “Suid-Afrikaanse Polisie – Afgetrede Lede.” https://www.facebook.com/groups/44388598559/ Die ADMINS het besluit dat slegs lede wat ‘n verbintenis met die SAP het of lief vir SAPgeskiedenis is lid van die blad kan word. Ja, ons het soms ‘n problem met krutaal maar ons ignoreer dit. Politiek en godsdiens is egter taboe. Kom gesels beskaafd en indien u debat wil voer is u welkom – verdedig u stelling; moenie u opponent beswadder nie. Respekteer vryheid van spraak.Indien u wil aansluit kontak vir Patrick op FB of by epos vir Patrick Coetzee: patrickcoetzee@gmail.com
OUR FRONT PAGE Vlnr: Sersant Christo Olivier, kst Andre Lerm en konst Patrick Coetzee. Hierdie foto is gedurende November 1983, voor die Hillbrow Polisiestasie geneem. Ons het klagtes bygewoon aangesien daar geen ander vervoer beskikbaar was nie. Alle patrolie voertuie was in die motorhawe.
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MOMENT OF SILENCE / OOMBLIK VAN STILTE
Verbeel jou dat jy die volgende prys gewen het.. Elke oggend word R 86,400.00 in jou persoonlike rekening gedeponeer. Maar die speletjie het reëls ook.**** *Eerste Reël :* Alles wat jy nie die dag spandeer nie word teruggevat, jy mag ook nie net geld oordra in ander rekeninge nie. Jy moet dit net spandeer!**** *Tweede reël* Die speletjie kan enige oomblik gestop word sonder 'n waarskuwing. Dis verby! Jy kan nie 'n nuwe rekening oopmaak nie.**** Wat sou jy persoonlik doen? Jy sal alles koop vir jouself en almal wat vir jou saak maak? 10
Selfs ook seker vir mense wat jy nie ken nie, want jy kan onmoontlik soveel geld op 'n dag op jouself spandeer?**** Die speletjie is eintlik waar, die naam is REALITEIT. Elkeen van ons besit so 'n bankrekening, ons sien dit net nie. Die rekening se naam is TYD. Elke oggend as jy wakker word is daar reeds 86 400 sekondes in jou rekening gedeponeer, 'n Gawe van die Lewe. As jy gaan slaap word alles wat jy nie gebruik het nie teruggevat. Dis verlore, vir altyd! Gister is verby. Die rekening kan gesluit word enige oomblik en sonder waarskuwing! So wat gaan jy doen met jou 86 400 sekondes? Is dit nie dalk meer werd as dieselfde bedrag in Rand nie? Geniet elke sekonde van jou lewe, want: Pasop!, Tyd snel baie vinniger verby as wat ons dink. Dank Jesus vir elke oomblik wat jy het, want dit is net genade!!!****
SAC CL Conradie GENERAL CRIME INVESTIGATIONS: CRIME STOP PERSONALIA VANAF 05 JANUARIE TOT 26 JAN 2014: JOHAN JACOBS • Afsterwe Dit is met innige leedwese dat ons die We deeply regret to announce the afsterwe van die volgende oudlede deaths of the following former van die Mag of die van ons vriende members of the moet aankondig: force or those of our fiends: Woensdag 15 Jan: Andrew van Zyl voorheen van Kaapstad Bedrogtak het ons vandag ontval. • Siekboek Ons wens die ondergenoemdes alle beterskap toe:
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Vrydag 17 Jan: Vriend Koot van Schalkwyk was weereens in die hospitaal maar is weer tuis. Woensdag 22 Jan: Genl. Bertus Steyn is vanoggend in die hospitaal opgeneem vir 'n knie-operasie. Vrydag 24 Jan: Eduan Liebenberg Naude is vandag opgeneem in die hospitaal vir ‘n heupvervanging • Verjaarsdae Ons wens die volgende hartlik geluk: Maandag 06 Jan: Dit is ons vriend Leon Strauss se verjaarsdag vandag! Woensdag 08 Jan: Chris Deetlefs - oud SAP (V) Oos-Tvl vanjaar vandag! Dinsdag 14 Jan: Abrie Grobler en Willie Louw verjaar vandag! Woensdag 15 Jan: Is Belinda Nel se verjaarsdag vandag. Donderdag 16 Jan: Nick Nel verjaar vandag so ook Kolonel Louis Malherbe, wat 86 jaar oud is vandag Vrydag 17 Jan: Is vandag die Kalahari meisie, Dalene Steenkamp, se verjaarsdag! Sondag 19 Jan: Mark Newham,vier sy geboorte dag vandag! Maandag 20 Jan: John Lambert verjaar vandag! Woensdag 23 Jan: Is Div De Villiers wat ook vandag verjaar!. Sondag 26 Jan: Erika Erasmus verjaar vandag! • Kennisgewings en reunies Wednesday 08 Jan: Pottie Potgieter; Today 42 years ago my darling Sandy, made me the happiest man on earth by accepting my hand in marriage. I still love you as I did then and will always love you. Maandag 20 Jan: Neelsie Borea berig dat haar kleindogter Noelle die wenner was van die kompetisie waarvoor baie van haar fb vriende en vriendinne gestem het. Sy is nou die gesig van "She's connected"
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Verlowings, huwelike & geboortes
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Allegaartjie
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Donderdag 23 Jan: Pottie Potgieter berig: Sandy Potgieter many happy returns of the day to you my love. I hope that you will have a wonderful day and that the next year will also be the best ever. Saamgestel deur Johan Jacobs Kontak besonderhede 0769287320 Epos: jhnjacobs65@gmail.com
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GROETE TOT DIE VOLGENDE PERSONALIA
Nog personalia (HBH) •
Kol Japie Maree en mev Elize Maree
Baie geluk met 46 jaar! [Ons was kleintyd polisiemanne in Durban!]
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+ Dries Struwig Tubby Myburg: Goeie mĂ´re Vriende en Vriendinne, slegte nuus nou net van Jurgens Basson ontvang. Dries Struwig van Katima-faam het verlede week `n knie vervangs operasie ondergaan en het net nooit nie weer wakker geword. Hy is blykbaar op die operasie tafel oorlede. Rus In Vrede vriend. (27 Jan 2014)
• Ferdie Vermaak Op 18 Nov 2013 was ons 41j getroud, sy het by my gestaan deur dik en dun in my polisieloopbaan, daar was baie swaar tye en ook goeie tye, haar gesondheid neem nou af, nou is dit my beurt om na haar te kyk. Ek SALUEER ook die ander lede se wederhelftes wat so getrou by hul egas gestaan het.
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WE WILL REMEMBER THEM / SAL ONS OU KENNISE OOIT VERGEET? •
South African Police Officer Memorial: Gerhard Engelbrecht, NZ
It has been custom for readers of this magazine to drink a toast to “ABSENT FRIENDS” on sunset the last day of the year. Here are some of the photographs received from all over the world: • Huldeblyk aan genl. Dolf van Vuuren : Johan van der Merwe Dit is vir my 'n besondere voorreg om namens die generaalsklub, insonderheid ook die Weskaaptak, 'n kort huldeblyk aan genl. Dolf van Vuuren te lewer. Bets het gemeld dat genl. Dolf versoek het dat die verrigtinge so bondig as moontlik moet wees. Hyself was 'n persoon wat daarvan gehou het om kort en kragtig te wees en ek voldoen graag aan sy versoek. Genl. Dolf het hom in Mei 1947 by die Suid-Afrikaanse Polisiemag aangesluit. Na sy opleiding is hy op Randfontein geplaas waar hy in 1955 Bets ontmoet het en hulle getroud is. Hy was daarna onderskeidelik op Kempton Park, die Oos-Rand en Vereeniging geplaas. Tydens sy dienstydperk aan die Oos-Rand het hy as distriksklerk gewerk waar hy waardevolle ondervinding opgedoen het. Hy is gedurende 1963 tot die rang van luitenant bevorder en is na die hoofkantoor van die Veiligheidstak in Pretoria oorgeplaas. In 1964 het hy die takbevelvoerder van die 16
veiligheidstak op Jan Smutslughawe (nou Oliver Tambo) geword waar hy tot die einde van 1965 gedien het. Op 1 Januarie 1966 het genl. Dolf die hoof van die parlementêre personeel van die kommissaris geword. Genl. Keevy was in daardie stadium die Kommissaris van die Polisiemag. Genl. Dolf het hierdie pos vir 19 jaar beklee en het onderskeidelik as parlementêre offisier vir generaals Keevy, Gous, Crous, Joubert, Prinsloo, Geldenhuys en Johann Coetzee opgetree. Die parlementêre personeel was vir die duur van die parlementsitting in Kaapstad gestasioneer. Benewens die gewone administratiewe pligte waarmee die kommissaris belas is, moes die parlementêre personeel jaarliks tydens die begrotingspos van die polisie, al die dokumente wat vir die posbespreking nodig was, vir die kommissaris en die minister voorberei. Dit was 'n veeleisende en omvattende taak en het met groot verantwoordelikheid gepaard gegaan. Die feit dat genl. Dolf hierdie taak vir 19 jaar met groot onderskeiding verrig het, spreek boeddele van sy bekwaamheid en die vertroue wat die onderskeie kommissarisse, maar ook ministers, in hom gestel het. Genl. Dolf het in sy hoedanigheid as hoof van die parlementêre personeel ook die lyfwagte van dr. Verwoerd en daarna mnr. John Vorster afgelos wanneer hulle met verlof gegaan het. Daar het sodoende 'n besondere verhouding tussen hom en dr. Verwoerd asook mnr. Vorster ontstaan. Hulle het albei groot agting vir sy bekwaamheid en integriteit gehad. Genl. Dolf was 'n goeie golfspeler en mnr. Vorster was versot op golf. Hulle het dikwels saam gaan golf speel en mnr. Vorster het 'n besondere toegeneentheid weens genl. Dolf gehad. Genl. Dolf het vertel dat hulle by geleentheid saam golf gespeel het en dat mnr. Vorster na afloop van die spel opgemerk het : “Ou Dolf ek het vandag so lekker gespeel dat ek nie eers een keer aan die dood gedink het nie”. Hilton Drury vertel dat hy gedurende 1971 die amptelike motorbestuurder van die kommissaris was. Genl. Gideon Joubert was vanaf 1971 tot 1973 die kommissaris. Hy het gedurende 1971 genl. Joubert na Windhoek bestuur en genl. Dolf het hulle vergesel. Hulle het naby Keetmanshoop onder 'n boom stilgehou om te eet. Genl. Dolf het sy knipmes gebruik om 'n appel te skil. Dit was 'n besondere knipmes met 'n bruin en wit ivoorhef en genl. Dolf het baie waarde daaraan geheg. Terwyl hulle besig was om te eet het genl. Dolf die knipmes in die 'n mik van die boom gesit en toe hulle ry dit daar vergeet. Hy was hewig ontsteld toe hulle in Windhoek kom en hy ontdek dat hy sy mes in die mik van 17
die boom vergeet het. Generaals Joubert en Dolf het per vliegtuig na Kaapstad teruggekeer en Hilton het weer met die motor teruggery. Hy het by die boom naby Keetmanshoop stilgehou waar die knipmes nog steeds in die mik gelê het. Genl. Dolf se vreugde was groot toe Hilton die mes aan hom terugbesorg het. Op 1 Januarie 1985 is generaal Dolf as die voorsitter van die tak Nasionale Vertolking aangestel. Die tak Nasionale Vertolking kortweg bekend as die TNV het uit verteenwoordigers van die Inligtingsgemeenskap, die Veiligheidstak, Nasionale Intelligensiediens, Afdeling Militêre Inligting en Buitelandse Sake bestaan. Inligting wat landwyd deur lede van die Inligtingsgemeenskap ingewin is, is deur die TNV geëvalueer en vertolk en daarna onder meer aan die Staatsveiligheidsraad vir beplanning voorgelê. Die voorsitter van die TNV het die moeilike en gewigtige taak gehad om een keer per maand veiligheidsvoorligting aan die Staatsveiligheidsraad te gee waar die staatspresident die voorsitter was. Mnr. P.W. Botha was gedurende 1985 die staatspresident en het die verloop van alle veiligheidsverwante voorvalle noukeurig gevolg. Genl. Dolf het ook hierdie taak met sy gewone deeglikheid en bekwaamheid verrig sonder om hom een maal die gramskap van mnr. Botha op die hals te haal. Die jaar 1985 is gekenmerk deur landwye onluste en oproer en die departement van Inligting het in 'n poging om rus en kalmte te bring 'n sogenaamde vredesliedjie laat komponeer. Hulle het meer as R4 miljoen aan die projek bestee wat 'n groot bohaai in die media ontketen het. Daar is op 'n groot skaal met die liedjie die spot gedryf en soos genl. Dolf op sy kenmerkende onnutsige wyse opgemerk het sou die liedjie beslis nie die treffersparade gehaal het nie. Genl. Dolf moes nadat die liedjie die lig gesien het, voorligting aan die Staatsveiligheidsraad gee. Mnr, Louis Nel, die adjunkminister van Inligting, was ook teenwoordig. Toe hy opstaan om te begin het mnr. P.W,. Botha skertsend opgemerk : “Genl. dink jy nie ons moet eers sing voordat jy begin nie?” Op sy skerpsinnige en spitsvondige manier het genl. Dolf geantwoord : “President as die ‘pay’ reg is kan ons maar sing”. Almal het hartlik gelag behalwe mnr. Nel wat dit geensins amusant gevind het nie. Genl. Dolf is die einde van 1986 na die Inspektoraat oorgeplaas waar hy 'n tydlank saam met genl. Hennie Fischer gedien het. Genl. Hennie de Witt het op 1 Januarie 1987 kommissaris geword en het genl. Dolf kort daarna as senior adjunkkommissaris aangestel. Hy het hierdie pos tot en met sy aftree in 1988 beklee. Die Suid-Afrikaanse Polisiemag het as erkenning vir sy integriteit bekwaamheid, toewyding en trou die Suid-Afrikaanse Polisiester vir uitmuntende diens (SOE) aan hom toegeken wat die hoogste toekenning van die Polisiemag is. Genl. Dolf het oor baie besondere eienskappe beskik, maar almal wat hom geken het sal saamstem dat sy skerpsinnigheid, spitsvondigheid, blymoedigheid en gemoedelikheid ons almal sal bybly. Die mooi herinneringe wat hy nalaat sal altyd 'n kosbare kleinood vir ons almal wees en so sal hy in ons gedagtes voortleef. Hy het
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oor die jare brandhout bymekaar gemaak wat in sy laaste jare hom, maar ook ons, met krag en geloof besiel het. Ek kan egter nie anders as om ook 'n besondere huldeblyk aan Bets te lewer nie. Die Polisiemag het in die algemeen hoë eise aan ons gades gestel, maar daar is min vrouens wat soveel moes opoffer soos Bets. Gedurende die 19 jaar wat genl. Dolf parlementêre diens gedoen het, moes Bets vir lang tydperke alleen oor die weg kom met al die verantwoordelikhede en laste van die huishouding. Sy het genl. Dolf deur dik en dun bygestaan, bemoedig en onderskraag. Haar blymoedigheid was vir hom 'n ligpunt wat dikwels swaarkry met lekkerkry vermeng het. Ek salueer graag vir Dolf en Bets, inderdaad twee baie besondere mense!! Generaal JV van der Merwe • •
Genl Dolf was ‘n yster! RIV. Petro H se hond, Cheeky, sit in die foto hierbo by genl Dolf se voete. Sy was amper 14 jr oud. Sy is ook intussen oorlede. Daar is ook nog trane.
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“To Absent friends!” Piet ‘Walk Tall’ van Zyl
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Special Remembrance Tribute: B.S.A.P. Page via Mark Newham
On 23 December 1974, during the Rhodesian cease-fire, a ZANLA commander, Herbert Shungu, and eight terrorists stopped two South African Police vehicles which were carrying six members of the SAP and a BSAP constable. They were all relieved of their firearms, bundled into one of the trucks and driven down to the bridge over the Mazoe River in Rushinga District. They were taken onto the bridge and told to remove their shirts and hats, but sensing real danger, the policemen tried to escape, some by jumping into the river. One of the terrorists opened up with his RPD, killing four of the South African policemen. Cst Grobbelaar, who was shot and wounded in the river, and Cst Louis Eloff both survived. The body of BSAP constable was never found and it is presumed he had drowned. We not only remember the five who were murdered in cold blood on that, but also pay special tribute the 50 members of the South African Defence Forces and Police who lost their lives on Rhodesian soil during the bush war. Rus in vrede, julle was ook ons helde. We remember on this day: •W23924W WO Jan Dippenaar (46) of the SAP, buried in Cape Town; •W57512N Sgt William du Plessis (22) of the SAP, buried in South Africa; •W64955H Cst Lourens Erasmus (18) of the SAP, buried in Port Elizabeth; •W61774B Cst Louis Franken (18) of the SAP, buried in the Western Cape; & •21666 Cst Mutasa Mandaza of the BSAP, his grave known only to God. It is noted that of all the more than 2,500 entries on our Combined Forces Roll of Honour, there are only three listed as Missing in Action. The other two are Cpl V. Musavengana of HQ 4 Bde, and Sgt Head Wuranda of the Selous Scouts.
Eugene Andre van Wyk Kobus Botha,Ek onthou die geval, lê my na aan die hart, Louis Elloff was saam met my op skool, as generaal afgetree. Ek was self die tyd met ‘n ses maande troep, Mike komp in Rhodesië. SALUUT aan die manne wat daar gesterf het. SA POLICE / SA POLISIE • Boek: Die Gloriejare van die Suid-Afrikaanse Polisiemag DIE GLORIEJARE VAN DIE SUID-AFRIKAANSE POLISIEMAG Vriende Die album oor “DIE GLORIEJARE VAN DIE SUID-AFRIKAANSE POLISIEMAG” is nou in die finale fase waar dit vir druk gereed gemaak word. Ons gaan 'n bladsy afsonder om aan alle persone wat skenkings gedoen het of 'n bladsy teen R200 geborg het, erkenning te verleen. Indien daar dalk nog persone is wat 'n bladsy teen R200 wil borg of op die wyse herdenking wil verleen aan 'n bepaalde persoon, hetsy 'n oudkollege, familielid of vriend, moet dit asseblief voor die einde van hierdie maand geskied. In die geval van verdere borge of waar daar herdenking aan 'n bepaald persoon verleen wil word, moet die bedrag van R200 in die volgende 20
rekening gestort word: OUDSAPLEDE TRUST ABSA BANK TAKKODE 632-005 REKENINGNR 9050207273 TAKNAAM : THE GROVE, PRETORIA. Stuur asseblief 'n SMS aan genl. Bertus Steyn, selfoonnommer 0836559145 met die naam van die borg en waar dit gaan om die herdenking van 'n persoon, die naam van die persoon en die verwantskap, byvoorbeeld – seun, broer, vriend, ens. Baie dankie by voorbaat aan alle persone wat skenkings gedoen het of 'n bladsy geborg het. Johan van der Merwe: Genl •
Die Donkielong is stil: Manie Bodenstein: Genl Hennie Westraat
Die meeste van ons het seker 'n weduwee en weesfonds dans gereël of een bygewoon. Met so 'n geleentheid sou jy altyd probeer om die polisie se dansorkes vir die geleentheid te kry en dan was die spesifieke opdrag, sorg asseblief dat Manie Bodenstein en Hansie Roodt albei in die orkes moet wees. In die jare 80' was die polisie bevoorreg om die dienste van hierdie twee musiekmakers te kon hê. Dis dan met ‘n tikkie nostalgie en hartseer dat ons afskeid neem van Oom Manie Bodenstein wat op 17 Oktober 2013 oorlede is.Manie Bodenstein kan met reg die koning van die konsertina genoem word. Tot die musiekskat van boeremusiek het hy 'n groot hoeveelheid albums opgeneem en uitgegee. Benewens die konsertina het hy ook die mondfluitjie bespeel. Hy het reeds op 8 jarige leeftyd begin musiek maak. Hy is op 85 jarige ouderdom oorlede. Oom Manie het tot die musiekgeskiedenis van die Sa Polisie bygedra. Ons eer graag sy nagedagtenis Hennie Westraat: Lt-genl • Aanval op Chisuma: Kol Roelf du Plooy Goeiemiddag Hennie, Ek is nie seker of jy hierdie artikel reeds voorheen ontvang het nie, indien wel kan jy dit maar ‘file‘. Weet jy ek het seker sowat n jaar gelede elektronies ingeteken op die Nongquai maar dit nooit ontvang nie.
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Groetnis, Roelf du Plooy (KOLONEL AFG. RJ DU PLOOY 79012753 PE ) SANW VOORMALIGE HOOF VAN STAF SPESIALE MAGTE BRIGADE Hennie, Dan was ons moontlik dieselfde jaar in die college, 1965 Troep 7 berede met Sers Tulleken as Troepsersant. Agtergebly op die berede, voetdril en tale afdeling tot Sept 68, daarna Stasiebevelvoerder op Kameeldrift. In Nov 69 bostoe en in 1970 Tin eenheid op Groblersdal toe. In 71 Tin Eenheid by die Kollege en in 76 Spesiale Taakmag toe. In 79 oor Recces toe en in 98 skeidingspakket gevat. Hierna Angola toe in die Sekuriteitsbedryf . In 2001 in die Finansiele Dienstesektor tot 2003 en daarna afgetree. Was sedert 98 ook n Raadslid tot in 2011. Sedertdien weer in die Sekuriteitsbedryf in LibiĂŤ en nou weer in Irak. Probeer maar die gate toestop waarmee my weermag pakket my gelaat het na 33 jaar diens tussen die SAW en die SAP. Genade is groot, gesondheid steeds baie goed en volg lewenslank n streng fiksheidsprogram. n Mens leer reeds vroeg in jou lewe dat jou lewenskwaliteit afhanklik is van jou gesondheid na so n dramatiese ingryping op jou lewe op die ouderdom van 23 jaar. Hennie dit wil my voorkom of ek onsuksesvol is met die stuur van die storie, ek sal more n kundige vra om my te help. Groete, Roelf
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Police Pets & Mascots / polisie troeteldiere & gelukbringers - HBH
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Natal Police: Zebra
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SAP: 1914 Monkey
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Koevoet: Elephant
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SAP Choppers – Lt-Col W Marshall (SANDF)
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• Kameelpolisie: Japie de Jager Hallo Hennie. Iets vir die argiewe uit die destydse SWA Polisie met hul Kamele. Is nie seker nie maar moes in die vroeg 40's gewees het? 'n Dame het dit aan my gestuur en was uit haar oorle oupa se polisiedae in SWA. Sy het ingestem dat ons dit mag deel met vandag se manne. Oupa was ene Schalk Willem Burger. Sodra ek weer iets ontvang sal ek dit aanstuur vir jou gebruik.
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Iewers waar hulle oorgebly het by 'n kameelstasie? Oupa Schalk heel links op sy bed en ander twee lede. Let op oupa se velkaroskombers. Duidelik was hul op rusdae.....elkeen met 'n beker koffie neem ek aan..
Agterryer met skedels
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Patrollie in diamantgebied
Patrollie met agterryer 29
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Oud-sers Dirk van der Merwe: Adv Len Els Gegroet Aangeheg foto van Dirk vd Merwe wat 13 Januarie vir 3de dan (Sandan) gegradeer is. Vanaf Sandan word 'n kort tesis ook ingelewer vir gradering. Die rede daarvoor is dat 'n 3de dan as ‘n senior instrukteur bekou word en ons wil bepaal of hy daardie status verdien en waardig is. Dirk se tesis "Teaching the Disabled" was hoogs insiggewend en leersaam. Sy kop is beslis op die regte plek! Dirk is 'n oud-polisiesersant (hofordonans) wat na 'n motorbotsing in 'n rystoel inforseer is. Hy is die hoof instrukteur van Yocando-Karate (You can do) wat op liggaamlik en verstandelik gestremdes gerig is. The human spirit is unbreakable!
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Durbanville Police Station: Phil Beck
Dear Hennie, I was mistaken. The building only looks old. However, it is 95 years old, not really that old in Cape terms! Here is the write-up: Durbanville Police Station The police station was built in 1919 and is typical of the Cape Dutch revival architecture of its period. A single-story, U-shaped building with wings and tall Flemish gables and arched verandas between the wings. Also present are the classic Byzantine pillars and arches. The building has large sashes with small panes and round vents and louvers. There are a number of good quality six-panel double doors and a distinctive tall chimney. 30
Kind regards
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1974 PATU 6/974: SAP / BSAP: Jeff Manning
Hello Hennie, Greetings from a not-so-warm Yorkshire! I hope this finds you well. Attached group photo of SAP PATU in Rhodesia in 1974 which I am sure will be of interest to some of you eNongqai readers. It was posted on the BSAP website by Barry Woan, exCh. Insp., Support Unit and I have his personal permission to pass this onto you to use as you see fit. Barry worked closely with some of your lads during that time – all of whose contribution and sacrifice to the cause will always be appreciated and remembered. Salute! The best, Jeff Manning
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• Ongulambashe: Gawie Botha Hennie, Bostaande “inserts” net ter inligting, hoe ek destyds in Ovamboland, sekere inligting van my beriggewers ontvang het, om met die ondersoek te kon voortgaan, wat my uiteindelik gehelp het, tot die inhegtenisneming van “Johny Otto alias Johannes Otto Nankundu”. Die meeste inligting is natuurlik wat ek tussen die lyne kon deurlees, omdat ek die area en omgewing geken het en geweet het: “What make these people tick”! Ek was getaak met die opsporing van Johannes Otto Nankundu en ander meelopers gedurende 1966 te Ovamboland. Tentye hiervan was ek ‘n lid van die SAP Veiligheidstak, gestasioneer te Ondangua, ons operasionele kantoor was te Oshikati en die “Spookhuis” genoem. 33
Lede van Pretoria V/T onder leiding van generaal Hendrik van der Berg (Langhendrik) het te Ovamboland begin arriveer. Kaptein Sonnekus het my getrek vanaf Ondangua om behulpsaam te wees by die “Spookhuis” te Oshikati, met opsporing en ondervraging. Kort opsomming van geskiedenis verslag van: “Johny Otto” alias Johannes Otto Nankundu. Gedurende 1958 was hy werksaam te Oranjemund diamantmyn en lid van OPO wat later gedurende 1960 verander is na SWAPO.
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1961 verlaat hy SWA (Namibië) onwettig en met behulp van die buitelandse vleuel van SWAPO en doen hy militêre opleiding te Egipte en gedurende1963 na USSR en met terugkeer na Tanzanië vir verdere onderrig. In 1964 infiltreer hy na bewering na SWA deur Angola en is die aanvoerder/instrukteur by verskeie opleidingskampe in Ovamboland. 16/08/1966 onder sy begeleiding val hy en ander kamarade Oshikango se grenspos aan, asook die woning van die Bantoesake-kommisaris, Mnr Burmeister, hulle dood van die nie-blanke veiligheidswagte en steek van die rietdak geboue aan die brand. 26/08/1966 is hy die bevelvoerder van die opleidingsbasis “Ongulumbashe” in Ovamboland. Met behulp van helikopters en grondpersoneel, word die kamp aangeval en deur die SAP oorrompel. Johny Otto vertel my tydens sy ondervraging dat hy vroegoggend die naderende dreuning van die helikopters gehoor het, maar sy soldate het hom in ‘n mate gerusgestel, dat dit net die swaermasjiene se dreuning is, waar kontrakteurs besig was met die bou van die nuwe pad van Oshivello na Ondangua ... maar sy opleiding wat hy gehad het, het hom vroegtydig gewaarsku dat die dreuning soos helikopters klink ... kort daarna het die SAP die kamp ingeval en hy het onder dekking gegaan en sodoende ontsnap. 28/12/1966 vroeg die oggend kom ‘n beriggewer per ‘n trapfiets uitasem by my aan, by die “Spookhuis” te Oshakati en deel my mee dat Johny Otto nou by die “Cucashops” te Otshikuku is, naby die Oshonna-pan ... spring op sy fiets, voordat ek verdere besonderhede kan kry en verdwyn met die menigte fietspadtjies wat daar was. Ek en ‘n kaptein van Rensburg en ‘n nie-blanke lid ry saam voorin ‘n Jeep Wagoneer, ons het van die ander lede te Oshikati gekry wat met hulle voertuie saam ry ... drie “Cuca-shops” anders genoem “Shebeens” se opslaankonstruksies is op die rand van die Oshona geleë met groot Makalaniepalms wat tussen in groei ... Met ‘n spoed en stof van voertuie hou ons plus minus 50 meter van die “Cucashops” af stil, nuuskierige Ovambo’s kom uit die “Cuca-shops” te voorskyn en almal staar in die rigting van die polisievoertuie, ek dink dis ‘n onbegonne taak ...! Dan merk ek ‘n Ovamboman wat uit die middelste Cuca-shop gestap, geklee in ‘n swartlang broek met wit hemp, die swart langbroek is die eerste indikasie wat ek kry, wat aan die beskrywing soos een van my beriggewers gemeld het, ek merk hy is die enigste persoon van al die Ovambo’s wat nie in ons rigting staar, regs draai en al langs die water in Oshona langs begin stap weg van ons af ... ek is gewapen met ‘n Walther HMK, kortbroek, veldskoene sonder sokkies, bosbaadtjie sonder moue, ek sê mos die Rhodesiërs het die hemp sonder moue by my gekopieër, ek spring uit die Jeep Wagoneer ... ek hoor nog kaptein van Rensburg skreeu: “Waar te hel hardloop jy heen...? In die hardloop span ek die sluitstuk van die HMK ... ek is 10 meter agter die Ovamboman met die swartbroek en withemp ... ek skreeu: “Johny ... Johny Otto stop ... staan !” Hy steek vir ‘n moment vas en stap dan stadig aan, die oggendson gooi lang skaduwees van agter oor ons, dit is toe wat ek in die skaduwee agter kom; maar die “donner” in die skaduwee hou my dop ... en hy hou sy hande voor sy lyf ... 35
ek sê: “Staan, stop or I shoot”. Ek weet hy is Engels magtig ... hy gaan staan, steek beide sy hande - reguit arms in die lug op, hy het geen wapens ... sy eerste woorde aan my is in gebroke Engels: “I am not the man you soek.” (Ek sal die woorde nooit vergeet). Ek laat hom omdraai, hy is pikswart gebrand van die son, soos alle Ovambo’s word as; wanneer hulle gedurig buite in die veld beweeg ... ons kyk mekaar in die oë ... hy kyk na die HMK ... ek sien dat hy sien die HMK is gespan en my vinger is op die sneller ... ’n groot kalmte kom oor my ... ons verstaan mekaar...! Dan eers met die terugdraai na die voertuie merk ek die ander lede van die Mag sit nog in hul voertuie, die ander Ovambo’s by die Cuca-shop staan saam gedrom in doodse stilte; ons twee word dopgehou ... ek weet toe ... hulle weet wie hy is[toe ek met Johny by die Jeep Wagoneer kom klim kaptein van Rensburg en al die ander lede uit hulle voertuie ... agter in ons Jeep is 4 “tollies” soos ons die genoem het; wat saam met ons gewerk het. Hulle sê so almal gelyk amper met respek: “Jo-Jo ... Nankudu!!” Kaptein van Rensburg vra geirriteerd: “Wie is dit!!?” Ek antwoord: “Johny Otto” en hang my HMK oor my skouer en by die voertuig visenteer ek Johny Otto, in sy linker sak kry ek ‘n oopvoubeursie met ‘n foto van hom in volle “Bosuniform” waar hy voor op die steppe in Rusland staan, asook een onafgevuurde AK 47 rondte in sy gatsak! Ons het Johny vir drie dae sonder slaap ondervra, ons het beurte gemaak met die ondervraging en vandaar is hy en kaptein van Rensburg met die “Flossie” na Pretoria. Wat ek wel later verneem het is dat hy vir Van Rensburg in die hof gesê het, dat Van Rensburg nie die man is wat hom gearesteer het ... na onafhanklikheid toe Johny Otto as held gedrapeer is, het hy vertel dat hy deur die “Rooirus” gearesteer was om indruk op sy ondersteuners te maak, dit is egter nie waar nie, wat ek hier skrywe is die waarheid. Tydens die ondervraging het Johny my meegedeel, dat ek hom moet bedank, anders was ek al dood gewees, angesien dit hy met twee van sy ander kamarade nl. Simon Shihungelene en Messack Victory, ‘n lokval vir my gestel het en ek vuurgetrek het, dit terwyl ek op ‘n trapfiets op pad was na ‘n ander beriggewer in die digbeboste gebied ... die rede hoekom hy opdrag gegee het om vuur te staak, is dat hy gedink het, ek as “aas” vooruit gestuur was en dat versterkings kort agter my sou wees... hy het nie geweet ek werk alleen en dit eers later uitgevind het! By die vuurpunt van Johny hulle het ons later 32 leë dopies van AK 47 opgetel ... hierdie is ‘n ander storie vir moontlikke later tyd! Johannes Otto Nankudu is op 29/02/1968 skuldig bevind vir sy deelname aan terroriste bedrywighede en lewenslank tronkstraf gevonnis. Na onafhanklikheid in SWA/Namibia is hy saam met ander terug gestuur na SWA. Hy is op 14/11/1986 vrygelaat en as held in SWA/Namibië ontvang en het later ‘n offisiersrang in die SWA gebiedsmag ontvang!
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n/s: Ek hoop jy kan die inligting gebruik ... groetnis Gawie
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Laaste woord: Johny Otto is oorlede op 21 Junie 2011 hartversaking. Dis jou keuse ek gee nie om nie, waarheid is waarheid! Kan jy die ander afskrifte gebruik soos geneem uit my dagboeke, en dit mooi tussen in spasieer! Gawie Botha "The author of this article shall indemnify and hold harmless eNongqai and its publishers from any and all third-party claims, proceedings, actions, expenses, and damages (including attorney fees) in connection with a breach or alleged breach of the representations and warranties made in this article."
Gawie verstrek primêre en sekondêre bronne wat sy storie staaf. Ek was by hom op sy plaas en hy het ook sy dagboeke en ander dokumente ter insae beskikbaar gestel. Hy vertel hy het nooit ‘n medalje vir die bekamping van Terrorisme gekry nie. Wil u nog meer van sy polisie-stories hoor? Laat weet sodat ons sy arm kan draai!
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Herinneringe: So was die SAP en die SAP (V): Andre Grobler, MSc
Inleiding: HBH Hier is ‘n verslaggie van Andre Grobler. Ek vermeld spesifiek sy akademiese kwalifikasie – hy is ‘n polisieman se seun en het ‘n MSc in “goeters” wat ek nie verstaan nie, verwerf. Hy is ‘n “fyn gentleman”. Ons het in dieselfde milieu groot geword. Ek ken sy familie. Vanuit ‘n historiese oogpunt beskryf hy sy lewe as kind van die latere brigadier Quartus Grobler, in my dae, een van die offisiere te Port Natal Veiligheidstak. Kyk, ons was almal “kerkmense” in die polisie in Durban. My Vader was ‘n polisieman en ek het uit die aard van die saak baie polisiemanne van ons verbintenis met die skool en kerk geken. So was daar die Grobler-familie, die latere genll Zietsman, FLC Engels, TM Bisschoff, Oom Koos Howel net om ‘n paar te noem. (Ek wonder altyd wat van Oom Koos Howel se kinders geword het?) Ons was maar almal relatief arm, die SAS-personeel het oortyd verdien. Maar ‘ons’ was goeie mense – of laat ek sê kerkmense. Drankmisbruik was ongewoon. (Miskien was daar nie geld vir drank nie?) Ons ouers het slegs met verjaarsdae en kersfees ietsie genuttig. Ja, daar was ‘n polisiekantien, maar slegs deur enkeles besoek. Ek was van kleinsaf trots op die polisie, daarom het ek ‘n polisieman geword – ek wou “iemand” soos hulle word. Lees ek die V-Tak se geskiedenis was ons “goeie ouens” en het ons “goeie write ups” in die koerante en in die tydskrifte bv Scope en Huisgenoot gekry. Kom mens by die latere “koverte rewo-oorlog” dan lees ek van geweldige drankmisbruik onder ons veiligheidslede. Ook ministers het gedrink. Ek kan talle bronverwysings aanhaal. Iewers het iets verkeerd gegaan. Wat? Iewers het ons afgestomp geraak. Iewers het ons morele kompas onklaar geraak. Miskien is ek verkeerd en idialiseer die ou polisie? Het ons ‘n ander pad as ons Vaders in die Mag geloop? As ek aan ou veiligheidsmanne dink, dink ek aan mense soos Frans Steenkamp, Herman Stadler, Daan Wessels, David van Zyl, Trevor Baker, Piet Swanepoel – ouens met karakter en inbors. Hulle was ordentlike mense. Ken hulle van “kleintyd”. Die verlede was ook nie perfek nie. [Ry vandag by enige restuarant verby na 10:00 en wat sien u? Is die geweldige toeloop na eetplekke die resultaat van die huidige situasie? Toe ons klein was, was daar min eetplekke.] Lees die WVK se verslae, lees die beskikbare literatuur. Daar was selfs enkele polisiemanne wat vir plesier gemartel het; enersyds omdat hulle die krimineel van sy menslikheid ontneem het en andersyds omdat hulle dit geniet. 45
Wat het verkeerd gegaan? Wie of wat het ons aangestig? Lees nou Andre se verslaggie wat mens amper kan noem: “So was ons!” Hi Hennie & Oom Piet, Nav ons gesprek, nog 'n paar dinge oor my Pa, familie en die Polisie: My Pa het tydens ons hoërskooljare op die volgende gedien: • Kerkraadsvergadering, • Rapportryers, • Kajuitraad, • Skoolkomitee van Port Natal; en • belastingbetalers vereninging. Hy het tussendeur altyd gesorg dat ons Port Natal (die skool – HBH) se debatte en funksies Vrydae-aande bywoon, en het natuurlik Saterdae vir ons kom kyk by die rugby asook gereeld Saterdaemiddae na Kingspark waar ons vir Keith Oxlee, Brian Irvine, Tommy Bedford ens gaan kyk het. Sondae was die ritueel: Luister in die oggend na Kerknuus op B program, daarna stap ons na die Sondagskool, dan kerk, dan groot ete - dan slaap in die Durbanhitte, daarna vir Oupa en Ouma in Currieweg gaan kuier. Ons het ook gereeld vir ander familie en vriende gekuier en wonder vandag hoe hy alles kon inpas? Soms het ons Sondaeaande kerk toe gegaan, en op ‘n stadium was katkisasie op Sondagmiddag by ds H van Rooyen, sodat ons Sondae nogal besig was. Die lekkerste was LM radio hitparade op Sondae-aande voor ons gaan slaap! Vakansie het die famile gereeld by ons kom kuier en gereeld strand toe gegaan, en ons seuns saamgeneem - ons was lekker bederf met roomys ens, terwyl my Ma moes sorg dat die huis skoon bly. Dit was maar beknop want daar was net 3 slaapkamers, en ons was 4 seuns! Ek kan onthou dat hy (brig Grobler - HBH) boeke vir politieke prisoniers gegee het in tronke, by meer as een geleentheid. Hy het ook soms van die Indiër- en swart polisiemanne na ons huis gebring en koppie tee laat maak. Ek onthou die Indiërs was Pillay & Pheremon. Ek het nogal baie by Durban-Sentraalpolisiestasie en Veiligheid se kantore uitgekom want ek was minstens 2 keer per jaar by die dokters. Oa dr Lapinsky en dr Sagorin. So ek het die polisiemanne meestal goed geken, ook van die rugby, Durban-Suid kerk en skool. My Pa het altyd met lof van Albert Luthuli en Chief Buthelezi gepraat en ek het verstaan hy was met hulle bevriend. Ek het verlede jaar begin wonder wat presies by die spoorweg brug by Groutville gebeur het, nadat ek ‘n volledige 46
video oor Albert Luthuli gesien het, want die familie het vermoed dat die SAP daarby betrokke was. So ek het presies ‘n jaar terug teen einde Januarie 2013 by ‘n braai die saak aangeroer by my beste vriend, Hennie wat ek al sedert 1964 van Durban ken. Dit was net ‘n wilde kans want my vriend het my Pa ook goed geken en respekteer en selfs ‘n verwsying of 2 van hom gekry. Een was vir die American Field Sevice-beurse direk na skool. Onverwags sê my vriend: “Ek weet wat gebeur het...” Ek kon nie my oë glo nie, want as daar een persoon is wat nooit iets sal vergeet of verdraai nie is dit my vriend HennieSy verhaal is kortliks is die volgende: Hennie het een Sondag sy Pa hoor gesels met ‘n vriend wat ‘n treindrywer was. Altwee het vir Spoorweg gewerk en was in die AGS gemeente, Bluff. Die treindryer het vertel dat ‘n verskriklike ding gebeur het--hy het die trein anderkant Stanger, by Groutville bestuur toe hy ‘n swart man op die treinspoor gewaar, net toe hy om die draai voor die brug kom. Hy het brieke aangeslaan en kon nie betyds briek nie - hy het Albert Luthuli getref wat die volgende dag oorlede was. Ek het op die video gehoor dat Luthuli elke dag oor die brug gestap het want sy huis en die plaas/winkel was aan weerskante van die brug, en hy het dan van werk terug gestap na die huis. Die trein het nie gereeld gekom nie - net paar keer per dag en blykbaar op vaste tye, stiptelik soos die ou Spoorweg was.Klaarblyklik was Luthuli ingedagte en het hom misgis met die tyd, en het net dood luiters aanhou stap... Wel, hierna het ek vrede in my gemoed gehad. Dit was ‘n suiwer ongeluk - finish en klaar en geen "foulplay", soos deur die Luthulifamilie destyds beweer. Dit was net verrassend dat ek eers na 47 jaar dit met my beste vriend bespreek het en dat hy my baie toevallig hierdie nuus kon meedeel --dit het in 1967 gebeur! Die aangehegde artikel in 3de laaste paragraaf bevestig dat geen geskiedkundiges geglo het dat die SAP daarby betrokke was nie. Luthuli, ‘n diep gelowige het nie in geweld geglo nie en sy afsterwe was n tragedie vir die hele land. Dit was defnitief nie in die Afriknaer belang dat hy moes sterwe nie. Groetnis, Andre Albert Luthuli – Bound by Faith Written by Stepneh Coan: Wednesday: 9 February 2011 Scott Couper University of KwaZulu-Natal Press More than forty years after the death of its subject Scott Couper's book rectifies a glaring omission in South African historiography - a biography of former president of the ANC and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Luthuli. Such a large gap of time has seen propagandists rather than historians appropriate the Luthuli story and 47
convert it to their own ends. Consequently Couper's biography has a specific focus, and one he pursues with determination: to wrest Luthuli's life from the nationalist-inspired version of it that has refashioned the facts to fit current political agendas. Received wisdom - in the ANC at least - is that Luthuli was fully behind the armed struggle. He wasn't, says Couper. A stance directly related to his Christian practice and belief which saw him hesitant at being a party to violence. However Luthuli, on his own admission, was no pacifist and though he clearly advocated non-violent protest when the ANC finally moved towards armed violence his position was to some extent ambivalent. He never publicly condemned either the formation or the activities of Umkhonto we Siswe (MK) and his view that it should be created but not activated is surely a case of splitting ethical hairs. In some respects Luthuli looks to have turned a blind eye while Nelson Mandela formed MK, an organisation which had an ambiguous relationship with the ANC: separate but under ANC control, seemingly allowing for a parallel strategy in which MK could blow up things while the ANC officially remained non-violent. Though Luthuli never "denounced the launching of MK activities, he continued to publicly discourage violent strategies until April 1962 and exclusively advocated for non-violent methods until his death," writes Couper. "Luthuli's incessant harping on non-violence long after MK's launch deeply disturbed many of his more militant colleagues", especially as Luthuli's views directly contradicted those of Mandela's as expressed in the MK manifesto. At the core of Couper's book is the eclipse of Luthuli by the ANC’s rising star, the feisty Mandela, who cleverly stepped into the power vacuum created by Luthuli's banning which had effectively limited his leadership. The nature of the ANC itself also changed when it in turn was banned and thus forced to operate clandestinely, without the checks and balances of open democracy. Ultimately Luthuli's non-violent approach may have been more pragmatic than Mandela's, says Couper, who regards the move to violence as being "disastrous for the movement" Couper's not alone. Joe Slovo thought the initiation of violence "at best, an heroic failure" that left the liberation movement "abysmally weak in the years that followed." The armed struggle plus the ANCs cosying up to Russia and China during the Cold War provoked worse reactions from the apartheid state, alienated friends in the West and probably prolonged the fall of apartheid. The other major concern of Couper's book is Luthuli's death in 1967 when he was hit by a train while crossing a bridge near his Groutville home. While Couper respects the Luthuli family's belief that the death was the result of foul play on the part of the apartheid state he points out that "to make such claims historians and other professional commentators must be held to a higher standard of evidence 48
than the family." Couper's conclusion is simple: it was an accident and those who think it was an assassination ignore the inquest reports. Inquest aside, murdering Luthuli simply makes no sense. By 1967 he was a spent force within the ANC, a titular leader considered obsolete by his own movement and certainly no longer a threat to the apartheid regime. Nobody had anything to gain by his murder. "The myth that Luthuli was killed, like the myth that he supported the turn to violence, leads to inaccurate interpretations of Luthuli," says Couper. Meticulously researched Albert Luthuli - Bound by Faith is a timely and valuable corrective to the prevailing myths about its subject and the armed struggle. Couper has done South Africa a signal service in rescuing his subject from the propagandists and the politicians. file:///C:/Users/Hennie%20Heymans/Downloads/Albert%20Luthuli%20%20Bound%20by%20Faith.htm Landmyn: SAP Voertuig: Ferdie Vermaak Hennie, hierdie is die Ford F250 wat die landmyn afgetrap het in 1971 op die kaplyn in die Caprivi tussen Sebinda en Shingalangwe. Gesprek: You, Frik Bruwer, Robert Brand, Fanie Bouwer and 13 others like this. •
Hugo Hannemann Ferdi Vermaakt Snr dis mos die voorval waarin Konst Dobbin gesterf het?14 January at 19:03 Like 1 Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Hugo, jy is reg dit was hy en konst Henning van Bloemfontein beide van hulle het hier gesit op die bak waar die landmyn agter die KAP AFGEGAAN HET.14 January at 19:14 Like Nicolaas Hendrik Smith Els Was dit dieselde voorval waar Flip Pretorius van Randfontein ernstig beseer was??14 January at 19:19 Like Paul Greyling Dobbin en Henning was die twee lede wat in die voorval oorlede is.14 January at 19:21 Like Paul Grabe Ek vermoed dat Flip van dfer Merwe se voet was erg beseer.Die jonger broer van Tolla. Onthou ek verbeel myself.14 January at 19:34 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr NICOLAAS,PAUL, die seksie sers was SERS WINGFIELD VAN DIE KAAP, dan was daar ALBERTS, WIEHAN, VOS, FLIP EK EN ‘N SPOORSNYER EN NOG iemand wie se naam ek nie kan onthou nie.14 January at 19:36 Like Nicolaas Hendrik Smith Els Ek en Flip was baie goeie vriende, hy het later die mag gelos en n verkeersbeampte geword en is deur ‘n weghardloop trok dood gery terwyl hy ‘n skoolkind uit die pad geduik het. 14 January at 19:39 Like 49
Paul Grabe ek kan onthou dat ook in daardie tyd was daar nog n man van Clanwilliam (Pepsi )14 January at 19:40 Like Paul Grabe dankie Ferdi vir dit. 14 January at 19:40 Like Barry Steenberg jk, stuur hom vandag epos toe en hy loop weer more 14 January at 19:40 Like Nicolaas Hendrik Smith Els Ferdi het nog eneige foto's van julle saam op die grens, ek is besig om ‘n boek te skryf maar het ongelukkig nie fotos van Flip nie. Ek het wel van die ander lede wat daai tyd op Randfontein was. 14 January at 19:42 Like Terrence Schwartz Hugo Hanneman, Ferdi Vermaakt, Paul Greyling - julle is reg, Percy Dobbin, hy was gestasioneer te Ladysmith, sy pa (ook Percy) was ‘n Sersant op Greytown - 66 tot vroeer 70s. Was sy eerste bostrip. ‘n Suster later getroud met VTak lid op Pmburg.14 January at 19:47 Unlike 2 Ferdi Vermaakt Snr NICOLAASL, ek is baie jammer om te hoor van Flip, ek het van die manne nie weer gesien nie. EK het foto’s van meeste van die manne. 14 January at 19:52 Like Nicolaas Hendrik Smith Els Kan ek dalk copies kry as dit moontlik is. Ek sal dit baie baie waardeer.14 January at 19:53 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Paul,was die naam nie dalk Pepi nie?14 January at 19:55 Like Lucas Marthinus Swart Prinsloo Ja, laat mens nogal dink ek was 1972 saam met Vic Booyens op Sevuma ons het daai selfde tipe voertuie gery onthou jy daar was net ‘n paar sandsakkies in die voertuig gepak om te help vir die landmyn ontploffings, asof dit sou help.14 January at 20:03 Unlike 1 Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Nicolaas, ek sal dit vir jou doen en ek hoop ek kan van die manne opspoor. 14 January at 20:04 Like Nicolaas Hendrik Smith Els Great, waar woon jy nou se dae?? 14 January at 20:04 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Paul,Ek woon in Montana, PTA.14 January at 20:07 Like Nicolaas Hendrik Smith Els Ek is in Alberton, jy moet my jou nommer stuur dan kom drink ek koffie as ek weer in Pretoria is. 14 January at 20:08 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr LUCAS, Jy is reg, die voertuig het Markee tent hoogte gelig die sandsakkies was net ‘n bluff.14 January at 20:14 Like 1
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Terrence Schwartz Kapt Bonnie van Eeden is ook in 71 in die Caprivi dood, dink lokval of landmyn, hy was gestasioneer te Durban. RIP.14 January at 20:33 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Terrence, jy is reg dit was ‘n boobietrap, dit het plaasgevind naby KATIMA MULIMO, die grondpad het hulle genoem, die Golden Hiway. Lewe dobbin se pa nog?14 January at 20:45 Like 1 Terrence Schwartz Ferdi - nie seker, laas gehoor hy was op Pinetown, twyfel, indien wel sou hy in sy 90s wees. Het Kapt B nie ‘n pen opgetel wat ontploffing veroorsaak het?14 January at 20:49 Like Fanie Vermaak Ek was kersfees 1972 Bagani en Rundu, toe Vic Booyens hulle op Sivuma was, wonderlike tye gewees!!14 January at 20:49 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr TERRENCE, JY IS REG. Dankie vir die inligting oor die DOBBINFAM.14 January at 21:01 Like Paul Greyling Dobbin en Henning se voorval was 22/05/1971 en Kapt Van Eeden was 5/10/1971.14 January at 21:07 Like Robert Brand Fanie Vermaak ek was van 1985 tot 1990 in Rundu en ek kan dit beaam....dit was seker van die beste tye in my loopbaan....14 January at 21:08 Like 1 Terrence Schwartz FB - Wonderlik hoe ons, ons ervarings/stories met mekaar kan deel.14 January at 21:12 Like 2 Fanie Vermaak En daar is so baie stories!!14 January at 21:14 Like 1 Callie Mocke na gelang wie se boek jy lees is daar baie stories rondom die eerste skote en waar het die oorlog begin..maar die eerste skote is op die polisie gevuur by Bagani polisiestasie.15 January at 06:09 Like Tiny Nortje Die twee lede wat omgekom het, Konst`s Dobben en Henning 15 January at 06:48 Like Tiny Nortje Sorry vir die herhaling, ek lees nou eers al die comments. Ek was in 1972 op Sibinda. Ek het eendag vir Vic Booyens gaan kuier op sy basis toe vertel hy my van die Lt wat `n hak agter die bakkie aangeheg het. Die ou se oog sou glo spring en as dit die linkeroog is, is daar ters links in die bosse... 15 January at 06:54 Like 2 Tiny Nortje ek het ook iewers `n foto van die voertuig, 15 January at 07:32 Like Andre Gerrit Campher Ek was Kersfees 1971 by Bagani en was n pont doen het as ons nie patrollie gery het nietrekker,dit is was geg 16 January at 08:33 Like
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Lucas Marthinus Swart Prinsloo Die wêreld is klein ek was op Sevuma 16 January at 08:54 Like Gerhard Booysen Goeiedag al die seniors ---- daardie jare 71/72 was ek ‘n knaap van 10 jare --- en het ook saam met my pa op patrollie gegaan vanaf Rundu na Bagani, Babata waar so baie vlieê was, dan tot in Sevuma, terug deur die Kaudom, dan die Botswanagrens af tot by die AA berge, vandaar Tsumkwe waar die Boesmans was, en dan terug na Rundu ,,,, is daar dalk meer fotos wat geplaas kan word asb . So terloops my dad was Gert Booysen ,,het enige van julle hom geken . 16 January at 11:40 Like 2 Pottie Potgieter Gerhard Booysen, het hom geken toe hy DK op Rundu was. Was toentertyd op Rundu gestasioneer met grensdiens. 16 January at 12:55 Like 1 Johan Herselman Snr Gerhard Booysen Was op grensdienste 1970 Rundu. Voorraad gery tussen Grootfontein, Rundu, Bawbatha, Bagani, Sifuma tot by Katima Malilo waar Chopper fuel en petrol afgelaai was. Bier en droë voorraad was dan weer terug vervoer Rundu toe. Plaas fotos binnekort. 16 January at 13:27 Like 1 Fanie Bouwer Gerhard, jou pa, oubrigadier, Gert (Flêt Gert) Booysen is een van daardie offisiere wat by my uitgestaan en 'n blywende indruk gemaak. het - 'n man uit een stuk, 'n legende. Hy is natuurlik al diep in sy 80's, en toe ek hom nou dag bel in die Paarl, kom ek agter dat sy brein nog so skerp soos 'n lemmetjie is en baie fyn detail van toeka en mense se name kan onthou. 16 January at 16:31 Edited Like 2 Gerhard Booysen Nico Visser---dit is reg so --woon in die Paarl --was 8 Des 13 al 86jaar,,,,,,,,,.... ( Fanie----- skerp inderdaad ---- ons sit so en gesels Augutus 2013 met my besoek daar --- en hy vertel my ‘n storie -- ek vra toe ? Dad waneer het die voorval gebeur ,,,Dad sê --man dit was nou die anner dag -- toe moes ek later agter kom dit wat hy van praat is omtrent 50 jaar gelede ...nou ja wat moet ek nou sê ,,,,,, toe kom die storie weer op van die dag wat die polisievoertuig se band gebars het ,,, en dit was net so na die middag ,,warm wêreld daardie Kavango ,,,enige geval ek is so 10jr oud ,,,stuur my toe met die voet na Bagani basis om te gaan hulp vra.... dit is nie in detail nie ,,maar sal moet oorstaan tot anner dag ,,,, ek weet net as jong seun was dit vrek moeilik daardie tyd vir die manne wat grensdiens gedoen het ,, julle oud ysters moes ook met die minste tevrede wees ,,, bv. selde pos ontvang ,,,voorade wat sleg geword het ,,ag en nog wat ,,,so en vandag kan ek net dankie se vir julle almal wat soveel opofferings deurgemaak het en geswoeg het - om iets te laat behoue bly - julle almal was so lojaal - as ons maar net sou weet wat vorentoe sou plaasvind ,......... tot volgende keer. 16 January at 14:48 Edited Like 1 Fanie Bouwer Oubrig Flêtgert Booysen - heel regs op foto
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Oubrig Flêtgert Booysen
16 January at 14:38 Like 4 Robert Brand Gerhard Booysen as ek dit reg het, het hy destryds sulke fyn grafeerwerk met ivoor gedoen.....16 January at 16:51 Like 1 Gerhard Booysen Robert Brand - jy reg daar -- die skilderkuns het ook gebyt met sukses het hy ‘n paar tonele van SWA afgehandel --en daarna ook 2 joernale geskryf - waarvan 1 publiseer is titel "" n Paar draaie deur Suidwes "" heel intressant 16 January at 17:00 Like 1 Robert Brand Ek sal wat wil gee om daardie joernale te kan lees.....ek het destyds so 'n joernaal van Genl Pretorius in die hande gekry en gelees en gelees en gelees.....16 January at 17:04 Like 1 Gerhard Booysen Robert Brand - skakel hom indien jy daar naby is - Paarl 021 87 24191 - is lekker lees - nie omdat hy my Dad is nie - maar alles daarin is gebaseer op werklike feit /gebeurlikhede wat plaasgevind het ....... ek ek glo daar is ook figure /mense van gemeld wat ek verseker weet jy ken baie goed . 16 January at 17:10 Edited Like 1 Neelsie Borea Ai.16 January at 17:12 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr NEELSIE, was jy nie op Brits gewees nie 16 January at 17:21 Like Neelsie Borea Hallo Ferdi, ja ek was daar vanaf Sept "76 tot Des '91. Jong meisietjie gewees. Maj Gert Goosen het my "Sikspens"genoem. (Onderbroke diens gehad: was boervrou tussen-in en destyds was my van Barnard - Barnards van Geluk familie)16 January at 17:44 Like 53
Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Neelsie, ek is so verras, wil jy glo, jy was ook saam met Oppies. Jy was getroud met ou groot Barries. Lekker tye. GERT se bynaam was,GOOSE.16 January at 17:58 Like 1 Neelsie Borea Net so Ferdi! Elize (Knoetze) het nou die dag 'n foto van Oppies en Allen van Rooyen geplaas. Was so lekker om hulle saam te sien. Dink net die versterkwatertjies het minder gevloei as jare gelede. By wyse van spreke jy weet. 16 January at 19:22 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr OU NEELSIE hoe dink ek nou sommer aan Allen met uie storie ha ha ha 16 January at 19:55 Like Neelsie Borea Ai ai ai ... sy g***t gered. Dis wat mens nou flink dink noem. Ek wonder of hy sy smaak vir uie na daardie voorval verloor het ... 16 January at 19:56 Like Fanie Bouwer Vertel - vertel!16 January at 20:08 Edited Like 2 Neelsie Borea Eish ... ek dink dit sal beter as dit uit 'n mannebek wat jêm moet kry kom Fanie. Ferdi, gaan jy praat of swyg broer? Ek sal begin deur te sê daar was een dag lank lank gelede 'n ou wat 'n wit Mazda 626 gery het en iewers op 'n draai 'n foutjie gemaak het. (Gits Ferdi, was dit 'n Mazda - ek onthou die "wit" ...... mos nie 'n mouter kenner nie.) Het meer van uie ens geweet.16 January at 20:03 Like Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Neelsie jy is reg,hy was bang dat hulle hom sou ruik en hy besluit toe om in die uieland in te hardloop en begin om uie uit te trek en begin soveel as moontlik te eet. Sy spreekwoord was altyd,'as such'. Hy het daarna gese,'assuch wil ek nie weer uie sien nie' nadat hy dae daarvan siek was. 16 January at 22:13 Like 3 Neelsie Borea Ai Ferdi, sit ek hier by myselwers en lag sommer hardop as ek aan daai "as such" dink. En die versterkwatertjies wat mens by manne-apteke koop wat toe veroorsaak het dat die stupid mouter die pad byster geraak het. 16 January at 22:41 Like 1 •
Wyle konst Dobbin
Ferdi Vermaakt Snr Ek plaas hierdie foto ter nagedagtenis van oorlede konst. P DOBBIN wat in die landmyn omgekom het.Hy sou nou 63jaar gewees het. Hy sit regs op die foto.
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18 January at 05:13 Like 2 Gerry Adendorff Ek weet wie Konst Dobbin was. Hy het iewers uit Natal gekom 18 January at 08:13 Like Terrence Schwartz Groot geword in Greytown Gerry, sy pa was n Sersant daar, Percy was gestasioneer te Ladysmith. Sy suster Dawn, is getroud met n lid van die Vtak, Pietermaritzburg. 18 January at 08:15 Like Tiny Nortje eerste foto wat ek van sien, nog so `n jon mannetjie gewees Saluut! 18 January at 12:09 Like 1
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Telefoonhokkie: Kapt Tiny Nortjè
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1952: Maj GD Pienaar: DK van Pretoria
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• SAP Hillbrow: Kapt Patrick Coetzee [Sien die voorblad] Op Donderdag 1 Desember 1983 het ek middagskof gewerk. Sersant Christo “Boom” Olivier en ek was op die patrollie voertuig in Hillbrow se wyk. Ons het om 17:00 by die aanklag kantoor gestop. Terwyl ons daar was het ‘n jong dame, Cynthia Limmer die aanklagkantoor binne gekom en gesê dat haar broer aangerand word by die Transwerke woonstel. Dit was die ou Queen Vic hospital en was ‘n blok agter die Hillbrow polisiestasie. Ek en Sersant Olivier het haar vergesel na die woonstelblok. Terwyl ons in haar broer se kamer was het twee wit mans binne gestorm. Hulle het ons nie verwag nie en hulle het hulle dinges asfgeskrik. Ons het toe elkeen ‘n man gevat en is al vegtend met hulle trappe af na die patrollievoertuig. Dit was twee broers. Hulle van was Rheeder. ‘n Derde broer het kom help. Ons het gesukkel om hulle agter in die vangwa te kry. Ek onthou dat een van hulle gesê het “daar is ‘n pistool in die laai”. Godfrey Rheeder, die oudste broer het geslaag om te ontsnap. Met een veilig agter in die wa het ons terug gestap woonstel toe om ons pette en handradio te kry asook om te soek na Godfrey. Ons het die trappe genader toe ek vir Godfrey sien met iets in sy hand. Die volgende voel ek ‘n slag in my mond en ek proe die kruit smaak. Ek het geval en nog twee skote gehoor. Terwyl ek daar lê het ek gevoel iemand wil my pistool uit die holster verwyder. Ek keer toe en hoor hoe ‘n lid van die publiek aan my vra: “ Konstabel gee my jou pistool, ek sal hom gaan skiet” Ek het op gestaan. Sersant Olivier was reeds in ‘n woonstel in getrek deur lede van die publiek. Die volgende wat ek sien was ‘n “taakmag” van blou uniforms. Die aanklagkantoor personeel tot die hekwag het daar op gedaag. Radiobeheer se manne was ook gou daar. Die manne in die kantien was ook daar (haasmanne ingesluit). Ek het ook in die woonstel gaan sit waar sersant Olivier gelê het. Ek onthou hoe dat hy die eienaar van die woonstel gevra het of hy nie sal dood gaan nie. Ons is vandaar per ambulaans na die Johannesburg Algemene hospitaal. Ek onthou tot vandag toe met ons aankoms by die hospital was daar twee dames wat gestaan het by die ongevalle se ingang. Die een sê toe vir die ander: “Hier kom nog twee mense” “Nee” se die ander een “dis nie mense nie, dit is polisiemanne” Sersant Olivier het ongeveer 23:00 gesterf aan sy besering. Hy was in die sy geskiet. Sersant Olivier laat sy vrou, Hettie en twee baie klein dogtertjies agter. Christien {4} en Marietjie {6}. Ek sit vandag nog met skrapnel in my nek. Die koelpunt het 5 van my tande vernietig en sit agter in my nek. Ek was 19 jaar oud tydens die voorval en was 6 maande uit die kollege. Rheeder het 21 jaar gekry. Paar jaar gelede het ek die dame wat ons ontbied het gesoek op facebook. Ek het haar opgespoor in Nieu Zeeland. Sy onthou die voorval baie goed en ons is sederdien groot facebook vriende. Sy het verlede jaar op die dertigste herdenking 57
van die voorval die eerstekeer aan my gesê dat sy voel dit was haar skuld dat ons geskiet was. Ek het haar gerus gestel en gesê dat enige polisieman in daai tyd dieselfde sou gedoen het deur haar te vergesel het na die woonstel. Dit was ons job[net jammer ek kon nie ‘n skoot of twee in kry nie.
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Die Bosoorlog: Johan Herselman
Konst Meissenheimer
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Die slang word verbrand
Wintie
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Water, water maar niks om te drink!
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Harry Klopper
Dankie
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Die kok - 1971
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Strafkamp 1970 - 1971
Strafkamp tydens onweer
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Bedford SAP 28795 ?
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SAP 22122
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SA RAILWAYS POLICE / SA SPOORWEGPOLISIE SASP Reunie : Addo : Oos Oos-Kaap unie van die voormalige SASP Na die 25 jarige re-unie wat in 2011 te Esselenpark gehou was, het talle lede wat nie in Gauteng en omliggende provinsies woonagtig is, gevra dat daar ook in die Oos Kaap ‘n re-unie unie gereel moet word. So was daar toe vir 19 Oktober 2013 013 ‘n byeenkoms op Addo gereel. Vyf en vyftig lede het die byeenkoms bygewoon. Lede het so ver as Witbank, Graaff Reinete, George, King Williams Town, Pretoria en Queenstown gereis om dit by te woon. Kollegas wat mekaar 40 jaar laas gesien het, het baie gehad ehad om in te haal. Op ‘n afstand het dit soos ‘n klomp bye geklink soos wat die manne gesels het. Ons was bevoorreg om die oudste lewende lid van die Oos Kaap, konstabel Richard Jerkenson (91) die dag daar te kon ontvang. Hy het in tussen sy totale sig verloor ve en moet nou in ‘n inrigting opgeneem word. Nadat die verrigtinge met skriflesing en gebed geopen is, was daar een minute stilte ter nagedagtenis van hulle wat ons ontval het. Hierna het ou vriende mekaar opgesoek en die verlede weer laat herleef. Die middag het almal aan ‘n heerlik maaltyd wat in die vorm van ‘n spitbraai was gesmul, terwyl een van die lede se dogters, Bianca die aanwesiges met haar pragtige sangstem vermaak het. Almal het die aand met ‘n glimlag en tevredenheid verlaat maar ook besef dat baie jare intussen verby gesnel het. Hierdie byeenkoms het daartoe gelei dat die oud kollegas wat in die ou Grens afdeling (Oos Londen) woonagtig is, ook gevra het dat daar ‘n byeen koms vir hulle in King Williams Town gereel moet word. •
Kommissaris saris Gerrie Bezuidenhout en se gade. Hy is ‘n voormalige provinsiale kommissaris van die Oos OosKaap.
Oom Richard Jerkonson (91)
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Lede met hulle gades
Bianca Remeures
Voor : Komm. Gerrie Bezuidenhout, kol. Johann Kumm Agter : AO Johan de Jager, sers Diederick Stears, brig. Ronnie Beyl, brig Hannes Slabbert • Photo: S A Railway Police: Les Pivnic Hello Hennie, I need a favour please! I'm busy with my auto auto-biography biography and busy adding photos to the text. I need a photo (preferably y colour) of a S A Railway police constable in the old green uniform please. In one part of the document I am describing how I was arrested at Bloemfontein for taking photos of trains off the platform! I thought that a nice clear photo of a "blompot" in his is smart green uniform would be suitable to illustrate my experience. 70
Can you email a photo to me when you have time? It will be very much appreciated! Regards Les Pivnic (Former Asst-Curator SAR Museum: Johannesburg) •
Foto’s verskaf deur Ronnie Beyl
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Vrystaat: Thys du Plessis
Thys Du Plessis ek het vanoggend vir jou die son met sy appelkoos wang gaan haal, agter die blou-grys wolke en die somer heuwels so vaal. ek het vir jou die korhaan en die kiewiet gaan roep, daar waar tarentaal wei saam met bosduif en hoep-hoep. en toe het ek in die stof-grond tot op my knieë gegaan, om dank aan die Vader te sê vir alles so mooi, selfs ook die hartseer se traan.
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JG Strijdom-lughawe: “Die Spoke loop”: Fanie Kruger
Na die Boeing ramp by die JG Strijdom-lughawe in Suidwes-Afrika was daar onder die SPOORIES wat op Strijdom Lughawe Windhoek gewerk het ʼn klomp spookstories te vertel.
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Hosea Kutato Internasionale lughawe (voorheen JG Strydom) in Windhoek,Namibie Een van die stories was aan elke nuwe Konstabel wat op die Lughawe gestasioneer was,. dat in die nag “spook” dit baie in die Lughawe gebou, Die storie, baie van die mense wat in die “vliegramp” dood is het nie tot ruste gekom nie, en loop in die nag in die gebou rond.
Die Boeing B707 wat neergestort het
Die laaste vlug, Windhoek - Frankfort / Lissabon, het gewoontelik so na 21:00 vertrek, dan het die lughawe tot ruste gekom, die ligte is afgesit en dit was dan net die SPOORIES aan diens wat die kompleks en die vliegtuie wat oornag het, opgepas het. As dit so stil geraak het was die gebou baie spookagtig, dit kraak... was maar van die normale uitsetting en inkrimping van die gebou, en hier en daar die klik-klik van ʼn horlosie.
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Die passasiers lokaal op die lughawe Die interessante was mos maar al die elektriese deure wat self oop en toe maak as ʼn mens deurstap (die liggie wat die straal breuk), die mans se ‘pee-pee’-bakke het met die selfde liggie-sisteem gewerk, as jy by die krip staan en die liggie se straal word gebreek dat spuit die toilet. Nou so het die ‘ou-manne’ dan ook geweet as jy die gebou se hoofkrag, (main switch) trip dan gaan al die elektriese deure oop en toe en al die “pis-bakke” begin spuit. Dit was nogal ʼn geraas en vir iemand wat nie weet nie, angswekkend, ʼn gesig om te sien en te hoor. So het ons almal wat daar aangekom het die toets gedop. Want ons moes ingelyf word! So in Desember 1973, kry ons toe vir konstabel van Rooyen, nuut uit die kollege. Hy was ʼn RSA-seun vanaf Upington, maar het gevra om Suidwes toe verplaas te word en sy eerste stasie was dan ook JG Strijdom-lughawe. Het die arme man dit sleg gevang! Sy eerste diens op die lughawe was toe nagskof (10 – 6). Ek en Johan Hanekom het toe al heeldag vir konst. van Rooyen vertel van al die spoke en dit goed ingevryf, hy is dan ook ingelig as hy in ‘n spook vasloop, hy rustig moet wees: Dan sal hulle niks aan hom doen nie. En middernag, 00:00, het ek en Johan Hanekom die gebou bekruip om die nuwe man dan “in te lyf” met die SWA-Spoke. Toe ons daai "switch trip" en die geraas begin, deure gaan oop, toiletbakke spuit, hoor ons daai man skreeu, toe hy die gebou uitkom, toe klap die rewolwerskote en konst van Rooyen pak voete uit woonbuurt toe, reguit na die stasiebevelvoerder, sersant Hannes Smit, se huis toe. Ek en Johan het geroep en geskreeu maar verniet die man hardloop, dalk Paul Nash se rekord gebreuk. Toe ons by sersant Hannes se huis kom, staan die man op sy stoep en hy beduie. Na die geheim uit is, was die man baie kwaad en is hy lank gespot oor die waarskuwing skote wat hy geskiet het, gelukkig’ in die lug op. Nou-ja so was nog een ontgroening suksesvol.!
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SA DEFENCE FORCE / SA WEERMAG SA Lugmag: Probleem oor twee Le Roux’s met DFC’s opgelos deur “SAAF Roll of Honour” Hennie •
Aangeheg is die verklaring/oplossing van die Le Roux's Clive en Johannes alias Chris wat hoofbrekens besorg het. Gelukkig onderskei die SALM se ererol duidelik hul range, kaptein teenoor RAF eskaderleier (of is dit eskadron?) en die onderskeie datums wat hulle hul lewens opgeoffer het. Die boek wat ek vermoed oor die klasse verskil op boereplase was, en die relevansie daarvan tot die ABO is moontlik D O'Meara (1983) se Volkskapitalisme, Braamfontein, Ravan. Groetnis NC Lamprecht1 PROBLEEM OOR TWEE LE ROUX’S MET DFC’s OPGELOS DEUR ‘SAAF ROLL OF HONOUR’2 The SAAF Roll of honour finally provides some insight. The Roll of honour separately records the names of South Africans serving in either the RAF or SAAF from 19391945. C.G/CS. Le Roux, C. “Clive” (G or S). Le Roux from Durban according to the most recent update of the South African Air Force roll of honour records was a Captain C.G Le Roux, in the SAAF. Was awarded DFC . = 1 Died on the 10/07/1943.) http://www.saafa.co.za/images/Roll_of_Honour.pdf Le Roux C.G. (DFC) Kapt-Capt Le Roux F.W. Kapt-Capt Le Roux S. Lt
10/07/43 28/03/41 11/12/42
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Nico (“Wollie”) Lamprecht – Oud-SAP (V) Durban en vandag Dr NC Lamprecht = opvoedkundige.
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http://www.saafa.co.za/images/Roll_of_Honour.pdf
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Squadron Leader JJ “Chris” le Roux DFC & 2 Bars He was known as “Chris”) Le Roux by his fellow RAF pilots, who obvious having problem with “Johannes” naming him “Chris” and - he was a VR = voluntary reserve pilot, but nevertheless was Squadron Leader of RAF 206 squadron and had, a DFC and two bars, = 3 He was from Springs on the Witwatersrand. According to SAAF roll of honour which includes SA pilots serving in the RAF, JJ “Chris” Le Roux was lost at sea on the 29/08/1944* off the coast of Normandy. http://www.saafa.co.za/images/Roll_of_Honour.pdf • Inquiry: Oxford Harbour View Project - East London Hennie Just to re-cap on our conversation this morning; I am an architect working on a building proposal for a site overlooking the East London harbour. See aerial images attached of the site. The site has been cleared of vegetation and we have uncovered various structures which have required we interact with the Heritage authority. See the heritage permit committee comments below in italics. There is a concrete bunker structure which is now is a state of ruin. We have been asked to establish its origins and purpose. See word document showing the bunker and position on site. Our assumption is that it was used during the second world war as part of a coastal defence system. Possibly as an air raid shelter, gun battery or ammunitions store because of its strategic defensive position with clear site lines overlooking the mouth of the harbour. Is there any record in your archives that could explain what this is. A map or written reference that reflects harbour structures and their use during the 2nd world war. Also, if you cannot find any specific information on the bunker, ‘second prize’ would be a verification of the statement below that EL harbour was ranked 3rd behind Cape Town and Simonstown as part of the coastal defence system (I would need a document reference). The function of the existing structure on the site should be established. What is known is that East London was an important part of the nation’s Coastal Defence system during the Second World War. It was known as the Buffalo Battery and ranked third in importance after Cape Town and Simons Town. Lionel Crook, author of Island at War: Robben Island 1939-1945, (Cape Town, Naval Heritage Trust, 2013), reported that “South African harbours were of supreme 76
importance to Britain’s war effort during the Second World War” and that “The importance of the defence of South African ports in the context of the war cannot be overestimated”. I look forward to your response and appreciate any assistance you can offer. Regards Stephen Hartwanger
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Wie kan help? Who can help? - HBH • New SA Navy Chief [Written by Kim Helfrich, Thursday, 23 January 2014 via JJ] When Vice Admiral Johannes Mudimu steps down as SA Navy chief on March 31 his deputy, current Rear Admiral Samuel Hlongwane, will become the country’s most senior sailor. This is one of four top naval appointments announced nced via a Navy Bulletin. With only a week left in uniform before Flag Officer Fleet (FOF) Rear Admiral Philip Schoultz retires next Friday, his farewell parade has now been changed to a handover of command. The parade, in Simon’s town, will see Rear Admiral al (JG) Bravo Mhlana become a full rear admiral and the senior officer of the SA Navy fleet. Current Chief Director: Maritime Strategy Rear Admiral Hanno Teuteberg will become Navy Deputy Chief on April 1. He has been managing maritime strategy for the sea seaborne borne arm of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) from the Navy Office in Visagie Street, Pretoria, for just on a year. 79
Rear Admiral SL Pillay will take over from Teuteberg. Fifty-two-year-old Hlongwane joined the military wing of the ANC in 1982 and was trained in Angola and the former USSR. Immediately prior to integration he was MK logistics chief in Tanzania. Following integration he went the maritime route because of naval training done in Azerbaijan as an MK operative where he completed the naval ship command course in navigation. After a tour of duty on SAS Umgeni, Hlongwane re-mustered to intelligence, rising to the rank of captain and the position of SSO Operations Counter Intelligence. A three year term of defence attachÊ to the DRC and the Republic of Congo followed before he came back to South Africa and was promoted to Rear Admiral (JG) and appointed Chief of Fleet Staff. Mudimu is retiring and has been Navy Chief since March 2005. • Refueling in Flight: South African Airforce [Courtesy from Johan Jordaan via JJ] A 24 Sqn Buccaneer doing in-flight refuelling from a 60 Sqn B707 Tanker/ELINT aircraft for the first time on 13 March 1987
A good plug and fuel running!
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• 1914: Duits-Suidwes se Lugmag: Kmdt Willem Ratte Ons grensdiens saam met SAW en Seuns in Suidwes-Afrika sou ondenkbaar gewees het sonder ons manne in blou met hulle vliegmasjiene. Maar wie het geweet dat nou presies 'n honderd jaar gelede Suidwes sy eie lugmag gehad het? Klein, maar hy was daar en hy't gevlieg en hy't tot bom-aanvalle gedoen. Nogal teen en op Suid-Afrikaanse troepe, glo dit of nie. Dit gaan alles terug na die tyd toe Suidwes bekend gestaan het as Duits-Wes, en die Duitse keiser vanaf Berlyn die land as 'Schutzgebiet' met sy 'Schutztruppe' as klein tipe weermaggie geregeer het. 'n Siviele vlieënier, ene Bruno Brüchner, was die eerste vlieënier wat ooit in Duitsland se Afrika kolonies gevlieg het. Gebore 1881 in Ebersach, Sakse, het hy sy vlieglisensie in 1911 verwerf, met lisensie nommer 53 (!) Toe word hy geborg en uitgestuur Afrika toe deur, ironies genoeg, 'n soetgoed maatskappy, om lug-vertonings te lewer met een van daardie antieke dubbel-dekker vliegtuie, 'n sogenaamde AGO 'pusher' Pfalz. In Mei 1914 land hy in Suidwes en vlieg bietjie daar rond en lewer toertjies en beindruk 'n spul oop-bek Suidwesters, voordat hy weer verkas Duits-Oos-Afrika toe, die huidige Tanzanië. In Augustus 1914 vang die uitbreek van die eerste wêreldoorlog hom daar, en word hy opgeroep en aangewend deur die DOA Schutztruppe. Tydens een van sy eerste verkenningsvlugte langs die Oos-Afrika kus egter word hy afgeskiet, van alle dinge, deur 'n Britse kanonboot. Hy kry dit reg om op die strand te land, maar hy en sy vliegtuig is redelik erg beskadig. 81
Intussen het daar ook nog meer dinge in die lug gebeur in Suidwes. Twee ander vlieëniers, wat aanvanklik saam met Buechner op die skip in Swapokmund geland het, was spesifiek deur die keiserlike opperbevel gestuur om 'n 'lugmag' vir die Suidwes Schutztruppe op die been te bring. Luitenant Alexander von Scheele, die enigste behoorlik gesertifiseerde Duitse lugmagvlieënier, en ene Willy Trueck, die een ander lid van hierdie moerse nuwe lugmag. Hulle het hulle eie vliegtuie saamgebring, - altwee dubbeldekkers, 'n sogenaamde Aviatik en 'n sogenaamde Roland (ja, generaal Roland de Vries, jy't 'n meganiese naamgenoot wat daardie tyd al in Sudwes rondgevlieg het.) 'n Derde vlieënier, die Oostenryker Paul Fiedler, het kort daarna by hulle aangesluit, hoewel hy nie sy eie vliegtuig gehad het nie, sodat hulle kort-kort moes omruil (baie soos die Azaniese lugmag huidiglik, lol). Trueck en Fiedler het aanvanklik die vliegtuie behoorlik getoets onder leiding van Scheele, en die uitslag daarvan was nie baie gunstig nie. Beide die Aviatik en die Roland was nie juis baie geskik vir die droeë en warm toestande van Suidwes nie. Voordat die vliegtuie egter omgeruil kon word in Duitsland, breek die oorlog uit en moes die vlieëniers maar doen wat hulle kan, met wat hulle het (dis nou weer baie soos ons manne in blou later gedoen het met ons vliegtuie op die grens). Hierdie klein ou Suidwes lugmaggie het dit reggekry om nogal baie verkenningsvlugte bokant generaal Louis Botha, Suid-Afrikaanse Unie magte wat aan die einde van 1914 in Luederitz en Walvisbaai geland, uit te voer en daarvandaan stadig die binneland in beweeg het. Op die manier kon die Duitsers darem 'n ogie oor hulle vyand hou en hulle vordering, hoewel hulle nie juis baie kon doen teen Botha se geweldige oormag nie. Fiedler, die Oostenryker, was ook 'n bekwame fotograaf, en van sy fotos wat hy geneem het van die Suid-Afrikaanse troepe se kampe waaroor hy gevlieg het bestaan vandag nog. Tydens die stap-virstap stadige terugtog van die Duitsers, eers na Windhoek en later op tot by Tsumeb, is van die vliegtuie soms beskadig, en/of die vlieëniers beseer, maar hulle het aanhou vlieg tot amper op die einde. Elke keer het hulle maar net weer die vliegtuig met binddraad aanmekaar gesit, figuurlik en dalk letterlik gesproke, die vlieëniers se beserings toegeplak, en daar gaat hulle weer. Verbasend genoeg, het die wêreld se op daardie stadium nuutste lugmag dit ook reggekry om sy vyand vanuit die lug aan te val. Met, basies, 'n stoof-pyp, 'n veer, en verskeie stukke draad, saam met 'n artillerie rondte. Die kontrepsie is losgelaat deur die draad te pluk, waarna die rondte so met 'n zig-zag koers aarde toe geslinger het om daar, hopelik, te ontplof. Die dagboek wat ene korporaal Douglas Scott King van die Kaffrarian Rifles aan SA kant bygehou het vertel die volgende, onder Sondag die 29ste November 1914: "...This morning the aeroplane paid us a second visit. Jove! But it was a lovely sight seen miles off high in the air about 4 000 ft. and getting more distinct as it neared us. On the approach to our camp - which by the way is called Haalen Burg - we just walked a few yards away from our lines. It flew right over our camp and was greeted 82
with a regular hail of rifle shoots [sic] but all to no purpose. It flew on and on till It appeared a mere speck over Kolman's Kop (near Luederitz). Now the fun commenced - as it flew over us it very calmly dropped two bombs and shells on us. One exploded and the other failed - no damage was done. But laugh! Pheeeeeuw!. I've never laughed so much in all my life. The shell that exploded took 12 seconds to fall to the ground - and world's records were broken by dozens whole-sale. Fat omcers legging it for dear life..." Die volgende aanval, op 17 Desember, met Trueck agter die stuur, was seker baie minder van 'n grap vir die Kaffrariane. King se dagboek beskryf dit so: "...A very misty morning - but I'm darned if that confounded aeroplane didn't come again. It dropped two shells near our big guns - both exploded. 4 men hurt - and one killed no guns damaged..." Trueck, net so terloops, het daardie oorlog oorleef, word toe naderhand 'n Suidwes boer, en sterf van ouderdom nadat hy in Kaapstad afgetree het. Korporaal Douglas Scott King het dit nie gemaak nie. Hy sneuwel op 22 Maart 1915 in Duits Oos-Afrika as gevolg van 'n skietwond terwyl hy dien in die 4de 'South African Horse'. Rus in vrede, altwee julle krygers. Die allerlaaste operasionele vlug van die heel eerste SWA lugmag is uitgevoer deur Lt von Scheele in Mei 1915. Op daardie stadium het die Duitsers seker nie eens meer genoeg petrol gehad vir nog 'n vlug nie. Die Schutztruppe gee oor in Julie naby Otavi. Altwee vliegtuie is vernietig om hulle nie in SA hande te laat val nie, en niks het daarvan oorgebly nie. In teenstelling met die Schutztruppe se kanonne, wat hulle ook uit Suid-Afrikaanse hande wou hou deur dit in die sogenaamd bodemlose meer by Otjikoto te gooi. 'n Half-eeu daarna gaan swem 'n klompie skoolseuns vanuit Tsumeb by Otjikoto, en hulle duik toe iets uit wat lyk soos deel van 'n kanon. Met nadere ondersoek blyk dit toe dis die verlore Duitse artillerie, en vandag staan daar van die kanonne in Tsumeb se Museum vir enigiemand om te gaan kyk. Soos Trueck, oorleef Buechner die siviele vlieĂŤnier ook die oorlog, en hy word 'n interessante klein skakel tussen Afrika van Wereldoorlog 1 en Duitsland van Wereldoorlog 2. Nadat hy afgeskiet is, was sy besering so ernstig dat hy nie meer ingetrek is om te help vlieg nie. Boonop tel hy toe malaria ook nog op. So kom dit dat hy en sy vrou naderhand deur die Britte geinterneer word vir die res van die oorlog. Daarna keer hy terug na Duitsland. Wat ook al sy loopbaan verder, wat ons wel weet is dat hy 'n stukkie grond gekoop het in die Duitse Alpe. Met 'n klein plekkie bo-op met die naam Berchtesgaden. Die einste Berchtesgaden wat ene Adolf Hitler van Wereldoorlog 2 in 1938 koop en omskep in een van sy bunker-agtige wegkruip plekkies. Wat, op sy beurt, deur die Engelse lugmag gebom word in 1944 of '45. Met dalk 'n Suid-Afrikaner agter die stuurstang wie se maatjies in die vorige wereldoorlog so gehardloop het vir Buechner se maatjie se bomme in Suidwes...
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- Die beeld is 'n ietwat verbeeldingsryke tekening van daardie tyd van Bruno Buechner se vertoningsvliegtuig in Duits-Wes. Om te wys hoe mens troepe in die veld vanuit die lug uit kan her-voorsien. 1914, 'n honderd jaar gelede.
• Om ʼn “Boyscout” agtergrond te hê, werk nie altyd nie: At Spies Stories uit At Spies se pen:
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17 Sept 1968, ʼn groot dag vir my. Dit is my eerste vlug as navigator op die C-130 na Rooikop in SWA. Normaalweg word hierdie vlugte gereserveer vir die senior bemannings want by Rooikop word visgevang, sommer baie. Die bemannings keer gereeld met groot Kabeljoue, Steenbras en af en toe so n paar Galjoene terug. My lus hang uit. Êk het al baie keer laat deurskemer dat êk ook graag visvang maar dat êk vrek voor ek vra. Die keer is ek gelukkig, twee van die senior navigators is weg op ‘n ander trip. Natuurlik na Engeland en Frankryk (dit is gewoonlik al wat hulle sal weerhou van visvang). “My time has come”, besluit ek. As ʼn “Dunwiel Bicycle” (een pipper) word ek nou los gelaat onder die harde baarde van die Eskader. Die gesagvoerder is ou Kolonel Freeman (hy is ook die eskader bevelvoerder.) In die regter stoel sit nog ʼn gesagvoerder, hy word genoem “Die Boksburg Yank” (Kommandant Koekemoer- uitgespreek as Co-ekke-moore). Die “Yank” is die eskader opleidingsoffisier en is gewoonlik so hardegat soos tien en dan praat hy ook Ingels ook met so ‘n aangesette Amerikaanse aksent, vandaar die bynaam. Dan is daar nog Phil Weyer, die senior boortegnikus en ʼn jong laaimeester om die bemanning te voltooi maar nog is dit het einde niet. Brigadier “Boots” Wellington, Waterkloof se basisbevelvoerder het vir hom ʼn “jollie” gereel. Hy vang natuurlik self ook graag vis en met ʼn van soos Wellington is dit baie duidelik waar die naam “Boots” vandaan kom. Jors Troelie het maar eers in Maart ʼn offisier geword en nou bevind hy hom tussen al hierdie “Top Brass”. Om dinge nog moeiliker te maak is êk al die dag vantevore deur die “Boksburg Yank” ge-“brief” oor die “etiket van visvang saam met die “Brass”. “Maak eers seker dat al die “groot” manne hulle posisies gekies het voor jy jou lyn nat maak. Onthou jy ken nie die Suidweskus nie.” Of so iets was sy gevluelde woorde. Die feit dat êk in my jonger dae langs die Natal kus waarskynlik meer gehengel het as die ander, het maar min getel. Daardie dae het jy net nie met “Brass” tee gestribbel nie. Die vlug vertrek die Dinsdag 17 Sept via Windhoek en ons land so ongeveer 14:00 op Rooikop. Daar wag die 2 Landies reeds op ons en daar is skaars genoeg tyd om al die visgerei in te pak voor ons vertrek na Sandvishawe (Ja, dit is die regte naam en nie die toebroodjie soos in Ingels nie). Gelukkig is dit laaggety en ons kan die sogenaamde plaaspad vat en kom gou by ons bestemming uit. Die Landies word geparkeer met die neuse binneland toe en nou word voorberei vir die die nag en die volgende dag se vangs. Eers word daar hout bymekaar gemaak. Heelwat hout het saam gekom met die Landies maar daar is ook nog baie “flotsam en jetsom” wat by mekaar gemaak word. Binne ʼn oogwink brand daar ‘n lekker knetterende vuurtjie gebou om die koue te help verdryf. Vir die van julle wat nie daardie wêreld ken nie, alhoewel dit woestyn is, waai die wind gedurig vanaf die see en hang daar bykans ʼn permanente misbank oor die kus. Kortweg, dit kan “blêddie” koud word langs daardie kus. Wanneer jy weg beweeg vanaf die vuur, drink jy Old Brown Sjerrie of soos ons dit noem ʼn “bottel kombers.” Ewenwel, dit is nou laagwater en die vis byt nie eintlik nie. Dit is toe wat die “Boy scout” in die senioroffisiere na vore tree. Êk en die laaimeester word aangesê om so ʼn paar klippe te gaan soek en na die vuur toe te bring. Weereens as jy daardie kus ken sal jy weet klippe is maar skaars en mens moet wyd soek vir hulle. Des-nieteen-staande vind ons wel so ʼn paar, almal al swart gebrand, en met groot moeite rol 85
ons hulle tot by die vuur. “Boots” laat ons nou die klippe al om die vuur pak. “Goeie idee dink ek, dit hou darm die koue windjie van die vuur af weg. Maar “Boots” het eintlik iets anders in gedagte gehad. Terwyl ons die klippe pak het “Boots” vir homself en kol Freeman twee sulke vlak “grafte” gegrawe. Laat daardie aand word die klippe nou versigtig in daardie “grafte” in gerol en toe met sand toe gegooi. Op hierdie, nou heerlik warm sand, sprei die twee oubase hulle slaapsakke oop, klim versigtig in en zip toe. Heerlik snoesig slaap die twee nou terwyl ek en die laaimeester by die kwynende vuurtjie agter bly. Die Yank en AO Weyers beset die Landies natuurlik en ons jonges moet maar koud kry. Net om so effens warm te bly suig ons maar heelwat aan daardie bottelkombers maar probeer ook maar so af en toe in die donkerste van donker nagte vis te vang op die inkomende gety. Julle kan self dink hoeveel kraaineste dit gevolg gehad het op daardie normaalweg betroubare Penn-katrolle van ons. Ons vloek lekker maar tog trek ons so ʼn vissie of twee.. Die gety stoot nou lekker en ons beweeg al hoe hoër die strand op. So om en by middernag hoor ons ʼn werklik onaardse geskreeu gevolg deur ʼn genies, gehoes en gepoep. ʼn Aansienlik hoër brander as normaalweg het oor die normale hoogwater merk gespoel tot binne in daardie twee eens warm “grafte”. Konsternasie!!! Die nou half verkluimde en druip nat senior offisiere probeer naarstigtelik om uit daardie nat slaapsakke kom maar wanneer daardie goed nat is en met sand en soutwater deurweek is, werk die zips nie meer so lekker nie! Hulle is besig om te versuip want hulle arms en bene is so goed as vasgebind in daardie eens snoesige sakke. Met moeite het ons hulle uiteindelik daar uit, maar warm kon ons hulle nie weer kry nie. Nie veel later nie was ons genoodsaak om met die bibberende manne terug te ry na Rooikop, ook natuurlik by die siekeboeg ʼn draai gaan maak. Visvang trip in sy moer!!!!!!! Moes nog die ou paar vissies wat ek en die “loady” gevang het, afstaan. Tjeers vir Eers. Jors Troelie •
Dis ‘n klein wereld waarin ons leef: At Spies
Na die Dakota aanpassings kursus in Bloemfontein word êk met ingang 1 Sept 1975 na 44 Esk op Swartkops verplaas. Ops Savanna is reeds aan die gang en weens ʼn redelike tekort aan lugbemanning word êk na slegs ʼn paar uur al reeds op die Dakota as gesagvoerder aangestel. Aanvanklik as C-Katogorie gesagvoerder wat slegs vrag mag vervoer maar êk beman ook die foto Dak (toe gerus met infra-red linescan kameras vir nagfotografie. Ook het ons die eerste VLF navigasiesisteem in die land aan boord). Stories hieroor kom later. Êk het so pas geteken vir ʼn huis in Wierdapark maar word vroeg in November vir ʼn onbepaalde tyd met die foto Dak grens toe gestuur. (Kom uiteindelik eers in 86
Februarie terug. Dit was natuurlik die tyd toe die politici nog ontken het dat ons in Angola was.) My arme vrou moet maar alleen die finale ontvangs van die huis doen en ook natuurlik alleen die trek behartig. Toe êk terug kom, kon êk maar net instap en my bure ontmoed. Man ons vroue was “tuff” daardie dae en hulle verdien hope medaljes. Seker die eerste week nadat êk terug is ontmoet êk my nuwe buurman sosiaal vir die eerste keer. Êk het natuurlik die oubaas voorheen geken want hy was kolonel Clemens wat in beheer was van personeel wat na 301 LK gestuur word (dit is nou die grens by Rundu). Êk en die kolonel (was self nog ʼn kaptein op daardie stadium) groet sommer so oor die draad heen, daar waar hy so in sy tuin rondstap met ʼn groot glas met sulke “amber” kleurige vloeistof daar in, ook so ʼn blokkie ys of twee. Die oubaas is egter baie vriendelik. So sien ons mekaar elke middag oor ons gemeenskaplike grensdraad. Daardie dae was daar ʼn uiters interesante program op TV gebeeldsend “The World at War”, elke Dinsdag aand so om 19:00 maar as ʼn nuwe huiskoper en ʼn jong ou het êk nie geld vir ʼn TV nie. Kol Clem nooi my uit om by hom te gaan kyk, stop ook sommer ʼn ewe groot glas met “amber” vloeistof in my hand in. Daardie vloeistof skroei eers my Epiglottis rou maar dan bypass dit my slukderm en val soos warm gegote lood tot daar tussen die eilande van Langerhans onder by my pankreas verby. Man dit was nou ʼn lekker dop daardie! So tussenin sien en bespreek ons darem ook die program en WW2. Kol Clemens self het Beaufighters gedurende daardie tyd oor die Middellandsesee gevlieg. Hy kon baie interessante staaltjies oor daardie tyd vertel. So spandeer ek aanvanklik ʼn paar Dinsdagaande saam met die oubaas maar naderhand nooi hy my elke aand uit (soek natuurlik ʼn drink partner). Wel, êk is nie kruppel nie en gou word dit ʼn instelling maar Ops Savanna roep en onderbreek ons aangename samesyn weer. Toe êk eers na 12 weke weer terug kom, is ou Clem besig om swembad te bou. Die van julle wat Wierdapark ken sal weet dat die plek net sowat 12 duim onderkant die oppervlak bestaan uit “wall to wall” klip banke — dinamiet en baie daarvan is nodig. Die man wat die “blasting” beheer is ʼn Duitser. Daar word eers geboor en dan word die springstof in daardie gate geplaas voordat so ʼn swaar rubbermat oor hierdie lot geplaas word om die rond vliegende klippe onder beheer te hou. Êk kan nie onthou of die man dan soos die Amerikaners geskree het: “Fire in the Hole” of nie, maar ek glo dit sou dalk in Duits ietwat anders geklink het. Ewenwel so tussen die “blasting” deur, begin ou Clem en die Duitser met mekaar kommunikeer. Tot ou Clem se groot verbasing hoor hy nou dat die Duitser ME 109 vegters oor die Med gevlieg het. Clem se Beaufighter was op ʼn stadium erg deur een van hierdie vegters naby Gibraltar beskadig en hy noem dit vir die Duitser. Die man op sy beurt sê dat hy wel ook op ʼn keer in daardie area met ʼn Beaufighter slaags was. Die volgende dag bring die Duitser ook sy Log boek en hy en Clem maak vergelykings.
Kan jy dit glo, dit was die selfde twee vlieëniers wat jare van te vore oor die Med in ʼn doodsstryd gewikkel was en nou ontmoet hulle mekaar in Pretoria!
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Êk was ook uit genooi na die party wat ou Clem en die Duitser daardie aand gehou het. Baie “amber” vloeistof betrokke.
Inderdaad ‘n klein wêreld die van ons. Tjeers vir Eers Jors Troelie NATIONAL SECURITY / NASIONALE VEILIGHEID 1964: Extracts: Rivonia Trail: Justice Quartus de Wet Extracts from the judgment by Justice Quartus de Wet (Judge President) in the Rivonia trial in respect of accused no 1 (Nelson Mandela) (Via Adv Visser, SC) •
p19 /... According to him this Regional Command functioned in very much the same way as described by the witness “X” as far as Natal is concerned. There is very little direct evidence in relation to the functioning of the Regional Commands in Cape Town and Durban. According to the evidence of No. 4 Accused, which in this respect appears to me to be true, it was decided at the meeting of the Executive or Central Committee of the A.N.C. in June of 1961 to “allow” its members to form a body to engineer and direct acts of sabotage against targets described as “symbols of apartheid” which included buildings belonging to the Government and to the Bantu Affairs Department and communications including electric, telephone and railway signal installations. It is also clear from his evidence, considered in relation to the statement of No. 1 Accused and in relation to the documentary evidence, that the latter was the prime mover in forming the organization. The latter had been deputy leader of the A.N.C. prior to its being banned in 1960, but had continued his activities. It appears to me from the evidence and documents that the leader of the A.N.C., Luthuli, was informed about the activities of the Umkonto and consulted from time to time but kept in the background. On the 16th December, 1961, a circular or manifesto purporting to be issued by command of the Umkonto We Sizwe was issued and widely publicised. A photostatic copy was published in the Sunday Times which circulates throughout the country. A similar photostatic copy was published in a publication know as The New Age and copies were pasted up in various parts of the / p 20 / in country. I quote only a few passages from this circular: “Units of Umkonto We Sizwe today carried out planned attacks against Government installations particularly those connected with the policy of apartheid and race discrimination”. “Umkonto We Sizwe is a new independent body formed by Africans. It includes in its ranks South Africans of all races”. “Umkonto We Sizwe fully supports the National
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Liberation movement and our members jointly and individually place themselves under the overall political guidance of that movement”. “The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defence of our people, our future and our freedom”. “The methods of Umkonto We Sizwe mark a break with the past”. “We are striking out along a new road for the liberation of the people of this country. The Government policy of force, suppression and violence will no longer be met with non-violent resistance only”. “Umkonto We Sizwe will be at the front line of the peoples defence. It will be the fighting arm of the people against the Government in its policies of race suppression. It will be the striking force of the people for liberty for rights and for their final liberation”. The circular ends with the slogan “Afrika mayibuye”, a literal translation of this slogan is “Africa come back”, the significance being to convey the idea that Africa should be given back to the Bantu people from whom it is alleged to have been taken wrongfully or to have been stolen. A year later a circular was sent to the offices / 21 / offices of the Bantu Press. As far as I am aware this was not published. This circular is headed: Umkonto We Sizwe greets the people of South Africa. A message from the High Command. “On this, the first aniversary Umkonto We Sizwe greets the people of South Africa and pays tribute to all in its ranks who have so courageously struck blows at the Nationalist tyranny”. “Umkonto We sizwe an independent body subjecting itself voluntarily to the political guidance of The National Liberation Movement makes a solemn pledge to the nation that, whatever the difficulties and hardships, it will not rest until white supremacy has been wiped off the face of the country. It concludes: “The enemy we face sits in an arsenal surrounded by hostile people and a hostile world. It uses its army and police forces, its Courts and its white commandos to crush even the most innocuous protests by those who face their guns and batons. What would you have us do”. (Exhibit “000”). Exhibits “WW” and “AE” are copies of a circular which appears to have been issued in about May of 1963. Copies of this circular were found by Sergeant du Preez3 in 3
Wie ken die man? - HBH
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the New Brighton Location, Port Elizabeth and three copies in an envelope were found by Detective Sergeant Twala4 in a Johannesburg location. The circular is a three page document. The first page headed “The A.N.C. Spearheads Revolution. Leballo? No.” I quote only a few lines “What are the instruments of white power? They are the Army, the mines, the railways, the docks, the factories, the farms, the police, the whole administration. How are we to smash them? Well planned strategic violence. Already scared the whites are on the lookout. We must / 22 / outwit them. We must hit them when they are not looking. We must strike where they do not expect it. We must hit them hardest where they are soft”. The second page is headed: “The Leballo way is useless” and the third page is headed “Umkonto We Sizwe” sub-heading: “Army of the Liberation Movement”. I quote only one line “Umkonto has no need to boast. The people are with us. We are for the people. Our words are deeds.” At the end of the page are the words “Issued by: The African National Congress”. P 37. Accused No. 1: This accused did not give evidence but made an unsworn statement. He admits that he was one of the founders of Umkonto, that he was deputy president of the A.N.C. and as such a member of the Executive Committee, that he toured Africa during the first half of 1962 and (a) underwent military training, (b) made arrangements for Umkonto recruits to receive military training and (c) solicited and received financial help for the Umkonto. He further admits that at his request the National Executive authorised its secretariat and external missions to assist Umkonto in the transportation of recruits for military training and that on his return from his trip he reported to his colleagues in the A.N.C. and Umkonto on the results of his trip. He also admits that he made a report to the Regional Command in Natal. It is conceded by his counsel that on the admissions he is guilty on Counts 2, 3 and 4. It is contended that he is not guilty on Count 1 because he was in prison from August 5th, 1962, that it has not been proved that any act of sabotage was committed between this date and the first date in the charge, namely 22nd of June and that therefore he cannot be held liable for acts of sabotage committed by agents or servants. Reliance is placed upon the decision in Mouton / 38/ and Others v. Beket, 1918 A.D. 181. At page 192 of this judgment the position is considered of a Vecht-Generaal during a rebellion. The following is said: “He had been absent on a special mission for about ten days. Had he divested himself of his command during that time, then clearly he would not have been responsible for what happened while he was away”.
4
Wie ken die man – HBH?
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The conclusion arrived at was that the person in question had not diverted himself of his command. In the present case Accused No. 1 was one of the leaders of the Umkonto. He had set certain machinery in motion. In my opinion he at no time disassociated himself from the acts of the Umkonto and in fact does not say so. He was and presumably still is regarded as one of its leaders. In my opinion he cannot escape conviction on Count 1. The only question of fact at issue on the evidence which merits consideration arises from the evidence of the witness “X”. The latter said that when he addressed the Natal Regional Command Accused No. 1 said that persons of the A.N.C. and Umkonto who visited other African countries should be careful not to admit that they were Communists or sympathised with the Communists and instanced the case of one Mtchali who was cold-shouldered because he said he was a Communist. Accused No. 1 was at great pains to deny that he was a Communist, had Communist sympathy or that he had said this, but it is interesting to compare what he writes in his report on the Pafmecsa Conference under the heading “Political Climate” namely “Clear that in this area there are great reservations about our policy and there is a widespread feeling that the A.N.C. is a Communist dominated organization”. COMMENTARY NOTE: Mandela was convicted, inter alia, of Sabotage, although it is believed by some that the evidence presented at the trial proved that he) (and other accused) were guilty of high treason. The then Attorney-General, Mr Rein, however decided not to add high treason to the charges. If any of the accused had been convicted of high treason, the death penalty would have been obligatory. • President Mandela and The Security Police: Piet Swanepoel Anthony Sampson, the author of Mandela – The Authorised Biography, referred in several passages of his book, to statements made by Mr. Mandela when he was still a prisoner on Robben Island. His source for these passages was described simply as: Jail Memoir. In the late president’s own book, Long Walk to Freedom, he also revealed that he had started to write his autobiography on the island. I often wondered what kind of document this Jail Memoir was. • Det/Sgt Pieter Swanepoel Two days before Mr. Mandela’s death a former colleague sent me an extract from a document which, he claimed, had been written by Mr. Mandela. Perhaps I’d be interested, he said, because my name appeared in it. The extract was just a few lines, but what interested me more was the internet link supplied with the extract. I clicked on this link and - Oh Brother! 91
This 627-page document shows us an entirely different Mandela from the person depicted in the two books I mentioned above. This man was not a democrat. He was a hard-line communist. He believed in dialectical materialism, which, he wrote, excluded belief in the existence of a Supreme Being. In other words, he did not believe in God. He said anti-communism was a sickness which you contracted from going to missionary schools or listening to government propaganda. He believed that in their political campaigns they should not hesitate to use force, even if the majority were against them. But I am too old, and not qualified to dissect that Jail Memoir in detail. Professor Stephen Ellis has already started on this task and I hope others will follow. What I want to do is to discuss briefly what Mr. Mandela had written in that Memoir about the ugly and the bad things my colleagues in the Security Police were accused of. The quote is from page 302: "In comparison with the wave of detentions since 1963 that in 1960 was like a picnic. To the best of my knowledge and belief no individuals were then isolated, forced to give information, beaten up, tortured, crippled and killed as has been happening since 1963. Speaking comparatively the Security Police still had a number of men who carried out their duties according to the law and who resisted the temptation of abusing their powers. Apart from keeping us in confinement, withholding newspapers so as to prevent us from knowing what was happening outside, the atmosphere was generally free of the brutalities and acute tensions that characterize the subsequent detentions." Had Mr. Mandela still been alive I would have replied to this statement in the following way: I agree with you, Sir, that some of my colleagues committed unlawful and disgraceful deeds in the pursuit of what they saw as their duty. These people had neither the sympathy nor support of the majority of their colleagues. But as you correctly point out Sir, these unlawful deeds only commenced in 1963. You had declared war against the State two years earlier. You and your comrades were breaking the law and committing atrocities. What did you expect “the enemy”, as you called white people and the police, to do? The reference to me and some of my colleagues appeared in Mr. Mandela’s discussion of the Treason Trial in which he was one of the principal accused: “Several police witnesses, especially Head Constable Truter, Sgts. Muller, Ngcai and Swanepoel (not the same as Colonel Swanepoel who in the 60s gained notoriety for his brutality as Security Branch police officer), gave a sober and balanced account of the policy of the ANC and its allies. They also agreed that our struggle was non-violent and that the violent speeches delivered by some of us did not express the policy of the organisation. (p.292) 92
The defence team had little difficulty in showing that the Crown had failed to prove the allegations in the indictment. In support of their argument they quoted in addition to the massive evidence of the different witnesses, that of the police men referred to earlier and asked for our discharge. On 29th March 1961, four years and four months after our arrest we were found not guilty and acquitted. (p.295) • Detective Head Constable Truter Detective Head Constable Truter mentioned above was Willem Burger Truter, one of the most remarkable men I ever knew. He was my immediate chief and mentor when I was transferred to the Special Branch in Durban on January 2nd, 1952. From colleagues I learnt his history. When war broke out in 1939 he was a First Class Detective Sergeant in Pretoria. He was a well-built man with broad shoulders and played centre for the Pretoria Police Rugby team and the Pretoria Combined team which was to become the Northern Transvaal team. A policeman arrested on suspicion of being a member of the Ossewa Brandwag was found to be in possession of a notebook in which there was a list of names which included that of Willem Truter. On the strength of that Willem was arrested and jailed without trial. On numerous occasions during his incarceration he was required to leave his cell to assist the prosecutor in cases he had investigated before his arrest. On his release after three months detention he was sacked. His young wife had just given birth to a child and the family had no source of income. Willem was an apolitical person and faced with the need to care for his family he joined the army and was posted to a landmine detection unit in Italy where he was unfortunate enough to step on a landmine and to be literally blown to pieces. He lost 70% of his eyesight, both shoulders were broken and his legs stripped of flesh. When I first met him he was a frail creature, but a man with a commanding presence. After his release from hospital he was given a military pension. He obtained a job in the private sector, but when the National Party won the elections in 1948 the government instituted a commission of enquiry into the cases of policemen who had lost their jobs during the war, He was taken back into the Police with the rank of Detective Head Constable. Willem Truter never forgot the misery which a person who was wrongly accused could suffer and demanded from his staff that all reports, from informers or notes taken of speeches at public meetings, be checked re-checked to ensure that they were correct and truthful. He was to teach me an important lesson a year or two after I was transferred to his staff. I had investigated an illegal strike at the Merebank factory of the United Tobacco Company. I obtained statements from some of the workers at the factory to the effect that two trade union officials had incited them to strike, at that time it was illegal to incite African workers to strike. The two officials were duly charged and found guilty. The manager of the factory was so thankful for what I had done that he told me to name the brand of cigarettes I was smoking and the number I smoked every day. The company would then place me on their gift list and for the rest of my 93
life I would be supplied, free of charge with cigarettes. Delighted with this offer I hastened to tell everyone at the office of my good fortune. Mr. Truter heard this and called me into his office. “Do you realize”, he said, “that if you allow your name to be put on a list like that, that you will have lost your most valuable asset - your ability to be your own man? Henceforth you will be indebted to that company. What will you do if tomorrow you have to give evidence against them?” I realized that though taking up the offer of the company would not legally be a bribe, it would nevertheless be an improper thing to do. I went back to the factory and told the manager: “Thank you Sir, but no thank you”. The lesson Mr. Truter taught me was to remain with me when I gave evidence for hours on end at the treason trial. I had attended scores of meetings of the African National Congress, the Natal Indian Congress and the Congress of the People and taken pages and pages of notes. Some of the speeches I had listened to did indeed border on incitement. I knew that the prosecution wanted to prove that the Congresses were intent on achieving a violent overthrow of the government, but under oath it would have been dishonest of me to state that the policy of the Congresses was one of violence. After all, I had listened to Chief Albert Luthuli at many meetings; I had spent hours in his house at Groutville executing a search warrant where I spoke to him as man to man. I knew he abhorred violence; he was a Christian and a man of peace. How could I say that he led a movement which intended to use force to attain its goals? New Light on Nelson Mandela's Autobiography New light on Nelson Mandela's autobiography Stephen Ellis - 13 January 2014 Stephen Ellis on the significance of the recent release of the late ANC leader's draft autobiography, smuggled out of Robben Island in 1977 •
A new light is now shining on Nelson Mandela's political biography and on the history of South Africa as the result of the release of an important document by the Mandela Centre of Memory. The document in question is a 627-page typescript that seems to have been placed online just a few days before Mandela's death in December 2013. Why the Centre of Memory decided to place such an important and even explosive text online at that juncture is unclear. The Centre made no attempt to publicize the move, for example by announcing the publication on its homepage (see the Centre's response here Editor). The document that can now be consulted by internet users here is a draft autobiography that was secretly handwritten by Mandela in Robben Island prison before being smuggled out, typed up, and handed to Yusuf Dadoo, chairman of the South African Communist Party, in August 1977. This was the document that was re-worked in the years after Mandela's release from prison to form the basis for Long Walk to Freedom, the best-selling autobiography published in 1994. 94
It is clear from even a quick read that the prison manuscript, on which Mandela started work in 1974, is the product of a collective effort since it is strewn with editorial notes. To judge from information already in the public domain, the original editorial team that got to work on Robben Island included, in addition to Mandela himself, Ahmed Kathrada, Walter Sisulu and Mac Maharaj. The manuscript was originally intended as an inspiration to potential readers to join the fight against apartheid. A still deeper mystery is why the document remained unpublished after being smuggled out of prison in 1977. Who knew of its existence throughout the long years before its publication, other than Yusuf Dadoo and a handful of others who are known to have had sight of it or to have worked on it? Why did they not publish it at once? Who made the crucial decision to bring in an experienced journalist, Richard Stengel from Time magazine, to give the manuscript the expert makeover that enabled it to sell over 15 million copies worldwide? The book Long Walk to Freedom was far more than a publishing sensation in terms of the money it generated. Appearing while the transition from apartheid was not yet complete, it was a powerful propaganda tool on behalf of the ANC. Study of the untitled Robben Island typescript tells us about far more than the process of literary creation. It reveals some of the dynamics concerning Nelson Mandela's relationship with the Communist Party in particular. For anyone interested in history and politics, the main differences between the 1970s manuscript and the 1994 book could perhaps be grouped in two. First, there are key historical details. The prison manuscript contains information that help us to fill in the chronology of some key moments in South African history, most obviously the turn to armed struggle in 1960-1961 and Mandela's historic tour of Africa in 1962 - his firstever journey outside South Africa - when he had important second thoughts on the nature of the ANC's relationship with the South African Communist Party (SACP). The second key point of interest is the abundance of information in the prison memoir on Mandela's personal relationship with the SACP and his embrace of the main tenets of Marxism-Leninism. •
The chronology of struggle
The 1970s manuscript makes plain that Mandela began thinking about the possibilities of armed struggle at an early period. In one of the many drafted passages in the manuscript that were not taken up or were somewhat relegated in Long Walk to Freedom, on pages 141-42, Mandela informs us how, when he learned that his friend Walter Sisulu had been invited to Romania to attend the World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship in 1952, "I took advantage of this opportunity to put him [sic] my views on alternative methods of struggle and suggested that from the Festival he should visit the People's Republic of China and arrange for arms".
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Sisulu did exactly that. "The Chinese leaders received him warmly", the Mandela text continues, "and took pains to warn that an armed struggle was a very serious matter to undertake and questioned whether the conditions in South Africa had matured sufficiently to justify such an undertaking". The Chinese were correct in thinking that an armed struggle in South Africa would be premature, as later events were to show. While Mandela's thoughts were turning to the use of violence at this relatively early stage, in the same passage he mentions that "he defended the [ANC] policy of nonviolence until the three Day Strike of May 1961". Reflection on this apparent contradiction needs to be based on awareness of a crucial historical event, knowledge of which became public only quite recently. This was the convening of an SACP conference in Emmarentia in December 1960 at which the Party adopted a secret resolution instructing its Central Committee to prepare for armed struggle. Mandela was a Party member at that time and one of just 25 or so people present at that crucial meeting. Moreover, the decision to take up arms had been preceded by discreet soundings taken by SACP delegates visiting Moscow and Beijing, including a meeting between Party delegates Yusuf Dadoo and Vella Pillay with Mao Zedong in person on 3 November 1960. In effect, then, as from December 1960 the SACP was set on a course of armed struggle with guarantees of support from the Communist superpowers of the day. Mandela was one of the few people aware of this fateful decision. Since he was a member not only of the Central Committee of the SACP but also of senior organs of the ANC, he was crucially placed in both organizations. Knowing this, how are we to understand Mandela's assurance, quoted in the previous paragraph, that he defended the policy of non-violence until May 1961, six months after he had backed a Communist Party resolution in favour of armed struggle? The reader needs to be attentive to the precise wording of the sentence, suggesting that Mandela was publicly defending the formal ANC policy of non-violence even while, as is known, he was in his capacity as a senior member of the SACP preparing for exactly the opposite. This explanation also throws light on other passages, such as at page 411 where he recalls travelling to Port Elizabeth, apparently in April 1961, and spending a day with Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba and others "discussing problems relating to the new structure of the ANC as an underground organisation". Given that Mbeki and Mhlaba were among the magic circle of ANC people who had also been present at the December 1960 SACP that had resolved to prepare for war, it is hard to imagine that these two and Mandela did not also discuss military affairs. When Mandela moved on to Cape Town in the same trip, meeting Archie Sibeko, Oscar Mpeta, Reggie September, Alex La Guma, Brian Bunting, Fred Carneson and others, it is likely that the same was true. As the Robben Island manuscript puts it (page 417), "some of our dedicated men were becoming impatient with passive forms of action. I had realised that this was a trend that had come to stay and that in due course it would become irresistible". Remarks and details such as this acquire new significance when we know that 96
Mandela had effectively been mandated by the SACP six months earlier to canvass support for armed struggle within the ANC. In short, the release of the Robben Island manuscript gives us new material to make a detailed reconstruction of how South Africa embarked on its long armed struggle, via careful re-examination of the sequence of events from early 1960 until the formal unveiling of Umhonto we Sizwe in December 1961. •
Mandela and the SACP
Certainly the Robben Island manuscript reveals the intensity of Mandela's attachment to Marxism by the late 1950s, if not earlier. On page 100 he recalls, when mentioning his early reading on Marxism, that "[l]ater I was to embrace dialectical and historical materialism as my philosophy". He goes on to describe the dialectical method as "a mighty weapon which puts me in a strong position to realise all my aspirations as a nationalist and as a member of the human race" (page 102). It is apparent that Mandela had moved very close to the Communist Party by the late 1950s. The text stops short only of stating that he actually joined the SACP, as his friend Walter Sisulu had done in 1955. Another prominent Communist, John Pule Motshabi, once recalled that the recruitment of both Mandela and Sisulu into the SACP had occurred "after the 1950 campaigns". The South African Police was eventually to conclude that Mandela's recruitment was not until 1960. Inherent in Mandela's philosophical and political embrace of Marxism was a series of positions on political matters consistent with an orthodox Marxist-Leninist view at that time. Following on from the passage in which he made explicit his embrace of dialectical and historical materialism, there comes an extended passage-needless to say, not included in Long Walk to Freedom-in which Mandela praises Soviet foreign policy, which "fully supported the national struggles of the colonial people". Elsewhere, on page 194, when he casually names a string of imperialist countries, it is notable that all of them are in the Western camp of the Cold War, implying that Communist powers by their very nature cannot be imperialist. This was in fact an argument that Mandela maintained in some of his public utterances during the late 1950s, such as his piece "A New Menace in Africa", published in the monthly journal Liberation in March 1958. Page 180 of the Robben Island manuscript provides a justification of the two-stage theory of revolution, a key plank of SACP policy that was also to become popular within the ANC in course of time. In light of later events, perhaps the most interesting passage regarding policy matters is a discussion of the use of coercion-in this context, a synonym for violencein politics. The passage in question, on page 327, arises from a description of the ANC's organisation of a strike in 1958. Mandela tells us that he and his colleagues in the ANC "have often discussed the question to what extend [sic] we should rely on coercive measures in organising political demonstrations" (page 327). ANC policy was "against the use of coersive [sic] measures as a means of mobilising the support of the people", the text notes.
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However in debating the question Mandela comes to the striking conclusion that "the real issue is whether the use of force will advance or retard the struggle". In the last resort, if the use of force will advance the struggle, "then it must be used whether or not the majority agrees with us" (page 328). While many governments may adopt the position that it is permissible to use force even though it has only minority support if it is deemed necessary by those in authority, such a statement in the context in which it occurs in the Robben Island memoir is tantamount to a ringing endorsement of one of the most outstanding features of Marxism-Leninism-that it is morally permissible to use violence provided only that it will help "the struggle". The means by which the true direction of the struggle may be discerned are not made explicit at this point, but given other statements in the manuscript we are forced to the conclusion that, in the thinking of Nelson Mandela at least until the mid1970s, this was by correct application of the method of historical and dialectical materialism. Some other passages in the Robben Island text that touch on the subject of violence are also quite vehement. At times, Mandela tells us, he was bitter against South African whites in general, feeling that they "need another Isandhlwana" (page 194)-a reference to the bloody defeat of British troops by a Zulu army in 1879. "South African whites", Mandela continues in another passage, "have been bred on racialism for 3 centuries, and mere speeches alone....will never make them surrender and share political power and the natural wealth of the country with the blacks" (page 399). It is indeed hard to deny that the obduracy of the South African government for many years made it hard to imagine how apartheid could ever be overthrown without recourse to violence. But remarks this virulent had become somewhat off-message by the time Mandela's autobiography was eventually published in 1994. No doubt Mandela's own thinking had evolved in the twenty years that had by then elapsed since he started work on his memoir. He once told US President Bill Clinton how angry he had been during his first 11 years of his imprisonment on Robben Island, which would mean until about 1975. Among the experiences that appear to have mellowed him thereafter was the shock of seeing the 1976 cohort of young revolutionaries, veterans of the Soweto rising who began arriving on the Island and who shocked Mandela and many others of his generation by the depth of their anger. By publishing the Robben Island draft of Mandela's autobiography, the Nelson Mandela Foundation has performed a service to scholars intent on better understanding the nature of the anti-apartheid struggle and even its basic chronology. Neither of these are well understood. People always find it hard fully to understand the times they live in, leaving history to unfold its meanings only gradually. But in this case something more is afoot, namely how the history of the struggle was so skilfully hidden for so long as the South African Communist Party and its allies deployed the strategic use of deception and propaganda. 98
Thanks to the internet publication of the Robben Island manuscript, we can now see a little more. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=509092 &sn=Marketingweb+detail&pid=90389 •
Z 204: Security Clearance: Pieter Groenewald
Armed robber received security clearance Pieter Groenewald 15 January 2014 FF+ MP says Col. Nceba Patrick Bobelo, who had a 1995 conviction, was commander of the SANDF's joint tactical HQ in Mpumalanga. Security clearance becoming a farce and threatens SA's security The minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Ms. Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, acknowledged that Col. Nceba Patrick Bobelo, who was found guilty and sentenced for armed robbery on 6 March 1995, had received secret clearance. She was replying to a question of Pieter Groenewald of the Freedom Front Plus in Parliament. Bobelo was the commander of the Defence Force's joint tactical headquarters in Mpumalanga. "The fact that Bobelo had held such a strategic position and despite his crime record, could still receive a secret clearance, makes a farce of the Defence Force's security clearance and creates a security risk for South Africa. This trend is not only visible in the Defence Force, but can also be found in the Police's Crime Intelligence Division. Not to mention the sign-language interpreter at the memorial service of Mr. Mandela. Bobelo worked with strategic military secrets which means that enemies of South Africa could easily obtain secret clearances through which they could spy on the Defence Force," Dr. Pieter Groenewald, the chief spokesperson on Defence for the Freedom Front Plus says. "What is furthermore worrying is that Bobelo's security clearance had already lapsed in 2005, but was never renewed. Secret and top secret security clearances are only valid for five years. This means that the Defence Force does not have proper control of their security clearances and it furthermore means that Bobelo had in fact worked with secret information from 2005 without the necessary security clearance. The question is how many other similar cases are there in the Defence Force. The Freedom Front Plus will be asking in Parliament that the minister does a proper investigation and that disciplinary steps are taken against the relevant individuals responsible for security clearances," Groenewald said. NATIONAL ASSEMBLY - QUESTION FOR WRITTEN REPLY 3081. Dr P J Groenewald (FF Plus) to ask the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans:†(1) Why has the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) kept a certain person (name furnished) in their employ for so long despite his sentence for armed robbery; 99
(2) whether the said person had security clearance; if not, why not; if so, what type of clearance; (3) how regularly is the security clearance of officers in the SANDF reviewed; (4) whether she will make a statement on the matter? NW3639E REPLY (1) The South African National Defence Force has not been aware until now that the said person was involved in armed robbery. This is more so because the said armed robbery occurred in about 1993. This issue was in the domain of the SAPS. However, the SANDF is currently investigating how this oversight may have occurred. (2) The member has no valid security clearance at present. However, the member had secret clearance which has since lapsed as of 2005. Member has not re-applied for any clearance as yet. (3) Security Clearances are supposed to be reviewed upon expiry: Secret clearances lapse after five years Confidential clearances lapse after 10 years. Top Secret expires also after 5 (4) No NW3639E Statement issued by Dr. Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus chief spokesperson: Defence, January 15 2014 BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA POLICE
• The Realisation: Dave Holmes Dear Hennie Here is a true short story for you. I refer to myself in the first person, and I have changed the name of the Sergeant. Note: Unlike South Africa, the Police Force handled Traffic matters in Rhodesia as well as crime. We were an unarmed Police Force in the centre of Africa. Our training and discipline was legendary, and the trust given to us in our daily duties was extraordinary. I relate to you the story of a very young man given huge responsibility. And that very young man was me. It is the relating of a true dictum, and that is that one never stops learning, whether about life, about knowledge or about yourself. “Road speed now 100 miles an hour, road surface is good with wide safe verges, water temperature is normal, oil pressure is normal, the car I have overtaken is receding in my rearview mirror. I accelerate through 110 miles per hour, flick the car into overdrive listening to the engine revs slide down, and then I see from the telephone poles ahead, that the road curves to the left. My hands are at ‘ten to two’ on the steering wheel, and I am moving gradually over to the crown of the road to negotiate the left hand bend accelerating evenly through the bend and maintain my position on the crown until the apex is reached, and am moving back to the left side 100
of the road. As I increase my speed I move further into the centre of the road. The road surface is good, wind negligible and no traffic ahead”. Sergeant Johnson next to me is apparently asleep he is so quiet, but I know he is scrutinising my driving and listening to my running commentary. “Ahead in the distance, I see the telephone poles bearing right, so I move into a position on the far left of the road adjacent to the verge. Road speed is still 110 miles per hour, and as accurately as possible I am maintaining an even curve almost on the verge through the corner whilst accelerating evenly and maintaining traction. At the apex I cut across the centre broken line, and now I am moving back to the left side of the road. Road speed has increased to 120 miles per hour, and I know from experience that we are approaching a fast left hand bend where this speed can be maintained. One car coming towards me from ahead and we pass by. I am moving to the centre of the road to prescribe a wide course through the bend, and accelerating hard I know that the rear of the car will break away. The Thornton Limited Slip differential kicks in and the car is gently hanging out its tail, with steering now affected by judicious use of the accelerator. All the way around the bend, I maintain a steady steering position with my right arm straightened, and I use the steering wheel as little as possible. At the apex I again move back to the left side of the road, and exaggerate the steering correction slightly to effect a smooth transition back to full traction of the rear wheels. Road junction ahead and it is clear so I continue to accelerate. Down a long hill, and my road speed increases to 130 miles per hour, and as we bottom out the road goes up towards a narrow cutting over the brow of the hill and governed by a double white line. I am accelerating hard up the hill” [ – and it was at this point that I was seized by the most terrible shock which shook my whole body, and caused my body to convulse into action. I joined the British South Africa Police on the 21st March 1961 from Port Elizabeth where I was born. As an 18-year old I was stripped, gashed and slain by the training regimen, which lasted for four and a half months, during which time we had much drill instruction, musketry courses, equitation, which included being issued with a saddle and full kit, and which involved early morning inspections at 05h00 complete with saddled horse. Early morning ‘rides’ were characterised by much running, cursing, mounting and dismounting without the use of stirrups until the point of exhaustion, but gradually we became good riders, finally passing out on a full parade, performing meticulous drill for the Commissioner, as well as a formed ride in good order. We had also of course attended “Law and Police” courses, where the academic side of Police work was drilled into us. In our training squad, we had 12 South Africans, two Rhodesians and 12 British recruits, and this ratio typically made up the British South Africa Police as a force. The BSAP, named after the British South Africa Company, the pioneering Company sent out originally to open up the Rhodesian bush, and whose Police Force eventually dropped the ‘Company’ name becoming the BSAP. I did two months in Charge Office, where I walked an 8-hour beat, becoming used to being a policeman and taking care of many of the smaller things I feel many police forces neglect today. We confronted petty thieves, prostitutes, chatted to shopkeepers always refusing proffered gifts of cold drinks and more. We were routinely checked on, arriving at pre-determined ‘points’ where our note book was 101
signed by a Sergeant or Inspector, who whispered up in a patrol car, usually an Austin Westminster A110. Our notebooks were expected to be of high order, and anything of interest was passed through to CID who frequently acted on information supplied to them from this source. I was then transferred to Traffic Branch where I was issued with a BSA 650cc twin motorcycle, my function being “Traffic Dockets” where we routinely each handled perhaps 20 dockets, arranging statements, indictments of accused persons, measuring traffic accident scenes, attending post mortems, and with one’s heart in one’s mouth presenting completed dockets to an irascible Inspector who picked through each one until it was perfect, after which it was presented to the Courts. After a year of that I was put on a further driving course (We had done Matchless 500cc singles and Land Rover training in Training Depot), and eventually achieved a ‘Grade 4’ which entitled me to drive an Austin Westminster on what was called ‘Traffic Mobile’. We did 8-hour patrols through a 16-hour period from 07h00 to 23h00, and our duties were setting up speed traps (stop watches!) conducting vehicle checks, patrolling the city and performing static checks at busy intersections. We frequently did 100-mile days in the City of Salisbury, each being given a designated patrol area which almost guaranteed a less than 5 minute response to any accident. After a year on Traffic Mobile, I was put on a further three-week course also on Austin Westminsters, where I achieved a Grade 3 status. Of the Grade 3 drivers, the highest grade one could attain in Rhodesia, a few were further selected to go onto a course driving the Mk11 3.8 Jaguar, the fastest saloon car in Rhodesia at the time, also lasting three weeks. The course was intensive, with hours of driving at inordinately high speeds in rain, at night and during normal driving, whilst also performing the ‘running commentary’. This was designed to allow the instructors to know on which one’s brain and vision were focusing, because at speeds of 130 miles per hour pure survival suggested this was necessary! Many drivers were eliminated from the course by this expedient. Not yet 21 years old, I was then transferred to Highway Patrol, and issued with a dove-grey Jaguar Mk11 3.8 – a superlative motor car with walnut appointments, red leather seats, a very fast 6-cylinder XK engine driven through a four-speed Moss gearbox with overdrive. My patrols were 3-day patrols in the vicinity of Salisbury my home base, 6-day patrols to Kariba and the sugar estates up in the North-Eastern Rhodesian Lowveld, and 10-day patrols in Manicaland and the Eastern Highlands, some of the prettiest scenery I have ever seen. I selected other Constables to accompany me as observers on these patrols, and at times was accompanied by one of a higher rank, probably for the purposes of being assessed. We always radioed through to District Commissioners of their respective areas, requesting permission to enter their territory, and to pay our respects. One night, arriving at the Kariba Gorge, with the sun having gone and in that perfect warm dusk light, I stood spellbound whilst listening to an Italian, suspended high over the Gorge working along a cable, and singing one of the Italian arias with a truly 102
beautiful voice, which echoed between the great Gorge sides, the best sound system I have ever heard, and a moment of pure beauty. On one patrol I recall very well on arrival at a small Hotel, ‘The Black Mountain Inn’ near Cashel Valley, I was appraised of the information that Pres. John Kennedy had been shot. We all remember that incident, and we all remember the circumstances of having been told of the assassination. Then I was belting up a hill one late afternoon, a hill I had frequently summitted at high speed with no warning of anything impending, no signal, no sign, and for no reason I was seized by a shock which hit me like a heavyweight’s knock-out blow, and I stood on the brakes, my observer and I flung hard onto our full-harness racing seat belts, blue smoke billowing out behind the car now on the limit of adhesion, at times snaking left and right and being corrected by careful attention to the steering wheel! – And why was I doing that? This is a question I have asked myself many times in my life. I am not a particularly religious person in the classic sense, I do not subscribe to Eastern philosophies, nor do I consider myself to be particularly spiritual. Still inexorably drawn to the brow of the hill by pure kinetic energy, I still had not identified any reason for my action! Then, over the brow of the hill towards us appeared a very large truck. There was room enough for me to pass by on my half of the road, but I continued to brake hard, the stench of brake dust almost choking us. It was then, that a Zephyr 6, maroon and cream with a Mozambican registration plate, came hurtling at high speed over the brow of the hill on my side of the road, and with nowhere for me to go other than to move over onto the verge which was covered in small granite flints and extremely rough, causing the ferns on the rockface to swipe the car as we went over the hill at about 50 miles per hour. To this day I can see the swarthy Portuguese driver and his passengers with shocked looks on their faces! With the car under control now and smoking heavily from the brakes, I waited until the end of the cutting and pulled over to a safe spot. Wordlessly we got out of the car and moved upwind of it to get away from the brake smoke. Peter Johnson fell onto his knees and thanked God aloud, both for him and for me. There was no question of chasing the Zephyr. Sgt Johnson and I never spoke of this again. It was not in his report. After 10 minutes or so, he said to me, “I want you to get me to Umtali safely, and I want you to drive faster than you have ever driven before” He was a policeman and a psychologist, and I felt he had the ear of God, so I complied. Of the incident, you may ask “Why?” It is the same as me, only I have been asking that question for more than 50 years. Its answer I think lies in my attitude, and in my vision of the future. It has taken this long to change me, and I believe that change is happening. 103
And then I too, will “Thank God!” and I shall do so on my knees. David Holmes REGSPLEGING • Man oortree Erfeniswet January 14, 2014 Mnr. Paul du Randt (54) het blykbaar onwetend die Erfeniswet oortree wat ’n verbod plaas om enige deel van ’n skeepswrak van ouer as 60 jaar is, te verwyder sonder die toestemming van die owerheid. Hy is in die landdroshof skuldig gevind op aanklag dat hy dele van skeepswrakke aan die Oos-Kaapse kus vir skroot verkoop het. Mnr. Du Randt het skuld beken op die aanklag, en het ’n opgeskorte vonnis van vyf jaar gekry.Die wet wat in 1995 op die wetboek geplaas is, is nou vir die eerste keer toegepas in ’n hofgeding,Du Rand, en twee ander persone, is daarvan beskuldig is dat hulle blykbaar drie historiese skeepswrakke met plofstof geskiet het om dele daarvan as skroot te verhandel. Die eerste wrak wat deur Du Randt getakel is, is die Noorweegse SS Lyngenfjord. Dié boot het in 1938 by die Tsitsikammariviermond gestrand. Foto – Noorweegse SS Lyngenfjord http://www.dievryburger.co.za/2014/01/man-oortree-erfeniswet-2/ AfriForum verkla 2 dokters by RGSA oor ANC-bomme Die burgerregte-organisasie AfriForum het ʼn amptelike klag van onprofessionele en onetiese gedrag by die Raad op Gesondheidberoepe (RGSA) ingedien teen twee dokters wat in 1985 by ANC-bomaanvalle by onder meer supermarkte en winkelsentrums in die Durban-omgewing betrokke was. •
Die dokters, lt.-genl. Vejaynand Ramlakan (voormalige geneesheer-generaal) en dr. Sibongiseni Dhlomo (huidige LUR vir gesondheid in KwaZulu-Natal), het albei voor die Waarheids-en-versoeningskommissie erken dat hulle gedurende die ANC se Operasie "Butterfly" ploftoestelle verskaf het vir die uitvoering van 'n reeks bomaanvalle op onder meer burgerlike teikens. AfriForum het hierdie klag gelê kort nadat dr. Wouter Basson deur die RGSA verhoor is vir optredes tydens die vorige bedeling. Volgens Kallie Kriel, uitvoerende hoof van AfriForum, is AfriForum se klag daarop gemik om die grondwetlike beginsel van gelykheid voor die reg te beskerm. "In die lig van die RGSA se besluit om op etiese gronde teen Wouter Basson op te tree weens dade tydens die konflik van die verlede, is dit billik om te verwag dat die RGSA ook op dieselfde etiese gronde moet optree teen mediese praktisyns wat 104
tydens dieselfde konflik betrokke was by bomplantings waar mense beseer of gedood is of waartydens die moontlikheid bestaan het dat mense beseer of gedood kon word." Ses ander mediese dokters het ook, onafhanklik van AfriForum se klag, klagtes by die RGSA teen Ramlakan en Dhlomo ingedien. Ramlakan en Dhlomo was gedurende die bomaanvalle praktiserende dokters en is steeds as dokters geregistreer. Ramlakan het voor die WVK betrokkenheid by die bomaanvalle in 1985 op die huis van die politikus Amichand Rajbansi en die Chatsworth landdroshof erken. Hy het ook voor die WVK erken dat mense beseer is in van die ander bomaanvalle wat uitgevoer is deur mense wat onder sy bevel gestaan het. Ook Dhlomo het voor die WVK erken dat hy ploftoestelle verskaf het vir onder meer die veelvuldige ontploffings op 27 September 1985 in Durban by onderskeidelik die OK Bazaar, Game, Spar en Checkers. Ander voorvalle waarby hy betrokke was, was die ontploffings in dieselfde jaar by die Grosvenor meisieskool en die Executive Hotel in Umlazi. Dhlomo het ook vir Andrew Zondo, wat die Amanzimtoti-bom geplant het waarin burgerlikes dood is, vanaf die Swazilandse grens na die Durbanomgewing vervoer. Kallie Kriel: Uitvoerende hoof: AfriForum •
Vraag oor ammunisie: The New Ammunition That Has Gun Owners Drooling: Marius Avenant
Kyk 'n bietjie na hierdie een.... wat sou die eksperte se opinie hieroor wees?? Veral die wettigheid van sulke ammunisie - dit is soos 'n mini handgranaat !!! In die artikel is ‘n video clip wat wys hoe dit deur 'n blok jellie van die een of ander aard gaan. Ek neem aan dit verteenwoordig 'n liggaam. http://thelibertydigest.com/2014/01/24/the-new-ammunition-that-has-gun-ownersdrooling/ 105
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Artikel 113 van die Strafproseswet
Passop vir Artikel 113 van die Strafproseswet wat kan byt ten spyte van goeie ondersoekwerk. In S v Sewela 2007 (1) SACR 123 (WLD) by wyse van voorbeeld het die beskuldigde skuldig gepleit op ‘n klag van Diefstal van R 470 000.00 by Standard Bank, behoorlik ondersoek deur die ondersoekbeamte, na, glo ek,’n moeilike taak van dokumentêre forensiese oudit, ondersoeke, ens, asook langdurige moeite om sin te maak van die skelm se streke. Die beskuldigde is nádat ‘n pleitverduideliking in terme van artikel 112(2) van die Strafproseswet ingehandig is by die hof, skuldig bevind. Maar tydens die proses van vonnisoplegging het die beskuldigde ‘n dokument ingehandig by die hof wat beweer het dat hy skuldig gepleit het as gevolg van vrees, druk, onbehoorlike beïnvloedig en beloftes wat, onder andere, die polisiebeampte aan hom gemaak het. Die landdros het in terme van artikel 113 van die Strafproseswet ‘n pleit van onskuldig genotuleer en die verhoor is gehou, waarna die landdros bevind het dat die staat nie saak bo redelike twyfel bewys het nie, maar het die beskuldigde nogtans skuldig bevind in terme van die erkennigs wat die beskuldigde aanvanklik gemaak het in sy skuldig pleit-verklaring. Hy het 15 jaar direkte gevangennisstraf ontvang, maar op appèl het die hoër hof bevind dat die landdros fouteer het, aangesien die hof nie die erkennings, nadat hy die skuldigbevinding ‘onttrek’ het en die erkennings derhalwe nie as ‘getuienis’ mog beskou nie – (sien artikel 113(1) van die Strafproseswet). Belangrik in dié spesifieke omstandighede is omdat die beskuldigde op die vrywilligheid van sy bewerings staatgemaak het (welke vrywilligheid dan deur die staat bewys moes word), want andersins sou die erkennings inderdaad in aanmerking geneem kon word. Volgens die hoërhof het die staat dít nie bewys nie, en het die hof van eerste instansie derhalwe fouteer per die hoërhof deur die erkennings in ag te neem, en het die beskuldige se appèl het derhalwe geslaag – hy is onskuldig bevind en ontslaan. Die bogenoemde kon nooit ‘n voorbeeld van regverdigheid (‘’justice’) hê nie? Die fout moet dus voor die deur gelê word van ..... ? Jannie de la Rey Jannie de la Rey is ‘n advokaat en mede-outeur, saam met advokaat Anthonie Viviers van “A Practical Guide to the Criminal Legal Practice in South Africa”, beskikbaar teen R250.00 per publikasie. Bestellings by jdlr@mweb.co.za
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SILENCE IN COURT / STILTE IN DIE HOF •
Adv Len Els : Uit Aquila Bundel 2 (in wording).
Die befaamde/berugte Jantjie die doof-stom-Madiba-tolk, was op sy dag 'n hoftolk by die Landdros Boksburg. 'n Kollega vind 'n beskuldigde aan roof skuldig, en vra in Engels: "Do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?" Jantjie tolk in Tswana. Die beskuldigde se oërol wit om en hy slaan soos 'n sak patats flou in die beskuldigdebank neer. Die publieke gallery gee gelyktydig 'n skerp snak na asem. Die Tswana hofordonans gaan egter aant giggel. By navraag deel die ordonans kollega mee dat Jantjie as volg getolk het:"Do you have anything to say before you are executed this afternoon?" Nodeloos om te sê, was Jantjie se loopbaan as hoftolk van korte duur. Hierdie storie is die reine waarheid, kollega self het dit bevestig. Twee Tswana dames verskyn voor my in die streekhof op aanklag van strafbare manslag. Gewigtige anties wat elk die skaal loshande oor die 100kg sal stoot. Die oorledene, 'n aspirant verkragter, het beskuldigde een vroeg oggend by die bushalte beetgepak en na naliggende bosse begin sleep. Sy het blou moord geskreeu en haar vriendin, beskuldigde twee, wat oppad bushalte toe was, het haar tehulp gesnel. Die twee het oorledene op die naat van sy rug platgetrek. Beskuldigde een het op sy gesig gaan sit en beskuldigde twee op sy bene. Hul het sy broek se gordel afgehaal en met een helse gespook daarin geslaag om sy hande met die gordel vastebind. Met sy neus tussen twee polisieperd-boude, het oorledene met die gespartel versmoor en die gees gegee. What a way to go! Ek het beide aan manslag skuldig bevind, maar elk tot vier jaar gevangenisstraf in geheel opgeskort vir vyf jaar gevonnis. Inderdaad 'n geval van boontjie kry sy loontjie.5 MILITARY HISTORY / MILITÊRE GESKIEDENIS • WW1: Brave & Essentric Journalist Mail man who went to the trenches in a bowler hat and Burberry coat: Eccentric, rebellious and breathtakingly brave, Basil Clarke defied the censors to tell an unsuspecting world the true horror of WWI 5
Petro se kommentaar laggend: “Dis nou tipies Len!”
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- The Daily Mail journalist spent three months undercover in war-torn France - He smuggled home dispatches detailing the vivid horror of the fighting - But to Lord Kitchener he was a 'rogue journalist' doomed to be arrested - He was later knighted for developing the fields of propaganda and PR
By Richard Evans PUBLISHED: 23:26 GMT, 15 January 2014 | UPDATED: 23:26 GMT, 15 January 2014
Fearless: Basil Clarke evaded both the shells and the censors of the First World War... in a bowler hat On a freezing night in the depths of winter in 1914, a deep frost lay on the ground in Flanders. With a clear sky, the stars and the moonlight illuminated the pretty cottages that lined the road between the Belgian city of Veurne and the French port of Dunkirk. Along it were walking two British reporters — Christopher Lumby of The Times, and Basil Clarke of the Daily Mail. As their feet trudged over the frozen ruts left by thousands of gun carriages, the minds of both men were cast back to their families safely tucked into their beds on the other side of the Channel. In the distance, the two men heard the bells of Dunkirk Cathedral chime out the unofficial anthem of the city — the Hymn of Jean Bart. Then, suddenly, there was a booming sound that shook the earth, and the sky was lit up by the white flashes of guns, the pink flashes of howitzers and the red-yellow of exploding shells. ‘Thud, boom, and boom again, we could feel the shock of them in our feet as well as hear them,’ Clarke later recalled. As Clarke was to report in the pages of this newspaper, what we would now describe as the festive season was to offer no respite from the slaughter on that section of the Front. ‘The Germans came down upon the countryside in a fury of hate,’ Clarke wrote. ‘The frost had hardened the marshy fields. They came on now with a clatter instead of with a squelch. And the whole afternoon the Allies were busy beating them off. The guns thumped, the machine guns tapped, and rifles cracked.’ As Clarke reported to Mail readers, in many parts of the Front, including the northern section where he was based, the fighting during Christmas and New Year in 1914 continued as savagely as normal. There was no let-up in hostilities. Certainly, thanks to Clarke we know that the almost legendary ‘Christmas Truce’ was a sporadic affair at best rather than the blanket event that has been presented since. 108
However, what makes his reports all the more remarkable is that he should not have been anywhere near Flanders at all. In fact, he was operating in the war zone without any official sanction. Journalists were banned and had he been caught, it was likely that he would have been arrested and imprisoned. But then, Clarke was never the most conventional of reporters, and was always kicking against authority.
War: Troops in Veurne, France. Kitchener Fight: The 14th Battalion of the London so hated journalists that he banned them Scottish Regiment marching towards the from the battlefield and set up a Press Somme in 1916 Bureau in central London - which omitted so much it was nicknamed the Suppress Bureau
When the war broke out, Clarke was given the job of representing the paper at the Press Bureau that had been established by Lord Kitchener to issue war news and to censor newspaper articles. For the Daily Mail writer, the idea of working at a place that quickly became known among the Press pack as the ‘Suppress Bureau’ was anathema. After all, Clarke was very much a go-getting reporter, who was not afraid of getting into a scrap. Before he had become a journalist, and after a tedious spell working in a bank, Clarke worked as a tutor in Germany, where he managed to get into a fistfight with his employer. Clarke was also lucky not to have been put through with a sword after he insulted a drunken German officer, while on another occasion he was attacked and thrown in a river by some German soldiers he had got into an argument with. He therefore leapt at the chance when the Daily Mail’s news editor informed him, in October 1914, that he was to be sent to Ostend in Belgium. The paper wanted him to try to reach the city before it fell into the hands of the Germans. 109
For both Clarke and the paper, it was vital that the public should know the truth of what was going on. The Mail urged the government to ‘have the great courage to tell the British people the truth’.
Battle: Clarke was a leading figure in Death: The destruction of Flanders fields. reporting shell shock, now known as Clarke's best sources were soldiers, post-traumatic stress disorder given Kitchener's distrust
Clarke was also personally opposed to what he believed was a ‘short-sighted and brutal policy’ of banning reporters from the frontline, thus denying grieving families a true picture of how their loved ones were laying down their lives. Clarke set off from London dressed in decidedly un-military wear — a bowler hat and a Burberry coat. He would later wonder if he was the only journalist ever to have gone to war in a bowler. However, when he arrived at Folkestone, he was told he was too late — the Germans had already taken Ostend. Many would have turned back, but instead Clarke made a life-changing decision. He would try to get to the front anyway. Despite having a young family, he was eager to see the war for himself, and he boarded a boat for Calais. So began Clarke’s three months as a ‘journalistic outlaw’, where he lived outside the law and survived day by day using his cunning to evade arrest in what was a ‘labour greater and more complex than anything I have ever undertaken’. Clarke spent three months as a ‘journalistic outlaw’, where he lived outside the law and survived day by day using his cunning to evade arrest in what was a ‘labour greater and more complex than anything I have ever undertaken’ After arriving in Calais, Clarke decided to walk the 20 miles to Dunkirk, regarding it as a potentially good base for his operations. However, at the outskirts of Calais, he came to a sentry box, where a French soldier refused to let him pass. Determined not to be thwarted, Clarke headed to the station in the town, where he wangled himself on to a train full of French soldiers heading towards the front.
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What he witnessed on that short ride was to shock him. As the train chuffed towards Dunkirk, Clarke saw horrendously overcrowded trains heading in the other direction. Men were lying on the roof or holding on between carriages, and at one point he saw women being pulled out unconscious from the melee of refugees. ‘All Belgium seemed to be pouring into France,’ he wrote. Three days after he left London, on October 18, Clarke finally managed to get his first dispatch home. Concerning severe fighting the Allies and Germans around the town of Nieuwpoort, it ran to just 38 words. But it was a start, and what was most satisfying was that it had not been issued by the ‘Suppress Bureau’. As Clarke settled in Dunkirk, he found that his best sources were soldiers. He openly visited a treatment centre and, on one occasion, he was called upon to act as a translator between the medical staff and German prisoners. However, Clarke was not a man to sit still, and soon some of the reports that he was sending back were to shock the British public, and to give them a very vivid picture of the war, a picture that without his efforts would never would have been painted by Kitchener’s official Press Bureau. During his first weeks at Dunkirk, some of the fiercest fighting was around the Yser Canal.
Clarke wrote of how men wrestled and Patriotism: As well as Clarke's reportage died by drowning each other in the Yser the Daily Mail published postcards in aid Canal, which ran red of military charities
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Hostile: Lord Kitchener abhorred journalists and banned them from the battlefield, making them stay in Britain
‘There were 2,500 German bodies in the Yser Canal this morning after the fighting in the night,’ he reported. ‘Many of them had been drowned, others bayoneted. The very water itself was bloody. Dixmude’s [a nearby Belgian town] streets were strewn thick with the dead’. Clarke also described how ‘men even wrestled and died by drowning each other in the canal’s water’, and he told the story of a ‘huge Belgian who used his rifle like an axe, and felled man after man till a bullet took him through the thigh bone and fetched him down’. This was truly war reporting in the raw, but until that point, Clarke had not felt his life to have been in danger. That was to change a few weeks later when he entered the ‘jagged wreck of a village’ called Zuydschoote with a Belgian official. As the men inspected the bombed-out buildings, they heard a faint whining noise that was followed by the sound of shell bursting nearby. ‘The Boche have found us monsieur,’ said the Belgian with a smile. ‘Evidently,’ Clarke replied, trying to maintain his composure. A second later, another shell landed, this time closer. ‘This is not agreeable,’ said the Belgian. ‘What do you suggest, monsieur?’ Clarke asked, still trying to sound calm.
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The two men dived for cover, but more shells saw them bolt for the Belgian’s car. As they sprinted, they ran past a pig waddling down the street. Just then, another shell burst, and Clarke felt a sharp smack against his neck. He put his hand up to where he had been hit, and he was shocked to find that it was covered in blood. For a few moments, Clarke thought that his time had come. It was only when he saw the dying pig on the ground that he realised the shell had torn some flesh from the poor animal, and it was this that had hit him. One of Clarke’s most impressive pieces of reporting was his dispatch from Ypres, which had been devastated by repeated German bombardments. Once again, Clarke was able to give the British public the unvarnished truth of what had happened. Clarke was the first reporter to enter Ypres, and was appalled by the devastation wrought on the historic city and its cathedral, writing: ‘Imagine looking upon, say, Canterbury Cathedral or Westminster Abbey piled up in heaps — heaps of stone and mortar and wood, and saints and angels and stained glass and tombs and curtains and pictures and chairs and candles and prayer books — the old and the new, the venerable stones of the year 1400 and the forgotten umbrellas of 1914 — all in one headlong humble!’
Brutal: The destruction and fury of the Mud: Troops try to haul an 18-pound field First World War became real and vivid in gun out of the slushy fields of Flanders in Clarke's writing 1917
Clarke walked through the streets of Ypres, passing houses without roofs, and with large holes in the walls. In some cases, beds or wardrobes were protruding from the holes, threatening to fall out on to the street at any moment. ‘The city, so silent and empty and waste,’ Clarke observed, ‘might have been unpeopled by a plague, shattered by a mad god. You looked, and still looking, could hardly believe.’ As well as capturing such scenes of physical destruction, Clarke was also to reveal to the British public a condition that would soon become known as shell shock. ‘They brought in a fellow the other day for whose body life had been too much. He was not hurt, but was temporarily dazed and tottering in the limbs and numbed in the brain with weeks in the cellars and the cold of the trenches.
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‘For minutes and minutes, though he seemed quite conscious, his eyes were wandering round the little mirrored room as though his mind were unable to take in all that he was seeing; as though he were trying to realise where he was and what strange things he was looking at.’ This was to be one of the last articles Clarke was able to send back from Dunkirk. The authorities were fed up with what they saw as rogue journalism, and Clarke was told by the local police chief he was under orders to have him arrested.
Clarke walked through the streets of Sombre: A soldier seeking a comrade's Ypres, passing houses without roofs, and grave towards the end of the war in with large holes in the walls. In some Pilckem, Belgium cases, beds or wardrobes were protruding from the holes. Pictured: Troops near the town in 1917
Clarke realised that his luck had run its course, and he took the first boat back to England. He was still wearing his trademark bowler hat. ‘It proved my best disguise in the war zone,’ he wrote. ‘For whoever thought of looking for a newspaper man under a bowler hat?’ It would be the greatest adventure of Clarke’s life — even though he was subsequently knighted for leading the British propaganda effort in Ireland after the war, and later established what is regarded as the first professional public relations agency in the UK. Although Clarke’s time on the Western Front at the end of 1914 had been brief, he had achieved much. He had shown the full horror of mechanised modern warfare, and had proved that to get at the truth, a redoubtable reporter will always do more service to newspaper readers than those who govern them. Extracted from From The Frontline: The Extraordinary Life Of Sir Basil Clarke, by Richard Evans, published by The History Press at £17.99. 114
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540229/Basil-Clarke-Daily-Mailman-went-trenches-bowler-hat.html#ixzz2qX4cwvQG Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540229/Basil-Clarke-Daily-Mail-man-wenttrenches-bowler-hat.html •
WW1: Old Photographs: Louis Lubbe
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South Africans in Egypt?
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• “I will never surrender” – Japanese Soldier Dead at 91, the Japanese WW2 soldier who refused to surrender for 30 years while hiding in Philippines jungle • Hiroo Onoda was the last Japanese imperial soldier to emerge from hiding • He finally surrendered in 1974 on Lubang island in the Philippines • Onoda's imperial army uniform, cap and sword were still in good condition By TED THORNHILL PUBLISHED: 08:56 GMT, 17 January 2014 | UPDATED: 00:15 GMT, 18 January 2014 A Japanese soldier who refused to surrender after the Second World War ended and spent 29 years hiding in the jungle while continuing a guerrilla war has died aged 91. Hiroo Onoda remained on an island in the Philippines until 1974 because he did not believe the war was over. He became the last Japanese soldier to surrender – but only after his former commander, who in 1945 had told him to stay behind and spy on American troops, was flown from Japan to order him to give up.
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Onoda (centre) salutes after handing over a military sword on Lubang Island in 1974
Hiroo Onoda holds a picture of himself (left), taken when he came out of hiding from the jungle. On the right is a shot of Onoda in 1974, wearing his 30-year-old imperial army uniform, cap and sword, saluting to the Philippine Air Force on arrival at a radar site on Lubang Island, Philippines, after he'd come out of hiding in the jungle
His extraordinary determination to carry on made Mr Onoda a hero in his homeland, although he was said to have killed 30 people while evading capture. His story was turned into a film and a book. He had come out of hiding, erect but emaciated, on Lubang island on his 52nd birthday.
During his formal surrender to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Mr Onoda saluted the Japanese flag and symbolically handed over his samurai sword while still wearing an army uniform that had been patched many times over. His generation was taught absolute loyalty to Japan and its emperor. Soldiers in the Imperial Army observed a code that said death was preferable to surrender. Mr Onoda, a lieutenant in army intelligence, had been sent to Lubang, 90 miles south-west of the Philippine capital Manila, in December 1944.
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Onoda (second left) walking from the jungle where he had hidden since World War II, on Lubang island in the Philippines
Onoda, wearing his 30-year-old imperial army uniform, cap and sword, walks down a slope as he heads for a helicopter landing site on Lubang Island for a flight to Manila, having finally accepted that hostilities had ended
Most of his comrades surrendered when US troops landed on the island less than three months later but he refused to give up and remained in the jungle with three other soldiers. He later recalled: ‘Every Japanese soldier was prepared for death, but as an intelligence officer I was ordered to conduct guerrilla warfare and not to die. ‘I became an officer and I received an order. If I could not carry it out, I would feel shame. I am very competitive.’ At least four attempts were made to find him, during which family members appealed to him over loudspeakers and flights dropped leaflets urging him to surrender.
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This picture taken on March 11, 1974, shows Onoda (right) offering his military sword to former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (left) to express his surrender at the Malacanan Palace in Manila As he struggled to feed himself, Mr Onoda’s mission became one of survival. He stole rice and bananas from villagers, and shot their cows to make dried beef, triggering occasional skirmishes. Three other soldiers were with him at the end of the war. One emerged from the jungle in 1950 and the other two died, one in a 1972 clash with local troops. The turning point came on February 20, 1974, when Mr Onoda met a young globetrotter, Norio Suzuki, who had ventured to Lubang in pursuit of the veteran soldier. Mr Suzuki quietly pitched camp in jungle clearings and waited. Mr Onoda eventually made contact with a simple ‘Oi’, and they began to talk. Onoda (centre) waving upon his return home, at Tokyo international airport, on March 12, 1974 Mr Suzuki returned to Japan and contacted the government, which called in the soldier’s superior, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, to bring about a surrender. The Philippine government pardoned Mr Onoda although many in Lubang never forgave him for the 30 people he killed during his campaign on the island. Mr Onoda struggled to adapt to life on his return to Japan and he emigrated to Brazil in 1975 to become a farmer. He finally settled in his homeland in 1984 and opened nature camps for children. He did not consider his 30 years in the jungle to have been a waste of time. ‘Without that experience, I wouldn’t have my life today’ he 120
said. ‘I do everything twice as fast so I can make up for the 30 years. I wish someone could eat and sleep for me so I can work 24 hours a day.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2541104/Japanese-soldierHiroo-Onoda-refused-surrender-WWII-spent-29-years-jungle-died-aged91.html#ixzz2qirEXhtb Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook •
Salute to a former enemy, obviously a man of honour! [I remember this news item. Reading it at the time I thought of the severe sacrifice he made – HBH.]
• Naval Hill in Bloemfontein se Witperd [Met vergunning van Afrikaner Boere Geskiedenis via Johan Jacobs] Volgens navorsing van die Vrystaatse Toerismeraad bestaan twee weergawes oor wie die perd daar uitgepak het. Die een is dat die Wiltshire-regiment die wit perd in die Anglo-Boereoorlog daar gepak en geverf het om aan te dui dat die Tommies daar vars perde kon kry. Die soldate, wat van Ladybrand se kant gekom het, moes dit van ver af kon sien.
Naval Hill se Perd 'n Misverstand in seremoniële protokol het meegebring dat die Britse Vlootbrigade nie soos belowe, aan veldmaarskalk lord Roberts van Kandahar, se seremoniële besettingsparade van Bloemfontein op 13 Maart 1900, deelgeneem het nie. Dit het egter nie dié seemag uitgesluit van die veroweraar se ongeskrewe reg om mee te doen aan naam veranderinge nie: Benewens al die nuwe Victoria-plekname, is die ``Berg benoorde Bloemfontein'', verander na ``Naval-Kop''. In ooreenstemming is ook ``Schutkraal-heuwel'', verander na ``Seinheuwel'' en die heuwel direk daaragter, ``Grant-heuwel'' genoem. Die oorsprong van die naam Grant is egter nie duidelik nie. 121
Naval Hill Dit is egter nie uitgesluit nie dat die oorsprong van die naam ook in die Britse vloot geleë is. Met die aankoms van lord Roberts in Kaapstad het hy ná 'n vinnige evaluering die vloot gelas om nog twee 4,7 duim-skeepskanonne vir sy veldtog in gereedheid te kry. Die kanonne en hul bemanning het gestaan onder die bevel van kommandeur W.L. Grant, van die vlagskip H.M.S. Doris, en is onderskeidelik Little Bobs en Sloper genoem. Gesamentlik was hulle bekend as Grant's Guns. Die skeepskanonne het Roberts (Bobs) tot in Bloemfontein vergesel. Die ongewoonheid - vlootbakens in 'n gebied meer bekend vir sy sandstorms - is toe nie so ongewoon nie. Onbewustelik het ons hier 'n voortsetting van 'n bestaande militêre tradisie. Dit is nie die eerste keer wat die beskerming van Bloemfontein aan seegeskut oorgelaat is nie. Die eerste vesting in Bloemfontein, Fort Drury, is gebou om die watervoorraad van die gebied te beskerm. Die fort is egter in 1848 deur 'n groter vestingwerk, wat Queen's Fort genoem is, vervang. Op die bastions van dié fort, is vier 9 ponderskeepskanonne geplaas, wat Bloemfontein moes beskerm. Op 13 Maart 1900 is Bloemfontein deur die Britse leër beset. Op 'n krygsraad vergadering in Kroonstad op 17 Maart 1900 is besluit om die Boere se krygstaktiek te verander. Pleks van om die vyand deur middel van defensiewe stellings te probeer stuit is besluit om met kleiner geveg groepe op onder meer voorraad linies te konsentreer. Die fase, wat ook as die guerrillafase van die oorlog bekend staan, is ingelui deur die geveg by Sannaspos op 31 Maart 1900, waar genl C.R. de Wet die Britse mag onder brig.genl. R.C. Broadwood, verslaan. Die skokgolf van 'n verpletterende neerlaag was só groot dat Roberts onmiddellik die Vlootbrigade en die geskut van kommandeur Grant op die heuwel noord van Bloemfontein ontplooi het om die stad te beskerm. Binne enkele dae ná hul vestiging 122
het die Vlooties aan die heuwel 'n kuswagkarakter gegee. Alle roetes na, van en deur die basis is tipies vloot, met wit gekalkte klippe uitgemerk en afgerond. Kort voor lank is die heuwel ook Navalkop genoem. Van 18 April 1900, het lede van die Artillerie by die Vlootbrigade begin oorneem. Die Bloubaadjies moes saam met Roberts noordwaarts beweeg. Artilleriste van die Royal Regiment of Artillery was bewapen met vier 5 duim-skeepskanonne wat as die Weary Willies van Colesberg bekend gestaan het. En weer was Bloemfontein vir beskerming aangewese op skeepskanonne: twee 12-ponders, wat die Vlootbrigade op Naval Hill gelaat het en die Weary Willies (Jeans 1902: 99). Die naam Naval Hill is egter nie die enigste nalatenskap wat die toets van 100 jaar deurstaan het nie. Aan die oostekant van Naval Hill is die bekende klipgepakte witgekalkte perd van Bloemfontein. Wie vir die wit perd verantwoordelik is, kan nie met sekerheid gesê word nie In die algemeen word aanvaar dat die Duke of Edinburgh's (Wiltshire Regiment) vir dié landskapskuns verantwoordelik was. Die aanspraak is gegrond op 'n byna identiese klipperd in Wiltshire, Engeland. Behalwe dié ooreenkoms bestaan ongelukkig geen verdere heenwysing na dié infanterie-regiment nie. In die kenteken, vaandel, leuse of lied is daar geen assosiasie met 'n perd as onderskeidingsteken nie. Meer algemeen word vandag aanvaar dat die klipperd teen die hang van Naval Hill 'n heenwysing na die remontedepot in Bloemfontein was. Ooreenkomstig die Times History of the War het die remontedepartement van die Britse Leër 520 000 perde en 150 000 muile aan vegtendes in Suid-Afrika beskikbaar gestel.
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Perd in die oorlog
Hiervan het 350 000 perde en 50 000 muile te velde gevrek. In die werk The Boer War and Military Reforms beweer Stone dat die gemiddelde lewensduur van 'n perd nadat aan wal gegaan het net ses weke was. Baie van die perde het nadat dit gelaai is, nooit die voorreg gehad om weer hoef aan wal te sit nie. Volgens Amery het 13 000 perde 2 000 muile op pad na die gevegsgebied in transito gevrek. Kenners is dit eens dat tot en met die inname van Bloemfontein die versorging van ryperde en trekdiere, skandelik verontagsaam is. In die opmars na Bloemfontein het 123
Roberts byvoorbeeld meer as die helfte van sy krygsdiere verloor. Die prentjie onderweg na Bloemfontein word treffend beskrywe deur T.T. Jeans, die mediese dokter van die Vlootbrigade wat die agterhoede van Roberts se opmars gevorm het: "All along the march lay hundreds of dead and dying horses and mules. The latter would rise their heads with a piteous look at us as we passed, and to weak even to do this for many seconds their heads would fall back on the grass, and a shudder pass along their flanks, for they knew their fate as well as we did''). Roberts moes sy fout besef het, want kort ná sy aankoms in Bloemfontein het hy regulasies uitgevaardig wat die lot van veral perde bevoordeel het. Tot die remontedepot in Bloemfontein is ook drie plase, naamlik dié van Fischer, Lynch en Tempe toegevoeg om die situasie te beredder. Op die plase is perde die geleentheid gebied om te herstel en aan te sterk. Ook is alle vars perde van die Kaapse hawens na Bloemfontein gestuur om hier gekondisioneer te word. Om die omvang van Bloemfontein as remontedepot te begryp kan maar net gekyk word na 'n aanhaling uit 'n brief van Caroline Fichardt aan haar kinders: "Mounted men, transport waggons muleteers, are continually backward and forward . . . and the iron railing opposite is used for tethering horses, the whole pavement is taken up with horses and people must walk in the middle or side of the street.'' BOOKS / BOEKE •
Unmaking of the torturer: Elaine Bing LAPA | October 31, 2013 | Kobo Edition (eBook) Three policemen tell the horrifying stories of what they had done during the apartheid years how, where and whom they had tortured. They don’t try to negate their part in the events and in fact have taken a great risk in telling their stories.
Ek wroeg met hierdie boek! Ek het ‘n spoedlees-kursus ondergaan. Ek kan meeste boeke “chop-chop” lees. Hierdie is ‘n baie diep boek wat die psige van die naakte mens, wat as polisieman fungeer, belig. Nietzsche6 het gesê indien “jy monsters wil Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/friedrich_nietzsche.html#4m6vDDd08mjyffOh.99 6
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beveg, moet jy pasop om nie self een te word nie.” Of soos Johan Kriel vir my sê: “Pasop om nie ‘n spieëlbeeld van jou vyand te word nie!” Wat het ek gelees en verstaan? Daar is polisiemanne wat mense martel. Daar is verskeie oogmerke met martel – een oogmerk is om vinnig by die waarheid uit te kom ten einde die lewe van ander te red. Ander ouens het ‘n vreeslike minderwaardigheidsgevoel en martel mense wat hy vind swakker is as hyself. Hy hou van beheer. Introspeksie wys my egter daarop dat ek self ‘n beheervraat is. Dinge moet gaan soos Staande Orders sê want ek kan dit afdwing – ek het die hele stelsel aan my kant. So was ons voorgangers ook gewees. Party polisiemanne hou van beheer. Hy martel mense omdat hy deur die daad ‘n sterk gevoel van mag ervaar. Die ondersoek het getoon dat ander polisiemanne mense vir die seksuele genot wat hulle ervaar, martel. Nes `n verkragter deur die magsgevoel, en nie deur die seks nie, bevrediging ervaar. Party mans kom in die gewoonte om hul vrouens te slaan – sê liewer: “Martel!” Dit gee hulle mag (of gewaande mag) oor hul vrouens. ‘n Vrou word beskou as `n besitting. Ons kom by die polisieman wat martel. Marteling is vir hom `n alledaagsheid, soos dit vir ander is om te rook. Hy is gewoonlik ‘n “goeie” polisieman, hy is in almal se goeie boeke! ‘n Witbroodjie van die bevelvoerder. Daar is groot belonings om goed/suksesvol te wees! Ons polisiemanne was met min tevrede gewees. Ons het die gereedskap gesoek om die werk te doen. Hierdie martel-masjien leef op adrenalien – hoe beter hy is hoe meer die voordele: -
Sy “eie” staatskar Radio of handradio Kry die toerusting wat hy vra Kry die lede wat hy vra Kry “vryetyd” weens goeie werk. Hy soek eintlik erkenning, geen vryetyd nie. Hy is immuun teen die stelsel. Kan doen wat hy wil!
Voorts verstaan ek dat hierdie mense verslaaf is aan hul werk. Hulle skitter by die werk. Maar daar is gewoonlik moeilikheid by die huis. “’n Polisieman het nie ‘n huis nie, nog minder het ‘n speurder `n huis.” Hy is baie aan diens, werk veral oortyd en los baie sake (deur te martel) op. Hy is slim genoeg om sy spore weg te steek. Die stelsel sterk hom in sy kwaad. Intussen word hy “verslaaf” aan mag en marteling. (Ek wil as korrektief hierdie werkverslaafdes vergelyk met rolmodelle wat ek geken het. Hulle was hoogs intelligente speurders wat lang ure gewerk het om sake op te
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los, sonder om ooit ‘n vinger op ‘n verdagte of beskuldigde te lê. Ek dink aan mense soos genl. Frans Steenkamp wat destyds bv. die moord op Joy Aken opgelos het7.) As hy later nie moeilikheid by die werk kry nie, skep hy insidente om te baklei en mense te beseer. Dis “iets” in hom. ‘n Onvolwasse soeke na aandag? Simpatie? Sy gewete pla hom oor die marteling en die gewete word eindelik weer gesus deur drankgebruik of oormatige drankmisbruik. Hoe meer ek gelees het, hoe meer het ek die tekens ook in my eie lewe en in die van my oudkollegas geïdentifiseer. Die soms erge stres het gelei tot ontlonting wat plaasvind deur drank te gebruik met kollegas wat “verstaan”. ‘n Man se vrou verstaan nie altyd die stres waaronder ons gebuk gaan nie! “Wie is soos ons?” “Damm few”!” Die eindelose gebraaiery! Mens kom dan in jou eie spiraal van ondergang. Die moeikheid by die huis word vererger deur drankmisbruik en ‘n tekort aan geld. Liefde tussen man en vrou bly in die slag. Jy begin ook die “hase” te haat en sekere geïdentifiseerde beroepe. Dis net jou oulike kollegas met wie jy kan sosialiseer. Hulle verstaan jou. Dit word ‘n “ons-hulle”-storie. Op die ou end is jy in die moeilikheid met geld, drank, skuld, aanranding en jy word ‘n wrak wat drink om te vergeet, vergeet om te eet en later vergeet jy belangrike goed. Jy word depressief en soek na ‘n oplossing om te ontsnap vanuit die maalstroom waarin jy vasgevang word. Jou waardes raak afgestomp en sekere dinge maak nie meer saak nie. Jy begin jou familie (en die Mag) teleurstel. Dit eindig met ‘n doodskoot, of jy kom reg a.g.v. die wil om te oorleef. Ek verteer die boek en ek dink ...... ‘n Behoorlike en volledige resensie sal meer ruimte in beslag neem as wat die oorspronklike manuskrip lank is. Dit was immers ‘n doktorale proefskrif. Intussen kan ek net sê dis ‘n moet-lees boek! Waarom? Om die polisieman wat ontspoor het, te verstaan. Die boek nie verdoemend nie, dit is eerlik en gee ook insig in die psige van die sielkundige. Dr. Elaine Bing is goed aan my bekend, sy was ook eerlik oor die uitwerking van die besprekings op haar gemoed gelaat het. Sy het ook haar eie worsteling gehad. •
To Cath a Cop: M Thamm
‘To Catch A Cop’ is by Marianne Thamm, a soon-to-be released account of Paul O’Sullivan’s role in the investigation and conviction of former police commissioner Jackie Selebi. The book will be available in February and is published by Jacana.
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Marnewick,C: Clarence van Buuren – Die man agter die donkerbril; Protea, 2012.
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Please let us know if you see this book on the shelves. •
External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990: Stephen Ellis
Prof Stephen Ellis is professor of social sciences at the Free University, Amsterdam, and author of External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990 (Jonathan Ball). He is a former Michael House graduate. Please let us know if you see this book on the shelves. MILITARIA / MEDALJES, UNIFORMS ETC/ ENS • No 30861 Maj HC du Preez: Paul du Preez (Greytown) Show me a man’s books or his memorabilia and I would be able to tell you a lot about that person. Paul du Preez captured some of his father’s memorabilia in his parental home. Harry du Preez and his brother, Andrew, were policemen at Wentworth in Durban-South. Both worked with my father and later I worked with both of them. Like many young Afrikaner policemen sent to Durban, they married into English families.
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INTERNATIONAL FORCES / INTERNASIONALE MAGTE •
International: The Casspir
Henk KoenSuid-Afrikaanse Polisie - Afgetrede Lede 17 January We were a four man team, did mechanical demining team in Afghanistan 2003. Cleared the US military camps in Bagram and Kandahar airbase of land mines and uxo's. This was my Caspir and his name was Casper the Ghost.
Henk KoenSuid-Afrikaanse Polisie - Afgetrede Lede 17 January Doing a demonstration for the US Military newspaper in Bagram airbase in 2003. Detonation is the black widow anti personal mines. Henk Koen These Caspirs stood out on top of everything the US had there. It cost them millions to get new equipment,one day in the mine field and the machinery stood still on one place and is probably now rusted up. And the Caspir, still going strong.
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Henk Koen: We used rollers at the back of the Casspir to get everything that is missed between the wheels. First day in minefield, detonated over 900 pmn (black widow) anti-personal mines.
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New 20 Seat Concorde Received from Tubby Myburg •
Twice as fast as the old Concorde: The supersonic jet that will fly from London to New York in TWO HOURS. SonicStar plane will have a top speed of Mach 3.6. Plans for 20-seat craft were unveiled at Paris Air Show. A jet that can fly from London to Sydney in five hours could rob Concorde of its title as the fastest-ever passenger plane.
Plans have been unveiled for the HyperMach SonicStar, a business jet which will be capable of a top speed of 2,664 mph twice as fast as Concorde. It will fly at 62,000 ft, allowing passengers to see the curvature of the earth. HyperMach chief executive Richard Lugg wants the plane in the skies within ten years and has already secured funding from the Department of Trade and Industry, which has agreed to support the company in Britain. Return of supersonic travel: The SonicStar aircraft will be twice as fast as Concorde - so quick that traveling from London to New York will take just two hours. It was unveiled at the Paris Air Show. Long-range cruise speed - Mach 3.1 High-speed cruise speed - Mach 3.4 Engines - Two SonicBlue S-MAGJET Hybrid Supersonic 4000-X Series Thrust - Flat-rated to 54,700 lb Wing area - 1,800 square feet Landing distance - 4,800 ft Range - 6,000 nautical miles Highest Altitude - 62,000 ft
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CABIN Length - 64 meters Height at maximum - 2.6 meters Width at maximum - 2.7 meters Visiting the Paris Air Show, Mr Lugg said: We have access to revolutionary engine technology and a unique very high speed aircraft design to make this kind of earthshatteringly fast air travel possible, and we have a date. Our plan is to build and fly the world 's first very high speed supersonic hybrid aircraft by June 2021 Propulsion for the 20-seat aircraft will come from two hybrid engines which will be 30 per cent more fuel efficient than the Rolls-Royce engines used in Concorde. It has been eight years since Concorde was retired from service and with it the supersonic dreams of millions around the world. HyperMach claims its SonicStar aircraft will be so quick that traveling from London to New York will take just two hours. A trip from New York to Sydney, meanwhile, will be cut by a staggering 75 per cent - from 20 hours on a commercial airliner to just five hours. It will be able to cruise at Mach 3.1, a speed made possible by SMAGJET hybrid gas turbine engine technology; nobody has ever traveled that fast before. Its top speed, however, will be Mach 3.6. With relatively low fuel consumption, the Sonic Star 'overcomes the economic and environmental challenges of supersonic flight to revolutionize the way we travel and drive air transportation forward into the future, ' claims HyperMach. By using electromagnetic currents across the fuselage to suppress the sonic boom, the plane is able to overcome the noise regulations that constrict supersonic travel. It has a range of 6,000 nautical miles and its 54,700 lb. thrust class S-MAGJET engine - actually two engines - is optimized to fly the aircraft at 62,000 ft. But it is the reduction in jet engine emissions that HyperMach believes will prove the secret of SonicStar 's success. Tomorrow 's world: HyperMach plans to build its SonicStar engine by the end of the decade and to have the plane itself constructed by 2025.
SonicStar will be able to cruise at Mach 3.1, a speed made possible by S-MAGJET 132
hybrid gas turbine engine technology. A spokesman said: 'The engine is a true hybrid. It generates massive electrical power on board using proprietary integrated turbine electromagnetic generation technology to segment each engine rotating component stage electrically. 'Every stage from bypass fans to compressor to turbine rotates independently of the other. ' This segmentation will enable the engine to change the operating speeds of its rotating components continually throughout the flight to respond to the changing conditions of the atmosphere and the flight and performance demands of the aircraft. The HyperMach claims that this, along with the S-MAGJET plasma fuel combustion technology, will result in a 40 to 50 per cent increase in the ability of engine to convert fuel to thrust. The company said such fuel efficiency would ultimately lead to a 30 to 35 per cent reduction in fuel used as supersonic speeds. Afghanistan appoints a woman as its top police officer in district of Kabul Colonel Jamila Bayaz will run one of the most important police stations It hoped appointment will pave the way for more women in the police force Female officers have previously been targets for militants By Tara Brady. PUBLISHED: 19:16 GMT, 15 January 2014 | UPDATED: 21:58 GMT, 15 January 2014. •
Afghanistan has appointed its first female police chief in its capital Kabul. Colonel Jamila Bayaz, who has 25 years experience, will run one of the most important police stations in the city making her the most senior police officer in the country. It is hoped the appointment will lead to more women joining the police force.
Important role: Colonel Jamila Bayaz will Colonel Jamila Bayaz (left), the newly run one of the city's most important appointed head of police, inspects her police stations base in Kabul, Afghanistan
She told Tolo News: 'I think my assignment to this post will persuade others to join the police force.' However, female officers have become targets for militants and some have even received death threats from relatives. Last year the most senior female officer in Helmand was shot dead when she left her home to go to work. Lieutenant Islam Bibi survived death threats from her own brother to rise through the ranks. 133
Colonel Jamila Bayaz, the newly appointed head of police, attends her office in Kabul But in July last year she was shot dead as she rode on a motorbike alongside her son-in-law.The 37-year-old mother of three had been a role model for other women. In an interview with the Telegraph last year, she said: 'My brother, father and sisters were all against me. In fact my brother tried to kill me three times.'He came to see me brandishing his pistol trying to order me not to do it, though he didn’t actually open fire. The government eventually had to take his pistol away.' General Mohammed Zahir Zahir, the Kabul police chief, said: 'We don’t seek to place a female officer in a weak station – it’s not like that. 'We started this process at this station because women are capable of working like men.' Read more: Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540088/Afghanistan-appointswoman-police-officer-district-Kabul-hope-females-join-force.html#ixzz2qYv0XzLn Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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NICE TO KNOW Bad cops, assassins, Czech fugitives: The meaning of Paul O’Sullivan Marianne Thamm Wees gewaarsku: Krutaal – gaan verby indien u maklik ontstel word - HBH 15 Jan 2014 12:15 (South Africa) •
Forensic consultant Paul O’ Sullivan spent eight years relentlessly investigating former police chief Jackie Selebi. As Selebi’s trial drew to a close in 2010, the apparently indefatigable Irish expat began focusing on his next project – toppling the extensive criminal empire of one of the most dangerous criminals in the country, Czech-born fugitive Radovan Krejcir. This week, four people were arrested in Johannesburg for plotting to assassinate O’Sullivan, Colonel Nkosana “Killer” Ximba (who arrested Krejcir in December) as well as other members of a Hawks special task team investigating Krejcir. By MARIANNE THAMM. On 10 September 2010 at around 6.30pm, Paul O’Sullivan was in Dublin when he received a call on his cellphone. He answered in his usual manner: “O’Sullivan, good day.” The caller at the other end paused momentarily before speaking. The man, recalls O’Sullivan, had an Eastern European accent and said “Hello, clown. You want to fuck with me? I will show you who is Radovan. When you will come back to South Africa, I will make you suck my cock, then I will kill you, to show you you fucked with the wrong guy.” The caller then hung up. On 18 September 2010, Paul O’Sullivan made a sworn statement at the Bramley police station, providing a phone log of the threatening phone call, as well as other 135
details. In the statement, he reminded police of another sworn statement he had taken from a source who had said Radovan Krejcir had asked him to procure a “3006 sniper rifle for the purpose of killing me”. O’Sullivan also provided police with information and a photograph of an illegal elephant’s tusk that hung on the wall of the bar of Krejcir’s house at the Vaal River. “I request urgent police intervention to prevent the conspiracy to murder me from becoming a reality,” O’Sullivan ended the statement back then. Fast forward to the afternoon of 9 January this year, and the arrest of Siboniso Miya (32), Jacob Nare (28), Owen Serero (32) and a woman, Zodumiso Biyele (23) after a planned assassination attempt on O’Sullivan and Colonel Nkosana Ximba (who arrested Krejcir in December), as well as other members of a Hawks specialised unit, was thwarted in Johannesburg. Two weapons, including an R5 assault rifle (believed to have been used in the driveby killing of Lebanese businessman Bassam Issa in October 2013) blue lights, balaclavas and several number plates were confiscated from the would-be assassins. Several telephones and iPads were also recovered, and these are being investigated for encrypted communications that will lead to the mastermind behind the assassination plot, believed by many to be Radovan Krejcir. Shortly after the arrests last week O’Sullivan sent a characteristically provocative email (which he copied to select journalists) to Krejcir’s lawyer, Eddie Classen. In the mail, O’Sullivan suggests that Classen tell his client “that I will do all that I can lawfully do to strip him of everything he or his crooked family members have acquired through his criminal conduct, and see that he rots in jail FOREVER”. O’Sullivan told Classen that he believed Krejcir issued the instruction for the assassination to take place at noon on the Thursday so that he could claim that he had had nothing to do with it, as he would have been behind bars in C-Max. “They walked straight into a trap and Krejcir's attempt was thwarted. Again!” said O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan suggested that if Classen appealed the court’s decision not to grant Krejcir bail he would, “legally intervene [ as it is not in the interests of justice to have that gangster on the streets. However, after the chaos of his failed hit on me and the colonel that was behind his arrest late last year, you may wish to reconsider your futile attempts at trying to get him out of jail.” The investigator ended the mail with a cheerful “Thinking of suing me for defamation? Go ahead, bring it on, I will wipe the floor with you and bring a counterclaim that will make your claim pale into insignificance.” Jackie Selebi had felt the full wrath of O’Sullivan after “pissing in an Irishman’s beer”. Imagine the shitstorm Krejcir could have expected from the investigator after threatening to have him suck cock before killing him. 136
Paul O’Sullivan has been on Radovan Krejcir’s tail for the past four years, after the Czech fugitive’s name first popped up on the radar while the private investigator was hunting down Jackie Selebi. Since starting his investigation into Krejcir, O’Sullivan has handed between 12 to 15 damning sworn statements (some of which I have read during the course of researching the book) to police from a range of people implicating Radovan Krejcir in a string of serious crimes including money laundering, smuggling drugs, smuggling contraband cigarettes and much more. Meanwhile, at least 12 bodies have piled up around Krejcir who has, until, now, managed to escape police dragnets and the coils of justice. It was O’Sullivan who submitted an extensive and detailed affidavit – with attached sworn statements – of the various crimes linked to Krejcir, including the murder of former Apartheid police operative turned “private investigator” Kevin Trytsman, Teazer’s strip club boss, Lolly Jackson, and German luxury car convertor, Uwe Gemballa, to the refugee appeals tribunal requesting the Czech not be granted asylum in South Africa. “I do not believe our system is perverted. I have faith in South Africa and its government, its people and this honourable tribunal. I do not believe Krejcir’s claim that he has paid all the right people in the right places to ensure he gets to stay in South Africa. I have faith that you will do the right thing and send this gangster back to the Seychelles, where he belongs, or any country that will take him,” O’Sullivan wrote to the tribunal in January 2011. In his short sojourn in South Africa (he arrived in 2007) Krejcir managed ruthlessly to infiltrate and destabilise established crime networks while police appeared to look on helplessly, at times appearing to aid and abet him. O’Sullivan says the question now is not how many cops are on Krejcir’s payroll but how high up the corruption goes. Krejcir has been allowed to operate and indeed flourish, partly because of the corruption of police criminal intelligence by rogue elements. In 2011, before his arrest after the murder of his one of his associates, Cyril Beeka, in Cape Town, Krejcir was given access to illegally taped conversations about him between O’Sullivan and Major General Shadrack Sibiya, the current head of the Hawks in Gauteng. A faction within police intelligence, loyal to controversial suspended crime intelligence head Richard Mduli, has been consistently accused of working against Sibiya in an attempt to discredit him. In 2011 General Joey Mabasa was asked to leave the police service (but not without receiving a golden handshake) for his close connections with Krejcir. Mabasa had driven with Krejcir to the house of Lolly Jackson on the night he was murdered. Not only that, Jackson had been shot with Mabasa’s gun that had allegedly been stolen the day before but only reported afterwards. Apart from this, Mabasa’s wife, Dorcas, had gone into business with Krejcir’s wife, Katerina Krejcirova.
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When I first met Paul O’Sullivan in April 2013 to research a book on his role in the investigation and conviction of Jackie Selebi, I was aware his was one of four names on a hit list found by the Hawks during a dramatic raid on Krejcir’s R30-million Bedfordview home in 2011. The other three names on the list were Cyril Beeka, the notorious Cape Town former bouncer and underworld crime boss who was cultivated by both security agents of the former regime as well as underground ANC operatives; state prosecutor Riegal du Toit and Krejcir’s former doctor, Marian Tupy. Du Toit had been investigating Krejcir’s link to the murder of German supercar conversion specialist, Uwe Gemballa, who disappeared shortly after arriving in Johannesburg in February 2010. Gemballa was found eight months later in a shallow grave, a plastic bag over his head, his hands tied behind his back, having been shot at close range in the head. Three men were subsequently arrested for the murder. Gemballa acted as a sort of Secret Santa for murdered Teazers boss Lolly Jackson and Krejcir, stuffing wads of fresh Euros in the panels of converted luxury vehicles he shipped to South Africa. Jackson and Krejcir both shared a love of exotic vehicles and at the time of his death the Teazers boss had around R90 million worth of cars in his garage. Krejcir had reportedly argued with Gemballa during a phone call made or received at the Harbour Café in 2010 after money that had meant to be stashed in side a Porche delivered in September that year had gone missing. Beeka was dead by the time I met Paul, so he had clearly moved up a slot on the list. Friends and family were concerned for my safety but for some reason, perhaps foolishness, I was not worried. I had worked as a crime reporter for the Cape Times for over eight years and have been exposed to human beings at their worst. Besides, if I were going to be hanging around with someone whose name was No 1 on a hit list complied by one of the country’s most ruthless criminals, I was glad that was Paul O’Sullivan, and not someone else. I spent a week with him in Jo’burg, where we sped through the streets and highways, O’Sullivan driving like a man accustomed to avoiding a bullet (he has been shot at several times in this country). Playing back my interviews, I can often hear myself gasping as O’Sullivan’s car engine suddenly roars as he takes a gap in traffic, making sure always to be on the move; never, ever stationary. People warned me about the investigator. Some had said he was mad, crazy, an agent, a brusque man. But I liked him. O’Sullivan is someone accustomed to keeping secrets and even though he had officially approved me to write the account of his role in Selebi’s downfall, I could not dig out more than he wanted to reveal. Much of the research had to be done poring over thousands of pages of court records, emails, affidavits, sworn statements, letters and taped phone calls. 138
In the end it proved to be a sprawling narrative that featured a cast of thousands, including petty thugs and criminals, crooked businessmen and cops, and that rippled in all the way to the Union Buildings. The thing about the Selebi and the Krejcir narrative and the intersection between organised crime, police and even politics is that is it so deep, wide and complicated that it is almost impossible for someone outside of it to fathom just how much kak we are in. I like Paul O’Sullivan because of the way he speaks to those whom he deems his enemies – criminals and the lawyers who represent them. I want to do an air punch when I read his emails to corrupt cops; I want to shout “yessssss” when he fearlessly tells Selebi that he is going to take him down. I like Paul O’Sullivan because in spite of it all, he believes that there are more good cops than bad and that in the end the bad guys always get their comeuppance. And if he can believe it, why shouldn’t you and I? In a world where crime TV series like The Wire or CSI or where crime fiction has become the most popular and widely read genre it is important to bear in mind that Paul O’Sullivan and the crooked cops and criminals who occupy his world are not fictional characters. They are frighteningly real. “Sounds like the plot of a Bond movie,” people say about O’Sullivan and his life. The point is this is not a movie; this is the cold, chilling reality of organised crime and the deep and urgent threat it poses to our young democracy. It was Sam Sole, managing partner of amaBhungane, Mail & Guardian’scentre for Investigative Journalism, who in April 2011 published a compelling piece titled ‘The Meaning of Radovan Krejcir”. Sole wrote: ‘The Czech fugitive is a connoisseur of weak states. His choice of SA as a refuge is symptomatic of the country’s deepening moral malaise. There’s not really a single point at which a country suddenly becomes a failed state. States exist across a continuum of dysfunction. Some things still work in Zimbabwe, in Swaziland, after all. And in Italy, for instance, some things don’t. In war the collapse of law and order happens so fast we can see it and it is usually mirrored by physical destruction, which underlines the impact. Organised crime and corruption are more like slow biological warfare or radiation. The infrastructure seems to remain intact – there are just bodies that accumulate haphazardly – until you realise the infrastructure (or the institution) has become so contaminated, it is no longer functional, indeed it has become a threat itself and must be abandoned or destroyed.” For that reason alone I’m glad that Paul O’Sullivan, as unorthodox as he may be, is on our side. DM Marianne Thamm is the author of ‘To Catch A Cop’, the soon-to-be released account of Paul O’Sullivan’s role in the investigation and conviction of former police commissioner Jackie Selebi. The book will be available in February and is published by Jacana. 139
Photo of Paul O'Sullivan by Sally Shorkend for Maverick magazine. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-01-15-bad-cops-assassins-czechfugitives-the-meaning-of-paul-osullivan/#.UtdpnavzuHA •
Incredible Journey: Box of lost Memories: Don Pinnock
16 Jan 2014 12:23 (South Africa)
I was flabbergasted by the contents of the cardboard box in Uncle Martin’s dusty Bloemfontein garage. But its eventual fate was to lead me to ponder on the very meaning of travel. By DON PINNOCK. I discovered the box during one of those long, hot, holiday afternoons which induce schoolboys to dig where they’re not supposed to – and I demanded an explanation. Uncle Martin, who ran the Victoria Bottle Store and was a long-suffering man, sighed and began the extraordinary tale. My aunt’s cousin Danie le Roux and his young wife Anna both worked on the trams in Kimberley. But the town was not spared the effects of the Great Depression and they were laid off work. It is not too difficult to recreate a conversation which must have ensued shortly afterwards. ‘What shall we do now?’ one of them would have asked. ‘Let’s go and see the world.’ ‘But how? We have no money.’ ‘Well, we can walk [’
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Now, the 1930s was an extraordinary decade. It gave birth, among other things, to outrageous architecture, innovative psychology, quirky music, expressionist art, the New Deal and, well, fascism. However, one hardly imagines these things stirring the dust of Kimberley.
But, perhaps anticipating birth of another kind, the couple bought a crude wheelbarrow, loaded their few worldly possessions into it and strode north. My brief and youthful adventure through the contents of the box did not offer me a firm bearing on their direction, but it definitely passed through the Congo and West Africa and, at some point, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and then meandered into Spain. The sequence of the letters and news reports in the box was pretty jumbled, so just where the couple went next is still open to question. They must have passed through Europe because they gained America through the Bering Straits, which suggests they had walked clear across Russia. Indications are that Danie and Anna worked a bit as they went and sold their stories to magazines. They ran adverts on the side of the wheelbarrow. But they remained poor enough to be still pushing the barrow by the time they got to California as a headline in a local paper attested: ‘Couple Pushes Wheelbarrow Round the World.’ That’s what had first attracted my attention when I opened the box. At the time I did not have enough tenacity to glean from the letters how they got to Chile (were the Straits of Magellan their goal, or the Antarctic?), but what is clear is that they’d selected Uncle Martin as the custodian of their adventures. Some four years later they were back in Europe (did they walk all the way?). Had the wheelbarrow been replaced with something more suitable? I remember no clue in the box. The decision to return home may have been a difficult one, or perhaps the couple had some plan they were working towards. Anyway, the route back was through 141
Egypt, Ethiopia and down the East Coast to Durban. There, inexplicably, they took a boat to Cape Town, then set off, wheelbarrow out front, for Kimberley. Then disaster struck. About a hundred miles from home Danie keeled over on the side of the road from a heart attack and died. Heaven knows what thoughts went through Anna's mind as she buried him in a farmer’s field just over the fence. Then she returned to the barrow and pushed it, stoically, to Kimberley.
Here the mystery deepens. In the box, to my memory, there were no letters from Anna in Kimberley. Did she try to put the whole episode behind her? Was she grieving for Danie to the extent that she had no further interest in the extraordinary testimony in Martin’s garage? We may never know. But the box remained in my mind for years, and I nurtured a sense that it would make one hell of a good travel book some day. The telephone call informing me of Uncle Martin’s death (my aunt had died a few years previously) caught me at a time when I was too busy to take immediate action. Two weeks later I located Martin’s brother to ask him about the box (as Martin was childless, the sorting of his possessions had fallen on his brother). Yes, there had been a whole lot of junk in the garage. ‘A box of papers and photographs?’ Yes, he did recall that. ‘So where is it now?’ ‘Burned the lot, just junk,’ was the reply. I remember holding the phone, with tears rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t believe it!
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That was some years ago, but before writing this tale I phoned around in an attempt to verify parts of the story. My mother vaguely remembered the couple, an uncle said he’d never heard of the trip, a cousin thought his aunt in Australia might know something. Someone suggested that their wheelbarrow was in an antique shop in Villiersdorp. One day I'll go and see if it's still there. It was clear, in the end, that almost all that remained of the incredible adventure were my vague memories of that hot afternoon in Bloemfontein so many years ago and a few photos that survived. And I'm left with an uncomfortable question: is a journey forgotten a journey at all? DM http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-01-16-a-box-of-lost-memories-a-journeylong-forgotten/#.UtdoX6vzuHA LETTERS / BRIEWE •
Willie du Plessis: Standerton
“[. so lyk ons kraanwater deesdae. Dit is ‘n geel kleur amper soos petrol, heelwat mense, veral ouer mense, is na bewering alreeds siek. Dit stink baie as die krane oopgedraai word. Dit was alreeds gister op TV-nuus. Beeld is glo vandag weer in die dorp om foto’s te neem en sal waarskynlik weer vanaand in die nuus wees. Het netnou suiwer water probeer koop,maar is reeds uitverkoop. Dit nadat ek alreeds lank in die tou moes wag. Het darem 8 liter oor om te drink en kos te kook vanaand. Iemand vertel my netnou, dat sy suiweraar by die huis alreeds opgepak het, as gevolg van die vrot en vuil watter.In een van die hoofstrate is daar net 2 straat lampe wat brand. Die strate is vol gate en baie van die straat name is onleesbaar, het ‘n GPS nodig as jy n adres soek. Groete”
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Andre Grobler: Pretoria
Hi Oom Piet, Cc Hennie Ek kan Oom nie onthou nie, maar het gesien dat u my Pa (Quartus Grobler) geken het asook my Oupa (Oom Hannes) van Durban SAP. Dit is na aanleiding van Hennie se email verlede jaar en u antwoord daarop asook kommentaar in die eNongqai (Vol 4 no 3) wat ek vandag eers gesien het ! Ek het deur u boek (Really inside Boss) op Googlebooks geblaai tot my verbasing agtergekom dat u my Pa moes geken het. Later het ek selfs besef dat u was saam met tannie Hester Zietsman en daarom ook met my ouers op Port Natal was, wat ek van Durban-Suid se jare (en Wentworth SAP-kamp) onthou. Die Zietsmans het ook naby ons gebly in Sinoville toe my ouers in 1970 na Pretoria verhuis het. Die oom het my ook destyds bietjie advies gegee oor elektriese ingenieurswese wat ek op Tuks geswot het. Sy seun, Johan? Hy was ‘n jaar na my op skool - ook op Port Natal. Of is dit nou Sondagskool ? Oom Christie se broer was ‘n prof in Wiskunde en ek het n paar klasse by hom bygewoon. Maar wat my die meeste opval en interesseer in die boek is die verwysings na Durban, oa Cato Manor, Wood, dr Verwoerd, Tsafendas, Durbanse veiligheidstak ens. Ek kan selfs onthou dat ‘n groot groep leiers van SWA destyds na Durban gekom het op besigting, waarmee my pa gemoeid was, asook die opening van die suikerskuur deur dr Verwoerd langs die hawe, asook verskeie kere dat hy en John Vorster by Durban stadsaal opgetree het. Hy het dan sy mooiste pak aangetrek, hare versigtig gekam, met rewolwer onder die arm en met Fairlane of Studebaker Lark ewe spoggerig van die huis vetrek. My ma moes ook die baadjie eers op die skouers afstof voordat hy vertrek het, dikwels met ‘n dik sigaar - soos Churchill. Terloops, toe ek in 1976 by Yyyyy, Pretoria begin werk het, ontmoet ek gou die man oorkant die gang -Xxxx. ‘n Baie vriendelike Griekse man wat huppel geloop het agv polio. Ek skat hy was 2 jaar ouer as ek en ons het gou lekker begin gesels. Omdat ek nogal baie lees, lees ek n boek oa oor die moord op dr Verwoerd en lees dat Tsafendas se eintlike van Tsafendakis is, en dat hy ‘n halfbroer in Pretoria het. Ek het dit baie interessant en toevallig gevind en Xxxx ewe onskuldig gevra. Hy was woedend oor die verleentheid wat sy halfbroer aan hom en sy onskuldige familie gedoen het. Ek stel ook baie belang in daai jare in Durban omdat dit so in die politieke kookpot was en ek soveel opgetel het uit gesprekke en die atmosfeer in die huis, my oupa se huis in Curryweg (ons was elke Sondag daar) , die Bobbyrugby, familie gesprekke en kerk. Omtrent 6 van my Ooms was polisiemanne. (sommige aangetroud). Ek het baie gehoor van die Cato Manor geskietery (Oom Piet Niemand was amper raakgeskiet) ens asook van Chief Luthuli, Katrada, Mandela, Braam Fischer ook. (My oom , Johan Grobler, met rooi gelaat, wat ondergronds was, het blykbaar hom in hegtenis geneem - hy bly naby Margate. Ek het net vinnig gescan en is baie beindruk dat daar ‘n boek uit is wat daardie milieu so perfek skets, soos ek dit kan onthou en verstaan. So op ‘n persoonlike vlak is ek seker op soek na my wortels en bloedlyn, na al die politieke omwentelinge van 144
die laaste 40 jaar en wil ek ook beter verstaan of bevestig wat regtig gebeur het in my Pa se wêreld - terwyl ek aangegaan het met my eie lewe. My Ma, Cathy is nog gesond - word 86 in Februarie. Weet Oom waar ek die boek kan koop? Ek sal Protea in Hatfield binnekort bel en by hulle ook hoor - hulle hou baie sulke skaars boeke aan. Veels geluk met die uitstekende boek ! Ek sal dit graag wil aanskaf om famile te wys. Op ‘n manier laat dit my effens dink aan die boek, Roepman wat geskryf is oor die laat sestigs oor die gebied op die Bluff waar die spoorweg mense gebly het - en waar ons groot geword het. Andre Grobler, Pretoria
Oom Grobbie, hoofkonstabel met sy seuns en skoonseuns: Almal polisiemanne. (Ek kan hom onthou toe hy SB op Durban-Sentraal was. Oom Piet Niemand - voor regs se magnommer was 20006P. Agter regs staan “Oom Snorre” Roux. Brig Quartus staan agter 2de van links – HBH)
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• AO Dirk Coetzee: Leon Coetzee Ek wil net reageer op Johan Jacobs se post oor die tydskrif eNOGQAI, met trots kan ek sê die voorbladfoto is my oorlede Pa, AO Dirk Coetzee, tydens 'n medalje parade op Karasburg Namibië/Suidwes, ontvang medalje van AG van Suidwes, AG Hough, daai spesifieke medalje is vandag in my besit. Baie dankie vir die plasing. • Brig Kalfie Broodryk: Hanlie van Staaten: Nigel Met dank word DIE HUISGENOOT gedateer 9 Mei 1975 erken. Die artikel se opskrif is: Oom Jim vereer sy lyfwag met ‘n ... jêmblik deur Koos van der Merwe. • Willie du Plessis: Tydverdryf: Standerton Wat ek besig is om te doen, groete
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Willie se lewe is vol braaiers. Hy het omtrent 10 verskillende braaiers!
• Johan Kriel: Oman Beste Hennie, Ek weet nie of jy my sal onthou nie maar ons het destyds saam gewerk by die SSVR, ek het vandag jou e-tydskrif op die internet gesien. Ek hoop dit gaan baie goed met jou. Beste groete
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Dit was aangenaam om weer met diè oudkollega te kon korrespondeer - HBH
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VERSOEK MBT INLIGTING EN FOTO’S • Gideon Lotz: Oos-Kaap Help asb: 1. Gedurende 1976/7/8 het 5 SAP-lede oor brug geloop by die Victoriawaterval terwyl hulle grensdiens gedoen het. Wat het met hulle gebeur? 2. Kan iemand my help met foto’s van die “London bomaanval op die ANC se kantoor”? THE MARKET PLACE / DIE MARKPLEK Ons ontvang graag advertensies van oudkollegas en ons polisievriende. OOR ‘N KOPPIE KOFFIE Die slakkepaskantoor Dis Saterdag ek ek moet afsit poskantoor toe. Waarom sien ek so op om na die poskantoor te gaan? Maklik. Dis nie meer die poskantoor nie. Dis die slakkepaskantoor. Maandag pos Hanlie vir my ‘n baie ou Huisgenoot, sy bly in Nigel. Dit neem ‘n week van Nigel na Pretoria. Ek was gister by die posbusse toe was daar niks! Vanoggend is die sktrokie daar. Eenvoudige handeling om posklantoor toe gaan? Nee, die poskantoor is ‘n riller. Ek wag maar geduldig; maar twee manne voor my wat bedien word stap bitter ongelukkig uit die kantoor – een vloek, gebruik sommer die “F”-woord tweemaal om krag aan sy frustrasie te verleen! Ek pos drie pakkies gelyk – een na Cailfornië aan die weskus van die VSA, een na Kaapstad en een na Durban. Ou Alex skakel na ‘n week: “Dankie, pakkie gekry!”. Die volgende dag skakel Margaret uit Tujunga, VSA: “Dankie pakkie gekry”. En toe, laaste, skakel my broer uit Durban het het die koffie gekry. In die ou dae indien jy vroeg iets pos uit Johannesburg of Pretoria is dit die volgende dag in Durban – dis destyds die dae toe hulle die possakke per passasierstrein trein gestuur het. Pretoria na Stellenbosch neem vandag 10 dae of meer. Patrick Coetzee het ook “iets” verlede week gepos – met die skrywe hiervan, het nog niks opgedaag nie! Die poskantoor gaan homself nog uitfasser! Hou die spasie dop. Vrede, voorspoed en vriendelikheid word u toegebid. Polisieperde vs die Basutupoon
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Ref: https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/highveldhorsecare Polisieperde Ons sit by hoofkantoor - dis soos 'n tronk - dis teetyd en ons drink koffie. Wyle Hennie Visser was 'n beredeman te Witsieshoek. Hy vertel hoe lekker vet die polisieperde was en hoe baie goed hul versorg was (ons almal weet dit), maar gaan jy op ondersoek uit en die Basutupoon gaan saam: Sien jy gou die polisieperd sak uit. Die maer Basutupoon se uitwerpsels is onvergelykbaar met met poliesieperd sin - tog troon die poon uit bo die SAP-perd in die berge by WItsieshoek...Dis maar sommer 'n beredestorie wat ek gehoor het...
Geldmors Baie van my seniors het gedurende die “maer-jare” van die 1930’s by die Mag aangesluit. In die sestigs en sewentigs van die vorige eeu was hul invloed sigbaar op die Mag. Alles is sorgvuldig gekontroleur en eise vir beriggers is soms kwaai gesnoei – dis maar die tyd waarin hulle groot geword het. Is daar nie vervoer nie! Maklik neem ‘n polisiefiets of neem die bus. (In Durban, Kaapstad en Johannesburg het speurders met ‘n buspas op busse gereis en uniformlede het gratis gery.) In die veiligheidstak gedurende die 1970’s was die ratio 3 tot 4 man per polisiekar. By polisiehoofkantoor is ek verbonde aan die nodale punt, ons doen oa ook beeldbou en strategiese kommunikasie. Ewe stout pols die hoof van die nodale punt: “Generaal, ons het ‘n TV-nodig om die oggendnuus en -programme te kyk. Hy het, 148
soos ek geweet het, amper in sy koffie verstik! “Daardie goeg kyk jy vanaand by die huis op jou eie TV!” Vandag lees ek in die Mail & Guardian dat een van ons moderne kommissasrisse word voorstok gekry word oor geldmors. Dit was darem twee uiterstes! CONCLUSION / SLOT Die e-Nongqai bevat die uiteenlopende en diverse persoonlike menings van verskillende korrespondente en die opsteller van e-Nongqai kan nie vir enige deel van die inhoud daarvan in sy persoonlike hoedanigheid verantwoordelik gehou word nie. The e-Nongqai contains various and sundry personal opinions of different correspondents and the compiler of e-Nongqai cannot be held responsible for any of their comments. Enige advertensies of enige sake voortspruitend is tussen u en die ander party. May our friendship never come apart, Especially when it's straight from the heart!
Dankie aan almal wat gehelp het om hierdie uitgawe ’n sukses te maak! Baie welkom aan ons nuwe lesers! It was a pleasure to compile this edition! Thanks for your support! –HBH
KONTAKBESONDERHEDE / CONTACT DETAILS Hennie Heymans: enongqai@gmail.com [tel 012 329 4229] Johan Jacobs: jhnjacobs65@gmail.com Anemari Jansen: anemari@koorsboomcottage.co.za Ronnie Beyl: rbeyl@iburst.co.za William Marshall: mechinf@netactive.co.za Patrick Coetzee: patrickcoetzee@gmail.com Greetings – Groete Salute! Saluut! Hennie Heymans No 43630 © 2014
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