PART TWO

THE BACKGROUND

B.THE BACKGROUND IN DETAIL

The factors that were ultimately to lead to the unrest in March 1994 in Bophuthatswana had their beginning on 2 February 1990 when in a speech at the opening of the South African Parliament that was to shake the world, the then South African President, F.W de Klerk, announced the release of Mr Nelson Mandela from 27 years in prison and unbanned the African National Congress. In the three years that followed two significant events occurred that were to have their impact on Bophuthatswana in March 1994: (a) the negotiation process that was to lead to the putting in place of an interim constitution for South Africa and the holding of a general election in South Africa on 27 April 1994, and (b) the emergence of bitter resistance to that process by right-wing conservatives led initially by the Conservative Party under Dr Ferdi Hartzenberg but which was joined by a number of other conservative right-wing organisations, which included the Afrikaner Volksfront, a senior member of which was a retired former head of the South African Defence Force, General Constand Viljoen and the militant Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging under Mr Eugene Terre'Blanche.

The negotiation process commenced when the Convention For a Democratic South Africa assembled for the first time at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park on 21 December 1992. Earlier in March 1992 President de Klerk's National Party secured an overwhelming victory in a referendum enabling him to pursue with the African National Congress the negotiation process. As Mr Roelf Meyer, former Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning in the South African Government said, it was obvious by then that a new era would come into being, that apartheid would for ever be gone and that there would be a new constitution which would incorporate all South Africans and that, as a result, the homelands would disappear. Despite many setbacks to it, which need not be detailed here, a constitutional agreement was reached in November 1993 providing for an interim constitution and a Transitional Executive Council pending the outcome of a general election on 27 April 1994.

Bophuthatswana had been one of four homelands given independent status as republics by the South African Government. It received its independence under the Presidency of President Lucas Mangope in terms of the Status of Bophuthatswana Act, No 89 of 1977, on 5 December 1977. As appears from the map on Page 2 above, it consisted of seven separate small areas of land, incorporating twelve districts, scattered throughout the former Transvaal Province of South Africa, the former Northern Cape and with one at Thaba Nchu being within the province of the then Orange Free State. The largest area was that around and adjacent to and incorporating the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area. Mmabatho became the capital with the seat of Parliament, the Executive Council or Cabinet, the Administration of the Republic and the Judiciary being situated there.

Bophuthatswana additionally had its own Defence Force and its own Police Force. It was, according to the testimony of Professor T van der Walt, the former South African Ambassador there, one of the most successful and peaceful homelands, facts which were corroborated and underlined in his evidence by its former President Lucas Mangope, who also testified before the Commission. The latter will for the sake of convenience be referred as President Mangope throughout this report. He emphasised that there was in Bophuthatswana a total absence of racial discrimination and a complete rejection of the policy of apartheid. Its citizens developed a sense of responsibility towards their non-racial society in which the Government built non-racial schools, clinics, hospitals, cultural centres and a university and developed tourism, by the establishment inter alia of game parks, the agricultural sector and commerce through the Bophuthatswana National Development Corporation. It generated 29% of its annual budget.

What follows hereafter comes mainly from the evidence of Mr Rowan Cronje, the Minister of State Affairs, Civil Aviation and Defence in the previous Bophuthatswana Government, from the paper by Dr Jackie Cilliers "Background to Events in Bophuthatswana and from the evidence of Mr R F (Pik) Botha and Mr Roelf Meyer, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Constitutional Development respectively in the former South African Government, and two leading members of the African National Congress, Mr Mac Maharaj, the present South African Minister of Transport, and Mr Popo Molefe, the present Premier of the North West Province.

When the negotiations aforementioned commenced the Bophuthatswana Government was invited to participate in them. As an independent state it made no sense for it to do so but accepting the realities of the times and the points of view of the participating parties, the Bophuthatswana Government decided to do so. President Mangope at all times, however, made it clear that while doing so he would negotiate the best deal that would suit the freedom and independence which his people enjoyed. This latter fact was confirmed by Mr Pik Botha. He said that President Mangope made it clear that he would not surrender his country's self determination but would maintain its independence until after the South African general election and then negotiate a deal to suit his people. President Mangope's stand against his countries losing its independence by being re-incorporated into South Africa was a consistent one. Re-incorporation would only occur if his people, through a referendum or through Parliament, so decided, said Mr Botha. That this was his attitude was emphasised in his evidence by President Mangope who said that his aim was for a federal system of government in South Africa, in which Bophuthatswana, as an independent republic, would be part. This attitude of President Mangope was also referred to by Mr Maharaj and Mr Molefe in their evidence. Reference to that evidence in more detail will be made later herein.

Meanwhile as part of the negotiation process a so-called Record of Understanding was signed on 26 September 1992 between the South African Government and the African National Congress. This created a great deal of concern among the other negotiating parties. President Mangope was particularly concerned. He called the agreement a "Record of Total Betrayal" by the South African Government, which he said had turned its back on those wanting a federal system, including Bophuthatswana. It was, he said, in fact, the end of the latter's relationship with South Africa. As a result of the agreement a body opposed to it known as the Concerned South African Group was formed between the Kwazulu Government, the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Conservative Party, and the Bophuthatswana Government. All of these left the negotiation process, except Bophuthatswana which, despite President Mangope's misgiving, decided to continue to involve Israel f in it.

Amongst the right-wing conservatives the negotiation process was seen as a surrendering by the National Party of too much to the African National Congress. On 7 May 1993 some 15000 right-wingers gathered at a stadium in South Africa to vent their anger at the National Party Government. The Afrikaner Volksfront was formed with Dr Ferdi Hartzenberg as its leader and with retired General Constand Viljoen in charge of the portfolio of Defence Affairs. The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging was also part of it. Assisted by a number of retired generals from the South African Defence Force, General Constand Viljoen formed a "Boer People's Army", drawn from farmers, miners, the Citizen Force and Commandos. Another significant event occurred on 25 June 1993. What was to have been a peaceful demonstration by right-wingers against the negotiating process at the World Trade Centre, where the negotiations were taking place, got out of hand when members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, who were part of the demonstration, ran riot, smashing part of the building and temporarily occupying it. This action brought the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging into disfavour with the rest of the Afrikaner Volksfront and in particular with General Viljoen and his supporters.

The schism between the National Party and the right-wingers grew, the latter developing an ever more-militant stance. General Viljoen was, however, a moderating force within the right-wing and it was with the Afrikaner Volksfront that during 1993 the Bophuthatswana Government formed the so-called Freedom Alliance, the other members being the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Kwazulu Government. Mr Cronje emphasised that this was not a political alliance but a negotiating alliance. Despite this, the Bophuthatswana Government was asked by its partners to withdraw from the negotiation process, something however, that it declined to do. It continued to participate actively and was part of an organisation called South African Tswana Undertaking which was a study group which researched and reported to the negotiating Council on the borders of a future province for the region including Bophuthatswana which, save for a few towns, is the present North West Province.

It is at this stage necessary to refer to the evidence of Mr Maharaj and Mr Molefe as to the attitude of the African National Congress towards Bophuthatswana. I heir evidence was mutually corroborative and differed only in a few minor and irrelevant aspects. It is perhaps best summarised in the submission of Mr Molefe to the Commission. He outlined the African National Congress's policy of the establishment of a non-racial, non-sexist democracy in a united South Africa in which all citizens, black and white, had full equality and in which independent "homelands", such as Bophuthatswana, had no part. These "homelands" were part of the apartheid structure, which had never been accepted by the majority of the people living in them from their inception. For instance, only some 17 % of people in Bophuthatswana had voted in the elections there in 1977. Bophuthatswana's independence, so said Mr Maharaj, was a sham, over 7() % of its budget being financed by South Africa. It was not internationally recognised, said Mr Molefe. It is on record that its citizens required South African passports to travel abroad. However, the Bophuthatswana Government continued to assert that it was independent and to give a clear message that it was not going to tolerate a South African election in which its citizens would participate.

It is also a matter of history that in 1988 there was an attempted coup by a group of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force led by Warrant Officer Timothy Phiri and Mr Rocky Malebane-Metsing, the then leader of the People's Progressive Party wishing to oust President Mangope and his government. President Mangope was regarded as a tyrant and his government was unpopular with most of the public. The South African Government sent in a contingent of army troops to put down the coup to restore President Mangope and his Government to office and to ensure stability in Bophuthatswana.

In February 1992 a delegation of leading members of the African National Congress led by Mr. Mandela, as he then was, met members of the Bophuthatswana Government led by President Mangope. Mr Molefe was part of the African National Congress delegation. He said that Mr Mandela reasserted the African National Congress's policy to create a united South Africa from which the homelands would disappear. He requested that he and President Mangope should together address a series of meetings in Bophuthatswana where they would inform their supporters of the building of a united South Africa. The offer was rejected by the Bophuthatswana Government who insisted that the African National Congress should recognise that Bophuthatswana, unlike other ethnic republics or homelands, was not a product of the apartheid regime. The African National Congress should recognise it as a sovereign state. It should also register as a political party in Bophuthatswana. The African National Congress in turn would not accept these terms. One of the points raised at the discussion was the question of the African National Congress's wishing to make Bophuthatswana ungovernable and of its toppling the Government. Mr Mandela, according to both Mr Molefe and President Mangope, assured the latter that the African National Congress had no intention of making his country ungovernable or of overthrowing its Government by violence.

In the year that followed, political activity in Bophuthatswana by the African National Congress increased, despite its not being registered as a political party. The Bophuthatswana Government, however, according to the evidence of several witnesses, including Mr Molefe, clamped down on political activity by those opposed to it including organisations such as student and teacher associations, Lawyers for Human Rights and political parties such as the African National Congress, using the police force to repress such activities by breaking up meetings and employing violence and force to do so. The question of free political activity became an issue between the African National Congress and the Bophuthatswana Government. Mr Molefe described how he had personally experienced police harassment at African National Congress meetings and many other witnesses gave like testimony.

Meanwhile, as a result of the negotiation process, the Transitional Executive Council came into being, the South African Act providing for it viz. Act 151 of 1993 being promulgated on 18 October 1993. On 17 November 1993 the interim constitution (Act 200 of 1993) was finally agreed upon. The interim constitution provided for the repeal of the Status of Bophuthatswana Act which would occur on 27 April 1994. The date for the general election, viz. 27 April 1994, had been fixed some time previously and to facilitate the election the Independent Electoral Commission was appointed in January 1994 under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Johan Kriegler, a South African Judge.

Late in 1993 an Act of Parliament viz. the Restoration and Extension of Citizenship Act, No 196 of 1993 was passed in South Africa restoring South African citizenship to citizens of Bophuthatswana as from 1 January 1994 and enabling them to apply for and obtain South African identity documents so as to allow them to vote in the election. A large number of citizens did so.

All these events had a marked effect in Bophuthatswana. The burning question was whether it should remain independent or whether it should be re-incorporated into South Africa and its citizens be allowed to take part in the South African general election. There was a division of opinion not only within the structures of Government but also among the citizens generally where it would seem that most favoured re-incorporation, particularly in the urban areas. In the Cabinet the split was, according to Mr Cronje and with which President Mangope agreed, about 50/50.

President Mangope's attitude to the question was that he was strenuously opposed to re-incorporation. He argued that Bophuthatswana's independence had historically been removed from it by the British Government which had made it part of the British Protectorate known as Bechuanaland. When Britain later relinquished control of the territory two separate entities were created viz. the Republic of Botswana, lying to Bophuthatswana's north, and Bophuthatswana. Bophuthatswana was established as a homeland republic in December 1977 in terms of the Status of Bophuthatswana Act, 1977. By so doing, so the argument went, South Africa was merely restoring to it its long lost independence. For this reason President Mangope contended that Bophuthatswana was different from other homelands created by the South African Government during the apartheid era and was not part of the apartheid structure.

President Mangope's resistance to re-incorporation became manifest in a number of spheres and on a number of occasions. 

Mr Molefe testified that between January and March 1994 he led an African National Congress delegation consisting of a number of prominent members of the African National Congress in a series of meetings with a Bophuthatswana Government delegation consisting of several members of the Cabinet under the leadership of Mr E Keikalame. The key issues for discussion at these meetings were (i) the future of Bophuthatswana; (ii) Bophuthatswana's participation in the South African election on 27 April 1994 and transitional arrangements; and (iii) the need for free political activity in Bophuthatswana. Mr Molefe said that every time the African National Congress delegation thought that they had made some progress, the Government delegation would "throw a spanner in the works" by demanding the recognition of Bophuthatswana as a unique entity when compared with other homelands, warranting different treatment and its own special place in the new South Africa. Mr Molefe submitted in evidence a report on one such meeting held on 18 February 1994 where the latter's standpoint was again stressed, the Government delegation requiring the African National Congress to respond to either an option that Bophuthatswana continue as an independent state or as such, be part of a confederal agreement with South Africa rather than giving up its independence. The report records that "the African National Congress delegation explained with great patience that the developments which had taken place in South Africa over the last year in the negotiation process could not be undone. A new constitution had been agreed upon. That constitution recognised South Africa as a single united entity. The demarcation of South Africa into provinces node provision for the re-incorporation of all homelands. The specific needs and demands of people in different parts of South Africa could be met in terms of the new constitution and demarcation of boundaries within the framework of provincial government which was provided for in the constitution." The report on this section ends with the laconic condiment "This discussion did not lead anywhere." A further meeting at which draft proposals to amend the interim constitution would also be discussed was scheduled for 20 February 1994. On the question of free political activity sought by the African National Congress, the Government delegation refused to respond positively to it. Its attitude was that free political activity existed for registered political parties in Bophuthatswana. The African National Congress was not one but was a South African organisation and therefore not entitled to operate freely in Bophuthatswana.

Mr. Molefe testified that while the meeting of 18 February 1994 was in progress, the African National Congress delegation received information that the African National Congress offices in Mafikeng were being raided by Bophuthatswana police. He protested vigorously to the Government delegation asking them to find out what was happening and why, but the latter refused to do so.

Mr Molefe said that the meeting scheduled for 20 February 1994 never took place nor did the Government respond to the African National Congress proposals. A deadlock had been reached.

The attitude of President Mangope viz. that he was strenuously opposed to re-incorporation became generally known. This attitude had its effect on a number of the sectors of the population. One of these was the 64 000 members of the public service.

A leading member of the public service, Mr Fanele Patrick Funani, now of the Public Service Commission at Mafikeng, testified that there was considerable dissatisfaction within the public service. There were three main factors for this. First, in 1993 those civil servants holding the ranks from Deputy Director to Permanent Secretary in their departments were given increases of up to 50% to ensure parity for them with their counterparts in South Africa. The lower echelons were excluded. Second, the Pension Fund to which civil servants belonged, viz. the Sefelana Employee Benefits Organisation, which, according to President Mangope, had assets of over R4 billion, had been investigated by a Commission of Enquiry chaired by Mr Justice H Hendler, a Judge of the Bophuthatswana High Court, in regard to allegations of misconduct by its Chief Executive Officer. President Mangope refused to make the report or its findings public, causing fears that the fund was not in a healthy state. These fears were exacerbated by Cabinet Ministers and employees of Sefelana Employee Benefits Organisation withdrawing their funds and investing them with an insurance company, Sanlam. Third, civil servants were well placed to know that for financial and economic reasons Bophuthatswana could not remain independent in the new South Africa. The resistance to re-incorporation was therefore cause for great concern.

Government's association with right-wing partners increased that concern. During October 1993 an attempt to form an Association of Public Servants was put in motion with the appointment, first, of a steering committee and then of a Task Team formed by representatives of each department. Meetings were held by this Task Team with the Cabinet. At the second of these in January 1994 President Mangope announced that he was going to retrench civil servants, that appointments had been frozen and that he did not owe the Task Team a report on Sefelana Employee Benefits Organisation. At this meeting the Government's intransigent stance on re-incorporation was also raised, the feeling being expressed that Bophuthatswana would be unable to sustain itself as it only generated less than 30% of its budget, being dependent on South Africa for the remaining 71% which would disappear if Bophuthatswana decided to go it alone. President Mangope, said Funani, became angry and said he would retrench sufficient public servants to enable him to cope within the 30% even "if he was left with only five". He repeated this remark at the opening of the Congress of his ruling party, the Christian Democratic Party. Questioned about these allegations during his evidence, President Mangope denied ever having approved the 50 % increment of salaries. He said he told the civil servants he could not afford such an increase. tie said that there was never an investigation into the Sefelana Employee Benefits Organisation fund itself, only into the misconduct of its chief executive officer and that he was under no obligation to make the report of that investigation known to the civil service generally. He also refused to pay out any pension benefits to people who were still working. It was clear from his evidence that he was insensitive to the concerns of the public service, stubbornly refused to consider their demands and arrogantly dismissed them as trouble makers with whom he would have no truck.

At subsequent meetings President Mangope also accused public servants of being influenced by the African National Congress, an allegation he repeated in his evidence and to which reference will be made again later. They would be dismissed from their jobs if it were found that they were members of the African National Congress. Evidence as to the latter was given to the Commission by several other witnesses as well.

Mr Funani said the public service was becoming extremely agitated and each department agreed to draw up a list of its demands and if they were not met by a specified date, the members of the department would go on strike. Common to the demands of all departments was the payment of their pensions and the re-incorporation of Bophuthatswana into South Africa. A meeting to co-ordinate the strike action was held at Ga-Rona Square in Mmabatho. At that meeting President Mangope ordered the police to disperse the crowd and to expel all public servants from their offices in the Ga-Rona Building. President Mangope in his evidence admitted that he had ordered the civil service members away. He said he saw it as his duty to do so because they had not come to work but were on strike and were not prepared to do their duties as public servants. This action forced the members to hold future meetings outside Bophuthatswana at a place on the South African side of the border some 15 km distant from Mmabatho known as Rooigrond. It also led to the creation of a Crisis Committee, chaired by Funani, which had the support of the entire public service. Widespread strike action then followed which the Bophuthatswana Police Force tried to disrupt, frequently using force to do so. The members of some 52 departments went on strike, causing the complete collapse of the public service. These strikes were not only confined to the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area but extended also to other parts of Bophuthatswana. On 8 and 9 March 1994 the Crisis Committee met the Transitional Executive Council informing it that the administration in Bophuthatswana had collapsed and asking the Transitional Executive Council to arrange Bophuthatswana's re-incorporation into South Africa.

One of the departments which had collapsed was the Health Department in which services at hospitals had ceased to function and where conditions had become chaotic. Dr Mohamed Hafiz, the Associate Superintendent of the Bophelong Hospital, some 2 km south of Mafikeng described how during February 1994 members of the staff went on strike. The ambit of the strike grew to such an extent and so many staff members stayed away from work that a decision was taken to close the general section of the hospital, a number of patients being transferred to the Victoria Hospital, a private hospital, in Mafikeng. Although the psychiatric section was kept open, lack of staff and particularly security personnel enabled psychiatric patients to walk free from the hospital. The keeping of records went entirely by the board. The mortuary also became so full of bodies that Dr Hafiz had to stop any more being taken in. Here, too, there were no records kept. The Hospital could only open again after the South African Defence Force had stabilised the situation. Things only returned to normal finally on about Monday, 14 March 1994. At another hospital viz. Thusong Hospital, all staff went on strike, resulting, according to a mortuary attendant there, Isak Molefe, in chaos in the register of bodies there. Chaos of a different kind occurred at the Victoria Hospital where, according to the manager there, Ms Annelé van Schijndel, because of the strikes at other hospitals, staff had to cope with more patients, particularly on 10 and 1 I March 1994, than they could handle.

The dissatisfaction in the Public Service also spread into the Bophuthatswana Police Force and the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. The situation in the Bophuthatswana Police Force was described by certain senior officers viz the former Commissioner of Police, General P F Seleke, his second and third in command, Brigadier Derek Waller and Brigadier M J Gaobepe (as they then were), Directors Oupa Pilane and Mashopo Sedumedi, and two police officers who were involved in attempting to curb the unrest at ground level viz Captain Gopolang Tatisi, the commander of the Flying Squad, who in March 1994 was a Warrant Officer in the Flying Squad with a unit of about 20 men under him, and Colonel Charles Hosking of the South African Police Services who was a Major in the Bophuthatswana Police Force in March 1994.

Both the latter told the Commission of the concern among members of the Bophuthatswana Police Force about their salaries and whether these would be paid if Bophuthatswana was not re-incorporated into South Africa and about their pensions. The re-incorporation became a major issue and there was great anticipation among the police that they would all become members of the South African Police. In early March, however, President Mangope announced that Bophuthatswana citizens would not take part in the general election and that the independence of Bophuthatswana would be maintained. That announcement, said Captain Tatisi, "signified the end of the dreams of the police of becoming members of the SAP". This led to groupings within the Bophuthatswana Police Force, with one group wanting independence and sovereignty maintained, one, mainly seconded officers South African Police, being neutral, and one wanting re-incorporation. The latter group was the majority one. It became difficult for them to continue to serve loyally in the Bophuthatswana Police Force.

Added to this was the hostile attitude of the general public to the police who had to take firm action against sections of the public, particularly the university students, during demonstrations against the Mangope regime for wishing not to seek re-incorporation. Policemen and women were being intimidated. They and their families were threatened, their houses were attacked and they were the target of insults. Taxi drivers refused to transport them. These facts were confirmed by General Seleke. General Seleke was, however, the subject of the ire of many of the police. Many wanted him to resign. Colonel Hosking also said that General Seleke was totally out of touch with what was happening and refused to see the danger signs. An example of this was, when at one of the regularly daily meetings of senior officers, one of them, Colonel Short suggested that because of the hostility to them, police personnel should be allowed to come to work in civilian clothes and be allowed to carry firearms, which they could not then do. General Seleke accused Colonel Short of being an inciter and ordered him out of his office.. General Seleke said he did not remember the incident but in any event the suggestion would have made no sense as the policeman's uniform was the symbol of his authority.

Despite these difficulties police continued to carry out their duties efficiently and to maintain law and order. Tensions were, however, mounting and eventually a group of policemen mutinied. The group joined protesting students at the University of Bophuthatswana where a police Nyala vehicle was set alight and the police handed over their own weapons and others that had been taken from an armoury to the students. In another incident a memorandum drawn up by a group of policeman led by a Lieutenant Lethlogile setting out their dissatisfactions, asking for re-incorporation into South Africa and calling for the resignation of General Seleke, was taken by the group to the South African Embassy and handed over to the Ambassador there.

It was these actions, amounting as they did in the case of the first-mentioned group to a mutiny by members of the Bophuthatswana Police Force, that led to a breakdown in the policing system creating among the more unruly elements of the population the perception not only that police activities had ceased but that the Bophuthatswana Police Force were allied with them. This was the trigger on 10 March 1994 for widespread looting and arson in many parts of Bophuthatswana and especially in the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area where the shopping complex of Mega City was the particular target of the mobs. The occurrences there and the events of 10 and 11 March 1994 will be dealt with in detail later herein, as will the dissatisfactions within the Bophuthatswana Police Force.

The dissatisfaction of members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force was described by the Chief of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force during March 1994, Major-General H S (Jack) Turner, by two of his senior officers, Colonel A J Botes and Colonel Hans Swart and by the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Regimental Sergeant-Major, Sergeant-Major K G Phuduhudu. General Turner testified that in the period prior to March 1994 there was a great deal of tension in the Bophuthatswana Defence Force over the question of re-incorporation. What he described as the leader group i.e senior officers, unit commanders and Base sergeant-majors, were concerned that if Bophuthatswana did not participate in the election and be re-incorporated into South Africa they would become isolated from the South African Defence Force on which the Bophuthatswana Defence Force was very dependent for weapons, armed combat equipment, medical supplies and assistance, and financial assistance. The latter was of particular concern as Bophuthatswana Defence Force members felt that without it they might lose their jobs or not be paid their salaries and lose their pensions. General Turner said he raised these concerns with President Mangope who received them positively and asked General Turner to raise them with the Defence Committee. Shortly thereafter the leader group met President Mangope and again expressed their concerns. He, however, then said that he got the feeling that the soldiers were being disloyal and said that if they found the South African Defence Force so attractive they should go to it and he would get someone else to do their jobs. This caused much disappointment as the men had spoken from the heart to their Commander-in-Chief, the President and were angered by his response to their concerns. Early in March all troops from the Military Base, or Molopo Base, as it was known, were addressed by President Mangope who again expressed the view that there was disloyalty among them and said that if they were dissatisfied he would get others to do the job. President Mangope, during his evidence before the Commission did not challenge the accuracy of General Turner's account. General Turner said that President Mangope's attitude "did not go down very well" with the troops.

The concerns of the Public Service as to their pensions and salaries and the mounting wave of strikes among civil servants, hospital staffs and hotel workers at some hotels engaged the attention of the Cabinet as evidenced by the minutes of a meeting of the Executive Council, chaired by President Mangope, on 1 March 1994 Earlier the Cabinet had also commissioned a study by one of its members which had been put before them, as to what would happen if Bophuthatswana should not be re-incorporated but choose to "go it alone". Three scenarios had been presented (i) if South Africa continued to furnish financial assistance; (ii) if such assistance became limited; and (iii) if it should cease altogether. The need to cut back in their budgets should the last scenario occur was stressed to Ministers who were asked to draw up plans to effect an immediate cut of 25 %. It should also be noted at this stage that Bophuthatswana was a member of a Customs and Excise Union with South Africa from which Bophuthatswana derived some R2 500 million per annum, which was paid to it quarterly. Since the signing of the Record of Understanding with the African National Congress, these payments by South Africa had become irregular due to the intervention of the Transitional Executive Council. The Transitional Executive Council had also prevailed on the Development Bank not to make a loan to the Bophuthatswana Government. The Record of Understanding was described, as mentioned earlier, by President Mangope in his evidence as a "Record of Betrayal". The policy of the African National Congress, he said, was, in accordance with their resolve to do away with the independent homeland republics, to cause the destabilisation of Bophuthatswana so as to make it ungovernable and thus to topple the Government. That this was planned, so President Mangope contended, was evident from a meeting of the ANC/COSATU/ SASCO/SACP/MDM held on 18 May 1993, referred to as the "Anti-Bophuthatswana Campaign Conference", at which an action programme aimed at securing inter alia free political activity and the re-incorporation of Bophuthatswana was drawn up. Part of the action plan of the African National Congress was to infiltrate bodies such as the public service, to disseminate propaganda against Bophuthatswana's maintaining its independence and sovereignty and to engage in "rolling mass action" such as the organising of strikes to disrupt the administration of the country. Both Mr Cronje and General Viljoen as well as General Turner spoke of a three-phase campaign of which the "rolling mass action" was the second phase, the third being a militant one in which African National Congress members would invade the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area in large numbers and attack its citizens there. Intelligence sources, said Mr Cronje, General Viljoen and General Turner, had informed them that this was to occur over the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, 12 and 13 March 1994. This aspect will be referred to in more detail later herein.

Another sector that also had the same concerns at the civil servants was the members of the teaching profession. Their grievances were described to the Commission by Mr David van Wyk, presently a member of the provincial executive of the South African Communist Party, who was a teacher at the Mmabatho High School during March 1994. He was also a teacher there in the years preceding March 1994. The teachers' grievances, he said, related to certain of their professional aspects of teaching such as, inter alia, a lack of confidence in the administration of the profession by head office and circuit office personnel, promotions, the Bophuthatswana Teachers Association, the management style of principals and the preferential treatment of expatriate teachers. In addition they were concerned about the payment of their salaries, their pensions and the need for Bophuthatswana to be re-incorporated into South Africa and the right to vote in the elections of 27 April 1994. There were, he said, upwards of 30 000 teachers in Bophuthatswana. In August 1993 a large number of teachers went on strike over the grievances. Disciplinary action was to be taken against those who had done so. This was, however, postponed to March 1994 when disciplinary hearings were to be held. This factor and the other concerns, particularly their perceived inability to take part in the South African elections, led to a massive stay-away of teachers in February - March 1994. Large numbers of teachers had applied for r South African identity documents after 1 January 1994 and he had personally been present at a New Year's Eve party near a dam on 31 December 1993 when about 1 000 revellers had thrown their Bophuthatswana identity documents into the water of the dam. Levels of discontent increased in early March 1994 and on 7 March 1994 a mass meeting was held at Rooigrond where the teachers also elected representatives to the Crisis Committee which was referred to by Mr Funani in his evidence and to which reference has also been made above. Mr Van Wyk said he was present at that meeting. He also took part in a march to the South African Embassy in Mafikeng where the teachers demanded that they as South African citizens, be protected against the Bophuthatswana Government and its police who had taken heavy handed action against them. A communication centre was set up at the Mmabatho High School to which teachers could pass information as to what was happening in the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area which information was in turn, passed on to Mr Mandela Those teachers' representatives on the Crisis Committee were also part of the delegation that met with the Transitional Executive Council on 8 and 9 March 1994 to ask the Transitional Executive Council to request President F W de Klerk to intervene in the situation.

During this period the broadcasting services of Bophuthatswana also stopped operating. Its members considered that the Government was manipulating the electronic media and that correct information was not being disseminated to the public. Their credibility was, as a result, in issue. That, together with certain heavy handed action by the Government against them due to their desire to re-incorporate, led to a strike causing the breakdown of the services.

Meanwhile students at the former University of Bophuthatswana who had for months prior to March 1994 been demanding that Bophuthatswana should be reincorporated into South Africa, became even more vociferous in those demands in the weeks preceding the week of 7 to 14 March 1994. This provoked as reaction from the Bophuthatswana Police Force. Police forces were us forcibly break up demonstrations, student leaders and lecturers at the University being subjected to assaults by members of the Bophuthatswana Police Force.

It is perhaps convenient at this stage to say something further about the role of the Bophuthatswana Police Force in the former Bophuthatswana and what happened to the police force in the week of 7 to 14 March 1994. The information in this regard comes from the evidence of certain members of the former Bophuthatswana Police Force who testified before the Commission. While reference will be made in due course to all those witnesses, including the former Commissioner of the Bophuthatswana Police Force, General J Seleke and his second in command, Brigadier Charles Waller, particular reliance at this stage will be placed on the testimony of Captain Kedirile Andrew Lethlogile (then a lieutenant), Colonel Charles Hosking, Directors Oupa Pilane and Mashopo Sedumedi, and Captain Gopolang Tatisi.

Lethlogile was the leader of a number of police dissidents who on 10 March 1994 marched to the South African Embassy to hand a memorandum to the South African Ambassador in which they asked, inter alia, that Bophuthatswana be reincorporated into South Africa and that they and all the people of Bophuthatswana be allowed to take part in the elections on 27 April 1994. They also called for the resignation of General Seleke.

Lethlogile after referring to the collapse of the civil service and in particular the health services, said the Bophuthatswana Police Force and the Bophuthatswana Defence Force were deployed at hospitals not only to secure them but to provide essential services there. The demand of the civil servants to participate in the 27 April elections enjoyed massive support of the citizenry at large and was "the talk of the town". As time progressed the situation went from bad to worse. The police had come to be regarded as the dividing line between the aspirations of the people and the political interests of the Bophuthatswana Government. had, in the minds of the community, gained a reputation for high-handedness in dealing with those who were seen to be opposed to the policies of the ruling party. They were on several occasions called upon to break up gatherings. One of these was that of the civil servants at Ga-Rona Square.

The community took it upon themselves to vent their anger and frustration on the police. The youth in particular warned that they would take to the streets against the police and the Mangope regime.

It was against this background of strikes, civil unrest and Police and Army discontent that the Bophuthatswana National Security Council met on Tuesday, 8 March 1994. It was created by Bophuthatswana Act 27 of 1981, initially as an advisory body to the Cabinet, but after the attempted coup of 1988, it acquired a more important role, many of its decisions relating to security being taken without recourse to the Cabinet. Moreover, its executive officer or secretary, Mr J J L Esterhuizen, liaised closely with the intelligence services of the South African Government. Presided over by President Mangope, who as we have seen, was also the Minister of Police, it consisted of the Commissioner of Police, General Seleke; the head of Bophuthatswana Defence Force, General Turner; the head of the National Intelligence Service, Mr R Knowles; and certain selected Cabinet Ministers such as the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Defence, Mr Rowan Cronje. General Constand Viljoen was invited to be present at the meeting.

The situation pertaining in Bophuthatswana was debated and a decision was taken that if the situation should deteriorate and become critical, General Viljoen would be asked to come in to assist and bring in members of his "Boer People's Army" in order to do so. They would not be used in an offensive capacity but would be deployed in a defensive capacity to guard key installations and buildings so as to free up the Bophuthatswana security forces for more urgent matters. If they were brought in they would not enter Bophuthatswana armed but would be issued with weapons prior to their deployment as mentioned.

The purpose of this decision and the motivation for it was, according to Mr Rowan Cronje, President Mangope and General Viljoen, the following. The pressing issue was whether Bophuthatswana should be re-incorporated into South Africa and its citizens be allowed to participate in the general election of 27 April 1994. This, said Mr Cronje and President Mangope, was a decision for the Bophuthatswana Parliament to make. Parliament was not in session at the time but had been recalled for Tuesday, 15 March 1994, the earliest date according to Mr Cronje, for which it could be convened. In the meantime, again according to Mr Cronje and General Viljoen, the Bophuthatswana Intelligence Service had alerted them to the fact that reports were coming in of large numbers of African National Congress cadres that were gathering to be bussed into Mmabatho over the weekend of 12 and 13 March 1994 to forcibly overthrow the government. Reports were that some 6 000 members were set to invade Mmabatho over that weekend. The Afrikaner Volksfront's "Boere People's Army" was to be used to keep the situation stable over the weekend so as to enable Parliament to meet to take the all-important decisions required of it on Tuesday, 15 March 1994. It was those factors that prompted the decision of the Security Council on 8 March 1994 to call for General Viljoen's assistance and that of the Afrikaner Volksfront's "Boere People's Army" if the position became critical between then and the weekend. General Viljoen said it was the understanding that his men would be under the command of General Turner. He was willing to make his men available under those conditions because, as he put it, he told President Mangope that they were brothers in the Freedom Alliance and "When your neighbour's house is on fire, you help him". He said that he told President Mangope that he would discuss the matter with the chairman of the Conservative Party, Dr Ferdi Hartzenberg, and make available a few thousand farmers. President Mangope said they were not prepared to have any members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging present. They in their uniforms would be completely unacceptable and might even result in a mutiny among members of his own armed forces. General Viljoen said that he would see to it that none of the members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging would be allowed in. General Viljoen said that pursuant to his undertaking, on his return from Bophuthatswana on Tuesday, 8 March 1994, he met Dr Ferdi Hartzenberg and told him of the request from President Mangope. He also told him of the latter's concerns about the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and he asked Dr Hartzenberg to telephone Mr Terre'Blanche and tell him that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging were not to go to Bophuthatswana. Dr Hartzenberg did so in General Viljoen's presence. Mr Terre'Blanche, said General Viljoen, accepted the instruction.

General Viljoen said that at the meeting of the Security Council on 8 March 1994 he was given the assurance that the presence of the African National Congress cadres would be monitored and he said that he and his men would not move in unless the shooting phase was likely to happen. He put Colonel Jan Breytenbach and Commandant Douw Steyn, both retired South African Defence Force Officers of outstanding merit, in charge of the operation. They would be responsible for getting the men to Mmabatho if President Mangope summoned them to come.

It should be remembered that one of the constituent members of the Afrikaner Volksfront when it was formed, was the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. It was still such a constituent member in March 1994, hence General Viljoen's assurance that he would see to it that no member of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging would be among those who would go to Mmabatho to assist President Mangope pursuant to the decision of the Security Council to invite in the right-wing Afrikaner Volksfront to assist in Bophuthatswana should the situation warrant that happening.

This decision will be referred to and commented upon in detail later in this Report but it was this decision more than any other that was to light the touch paper that caused the situation to explode into the violence of 11 March 1994.

One comes then to the events of Thursday, 10 March and Friday, l1 March 1994.

On the Thursday the uprisings were becoming more intense. Public disapproval became targeted on President Mangope and at about 14:00 he was advised by General Seleke that for his safety he should leave Mmabatho and to go his tribal home at Motswedi. He was then immediately flown there by helicopter.

It was also at about that time that Lieutenant Lethlogile's march to the South African Embassy and the handing over of the memorandum of the dissident police members took place. It was also then that the other police members joined the mobs and laid down their weapons. From then onwards, although some policemen still tried to maintain some form of law and order, policing as such effectively ceased to exist. The upper command had come completely ineffectual: no orders or direction came from it to those lower down in the command structure: the command structure had fallen apart and there was no communication whatsoever from those in command to those below them.

In this climate, the mobs took to the streets and widespread looting started, particularly in the large shopping complex of Mega-City.

Meanwhile two significant events occurred. The first was a telephone call from the leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, Mr Eugene Terre'Blanche, to President Mangope, having reached his home at Motswedi, offering him the assistance of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. President Mangope said he told Mr Terre'Blanche not to come. His presence was not wanted. He nonetheless told Mr Terre'Blanche to contact Mr Rowan Cronje but according to Mr Cronje, Mr Terre'Blanche did not do so.

The other event was that late on Thursday afternoon on the instructions of President Mangope, Mr Cronje contacted General Viljoen and said he had confirmation of the presence of the African National Congress cadres that were to enter the area. General Vil~oen said he then gave instructions for his men to be mobilised and to move into Mmabatho.

Meanwhile, however, despite any assurance that Mr Terre'Blanche may have given to Dr Hartzenberg, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging also mobilised and began assembling at different points preparatory to moving into Bophuthatswana and more specifically into the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area.

It would seem that two contingents of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members converged on the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area: one from the direction of Lichtenburg and one from the direction of Zeerust. The latter apparently entered Bophuthatswana earlier than the former and already in the late afternoon and early morning of the Thursday, Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members were seen in the streets of Mafikeng. The arrival of the Zeerust contingent and the events relating to it were graphically described to the Commission by the then City Secretary of Mmabatho, Mr Peter Waugh. Before coming to that, however, it is convenient to record that Mr Waugh also described how in the week prior to the Thursday, strike action at the Bophelong Hospital had caused a meeting of the top municipal officials to be held with members of the Bophuthatswana Defence and Police Force to put in place a contingency plan in terms of the Civil Defence Act to deal with the situation as they felt that the hospital strike would escalate. That did occur. All public servants attended a meeting on 5 March 1994 at the Convention Centre in Mmabatho where President Mangope was booed off the stage because of his resistant attitude to the incorporation of Bophuthatswana and his derogatory remarks about the behaviour of the public servants.

Earlier on 4 March 1994 the President had announced that Bophuthatswana would go it alone. Mr Waugh said that following an emergency meeting of the Town Council on 8 March 1994 it was decided that because of the worsening situation municipal employees should, save those involved in essential services, not have to go to work on 10 March 1994. Of those essential services only about 20% turned up and it was then decided to abandon all services. Mr Waugh said he had to convey this to the Bophuthatswana Police and the Town Clerk, one Johan Botha, had to convey it to the Army. Mr Waugh said he go': hold of Brigadier Gaobepe who told him that the whole police administration was in disarray, that a police Nyala had been burnt at the University and that police had laid down their arms.

Returning to the presence of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, Mr Waugh said he lived at the time in Riviera Park. In front of his house was a service road and a road reserve. He said that on the Thursday he got home at about 16:45. At about 17:45 he saw a red Nissan bakkie with an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging flag on it and two whites in it parked in the road reserve. He Advent over to them and asked them what they were doing there. One said they had been informed by President Mangope to come and help him to quash the uprising and they were looking for space to park people. They had received their instructions over the Marnet radio system, a radio communication system installed on many farms and in many smaller local authorities throughout South Africa. Mr Waugh said he told the men that they should leave town as their presence was not welcome and would only aggravate the situation. He told Mr Johan Botha of their presence and it was agreed that he should telephone the South African Embassy and tell them what he had found out. He spoke to a senior official there, one Piet Gerber, who told him, aver discussing the matter with the South African Ambassador, that he should feed through all the information he could every half-hour to the Operations Room of the South African Defence Force in Pretoria. He did so from about 18:30. At about 21:00 he was asked to relay all information to an operations room that had been set up in the South African Embassy. Mr Waugh said he conveyed the information that the men were arriving in sedan cars, in bakkies, in half-ton trucks and one-ton trucks, some with three to four people in them, some with two to three. They were dressed in khaki clothes but some were in camouflage uniforms. They were wearing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging insignia. There were some women among them. They had cool boxes containing food with them. They were armed with rifles, shotguns, pistols, hunting rifles (some with telescopic sights) and some were carrying R4 and R5 rifles. Mr Waugh said he counted about 300 vehicles which were parked in the road reserve. A man with a loud hailer who described himself as a "Commandant" was organising the vehicles into sections, directing those from the Free State to park in certain parts and those from the then Transvaal in others and even those from certain towns to occupy particular places. Mr Waugh said that throughout the night he could hear vehicles leaving the camp and returning to it. He presumed they had gone into Mafikeng and Mmabatho. Mr Waugh said that a local Dutch Reformed Church Minister, the Reverend Steenkamp, who said that members of his congregation were worried, told him that the call on Marnet was not directed to the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging but to General Viljoen and all right-wing organisations to send their people to the area. Mr Waugh said that at about 04:30 on Friday, 11 March 1994 he heard the droning of military vehicles of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force who were escorting masses of private vehicles into the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area. Shortly before this the "Commandant" with the loudhailer had called all the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging people at the parking site to a meeting where a prayer was said by a man who was introduced by the "Commandant" as a "Dominee". The latter first read a verse from the scriptures and then prayed for the safety of all those present and for God's help in carrying out the task which had been laid on them "as Afrikaners". He then said that "die Here ons moet bewaar, want dit sal van ons verwag word vandag om kaffers dood te skiet". He asked for forgiveness for their sins and that God should lead them forward along the path into the future in which the existence of the Afrikaner was being threatened. Mr Waugh said he and his wife, who also heard what was said, "recall the horror of hearing those words".

Following the prayers the "Commandant" told the people there that a convoy was on its way to the Air Force Base outside Mmabatho and that as soon as the convoy passed they were to follow it to the Air Force Base. It was the convoy mentioned of Bophuthatswana Defence Force vehicles escorting the mass of private vehicles (which were those of the members of the Afrikaner Volksfront) that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging latched on to.

Mr Waugh said that he was surprised to see about five minutes later a convoy of South African Defence Force vehicles. He asked one of the military police accompanying the vehicles whether they were also going to the same place as the other vehicles and he was told that they were going to the South African Embassy Compound. He asked the policeman if he know that there were Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging personnel ahead of them and the policeman replied that they did know it and that they had been monitoring them all night. He told Mr Waugh that roadblocks had been set up on the South African side of the border with Bophuthatswana who were also monitoring the presence of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. Mr Waugh said that right through the Thursday night he and his wife had heard gunshots. Mr Waugh's assumption that members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging had gone into Mmabatho and Mafikeng is borne out by Colonel Hosking who told the Commission that at about 03:45 he had seen from his townhouse in Mafikeng three civilian bakkies with white men in khaki clothing in them. He had telephoned Mr Esterhuizen, the secretary of the Security Council, to ask him what was going on. Mr Esterhuizen had told him "to leave it as is. Everything is under control". Colonel Hosking also said that he had heard sporadic firing throughout the night. It seems undoubted that He men who Colonel Hosking saw were members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging as the members of the Afrikaner Volkstront were only escorted into the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area at 04:30 on Friday morning. It is also clear from Mr Waugh's evidence that both the South African Defence Force and the South African Embassy knew of the presence of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members outside Mafikeng from about 18:30 on the Thursday and that there was a force of some 600 to 1 000 of them there.

The other contingent of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members gathered at Rooigrond. What happened in regard to them was described to the Commission by the then Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Colonel Antonie Botes; the Chief of Staff, Operations, Colonel Hans Swart; the then Regional Commander of the Criminal Intelligence Service of the South African Police, Colonel Cornelius McDuling; the latter's then second in command in Lichtenburg, Lieutenant-Colonel Gideon van Zyl; and a Captain under the latter's command, Captain Izaak Marais, as well as General Turner. The picture which emerges from their testimony is the following.

Lieutenant-Colonel Van Zyl and Captain Marais said that al; the time right-wing elements in the then Western Transvaal were engaged in wide spread bombing activities and other forms of terrorism and their units were engaged in investigating these occurrences and arresting the perpetrators. A network of informers had been set up to help them in those tasks. During the afternoon of Thursday, 10 March 1994 information started coming through from these and other sources of large-scale movements of bakkies and other vehicles from various parts of South Africa adjacent to Bophuthatswana, such as Zeerust, Vryburg and Lichtenburg, towards Bophuthatswana. There was at that time no police post at Rooigrond. It came under Lichtenburg. A temporary charge office was set up at Rooigrond under Lieutenant-Colonel Van Zyl in order to monitor the movement of those persons heading for Bophuthatswana. Two check-points were set up, one at Rooigrond and one at nearby Buhrmansdrift. They were manned by members of the Internal Stability Unit. Legal advice was that they could only monitor what was happening, because Bophuthatswana was an independent state, they could not stop persons crossing the border from South Africa into Bophuthatswana. Large numbers of right-wingers in and on bakkies, a few clothed in camouflage uniforms but the majority in khaki clothing, moved through the check-points toward Mmabatho Many had already passed through before the check-points were set up at 18:00, some having gone past as early as 16:00. Most of them appeared uncertain as to where they should go and where they had to assemble, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Van Zyl.

Captain Marais said that he and another policeman, Sergeant Gawie Steyn were driving on the Lichtenburg/Mafikeng road in an unmarked police car when they came upon a convoy of right-wingers travelling towards Mafikeng. They joined the convoy pretending to be part of it. Drivers of the vehicles in the convoy were communicating with one another over Marnet radios. Captain Marais said that while listening to their conversations he became aware that their car had been identified as an interloper and they were forced to race off first to Buhrmansdrift and then to Mafikeng where they were stopped at a roadblock set up by the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. They told the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members there that they were local residents going into the town but they were again identified as interlopers over the radio just as they were allowed to go through and had to flee for their lives into the town where there was by that time massive unrest. Lieutenant-Colonel Van Zyl testified that earlier a civilian from Mmabatho in his private helicopter had asked him to fly with him to see the chaotic situation for himself. He assigned one of his men to do so who reported on the unrest and that several places were on fire.

Lieutenant-Colonel Van Zyl said the men passing through the check-points were heavily armed with shotguns, pistols and many hunting rifles. It was very difficult to determine whether the men were members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging or the Afrikaner Volksfront as most of them were khaki clad. At Buhrmansdrift an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging general with his Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and general's insignia, was however, seen entering Bophuthatswana at 09:40 on the Friday morning.

Lieutenant-Colonel Van Zyl said that during the evening on the Thursday Colonel Botes arrived at the Rooigrond check-point. He had come to escort the Afrikaner Volksfront into Mmabatho but not the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.

Lieutenant-Colonel Van Zyl said he did not know of the arrangements about inviting the Afrikaner Volksfront into Bophuthatswana and he also did not know how Colonel Botes would be able to know whom to escort and who not because of the difficulty in distinguishing between the two groups. Thus led to a heated confrontation between him and Colonel Botes. Colonel Botes then left leaving him telephone numbers where he could be contacted or, if he was not available, that of Colonel Swart. It is clear therefore that during the afternoon and early evening of Thursday, 10 March 1994, apart from the large numbers who were encamped outside Mafikeng on the Zeerust side, numbers of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members had entered Bophuthatswana through Rooigrond and continued to do so during the night.

Colonel Botes said that the first he heard of the Security Council decision to invite the Afrikaner Volksfront to help with the unrest situation, whose origins like the other witnesses he also described, was at about 18:30 on the Thursday when Colonel Swart telephoned him and conveyed an instruction to him from General Turner to go to Rooigrond and stop Mr Eugene Terre'Blanche and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging from entering Bophuthatswana.

He said he and a colleague, Lieutenant-Colonel Blignaut, at about 19:00 went to Rooigrond and waited at the check-point for the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging convoy to arrive. He then went to Mr Terre'Blanche whom he found on a farm of a certain Marais outside Rooigrond with a convoy of about 300 men, ready to move. He gave him General Turner's message that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging was not welcome in Bophuthatswana and that they should leave. Mr Terre'Blanche arrogantly said he would not listen to "a little Colonel" as he was there at the invitation of President Mangope. Colonel Botes said he should discuss the matter with General Turner. After an argument it was agreed that Mr Terre'Blanche and one of his generals would accompany Colonel Botes to the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Headquarters at Molopo Base while the rest of his forces would wait outside Bophuthatswana until his return. Despite this, however, members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging entered the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area, as evidenced by those at Riviera Park. At the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Headquarters General Turner also told Mr Terre'Blanche that he was not welcome and must leave. The latter was very emotional. He said he had received an invitation from President Mangope personally to bring his men and come and assist him. He insisted on speaking to President Mangope or Mr Rowan Cronje. President Mangope was not contacted but several telephone calls took place between him and Mr Cronje.

Mr Cronje testified that he too told Mr Terre'Blanche that he and his men were not welcome and should withdraw. Mr Terre'Blanche again became emotional and said his men had left their farms and families to assist President Mangope. They were there now and would like to assist.

It must here be recorded that Mr Terre'Blanche was invited by the Commission to appear and testify before it. He and three members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, two of whom were described as generals viz. General Josias Alexander (Alec) Cruywagen and General Roelf Jordaan and one Andries Kriel, attended one of the sittings of the Commission. All four of them chose not to testify under oath and to be cross-examined but each made an unsworn statement. In his statement Mr Terre'Blanche told the Commission that he had entered into a written agreement with President Mangope that in the event of a Communist threat the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and the Bophuthatswana Government would help one another. This had followed discussions he had with the Bophuthatswana Cabinet. In the week prior to 10 March 1994 he had heard of the trouble in Bophuthatswana and within the Cabinet structure. On 10 March 1994 he had telephoned President Mangope who, he said, was very grateful to hear from him. A number of members of his staff were present at the time and listened to the conversation on a loudspeaker telephone. President Mangope told him the situation was critical. He asked him how many men the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging would be able to muster to assist. Mr Terre'Blanche said that he had 350 immediately available but by that evening would have many more. He said that before the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging convoy left for Bophuthatswana he again telephoned President Mangope and said he then had 700 men, that they were leaving and would be in Bophuthatswana within two hours. President Mangope asked him to telephone Mr Rowan Cronje to tell him when they would arrive and what route they would be taking. He, however, had no contact with the latter until he spoke to him when he was with General Turner at the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Headquarters. He was saddened by the fact that President Mangope was denying that he had asked him to assist. He had numbers of witnesses who could testify that he had done so. He found it difficult, too, to understand why General Viljoen, who had led President Mangope to believe that he could muster 3000 - 4000 men but in the event had only mustered 350, had been asked to prop up a shaky government whereas the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging with 750 men was chased away.

As stated earlier President Mangope testified under oath. He denied that he had ever entered into any written agreement with Mr Terre'Blanche. It was correct that the latter had met his Cabinet on 17 February 1992 at his Terre'Blanche's request. President Mangope said that at that time he was prepared to meet with any political organisation across the political spectrum and had met with the leaders of a number of political parties. Nothing was achieved at the meeting with Mr Terre'Blanche at which President Mangope said, he was disgusted with Mr Terre'Blanche's attitude. The latter said he saw a revolution coming but that he would never be governed by a Black man. President Mangope said: "I met Mr Terre'Blanche that day for the first and last time. I never wished ever more to meet the man." He denied having asked the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging to assist him. He said "I would not even begin to think of touching the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging with a barge pole". He said "emphatically and categorically" that Terre'Blanche's statement that he had invited the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging to assist was a lie. He said that he had received a telephone call from Mr Terre'Blanche on the late afternoon of 10 March 1994 offering assistance. He had told him that under no circumstances was he to put his foot in Mmabatho or Bophuthatswana. Mr Terre'Blanche wanted to know who was in charge of the situation. He gave him the names of Mr Rowan Cronje and General Turner. He only became aware of the presence of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging when he saw them on television that evening. He confirmed that he had, however, asked General Viljoen to assist him and told the members of the Security Council at their meeting on 8 March 1994 that he had done so. The Afrikaner Volksfront's role would be a defensive one to guard vital installations. President Mangope said he had given a lot of thought to calling in the South African Defence Force but he did not trust the South African Government whom he feared might send in its troops to topple his regime. He had also read in the newspapers utterances by people like the late Mr Joe Slovo of the African National Congress that if the Bophuthatswana Government were stubborn about re-incorporation, the Transitional Executive Council would send in tanks to topple it.

Returning to events at the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Headquarters on the night of 10 March 1994, General Turner said he discussed the situation with Mr Cronje and it was decided that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging could remain in Bophuthatswana if they removed all their insignia and placed) themselves under the control of the leaders of the Afrikaner Volksfront. They would be assembled at the Air Force Base. This decision, according to both Mr Cronje and General Turner, was taken so as to get the members of the Afrikaner We Weerstandsbeweging under control and not roaming the streets of Mmabatho and Mafikeng. Genera Turner said that it would have been best if they could have got the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging out altogether but as they would not go, the alternative plan was the next best thing. General Turner said they could not have forcibly removed them as that would have sparked off a war and those who would have got hurt would have been the people of Bophuthatswana. When the conditions were conveyed to Mr Terre'Blanche he was also told that he was a high profile person and although his men could stay under the conditions laid down, he personally would have to leave. Mr Terre'Blanche was not pleased. He had two of his Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Generals with him and the fact that he would have to leave was not acceptable to them. Their reaction was that they were being "chased away like dogs" and that they should take their things and leave. However, after long discussion, the conditions were accepted. Colonel Botes, who was present, said that it was the best that could have been done, having regard to the fact that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members were already in the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area and reports were already coming in of shootings by them.

Colonel Botes said that the mood of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members at the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Headquarters was ugly and he felt that if an attempt had been made to get them out by force, having regard to the fact that Mr Terre'Blanche had told him on the farm that they had come to protect the whites, a bloodbath would have resulted. The discussions lasted several hours.

It was during those discussions that as testified to before the Commission by a number of black members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force, members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging were seen in the Operations Room at the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Headquarters at the Molopo Base. Lance Corporal Isaac Moopelwa, a military policeman told how while he was on duty at the gate to the Base cars carrying Colonel Botes, Colonel Blignaut and Mr Terre'Blanche had entered the Base at about 21:00 to 22:00 on the Thursday evening. He later saw them looking at maps, together with a Colonel Schultz and General Turner in the Operations Room. An Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging member told him they had been called by President Mangope to help the Bophuthatswana soldiers. Private Ismail Motsamai who at the time was working in the signals section of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force also saw white people in the Operations Room. He said he saw Mr Terre'Blanche entering the Operations Room with Colonel Pieter Burger, the Officer Commanding the Air Force Base, at about 19:00 that evening. He said the Operations Room was packed out with white people. He entered it and Staff Sergeant Greyling pointed a 9mm pistol at him and told the white men to keep him there. He was kept hostage all night by the white men who he said threatened him and for the whole night forced him to lip his arm and say "AWB, AWB". He was even escorted to the toilet by an armed white female. Some of the men were masked. He left the next morning. He did not report the matter to Colonel Burger who was too busy. The latter was "a changed man who was furious at us". He reported the matter to his senior, a sergeant, on the Monday. Private Motsamai said a Colonel Trent in the Operations Room told him at about 16:30 that he was expecting visitors that evening. Colonel Burger, however, told the Commission he only told Colonel Trent about the arrival of the Afrikaner Volksfront at about 19:30. Private Motsamai said he had also seen on a board giving notice of flights from Mmabatho that President Mangope was flying in his personal helicopter to Ventersdorp that night (Ventersdorp is where Mr Terre'Blanche has his home). He had seen it take off. Again, it must be remembered that President Mangope was already at his home in Motswedi at about 13:00 that day.

Apart from all the inaccuracies and improbabilities in his evidence Motsamai struck the Commission as being a thoroughly unreliable witness who was clearly exaggerating and drawing on his imagination as to what he knew of the presence of members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging at the Molopo Base.

As set out earlier, it was in the early hours of Friday, 11 March 1994 that the members of the Afrikaner Volksfront were escorted by members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force to the Air Force Base on the outskirts of Mmabatho and it was this convoy that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members who had been encamped at Riviera Park joined up with and also went to the Air Force Base. The person who was then in command of the Afrikaner Volksfront members was Commandant Douw Steyn. He was joined at about l0:00 by Colonel Jan Breytenbach who then took over command of the Afrikaner Volksfront personnel.

Both Colonel Breytenbach and Commandant Steyn testified before the Commission. Their description of the events of the day is the following. Colonel Breytenbach said it was the agreement that about 1 000 farmers who formed his "Boere People's Army" would be deployed for four days to guard vulnerable points i.e. until the Bophuthatswana Parliament could meet on Tuesday, 15 March 1994. They would, apart from carrying sidearms and shotguns for their own protection en route to Mmabatho, not be armed but would be provided with arms by the Bophuthatswana Defence Force before being deployed. The men would be under the command of officers of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force from whom Commandant Steyn would receive his orders.

At first light on Friday, 11 March 1994 the Bophuthatswana Defence Force started issuing rifles to about 140 members of the Afrikaner Volksfront who were then deployed at Mega City and the post office to guard those places. Looting had already taken place at Mega City during the Thursday night but it stopped when the Afrikaner Volksfront men were deployed there. There was no shooting by any members of the Afrikaner Volksfront There had, however, been shooting during the night by members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.

Colonel Breytenbach said that on his arrival at Mmabatho Air Force Base he found that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members were also concentrated there. He had been instructed by General Viljoen to get them out of Bophuthatswana as soon as possible. Both Colonel Breytenbach and Commandant Steyn said that they were told of the agreement that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members would remain in Bophuthatswana on condition that they removed their insignia and placed themselves under the command of Commandant Steyn and Colonel Breytenbach. They had, however, despite having agreed to do so, done neither of these things. They did not remove their insignia or put themselves under the command of Commandant Steyn, or later, Colonel Breytenbach. They were never in command of them. He then had a meeting with Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging General Cruywagen, first alone with him and later with him and Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging General Nick Fourie. They were in camouflage uniforms. He tried to get them to withdraw their men voluntarily. Cruywagen was at first amenable to doing so but when Fourie joined him they became recalcitrant. Colonel Breytenbach said he told them they were under his command and that they were all under the command of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force who did not want them there. They would be withdrawn not through Mafikeng but by guides who would take them around the outskirts of built-up areas to avoid confrontation with the local population. They refused to do that. Discussions became very heated. He criticised their lack of discipline and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leaders left in a huff.

Shortly after this Brigadier Jordaan, who was second in command to General Turner, asked Colonel Breytenbach to withdraw the Afrikaner Volksfront members from their guard duties. They were being equated with the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force were threatening to attack them. Colonel Breytenbach agreed to do so. He called all his men together and told them what was happening. He said that their assistance to the Bophuthatswana Defence Force had effectively ceased. A confrontation was looming between them and the Bophuthatswana Defence Force and they were not properly armed to deal with such a confrontation. They were to be confined to the Air Force Base and if the threat to them became more imminent they would be escorted out of the area by Colonel Swart, who was present at the Air Force Base, at 16:00 in order to get out before dark. They were asked to defend the airport against attack in the meantime. The situation, said Colonel Breytenbach, was very unsatisfactory as they only had the 140 R4 rifles with which they had been issued plus some shotguns and a 20mm aircraft gun as protection against the Caspirs and arrnoured vehicles of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. The threat of attack, however, did not materialize. Nevertheless he gave instructions to Commandant Steyn to take the main body of their men out of the area at 16:00 and leave a small force of about 90 men to protect the Air Force Base. They would be escorted by units of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force.

At 16:00 Colonel Breytenbach was called to a meeting with General Meiring of the South African Defence Force at the South AfFican Embassy where, apart from General Meiring, the head of the Soup African Air Force, General Kriel; General Van der Merwe, Commissioner of He South African Police and his second in command, Brigadier Coetzee; and the Director-General of Foreign Affairs, Mr "Rusty" Evans, were present. He told General Meiring that he and his men were moving out. General Meiring agreed to send South African Defence Force men to guard the Air Force Base.

Pursuant to his instructions, Commandant Steyn moved the main body of the Afrikaner Volksfront members out of the Air Force Base at 16:00. A small force of about 90 men was left behind. They were escorted out later. The Afrikaner Volksfront convoys were not escorted through any built-up areas, but by detour routes round the outskirts of those areas. The main convoy ,;vas escorted by way of back routes. It was during this phase that the deceased, FRANCOIS ALWYN VENTER (Case No. S7) was shot. As appears from the detailed discussion of the case, the deceased was probably shot by an unidentified member (or members) of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force when he was in a part of the Afrikaner Volksfront convoy leaving Bophuthatswana. The remaining members of the Afrikaner Volksfront were escorted out of Bophuthatswana by a convoy of South African Defence Force vehicles under Major Christiaan Jacobus Serfontein. It was during that phase that the deceased FRANCOIS WILLEM JANSE VAN RENSBURG (Case No. 9) was shot. Major Serfontein's description of what happened, as appears from the detailed discussion of the case, is the following.

Major Serfontein of the South African Defence Force testified that on 10 March 1994 he was a member of one of a number of South African Defence Force units stationed at Klippan in the then Western Transvaal. Klippan was situated in one of those areas which had been declared an unrest area.

On 10 March 1994 it became known that there was Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging activity in the area and that members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging were converging on Mmabatho. It also 'became known that Afrikaner Volksfront members were proceeding to Mmabatho to stabilise the situation there. On the morning of 11 March 1994, his unit, consisting of about 100 men, moved into Mafikeng to the South African Embassy. They passed Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging bakkies on the way. Some of these tried to force their way in between the South African Defence Force convoy vehicles, others just stood parked alongside the road. At about 16:00 that day his unit received instructions to occupy the Bophuthatswana Defence Force Headquarters and also the Air Force Base and to escort the right-wingers from the Air Force Base and out of Mafikeng. At the Air Force Base he met Colonel Burger of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force and one Lennert Veenendal of the Afrikaner Volksfront. Other Afrikaner Volksfront leaders such as General Constand Viljoen and Colonel Jan Breytenbach were also present. There were no Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leaders there. There was a large group of men clad in khaki, said Major Serfontein, whom his unit would assist in escorting out of Bophuthatswana. He told them that he would order four Caspirs to lead the way with three more Caspirs to bring up the rear. The Afrikaner Volksfront vehicles, which numbered about 80 bakkies, would be in between. The Afrikaner Volksfront members were armed with R1 and R4 rifles.. He told them that he would accept no responsibility for any of their activities. The convoy which was, he thought, the last to leave the Base, travelled without incident from the Air Force Base to the Mmabatho Sun Hotel and then turned right into Voortrekker Road. Off to the right hand or western side of Voortrekker Road there was at that time a disused Air Force Base with an old runway and an old hangar. These were separated from Voortrekker Road by a low wall, about one metre high. As the convoy moved along Voortrekker Road and past this wall, the convoy came under fire from behind the wall. People in the convoy jumped from their bakkies and sought shelter on the eastern side of the road. Major Serfontein said he saw that tracer bullets were being fired at the right-wingers. It was not automatic fire, rather the firing came from a number of weapons. From the fact that tracer bullets were used, which were not available to the civilian population, he concluded that the firing came from military personnel. The incident lasted about two minutes. It was during this that Van Rensburg was wounded. Thereafter the convoy continued out of the area without further hindrance.

All the Afrikaner Volksfront members had therefore departed from Bophuthatswana by the evening of Friday, 11 March 1994.

That the threat of an attack on the right-wingers by members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force was a very real one is borne out by the evidence of a large number of witnesses. It would also appear that one of the main reasons underlying this threat was a marked lack of communication to members of the Bophuthatswana Defence and Police Force, particularly the black members, of the fact that members of the Afrikaner Volksfront would be brought into the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area on the night of 10 March 1994 to assist in stabilising the situation there.

Dealing first with this lack of communication it is necessary to go back to certain events prior to the week of 7 to 12 March 1994. It will be recalled that President Mangope met with the leader group of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force to discuss their concerns about what would happen to the Bophuthatswana Defence Force and to them if Bophuthatswana did not re-incorporate into South Africa and told them that if they thought the South African Defence Force so attractive, they could go to it and he would get someone else to do their jobs. He repeated this when he addressed all the troops at a parade at Molopo Base during the week of 7 to 12 March 1994. He also stated publicly that he would, if necessary, call in others to assist him in the situation he faced without, however, saying who those others would be.

When the decision was taken to call in the aid of General Viljoen and his Afrikaner Volksfront men at the Security Council meeting on 8 March 1994, General Turner, as head of the Army, was present. There is some doubt as to whether General Seleke, as head of the Police, was there. He told the Commission he was present but not when the decision was taken. He did not see General Viljoen at the meeting although the latter was there throughout. President Mangope and Mr Cronje said General Seleke was present at the time. General Turner was not sure whether he was there or not. General Seleke said that because he was not there he did not know of the decision. President Mangope said that even if he was not there, General Seleke should have known of it from the documentation that was sent to Security Council members immediately following meetings of it. He, conceded, however, that he, as Minister of Police, had not told General Seleke about the decision. Whatever the position, General Seleke said he only heard of the presence of the right-wingers on 10 March 1994. His second in command, Brigadier D C Waller, testified that he first became aware of their presence when he saw groups of whites on vans as he was going to work on the Friday morning. He had heard shooting during the Thursday night but could not say where it had come from. It would seem therefore that the decision to call in the Afrikaner Volksfront was not communicated to the Police upper command. The ordinary policemen certainly knew nothing of them coming as was testified to by Colonel Hosking and Captain Tatisi. Insofar as the Army is concerned, Bophuthatswana Defence Force Regimental Sergeant-Major Phuduhudu said he was the link between the top structure of the Army and the troops. He was not told of the decision to invite in the Afrikaner Volksfront. He was bitter that this had not happened because if there was any joint planning with the right-wing he would have expected to be informed as he was responsible for conveying such information to the troops and for their discipline in any joint action. The troops were deeply resentful at the presence of right-wingers in the area. Colonel Focke, the Operational Commander and Acting Officer Commanding of No 1 Military Area under Colonel Swart, testified that on 10 March 1994 he was in charge of a Joint Operations Centre with the Bophuthatswana Police Force, situated between Mafikeng and Mmabatho. At between 14:00 and 15:00 that day members of the Bophuthatswana Police Force went to hand their memorandum to the South African Ambassador while others had laid down their arms at the university. Policing had thereafter ceased to exist and the Joint Operations Centre was then entirely in the hands of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. He was not told that the right-wingers had been invited into the area as, being one of the commanders of the Joint Operations Centre, he should have been His men therefore also did not know that they were coming. General Turner also conceded that when the Afrikaner Volksfront started moving in was the first that the troops knew about them. He said that as the decision for them to be brought in was only taken late on the Thursday afternoon, there was not enough time to follow the usual procedure of telling the troops beforehand.

It is clear that it was because of this lack of communication that neither the Police nor the Army members knew that the Afrikaner Volksfront had been invited to assist the Bophuthatswana Defence Force in guarding key buildings and installations until Parliament could meet on 15 March 1994 and that Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members had not. According to the evidence the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging were regarded by the public as racists who would act, with force if they thought fit, against the black population. The fact that both the Afrikaner Volksfront and Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging had come to Bophuthatswana clad for the most part in khaki clothing made it virtually impossible for the average person to differentiate between them.

By the Friday morning the public was aware that Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members were present in the area. Many of them were wearing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging insignia. It is also clear that by that time members of the public had also become victims of shooting by members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. Colonel Focke said that on that morning his men told him of the presence of the right-wingers and said that some of them were shooting people. He said that the troops became very upset and angry and demanded to know from him why the right-wingers were there. They said that if they got no answer they would take the law into their own hands and attack the Air Force Base where they knew the right-wingers were. Colonel Focke said he spoke to Brigadier Jordaan but the latter could give no satisfactory explanation for him to give to his troops of whom some 300 to 400 men, consisting of platoon and unit commanders as well as ordinary soldiers, had come to see him about the situation. At 14:00 on the Friday, General Turner met all the troops at the Molopo Base and told them what the situation was. He said the Afrikaner Volksfront members had been withdrawn from the strategic points to the Air Force Base and would be taken from the area. The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members would also be taken out. The troops said that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging had fired on their houses and families and were still roaming around. The troops said they wanted to attack the Air Force Base. General Turner said he was able to calm them down and persuade them not to do so.

The handing out of weapons to the Afrikaner Volksfront had also caused resentment and anger amongst the troops. During January 1994 about 150 R4 rifles were moved to the Air Force base from the Molopo Base. According to Sergeant-Major Moses Gaobidiwe this was done for safekeeping as the arms safe at Molopo Base was not in good condition while that at the Air Force Base was.

The troops, however, saw this as being sinister particularly when those arms were the ones handed out to the Afrikaner Volksfront members. Corporal Tebogo Moka said that on 9 March 1994 he and others were ordered to clean the R4's. There was no inventory of those weapons at the Air Force Base. He said that at about 15:00 on 10 March 1994 he saw General Viljoen at the Air Force Base. On 11 March 1994 he and a Sergeant Sautlweng saw a convoy with men in khaki clothing heading for the Air Force Base. They went there and saw that the black guards who were usually there were not present but the whole Base was filled with whites in khaki clothes, many of them armed with R4 rifles. He also saw a green Toyota Bophuthatswana Defence Force bakkie with a 20mm "cannon" on it parked in the main hangar. Corporal Moka said the man responsible for all this was a Staff Sergeant Greyling. He also said that Colonel Burger had a key to the weapons safe and often opened it. On Monday, 14 March 1994 they wanted to do a stocktaking of the weapons but Colonel Burger refused to allow them to do so. Corporal Moka had no comment to make when asked if he knew that the weapons had been moved because of the better facilities at the Air Force Base nor when asked if he knew that the weapons remained on strength at the Molopo Base which was why there was no inventory of them at the Air Force Base. He also had no comment when told that the stocktaking of the weapons was Colonel Burger's responsibility and he had done it personally. It is clear from Corporal Moka's suspicions as expressed in his evidence, even if unfounded, that the troops, due to the lack of communication of the facts to them, regarded the entire presence of the right-wingers, the distribution of the weapons to them and their deployment in Mmabatho with the utmost suspicion and resentment, particularly in the light of the activities of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members in the area.

The anger and resentment of the armed forces were also described by the commander of a special task force in the Bophuthatswana Defence Force, Lieutenant-Colonel Phillipus Marx. He testified that on 10 March 1994 he and his unit were told that Afrikaner Volksfront members were to enter Bophuthatswana and also that members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging had come into Mafikeng from the Zeerust direction. He went to Riviera Park and then to the Molopo Base for further orders. At the Base he saw two vehicles entering it, one with Colonel Botes and Lieutenant-Colonel Blignaut in it, the other with Mr Eugene Terre'Blanche and three other armed white men. Following discussions in the office of Colonel Swart they all went to the Operations Room where certain key points were established for when the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging would leave the area. Apart from General Turner, Brigadier Jordaan, Colonel Botes, Colonel Swart, himself and Mr Terre'Blanche there were also two black of ricers present viz. a lieutenant and a captain. On 11 March 1994 his instructions were to stabilise Mega City and hand it over to members of the Afrikaner Volksfront for them to guard it. He did so. At about noon at the Air Force base he found 200 -300 troops of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force who were very agitated and upset at the presence of right-wingers in Mmabatho.

He immediately contacted General Turner to suggest to him that the right-wingers should be withdrawn as his own men were greatly upset at their presence. General Turner said he had already given instructions for that to happen. Colonel Marx said he then heard of the skirmish near the TTA where the three members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging viz. Fourie, Uys and Wolfaardt were lying near their car. He went there and saw the three men. He tried to get ~ ambulance to take them to hospital. He first tried doing so over the telephone without success and then went off to the hospital to arrange for one. On his way there he was told over the radio that the three men had been shot dead. He found this to be so when he then returned to the scene. Colonel Marx said the unhappiness of his men continued throughout the day. At about 17:00 he and his unit came across the convoy of right-wingers near the Molopo Base that were busy leaving the area via the road to Zeerust. He went to the Base. While there he found himself isolated from all the other officers and surrounded by about 50 troops who were out of control. The gates of the Base were closed behind him and the men hurled insults at him. He decided to get away.

He drove the vehicle in which he was travelling through the wire fence encircling the Base but was fired on by the troops who were using a light machine gun. He continued through the fence but the wire wrapped itself around the axle of his vehicle. He then grabbed his R4 rifle, pistol and radio and hid under a bush until nightfall when he was able to make his way back to his unit. Colonel Marx denied that he had joined members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the day and fired on civilians. He also denied vigorously a suggestion put to him in cross-examination that he was an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging sympathiser. He described it as a "ridiculous suggestion". His own house, he said, had been attacked and looted. He also denied that when he had run from the Base and hidden that he had in fact run to join the right-wingers. That too, was a ridiculous allegation. It would appear from his cross-examination that certain of the troops believed him to have had Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging sympathies. Apart from the suggestions to that effect put to him there is, however, not a little of evidence to support those suggestions and the Commission is unable to find that they are substantiated in any way.

As will appear from the description of the individual deaths investigated by the Commission, the evidence is overwhelming that Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members were already roaming the streets of the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area on the Thursday afternoon and night and early on the Friday morning before going to the Air Force Base and were involved in a large number of incidents in which people were shot. In his statement to the Commission, Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging General Cruywagen sought to absolve his men from the blame for these incidents and to lay it at the door of the Afrikaner Volksfront on the basis that as the Afrikaner Volksfront and Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members were all khaki-clad, his men were being confused with the Afrikaner Volksfront whose members were responsible for the shooting. The evidence is, however, again overwhelming that those members of the Afrikaner Volksfront that came into the area were well disciplined men under a rigid command structure, who remained in their convoy into the Air Force Base and, save for those who were deployed for an hour or two in Mmabatho and then withdrawn to the Base, remained there throughout the Friday until escorted out of the area late that afternoon. In contrast the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members were roaming the streets at will and the evidence is that groups of men were seen leaving the Base throughout the day.

It is also not disputed that whereas the Afrikaner Volksfront members waited to be escorted out of the area late that afternoon, Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members decided to leave unescorted at about midday. They also did not choose to make their departure along the back routes along which it was agreed they should travel so as to avoid a confrontation with the population but chose to drive through the streets of Mmabatho and Mafikeng to reach the roads leading out of the area to the South African border. This evidence was that given by Lance Corporal Andy de Koker of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force, who saw the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging convoy approaching from the direction of the Air Force Base along the Vryburg-Mafikeng road. The men in it were wearing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging insignia. It was also given by Lieutenant Jafta Dikobe of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force who was with De Koker at the time, by Inspector Phaladi Mokgoko of the Bophuthatswana Police and by Colonel Hosking as well as by the large number of civilian witnesses who testified before the Commission in regard to the individual deaths, many of the deceased in those cases having been shot by members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging at that time. Their evidence is to be found in the detailed description of the individual deaths and need not be repeated here. It was also as the convoy was leaving the area that it was ambushed and brought under fire by units of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force leading to the deaths of the three Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members, Nicholaas Fourie, Jacobus Stephanus Uys and Alwyn Wolfaardt (Cases No 6, 55 and 59). The detailed evidence in regard thereto is set out in the discussion of Case No 6 and, once more, need not be repeated here. Both the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Generals Cruywagen and Jordaan in their unsworn statements described how the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members had left the Air Force Base, some in convoys and some on their own, in order to go home; how they had travelled through Mmabatho, as it was "the only route they knew"; and how they had been ambushed and fired upon by units of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force suffering not only the deaths of Messrs Fourie, Uys and Wolfaardt but also having others of their members wounded. By nightfall of Friday, 11 March 1994 therefore all the right-wingers had left the area and returned to South Africa.

Meanwhile early on the Friday morning a contingent of the South African Defence Force under Major-General (then Brigadier) Johan Coetzer entered Bophuthatswana and went to the enclave of the South African Embassy to protect it. General Coetzer testified that he and a brigade of the South African Defence Force had been engaged in training exercises in the Zeerust and Lichtenburg areas in the week before. They had been told to be on standby to go to Bophuthatswana if necessary. On Thursday, 10 March 1994 at about 23:00 he was told that the situation in Mmabatho had deteriorated and that people were driving about and shooting others. He was instructed by the head of the South African Defence Force, General G L Meiring, to have by 06:00 on Friday, five companies of men at the South African Embassy in order (a) to protect South Africans and their interests and (b) if requested by the Bophuthatswana Government, to help to stabilise the situation there.

General Turner testified that he had spoken early that morning to General Coetzer who had indicated the willingness of the South African Defence Force to assist if requested to do so. General Turner had, however, requested him not to do so until the Bophuthatswana Government negotiated with the South African authorities. It will be recalled that Bophuthatswana was still then an independent state and the South African Government and the Transitional Executive Council were bound by an Inter-State treaty between the two countries not to interfere in Bophuthatswana's affairs unless requested by the latter to render it assistance. General Turner said he then met with General Seleke and Mr Cronje. The situation looked really bad. He telephoned President Mangope at Motswedi and told him of the situation and how bad it was and requested him to see President F W de Klerk about it. President Mangope, however, asked Mr Cronje to go on his behalf to discuss the fact that Parliament would be sitting on the Tuesday when a decision would be made on participation in the South African election and a statement would then be issued which should calm the situation. General Turner said he thereafter met President Mangope personally at 10:00. President Mangope had heard of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging presence and of the shootings that had occurred and said that the security forces must get them out. The members of the Afrikaner Volksfront would remain. That, however, gave rise to an impossible position in having the Afrikaner Volksfront remain in the area as the public and the Army resented the presence of all the right-wingers. He told President Mangope that he felt they should immediately call in the South African Defence Force who were at the Embassy and willing to help. President Mangope appeared to agree but while they were talking Dr Ferdi Hartzenberg arrived and talked to the President whose mood then changed. He said that no South African Defence Force troops must at any stage be allowed into Bophuthatswana.

On Friday, 11 March 1994, Mr Mac Maharaj of the Transitional Executive Council and Mr Fanie van der Merwe, representing the South African Government, as the Joint Executive Secretaries of the Transitional Executive Council, were mandated by the Transitional Executive Council to travel to Mmabatho to provide the Transitional Executive Council with an on-the-spot assessment of the situation in 130phuthatswana. They attended a meeting at 15:00 at the South African Embassy at which General Meiring, General Van der Merwe, Mr "Rusty" Evans and General Turner, with Brigadier Jordaan were present. General Turner told those present that the situation was desperate. He reported that the Bophuthatswana Police had lost complete control and that he was also having difficulties with the members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. The Bophuthatswana administration had also collapsed and law and order in the country had ceased to exist. He wanted to ask the South African Defence Force to come into Bophuthatswana to help to stabilise the situation but he would have had to consult with President Mangope before doing so. General Meiring wanted immediately to deploy the South African Defence Force to restore law and order but Mr Maharaj wanted to report back to President F W de Klerk and Mr Nelson Mandela so that whatever action was taken as far as Bophuthatswana was concerned was mandated by them. Mr Maharaj telephoned Mr Cyril Ramaphosa who was with Mr Mandela and asked him to report what the situation was to Mr Mandela. Mr Van der Merwe reported in similar vein to Mr Roelf Meyer of the South African Government.

Meanwhile General Turner tried to contact President Mangope but was unable to do so. He then decided on his own as Chief of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force to ask the South African Defence Force for military assistance in accordance with the Inter-State Agreement between the two countries, a request to which General Meiring acceded. General Turner later reported what he had done to President Mangope who told him in no uncertain terms what he thought of him and of his decision. Nevertheless, at 17:00 the South African Defence Force forces under General Coetzer moved from the Embassy to the Molopo Base where General Coetzer asked Colonel Focke to assemble the troops in order to tell them that the stabilisation of the situation would be a joint operation of the South African Defence Force and the Bophuthatswana Defence Force. Acting together they brought the situation under control.

Once again it was, Mr Peter Waugh who described how this took place. He said that a Joint Operations Centre of senior officers of the South African Police and South African Defence Force was set up. He attended a meeting at this Joint Operations Centre at 18:00 where those present were briefed on the deployment of South African Defence Force members at certain strategic points. Community leaders were to be told that the South African Defence Force would henceforth be in control of the situation, the aim being to try to get people's lives back to normal as soon as possible. The Mayor went on the CON network - the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation still then not broadcasting news bulletins - to call for calm and for people to go back to work. On Saturday and Sunday, 12 and 13 March 1994, policing returned to normal. Members of the Bophuthatswana Police and Defence Forces also joined the Joint Operations Centre. Services were re-established and on Monday, 14 March 1994 about 80% of people had returned to work and things in the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area began to be normal once again. An unfortunate aftermath of the events of the previous week, however, said Mr Waugh was that the community had become a divided one. Relations up to then between blacks and whites had been excellent and were based on mutual trust and respect. The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging invasion largely destroyed that with the blacks not trusting the whites. That trust and the good relationship had to be built up all over again.

The role of the South African Police in stabilising matters was described by Brigadier Pierre Wessels. He said that the intention was that the South African Police under his command would co-operate with and support the Bophuthatswana Police and Defence Forces in restoring law and order. Brigadier Wessels said that the command structure of the Bophuthatswana Police Force like the Bophuthatswana Police Force generally was non-existent. He was, however, prepared to accept that he would come under the command of General Seleke. Their first priority was to see to it that there was a police presence and visibility on the streets of Mmabatho/Mafikeng. They also drove through the streets and, using a loudhailer, called on people to pack the goods they had looted out on the pavements. The public co-operated and literally millions of rends worth of goods were recovered in this way for which the business community expressed their praise for the South African Police's actions. Brigadier Wessels denied emphatically that any members of the public had been shot by any of his men in the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area and in particular by members of the Internal Stability Unit. The South African Police, he said, had come into the area when all shootings has stopped. While this may be so in the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area, as appears from the detailed discussion of the deaths in the other areas, it is likely that some of these were caused by members of the Internal Stability Unit.

General Seleke was two days later relieved of his post and General Gaobepe took over command. In the light of what had occurred in the Bophuthatswana Police Force in the previous week this was hardly surprising. Mention has been made earlier of the animosity of the general public to the Police Force, as a whole and to its Chief, General Seleke, in particular.

Colonel Hosking described how policemen and women were being intimidated and their families and homes threatened. He personally and members of his unit had been pelted with stones and bricks. Colonel Hosking said that he and others like him got no orders or directions from their superior officers.. He said that at about 16:30 on 10 March 1994 he received instructions from General Seleke to take what arms and vehicles he could and to go to the South African Embassy to arrest Lieutenant Lethlogile, who had led the deputation to present a memorandum to the South African Ambassador. Lieutenant Lethlogile was not there. At the university he saw a burning police Nyala but there was no sign there either of Lethlogile. By that time there was considerable looting taking place particularly at Mega City which was also on fire. The looting had also spread to Mafikeng. He and a small group with him had to disperse a crowd of looters. He returned to Police Headquarters where he told General Seleke that he could not control the situation in Mafikeng without reinforcements and arms. He was issued with arms and ammunition and was able to return to Mafikeng to patrol there. The next day he and a Colonel Hodson went into Mafikeng where they saw roving groups of youths in the town. The atmosphere was very tense. On their way back to Police Headquarters they were stopped by a military policeman of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force who was frantic, shouting that the whites were shooting blacks. He heard sounds of shooting coming from the Vryburg/Mafikeng road. A convoy of civilian vehicles - bakkies and cars - drove past in the direction of Mafikeng.

Colonel Hosking said, "it was like World War II", with the convoy and the units of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force firing at one another. It was over in a few minutes and people then shouted that the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging had been ambushed and people killed. Colonel Hosking said that throughout Thursday afternoon and Friday a paramount difficulty was He lack of direction and orders from the top officers. Captain Tatisi echoed this statement. He added that on 10 March 1994 the dissatisfaction among the police with General Seleke reached a climax with some members calling for his resignation and others saying he should be arrested. General Seleke was "100% in favour of the Mangope regime". Other senior officers took the opposite view. It was on that afternoon that as set out above one group mutinied and the other presented a memorandum to the South African Embassy.

General Seleke's actions during the rioting and what he did to try and control it calls for comment.

General Seleke said that police were guarding Government buildings, schools and shopping centres. He brought in some 200 - 300 police into the area. Despite this, however, it was not possible to stop the looting. He ordered the minimum amount of force to be used in order to prevent lives being endangered. No arrests were made as there would have been no point in doing so. There were simply not enough police to maintain law and order. As stated by Colonel Sedumedi there was a small number of police who tried to carry out their work properly but the situation throughout Bophuthatswana had got completely out of hand. Earlier, i.e. at the end of February or the beginning of March, due to the growing unrest with the demonstrations and marches on the increase a Joint Operations Centre was created to try and contain the unrest. It consisted of Defence Force and Police Officers. The Joint Operations Centre also lost its police participation following the handing over of the police memorandum to the South African Embassy and the mutinying of the further section of the police. General Gaobepe, who was in March 1994 a Brigadier and then the Assistant Commissioner of Police responsible for operations, also expressed his dismay and dissatisfaction with not having been informed that a contingent of right-wingers was to enter the Mmabatho/Mafikeng area. He, as the person in charge of operations within the Police Force, should have been told of this. He found it strange that General Seleke did not know of it. Had the latter known of it, he should have communicated it to General Gaobepe. The presence of the right-wingers and the mayhem of 10 March 1994 was of little concern, it seems, to General Seleke. He said that at between 17:00 and 18:00 he and General Gaobepe heard that one of the dissident policemen, Lieutenant Modirwe, had taken a rifle and a pistol belonging to the police. They had gone in search of him and found him in Mega City where they had recovered the firearms and arrested him. General Gaobepe said that his purpose in going with General Seleke was to assess the situation at Mega City and that finding Lieutenant Modirwe there was coincidental. However, this was, according to his testimony, not General Seleke's purpose. The fact that he was more concerned with the arrest of Lieutenant Lethlogile and the arrest and recovery of firearms from Lieutenant Modirwe rather than dealing with the unrest in the country is evidence of what Colonel Hosking said of General Seleke viz. a total lack of appreciation of the realities and seriousness of the situation in Bophuthatswana at the time by the head of its police services. This, and the resultant dissatisfaction of the members of the Police Force with his command of them, leading eventually to the complete collapse of the police services was a major contributing factor in the breakdown of law and order in Bophuthatswana.

Reverting to the events of Saturday, 12 March 1994, i.e. after the South African Defence and Police Forces had been called into and had entered Bophuthatswana on the previous afternoon to assist in stabilising the situation there, an emergency meeting of the Management Committee of the Transitional Executive Council was held in Pretoria on that Saturday evening. It was adjourned to Mmabatho later that day. Apart from the chaos and conditions of virtual anarchy that had prevailed in Bophuthatswana the attitude of President Mangope to the political situation there was of deep and urgent concern to the Transitional Executive Council. One of the aspects of the political situation was the question of the taking part by the people of Bophuthatswana in the upcoming South African general election.

This refusal of President Mangope to allow the Independent Electoral Commission to provide the necessary facilities for those wishing to vote in the election was one of the major items discussed at the aforesaid meeting.

Following the discussions at that meeting, certain far-reaching decisions were taken. As a result that evening the South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Pik Botha, together with the Joint Secretaries of the Transitional Executive Council, Mr Maharaj and Mr van der Merwe, and with General Meiring, and the South African Ambassador Professor Tjaart van der Walt, went to see President Mangope at Motswedi. He was informed that as his administration had collapsed and because of the situation that had occurred over Thursday and Friday, 10 and 1 1 March 1994 it had been decided that he should step down as President in the interests of peace in the country, of restoring law and order and of saving lives. He was told that his presidency was no longer recognised by the South African Government and the Transitional Executive Council and that therefore he was no longer head of the Government in Bophuthatswana. His own personal safety and that of his family would be guaranteed. A contingent of the South African Defence Force was assigned to see to that. President Mangope's own perception of what happened that evening differs somewhat. He said he was told by the delegation that he was being deposed as President because of the riots, atrocities perpetrated and properties being burnt down. He said he told the delegation that he had done nothing wrong or unconstitutional and that they had no right to depose him. He said it was the African National Congress which was responsible for the riots, its policy being to make the country ungovernable and so to topple his government. He said he told the delegation that Parliament would be sitting on the following Tuesday and that they would decide the question of re-incorporation and participation in the election. It is common cause that the delegation refused to allow that to happen. As Mr Botha, said to have allowed any further delay could well have resulted in the chaotic conditions continuing and further loss of life. President Mangope also said that he was placed under house arrest, but was told on Wednesday, 16 March 1994 that that was no longer the position. This, he said, was done in order to harass him and his family. Be that as it may, the fact is that effectively the Mangope regime ceased as from that weekend. The South African Ambassador, Professor Tjaart van der Walt and Mr Job Mokgoro were appointed the Joint Administrators of Bophuthatswana and took over the running of the country. They immediately issued a decree, the Administration of Bophuthatswana Decree 1 of 1994 suspending substantial portions of the constitution of Bophuthatswana, including its Bill of Rights, to enable the participation of the citizens in the South African election to occur.

Having regard to the remarks of President Mangope about the African National Congress it is necessary to discuss the role of the organisation in the background to the events of 10 and 11 March 1994. The Commission has already dealt to some extent with the stance of the African National Congress towards Bophuthatswana. It is, however, convenient to analyse its role somewhat more fully.

As has been set out earlier herein, the African National Congress did not recognise the legitimacy of the homelands created by the Nationalist Party government in South Africa. One of those was, of course, Bophuthatswana. The African National Congress's point of view was that these were part of the apartheid structure and that, should it come to power, they would be dismantled and reincorporated into South Africa. It is also common cause that the African National Congress did not register as a political party in Bophuthatswana. The reason for that, as stated by Mr Maharaj in his evidence, was that the organisation was not going to register as a political party in a country, the legitimate existence of which it did not recognise. There has also been a mass of evidence to the effect that free political activity in Bophuthatswana was oppressed. The Commission had sight of the minutes of the meetings of the Transitional Executive Council in which at almost every meeting complaints of suppression of free political activity, of the breaking up of political meetings by the Bophuthatswana Police, often with the use of force and violence, of the harassment of those wishing to exercise political rights such as students, teachers and political organisations, made to the Transitional Executive Council with requests that it should take steps to ensure that free political activity be allowed without hindrance. These reports and complaints came from Lawyers for Human Rights, whose offices were on occasion raided by the police. One of the organisations whose activities were suppressed was the African National Congress. The evidence of Mr Popo Molefe as to Police harassment and the raiding by Police of African National Congress offices has been set out earlier herein. It has also been set out earlier that the African National Congress from 1993 began increasing its political activity. Mr Maharaj and Mr Molefe both stated that part of the African National Congress's strategy in its struggle against apartheid was mass action. It is clear that this was also to be part of the African National Congress's campaign in Bophuthatswana. A minute of a meeting of a so-called Alliance Campaign Committee held on 18 May 1993 where certain resolutions were adopted for an anti-Bophuthatswana campaign was put before the Commission. This included the setting in progress of mass action. Certain Intelligence documents came into the possession of the Commission. These documents had they been available at the time may, during the course of the evidence of those witnesses who testified on behalf of the African National Congress have been useful to cast further light on their evidence in regard to the role of the African National Congress. The documents suggest that there is substance in the allegations that it was part of the African National Congress planning to infiltrate not only the civil service but also the Police and the Armed Forces. There is, however, no direct evidence that this planning was in fact implemented. The documents mentioned, however, does not affect the Commission's findings in regard to the role of the African National Congress. It is undoubted that there were African National Congress sympathisers in all the bodies mentioned and that they both encouraged and took part in the strike action embarked upon by the civil servants, hospital staff, teachers and broadcasting employees. It is, however, clear to the Commission that although it was the aim of the African National Congress to bring about the demise of the homelands, it was not it who in the event brought about the strikes of public servants, teachers, nursing and hospital staffs and of those in the broadcasting services although members of the African National Congress participated in them. The evidence is overwhelming that these strikes, which started with the public service, originated spontaneously among the members of the various sections of the community themselves. It has already been seen how the public servants in October 1993 formed first a Task Team to discuss their concerns and demands with the Government and when these were not met and President Mangope ordered the forcible dispersing of a meeting of public servants at Ga-Rona Square, a Crisis Committee was formed which led to 52 departments going on strike and the complete collapse of the public service. This was followed by the strikes in the other sectors mentioned. In none of these was the African National Congress the motivating force. That it supported and encouraged the mass action cannot be doubted but that it caused it to take place would, in the Commission's view, be attributing an undeserved importance to the role of the African National Congress in those events.

One of the other factors that requires consideration is the allegation that large numbers of African National Congress cadres, intent on armed conflict were set to enter Bophuthatswana on the weekend of 12 and 13 March 1994. Mr Rowan Cronje, General Viljoen and General Turner all referred to a three-phase revolutionary strategy which the African National Congress was allegedly following in order to topple the Mangope Government viz.:

1. Quiet mass action in which public servants, teachers and nurses went on strike. 2. A more violent phase in which burning and looting occurred. 3. An extremely violent phase in which military activity, including shooting would occur.

All three testified that when the decision was taken by the National Security Council on 8 March 1994 to call in the assistance of General Viljoen and the "Boere People's Army" of the Afrikaner Volksfront, if necessary, it was reported that the third phase was planned to take place over the weekend mentioned and that on 10 March 1994 it was reported that some 6000 armed African National Congress cadres were massing preparatory to entering Bophuthatswana. Intelligence reports contain reference to these rumours. Both Mr Maharaj and Mr Molefe denied this. Mr Maharaj was adamant that in terms of what was known as the Pretoria Minute the African National Congress on 6 August 1990 suspended armed operations and the armed struggle and had never reneged on its undertaking to do so. As a senior official of the African National Congress, he said, he knew there had been no plan to resume the armed struggle. It would therefore not have entertained the action alleged. Mr Molefe denied Mat there was any contemplation of the alleged armed action. The Commission had no evidence before it of the massing of any body of persons either on Thursday, 10 March 1994 or on the days preceding it. Mr Cronje reported having received hearsay evidence of people having been wounded near the Bophuthatswana border a day or two before the Thursday. No positive evidence to that effect was forthcoming. Moreover, even if someone had been wounded there is no evidence to suggest that it was by an African National Congress member. Furthermore, as stated by Mr Maharaj, if 6000 people had massed on the border it would have been immediately detected. The South African Intelligence Service was aware within hours of their mobilisation of the movement of some 700 Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members towards the border and it is inconceivable that they would not have been aware of 6000 - or even a few hundred - men massing somewhere, particularly if they were armed. Additionally, Brigadier Serfontein's brigade was in the area, monitoring the border with Bophuthatswana. It would undoubtedly have known

if a large group of armed men had gathered. Mr Maharaj said similar stories had all proved to be false and had usually been put out by intelligence to manipulate a situation; in other words it was disinformation. It must also be remembered that on 8 March 1994 the so-called second step in the alleged three-phase strategy had not taken place and this, too, was not prompted or initiated by the African National Congress but was sparked off spontaneously when after the mutinying of the Police on Thursday afternoon and all policing effectively ceased, the mobs took to the streets on their own to burn and loot.

In the light of the aforegoing and in the absence of any evidence to establish it, the Commission finds that there was no massing of African National Congress cadres on Thursday, 10 March 1994 who were preparing to enter Bophuthatswana with a view to armed action there.

Having regard, therefore, to the totality of the evidence as to the role of the African National Congress the view of the Commission is that such role in respect of the events leading to the violence on 10 and 11 March 1994 has been over emphasised.

It is a matter of history that within a month of his being deposed, President Mangope brought an application in the Bophuthatswana Supreme Court against the Joint Administrators in which he sought an order declaring their appointment as Administrators of no force and effect and the decree suspending the constitution of Bophuthatswana null and void or, alternatively declaring the suspension of Chapter 2 of the Constitution i.e. the Bill of Rights null and void.

He accepted that Bophuthatswana re-incorporate into South Africa and that its people would participate in the election on 27 April 1994. He also did not claim his own reinstatement. The application was heard by Mr Justin R G Comrie who on 18 April 1994 dismissed it, with costs. The demise of President Mangope was complete. Following the elections on 27 April 1994, in which those in Bophuthatswana eligible to do so took part, the Status of Bophuthatswana Act, No 89 of 1977 was repealed in terms of Section 230 (1) of the Interim Constitution (Act 200 of 1993) and Bophuthatswana as an independent state ceased formally to exist on 27 April 1994 and was re-incorporated officially into South Africa on that day.