No Fear, No Favour, Just Justice for ALL.........
12 MAR 2013 20:47 - JUSTINE GERARDY
The remains of two youths were exhumed nearly 25 years after they went missing in a disappearance linked to Nelson Mandela's former wife Winnie.
Stratcom, the propoganda apparatus of the apartheid security police, used Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as a tool to discredit the entire African National Congress, the Truth and Reconciliation Commision was told on Friday.
12 MAR 2013 20:47 - JUSTINE GERARDY
The remains of two youths were exhumed nearly 25 years after they went missing in a disappearance linked to Nelson Mandela's former wife Winnie.
The remains of two South African youths were exhumed on Tuesday, nearly 25 years after they went missing in an apartheid-era disappearance linked to Nelson Mandela's former wife Winnie. Forensic teams uncovered the skeletons believed to be of Corlett "Lolo" Sono (21) and Siboniso Anthony Shabalala (19) in a Soweto cemetery.
"Two graves were excavated which we believe contain the remains of two activists who disappeared in 1988," said Phindi Louw, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority.
"The remains are now taken to the lab where forensic tests and DNA tests will be done just to confirm if they are indeed the remains of the two people."
The pair – who served as couriers for the anti-apartheid military wing of the African National Congress – were found stabbed to death in November 1988.
The two activists' disappearance were linked to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela during the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up after 1994's democracy to address apartheid atrocities.
The body's final report concluded that she "must accept responsibility for the disappearance" of the pair who were last seen alive at her home.
Madikizela-Mandela, whose husband was jailed at the time, denied any involvement in the killings. Further investigations are being carried out by the police.
"We have to wait for the South African Police Service to hand over the docket to us and then that's when we will decide whether to prosecute or not," Louw told AFP.
The exhumation follows an investigation by the missing persons unit of the prosecutions agency, which tries to track down people who went missing in apartheid's dark days.
Photographs of the bodies were identified by the family. The two youths had been buried as unidentified persons among paupers.
"It was quite emotional" for the families, said Louw about Tuesday's exhumation, with reports of songs filling the air at the gravesites.
Sono's father Nicodemus told a hearing that the last time he saw his son was in Madikizela-Mandela's company.
He testified that the anti-apartheid firebrand said she was taking his badly beaten son away as he had been accused of spying.
"I pleaded with Winnie for more than an hour not to take my son away, but in vain," Sono told the commission.
His wife Caroline demanded answers outside a Johannesburg hearing. "She's the woman who murdered our children. I will not rest until I find my son's remains. I want Lolo," she was quoted as saying.
During the 1980s, Madikizela-Mandela surrounded herself with a ruthless band of bodyguards known as the Mandela United Football Club.
She was convicted in 1991 on kidnapping and assault charges over the killing of a young activist three years earlier. The jail term was reduced to a fine. – Sapa-AFP
Mail & Guardian
OHANNESBURG Nov 28 - SAPA
STRATCOM USED WINNIE TO DISCREDIT ANC: MCPHERSON
Former Stratcom head Vic McPherson said during the 1980s various disinformation campaigns were launched to discredit the ANC, to promote disunity between the ANC and SA Communist Party, and to sow division within the ranks of the liberation movement.
Articles were placed in South African and international newspapers discrediting Madikizela-Mandela with "several notable successes", according to documents submitted to the TRC from a Stratcom disinformation campaign known as Operation Romulus.
A document entitled "Dissemination of suitable material re Winnie Mandela abroad: Discreditation of the ANC", said a "veritable mass of material" was forwarded to the media "with the specific objective of using Winnie Mandela... to discredit the ANC as a whole".
Articles highly critical of Madikizela-Mandela appeared in early 1991 in leading British newspapers The Sunday Times, The Times, The Independent, Daily Express and other newspapers.
An article appeared in the United States Vanity Fair entitled "How bad is Winnie Mandela?" The document was written by former Stratcom operative Paul Erasmus, who took the stand with McPherson, and signed on June 20, 1991 by his section head, a Major GHB Bruwer.
McPherson said: "The subject, Winnie Mandela, was considered as a revolutionary."
McPherson said he would not apologise to Madikizela-Mandela for smear campaigns, because at the time the country was at war. This included psychological warfare.
McPherson said TRC chairman Achbishop Desmond Tutu was also a Stratcom subject.
Deputy TRC chairman Alex Boraine asked if opposition politicians in Parliament were also on the list. "Why was I on the list?" Boraine asked. Mcpherson answered that there were hundreds of people on the list.
© South African Press Association, 1997
This text is for information only and may not be published or reprinted without the permission of the South African Press Association
SAPA
COMMENTS BY SONNY
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela got away with these crimes against humanity for far too long.
Paul Erasmus, her SB (STRATCOM) confidant can vouch for that.
Hope to see him at her trial.
She should have been the honorary CEO of GOODYEAR TYRES...... and on the board of directors of the Lion Match Company!
THIS TRIAL WILL BE HELD TO TAKE ATTENTION OFF JACOB ZUMA.
No comments:
Post a Comment