- CAPE TOWN, South Africa --
The South African civil rights group AfriForum has lodged a submission
to the country's national prosecution authority (NPA), stating that they
intended to lodge formal war-crime charges against 37 leading members of
the ruling African National Congress, one of whom is the country's president
Thabo Mbeki and its police chief Jackie Selebi. AfriForum said the 'footsoldiers'
who had carried out the Operation Cetshwayo orders had applied for amnesty
through the Truth and Reconciliation commission - but those like Mbeki
and Selebi, who had been ultimately responsible for approving the bombing
campaign against South African civilians, had not taken any responsibility
for it.
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- One of the complainants is South African terror-victim
Mr Dirk van Eck, who lost more than half his family during the ANC's terrorist
campaign . He is still trying to discuss the issue with the office of the
president and has tried, thus far unsuccessfully, to try and hold a meeting
with the director-general of the presidential office, Frank Chikane.
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- Van Eck is among the many victims of Operation Cetshwayo
who want to determine whether or not the 37 ANC-leaders who had approved
Operation Cetshwayo including Thabo Mbeki and police chief Jackie Selebi,
should be charged with crimes against humanity.
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- AfriForum spokesman Kallie Kriel said cases like Van
Eck's are contained in their 140-page report about the civil rights violations
carried out against civilian South Africans by the African National Congress
and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). Kriel said
that at the ANC-conference in 1985 at Kabwe, top ANC-leaders such as Mbeki
and Selebi had formally approved the use of mines and other explosives
against South African civilians in the murderous terror campaign they had
given the name "Operation Cetshwayo.' (after the last king of an wholly
independent Zulu nation, 1879).
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- LINk to Operation Cetshwayo Truth and Reconciliation
Commission testimony:
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- http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/decisions/2000/ac20111.htm
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- "Foot soldiers' of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed
branch of the African National Congress such as Abboobaker Ismael abd Solly
Zacharia were sent into South Africa by Mbeki, Selebi and other members
of the ANC-executive in exile, to set off many explosions during which
a great many civilians of all races were also killed: there were also many
attacks against police stations such as the bombing of John Vorster Square
police headquarters on 5 March 1986 but most of the explosions had targetted
public places which were frequented by civilians such as the limpet mine
attack at the Department of Community Development in Johannesburg on 3
December 1983, three explosions at a Brakpan shopping centre on 15 May
1985, the limpet mine attack at the Medical Centre, Johannesburg on 30
May 1985, the explosion at the Southern Cross Fund offices on 31 May 1985
and the limpet mine attack at Capital Park electricity substation during
1981; the Johannesburg Magistrates Court bombing during 1987, the attack
on Uncle Tom's Administration offices during 1980 and the unsuccesful attempted
sabotage at Watloo Petrol depot; the bombing of Johannesburg Magistrates
Court and the devastating bombing of Church Street in Pretoria - for which
the explosives had been smuggled in through a diplomatic pouch of The Netherlands
by a Dutch anti-apartheid activist who has since received amnesty for her
deed.
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- LINK to more testimony on Operation Cetshwayo:
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- http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/decisions/2000/ac200195.htm
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- Mbeki and Selebi 'could be charged with crimes against
humanity"
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- AfriForum's Kriel said that 'if this matter cannot be
resolved during this meeting with Chikane, they may 'well face the unappetising
task' of charging SA president Thabo Mbeki and the police chief Jackie
Selebi -- two of the 37 names listed as those who had formally approved
Operation Cetshwayo -- 'with very serious crimes against humanity"
including war-crimes.
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- The point which they wanted to emphasize to Chikane in
the meeting requested by Van Eck, was "that we wanted to close off
all those questions from the past without having one side being privileged
over the other side." The SA regime had recently announced that they
wanted to prosecute several apartheid-era government ministers for ordering
an attack on a camp in Angola housing ANC-exiles.
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- http://www.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2158672,00.html
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