Beste Apartheid podcaster (2024)

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Trailer - South Africa’s Human Spirit 7:02

3+ y ago7:02

7:02

This documentary transports the listener through raw sound to the unprecedented public hearings at which survivors - victims, perpetrators and others – testified about gross human rights abuses since 1960. It contains award-winning stories with lots of gripping and contextual sound. Well-known musicians, storytellers, poets, former political prison…

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S1E1: bones of memory - unlock the horror 19:14

3+ y ago19:14

19:14

The first week of Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in East London was an exceptional one in South Africa. Nothing like the miracle election of April 1994. Nothing like the Government of National Unity. And nothing like South Africa’s unifying sport victories. Mid-April 1996 was a week in which the country and its people came face to fac…

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S1E2: bones of memory - crystal clear memories 16:58

3+ y ago16:58

16:58

The next Truth Commission hearing into gross human rights abuses at Athlone in Cape Town was also filled with protracted pain. But it was a week flavoured and characterised by the undertones of the Western Cape, where tensions were still entrenched within communities. The victims of the 1993 St James Church massacre echoed the forgiveness of the Cr…

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S1E3: bones of memory - hell on earth 12:50

3+ y ago12:50

12:50

The Truth Commission’s symbolic hearings into gross human rights abuses moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg between April and May 1996. Again a number of themes were raised under the ceiling and the cross of the Central Methodist Church, where the hearing was held. For the first time an ordinary apartheid policeman came across as being sympathetic…

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S1E4: bones of memory - a glaring gap 18:35

3+ y ago18:35

18:35

The Truth Commission wrapped up its symbolic round of public hearings into gross human rights abuses in Durban on the 10th of May 1996. Evidence heard at the Jewish Club provided some insight into the violence that was still ravaging KwaZulu-Natal long after South Africa’s first democratic elections had brought peace to most of the country. Many AN…

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S2: slices of life - last will and testament 1:18

3+ y ago1:18

1:18

"Last will and testament" - Ariel Dorfman Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/slicesright.htm#last the imprisonment under apartheid of all south africans - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually © SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.…

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S2E1: slices of life - you kill one, you kill all! 9:35

3+ y ago9:35

9:35

The Truth Commission’s first-ever partial event hearing took place at the Regina Mundi Catholic Church in Soweto in mid-July 1996. The focus was the twentieth anniversary of the June 16 Soweto uprising – the day thousands of black children revolted against the apartheid system of Bantu Education and Afrikaans as the medium of instruction. All hell …

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S2: slices of life - a butcher's fridge 2:45

3+ y ago2:45

2:45

The Truth Commission went behind bars in July 1997 to investigate gross human rights abuses committed in the apartheid prisons and ANC camps in exile. One of the aims of the two-day hearing was to record the memories of so many political prisoners whose lives were wasted. Another was to recommend to government ways of creating a human rights cultur…

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S2E2: slices of life - the call for blood 10:13

3+ y ago10:13

10:13

The National Party in the form of its leader, FW de Klerk, appeared before the Truth Commission in Cape Town in August 1996 and May 1997. De Klerk accepted responsibility for the wrongs in South Africa while he was president from 1989 to 1994. He admitted to authorising certain operations against the liberation movements. But those operations, said…

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S2E3: slices of life - stand fully naked 7:29

3+ y ago7:29

7:29

She was proud to be a revolutionary. And proud to be an African woman. But she had no idea how she would be battered physically, mentally and emotionally for her beliefs. By the apartheid Security Police, the prison authorities and even her own sisters in the struggle. She was Greta Appelgren, the ANC’s woman in the 1986 Magoo’s Bar bombing in Durb…

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S2E4: slices of life - just war 11:20

3+ y ago11:20

11:20

The ANC presented the longest and most complicated political submission to the Truth Commission when it was called to account for its past in 1996 and 1997. The former liberation movement acknowledged that some of its members committed gross human rights violations in exile, but called these abuses "excesses". It also admitted that its military tri…

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S2E5: slices of life - my brother's bones 5:40

3+ y ago5:40

5:40

Five commissions of inquiry investigated torture in the ANC camps abroad during the liberation struggle against apartheid. They were the Stuart, Skweyiya, Sachs, Motsuenyane and Douglas commissions. Yet several victims jailed in the ANC’s notorious Quatro Camp in Angola were dissatisfied with their findings and turned to the Truth Commission for he…

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S2E6: slices of life - in the corridors 8:23

3+ y ago8:23

8:23

Who was ultimately responsible for gross human rights abuses committed in the name of apartheid and Christianity? And why did almost all apartheid foot soldiers interpret veiled orders like "eliminate" and "neutralise" to mean "kill"? These questions prompted the Truth Commission to hold a hearing into the once-powerful State Security Council in mi…

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S2E7: slices of life - above it all 5:31

3+ y ago5:31

5:31

The apartheid legal system came under the Truth Commission’s gavel in October 1997. It wanted to know how did judges and lawyers co-operate or collude with the National Party government? Why did South Africa’s learned men uphold unjust laws? And why did they fail to protect the human rights of all South Africans? But the men who could have answered…

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S2E8: slices of life - salute me! 6:01

3+ y ago6:01

6:01

Convicted former president PW Botha was the one crucial apartheid politician who could have shed more light on the official sanctioning of gross human rights violations. Botha chaired the State Security Council from 1978 to 1989. But instead of succumbing to the Truth Commission, Botha chose to face the court system for eight months and lost. Georg…

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S2E9: slices of life - doctor death 9:42

3+ y ago9:42

9:42

The apartheid government’s top-secret Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme sealed the Truth Commission’s investigations into gross human rights abuses on the 31st of July 1998. South Africans and the world listened with disbelief and then shock to a group of doctors who perverted science to entrench white supremacy. Truth Commission Chairperso…

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S3E1: worlds of licence - the tribe 8:11

3+ y ago8:11

8:11

The Truth Commission's first public amnesty hearing was held in the relatively obscure village of Phokeng near Rustenburg in May 1996. The applicants were two convicts serving time for murdering Glad Mokgatle on the 29th of December 1990. They were 35-year-old Boy Diale and 53-year-old Christopher Makgale. Their amnesty hearing revealed a dramatic …

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S3E2: worlds of licence - bluegum tree 6:49

3+ y ago6:49

6:49

The Amnesty Committee's first public hearing of convicted white Afrikaans perpetrators was also its first rejection of amnesty. Forty-seven-year-old Hennie Gerber and 42-year-old Johan van Eyk appeared before the amnesty panel in Pretoria in July 1996. Gerber and Van Eyk were former policemen and ex-investigators with the cash-in-transit company Fi…

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S3E3: worlds of licence - return to their land 8:06

3+ y ago8:06

8:06

The first apartheid security force member to testify in public and be granted amnesty was police captain Brian Mitchell of New Hanover in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. Mitchell appeared before the Amnesty Committee in Pietermaritzburg in October 1996. His 30-year prison sentence was expunged within two months, on the eve of the initial deadline for a…

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S3E4: worlds of licence - bits and pieces 5:11

3+ y ago5:11

5:11

They became known as the Five Cops: Jack Cronje, Jacques Hechter, Paul van Vuuren, Wouter Mentz and Roelf Venter. Between them, they committed more than 60 gross violations of human rights while attached to Vlakplaas and the Northern Transvaal Security Branch in the late eighties. These included the murders of Dr Fabian and Florence Ribeiro in Mame…

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S3E5: worlds of licence - till the day I die 9:18

3+ y ago9:18

9:18

He was unknown to the Security Police at Vlakplaas near Pretoria until they were told to "make a plan" with him. Several banning orders, long days in detention and a spell on Robben Island had failed to break his spirit and crush his fight against apartheid. He was Griffiths Mxenge, the human rights lawyer who vigorously defended ANC comrades. So t…

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S3: worlds of licence - raking through the rubble 2:04

3+ y ago2:04

2:04

The murder of Sizwe Kondile - Dirk Coetzee Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/worldsright.htm#raking worlds of licence - self-confessed violators of human rights from across south africa's political landscape © SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.…

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S3E6: worlds of licence - in the eye 8:42

3+ y ago8:42

8:42

One of South Africa's most sacrilegious violations of human rights was the July 1993 rifle and grenade attack on the St James Church in Cape Town. Eleven parishioners were killed and about 60 others seriously injured or maimed for life. Three of the men responsible for the Sunday massacre were Apla cadres: Khaya Makoma, Bassie Mkhumbuzi and Thobela…

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S3E7: worlds of licence - what kind of man are you? 9:54

3+ y ago9:54

9:54

Surviving victims of gross human rights abuses continued to steer the Truth Commission's Amnesty Committee into uncharted territory in mid-July 1997. Until then, the amnesty script was predominantly couched in legalities, with only judges and lawyers jogging the memories of both perpetrator and victim. But all this changed during the amnesty hearin…

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S3E8: worlds of licence - I believe in the cause 10:53

3+ y ago10:53

10:53

One incident that pushed South Africa to the brink of anarchy was the assassination of Communist Party leader Chris Hani. Millions loved him for his role in the ANC's armed wing, his militant speeches against white supremacy and his promise to uplift the poor. For these same reasons, apartheid supporters detested him. And on the 10th of April 1993,…

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S3E9: worlds of licence - the fatal blow 9:16

3+ y ago9:16

9:16

The Truth Commission was a bitter pill to swallow for the family of black consciousness leader Steve Bantu Biko. But it was even harder for them to accept when five former security policemen applied for amnesty in 1997 for "causing" Biko's death 20 years earlier. It seemed as if Biko's killers would finally tell the truth about how he suffered brai…

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S3E10: worlds of licence - I can't forgive them! 8:34

3+ y ago8:34

8:34

They became known as the Cradock Four: Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli. On the 27th of June 1985, these four men left the small Eastern Cape town of Cradock for a meeting of the United Democratic Front in Port Elizabeth. A few days later, their mutilated and charred bodies were found in the bush outside the city. Con…

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S3E11: worlds of licence - fires of revolution 8:36

3+ y ago8:36

8:36

The ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, bombed various places in South Africa in the 1980s. The late ANC president, Oliver Tambo, better known as "OR", had formed the Special Operations Unit to take the liberation struggle to the white areas of the country. The apartheid government seized on these explosions as proof of the ANC's "terrori…

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S3E12: worlds of licence - a thousand shades of grey 5:11

3+ y ago5:11

5:11

The media painted him as the arch-villain of the apartheid era and labelled him "Prime Evil". The Truth Commission singled him out as the man who broke the code of silence and forced security policemen to seek amnesty. He was Eugene de Kock, former commander of the Vlakplaas death squad, convicted murderer serving two life sentences and 212 years i…

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S3E13: worlds of licence - helena 8:33

3+ y ago8:33

8:33

By February 1999, not one single woman in South Africa had publicly appeared before the Amnesty Committee. The Truth Commission's final report said only 56 of the estimated 7 000 amnesty applicants were known to be women. Also absent from the amnesty hearings were the voices of the mothers, wives, partners and daughters of the men who perpetrated g…

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S4 Trailer: portraits of truth - intriguing characters 1:22

3+ y ago1:22

1:22

Two of the most intriguing characters to appear before the Truth Commission were an idol of the liberation struggle and a killer of the apartheid state: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Joe Mamasela. She was a victim of gross human rights abuses. The apartheid government and its policemen harassed her, banished her to Brandfort in the Free State in 19…

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S4E1: portraits of truth - nocturnal acts 2:46

3+ y ago2:46

2:46

As a young man in Soweto in the seventies, Joe Mamasela was an activist following the teachings of Steve Biko and Malcolm X. But he ended up as a member of the Vlakplaas death squad, maiming and murdering his own people. Mamasela was an askari, an ANC freedom fighter that the Security Police "rehabilitated" into their own lethal weapon. An askari w…

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S4E2: portraits of truth - this devil's belly 8:32

3+ y ago8:32

8:32

From soul to gospel. From murderer to born-again Christian. Joe Mamasela was a big man, who walked in expensive suits and drove a red BMW. He was a strange apartheid killer. He was black. And he used the Truth Commission not to plead for forgiveness, but to challenge the authorities. "I'm not applying for amnesty. So prosecute me," he said. He rema…

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S4E3: portraits of truth - some kind of power 5:26

3+ y ago5:26

5:26

As Joe Mamasela detailed the most brutal killings, the people who filled the amnesty hall were silent. Unlike when Advocate Cobus Booyens questioned amnesty applicant Major Gert Lotz. Zola Ntutu and Darren Taylor highlight how Joe Mamasela played to the crowd. Transcript: http://www.sabctruth.co.za/sabctruth/portraitsright.htm#some portraits of tru…

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S4E4: portraits of truth - a black afrikaner 5:30

3+ y ago5:30

5:30

"I am a victim. Victim. Victim." These words resonated throughout Joe Mamasela's public testimony. And the amnesty audience acknowledged his blackness by cheering him on. Mamasela insisted that he was a double victim of the ANC and the apartheid police. This is what he told the Amnesty Committee: "The ANC murdered my brother. I had to identify his …

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S4E5: portraits of truth - mummy 9:23

3+ y ago9:23

9:23

Officially, it was called the hearing into the Mandela United Football Club. Unofficially, everyone referred to it as the Winnie hearing. For nine days between November and December 1997, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela faced a battery of journalists in Johannesburg at the Truth Commissionís special hearing. "She created her own vigilante gang" out of th…

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S4E6: portraits of truth - secondary infections 10:42

3+ y ago10:42

10:42

But it was in connection with the killing of 14-year-old activist Stompie Seipei that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela would forever be linked. In 1991, she was found guilty of kidnapping Stompie from the Methodist manse in Soweto and sentenced to six years in jail. Following an appeal, she paid a fine and never served a day. Darren Taylor and Angie Kapel…

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S4E7: portraits of truth - I beg you! 8:34

3+ y ago8:34

8:34

In the same vein, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela denied everything, saying the Truth Commission witnesses were "hallucinating" and were either "senile" or "lunatics". She also insisted that the Football Club members were not her personal bodyguards and that she never had any control over them while they were staying at her house. "If they committed crim…

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S5E1: windows of history - ngeke futhi! 9:47

3+ y ago9:47

9:47

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report to President Nelson Mandela in Pretoria on the 29th of October 1998. This was the commission’s primary finding: The apartheid state committed the most gross violations of human rights through its security and law-enforcement agencies. The National Party government became involved in …

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S5E2: windows of history - long and difficult journey 19:38

3+ y ago19:38

19:38

The defining moment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission varies from person to person. For some it will always be the moment the Truth Commission opened the floodgates of human suffering in East London in 1996. Or those rare moments of reconciliation, intimacy and even destruction between victim and perpetrator. For others, it is the pall of …

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S5E3: windows of history - tell us about it 17:49

3+ y ago17:49

17:49

There is no roadmap for setting up a truth commission or a path to guaranteed success. That’s the view of Priscilla Hayner who has researched several truth commissions around the world. So how does one gauge the success of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Journalists who have covered the beat from day one will probably say that t…

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S5E4: windows of history - I'm sorry! 16:14

3+ y ago16:14

16:14

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has taken a bold step in its final report by acknowledging some of its own failings and shortcomings. The Truth Commission admits that it failed to call certain key actors, especially IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It failed to make significant inroads into the post-1990 violence. It also failed to establis…

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S5E5: windows of history - Is this real? 7:59

3+ y ago7:59

7:59

Is there life after the TRC? This question has repeatedly been asked of those intimately involved in translating the story of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission since 1996. From the men and women who have shuttled between all the country’s major languages to interpret thousands of emotional stories and conflicting perspectives of th…