ISD

A older, but popular, Afrikaans song with a slide show of ISD members. The song reflects on life and its trials and tribulations, its about standing up after you fall. It also asks the question; who can understand it. The English translation of the title 'Wie kan dit verstaan' is who can understand it.

The Boipatong Massacre happened on 17 June 1992. The attackers were supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), rival party of the African National Congress (ANC), in a apparent revenge attack due to the killing of their members by the ANC. At the time, the South African government and several other political groups were negotiating in the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) talks. The Goldstone Commission appointed Peter Waddington to make an independent enquiry. His report was released on 22 July 1992. It stated that there was no evidence of police collusion in the killings. We have to ask the question; who gained from this attack and who used this attack for international propaganda value?

Bekkersdal township is a township in the West Rand, west of Johannesburg close to gold mines. The incident in the video was part of a week long political battle between the ANC, AZAPO and the IFP. On the Sunday after a week of violence the IFP had a funneral march, this march a was attacked by groups loyal to the ANC, the attacks were a double hand grenade attack and two ambushes with automatic rifles. https://absisd.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/statement-of-charles-loliwe-ifp-youth-leader-bekkersdal-1994-2/ absisd.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/statement-of-charles-loliwe-ifp-youth-leader-bekkersdal-1994-2/

Approximately fifty people lost their lives violently in and around central Johannesburg on 28 March 1994. The present inquest is directly concerned with only nineteen of them. Some of the other deaths which occurred on that day were also connected with the events with which we are concerned but they have been the subject of other inquests. They have some relevance though to the evaluation of the evidence which is before us. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/shell-house-massacre-march-28-1994-the-inquest-fin https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mandela-why-i-gave-shoot-to-kill-order-1585387.html

Not great picture quality due to been digitized from a poor quality VHS tape. What is significant about the parade was it had members of the Police college Pretoria, new recruits trained at Maleoskop rural training facility as well as African members from Hamanskraal college. Basically three intakes on parade, the largest passing out parade to date. The large amount of new members were required to combat the rising violence in the country and many members were necessary to grow the soon to be established ISD units. The parade was held at Loftus Versveld rugby stadium.

A short news clip featuring members of unit 7 assisting during a follow up of information received of a hidden arms cache close to the South African border. The cache consisted of a 187 AK's and magazines buried approximately 2 kilometers outside South Africa's border.

A more balanced view of events leading up to the South African general elections of 1994. Full documentary A full-length documentary film about the use of violence by the ANC and other liberation movements in South Africa. The documentary, Tainted Heroes, is two hours long and deals with history from the 1976 Soweto Student Uprising to the inauguration of former president Nelson Mandela in 1994. A central theme in the documentary is the ANC’s “People’s War Strategy”, which led to the execution of violent attacks on rival liberation movements with the aim to weaken rivals, such as Inkatha, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), the PAC and AZAPO in order to establish the ANC as the solitary representative of black people in the eyes of the NP government and the international community. In a trailer, which was released recently, Strike Thokoane, a leader of the BCM and Deputy President of AZAPO, conveys his experience of political violence which was executed by the ANC against these two organisations. Violence included necklace murders, in which a tyre filled with petrol was placed around a victim’s neck and set alight. Ernst Roets, filmmaker, says the documentary is not an anti-ANC film, but that it conveys an important part of the history of South Africa which has been swept under the carpet by the ANC government. “The general narrative nowadays is that everyone who was on the side of the ANC is portrayed as untainted heroes, while everyone who differed from the ANC is dubbed villains. The facts communicated by Tainted Heroes show that the history of our country is more complex than that,” says Roets.

On the 24 th of August a state of emergency was declared in 27 townships due to political violence. This is an American news clip.

Images of 'Necklacing' and commentary by Dr. Anthea Jeffery (Institute of Race Relations), Mangosuthu Buthelezi (IFP Leader), Genl. Johan van der Merwe (General SAP ret.), Strike Thokoane (AZAPO Leader).

https://absisd.wordpress.com/2022/04/16/formation-of-the-internal-stability-division/ Music: Rome - One lions roar So go and kneel and wait And join the herd You know a million sheep Will be dispersed By one lion's roar By one lion's roar [Verse 1] Either step aside For every God knows Everything will crumble Under his blows You think yourselves weak Pathetic and overrun And that all you've bled for Is coming undone [Chorus] So go and kneel and wait And join the herd You know a million sheep Will be dispersed By one lion's roar By one lion's roar [Verse 2] Oh, you go out there And bow to none And cause a stir As if it were The last one Curse them into hiding These thieves won't believe The way we're riding [Chorus] So go and kneel and wait And join the herd You know a million sheep Will be dispersed By one lion's roar By one lion's roar [Skit] Ero destinato a diventare un prete soldato Ero destinato a diventare un poeta, una aviatore Ero destinato a guidare l'Uomo Nuivo Per conquistare La Città Eterna Con la Spada Fiammeggiante [Pre-Chorus] So go and kneel and wait And join the herd You know a million sheep Will be dispersed [Chorus] Go and kneel and wait (One million) And join the herd (One million) You know a million sheep (One million) Will be dispersed (One million) By one lion's roar (One million, one million) By one lion's roar (One million, one million) So go and kneel and wait (One million) And join the herd (One million) You know a million sheep (One million) Will be dispersed (One million) Oh, by one lion's roar (One million, one million) By one lion's roar (One million, one million) So go and kneel and wait (One million) And join the herd (One million) You know a million sheep (One million) Will be dispersed (One million) By one lion's roar (One million, one million) By one lion's roar (One million, one million)

Introduced by EB’s Maryanne Hancock, John Kane-Berman, President of the South African Institute of Race Relations (which co-hosted the event), spoke about the lawlessness that was originally fomented to make South Africa ungovernable in the death throws of Apartheid; he described it as a “genie that cannot easily be put back in the bottle.” He explained how besides policies and procedure, a wider violent strategy was adopted by the ANC, MK and other allies during this period. Seeing a change in the temperament of political demonstrations and who was at them in the late 80s and early 90s, analysts starting looking at whether there was a new organized strategy at work – as opposed to spontaneous political protest. Kane-Berman spoke of how broadcasts of Radio Freedom seemed to correlate with, and pre-empt episodes of violence on the ground in South Africa. In addition, he said, much of what was happening in the townships and throughout SA’s cities wasn’t being written about. Black journalists were not particularly keen to write about the violence they were witnessing, for fear of repercussions. The SAIRR’s 1991 book Mau-mauing the Media documented this “unofficial [self] censorship”. Kane-Berman articulated how in 1990, within 3 months of the unbanning of the ANC, researchers realized that this period was going to be the most violent in South Africa since the end of World War II. The conventional explanation accepted by South Africans for so long has been the idea of a Third Force in part created by FW de Klerk. But Kane-Berman queried why a man who released political prisoners would orchestrate such violence: “Why would FW take such huge political risks and then shoot himself in the foot?” Kane-Berman left us to ponder the seemingly imponderable: that South Africa’s 1994 election was not “a miracle” but a planned result of a far-reaching violent political strategy. People’s War is a book about understanding this and getting to grips with a new perspective of the end of Apartheid. Kane-Berman praised Jeffery’s work, citing her prodigious energy, meticulous research skills, writing ability and most of all her courage in connecting the dots and writing about the “people’s war”. He said he hoped this book would make a difference. Anthea Jeffrey then took the mic and fleshed out the background to the book with care and detail. She said the “people’s war” started in 1985 with the first wave of school boycotts in the Eastern Cape, with intimidation and violence perpetrated against those who stayed away. The gruesome practice of necklacing started in Uitenhage, she said, with the necklacing of KwaNobuhle community councillor Benjamin Kinkini. Jeffery stated that Kinikini shot his own son to save him the agony of being necklaced. Later that year 8 other people were necklaced in Port Elizabeth. There seemed to be a concerted outbreak of violence against community members and leaders who wouldn’t toe the ANC line, including security police members and their families. Jeffery said that the idea was to collapse local government. She explained how this new type of revolutionary war, the “people’s war”, was both political and military, creating “a hammer and anvil between which there was no differentiation of combatants versus civilians”. Everyone was expendable in the same way as arms and ammunition – including children. In addition to the “people’s war” there was “a persistent propaganda campaign with a constant repetition of themes”. Untruths spread from seemingly diverse quarters became accepted as truths. The National Party government, IFP and the “Third Force” were blamed for all the violence. Society was in ferment with ANC street committees giving way to combat units aimed at bringing everyone under control through terror. The violence became an ongoing, unstoppable circle with police resorting to “draconian methods” in response to it. In 1993 Mangosuthu Buthelezi drew attention to the 275 IFP leaders who had been killed since 1985 – he asked why this was of no consequence. He asked how the 1994 election could be free and fair in such a climate and withdrew from the election process in protest. He was demonized for his views and actions at the time. Jeffery’s book lays out how the “people’s war” allowed the ANC to dominate the negotiating process, marginalizing people like Buthelezi, and seize a virtual monopoly on power in 1994. In her opinion, the election of 1994 was “deeply flawed”, and in the last 15 years the bright new start that was promised then has been betrayed. The violence and culture of terror from pre-1994 plays a role in the “plague of violent crime” which SA faces today. She finds that the “people’s war” is a major factor in the increasingly violent strikes, such as the recent SANDF strike, which the country is grappling with. Jeffrey hopes that People’s War will “strip away the veil across SA’s recent history and allow us all to see it more clearly”. In the book.

From 1991 the ANC stepped up it's Peoples War onslaught against anyone that opposed them and wouldn't join their ranks, this led to a blood bath. The reality was that most of the killing was simply the ANC killing of any opposition to them, the ANC knew they would win the coming general elections so they needed to destroy or weaken any opposition. The goal of the ANC was always absolute rule, they are a Marxist organization at heart. They ANC always got positive press/media coverage in the western world as they were backed and earmarked to rule South Africa, The ANC had support from many western countries and all communist/socialist countries. The book People's War by Anthea Jeffery is a good read. The book by Nick Howarth Author of War in Peace, also gives great insight of what policeman on the ground experienced during this time of war. Footage from many different areas in South Africa, and many different units. This is part of the story of the members of the Internal Stability Division of the South African Police (SAP) 1991 -1994