Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
South African Defence Force Contact Bureau
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The South African Defence Force Contact Bureau was an organization of members of the former South African Defence Force (SADF). The panel of the Contact Bureau consisted of four retired chiefs of the former SADF. These are Generals MA Malan, CL Viljoen, JJ Geldenhuys and AJ Liebenberg. On 30 August 1997 the Generals organized the 'SADF Symposium and Reunion'. The intention of the symposium was, according to its conveners, 'to counteract the one-sided, negative image of the former SADF that had arisen as a result of the TRC proceedings in South Africa'.
The four aforementioned retired generals each read a paper at the symposium. A letter was drafted at the symposium and sent to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It criticizes the TRC for its apparent bias towards the African National Congress (ANC), its apparent prejudice against the former SADF and white South Africans and a history of the former SADF.
Effectively the contents of the letter are an apology of Apartheid's state-sanctioned violence against its political opponents and a further criminalization of oppositional politics and activities of the liberation movements
The papers that were delivered at the SADF Symposium and Reunion as well as the letter of the Contact Bureau are reproduced as full texts on the following website:http://home.wanadoo.nl/rhodesia/samilhis.htm
Included in this collection is a press release of a complaint lodged by the Generals to the Public Protector. Response to this complaint is documented in the 'The TRC Report of the Office of the Public Protector' (AL3062/E 3).