The Jane Argall Collection comprises documents that reflect the research work that Argall had done for the KwaZulu-Natal/Free State regional office of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in her capacity as a researcher in the Research Department of the Durban TRC regional office.

Argall produced, but also co-authored the documents that make up the collection.

The office operated across the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, whereby KwaZulu-Natal was treated as two separate regional entries.

The records accumulations can be divided into three parts. The three areas are the Free State region, the KwaZulu and Natal regions and miscellaneous research documents.

Foci of the research of KwaZulu-Natal include the widespread political violence in that Province. The research interrogated the collaboration between two police forces, namely the South African Police and the KwaZulu Police with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Historical overviews of clashing political activity and the ensuing state and parastatal repression (chiefly through the agency of the IFP) in the region are provided as well as analyses of civil conflict resulting from the release of former President Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) - the so-called 'Seven Day War'.

In the case of the Free State region enquiry into violations of human rights focused on the fact that the Apartheid state had established two 'homelands' in that region resulting in resistance to Apartheid being directed at 'homeland' authorities and institutions.

Another point of focus was the phenomenon that the Free State was the closest neighbour to the sovereign state of Lesotho, a fact which facilitated South Africans entering Lesotho to join the ANC and/or its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) there.

This in turn led to the cross-border political persecution of refugees and exiles living in Lesotho by the Apartheid security establishment.

An important point of investigation into human rights abuses in the Free State was located in a special hearing on the plight of children resulting from the political activities and harassment, such as torture and deaths in custody, of their parents. Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence were also investigated.

A third accumulation of documents deals with discrete research issues such as state-orchestrated violence, the integration of Amnesty and HRV data and the Self-Defence Units (SDUs).

The research conducted by Argall was additionally used in the chapter of the Final Report dealing with the Findings and Conclusion of the Commission.

Laura Pollecutt's political activism started with her involvement in the Progressive Party. She later became a prominent member of the Southern Transvaal branch of the Black Sash. During this period she participated in numerous alliances and campaigns, as a Black Sash representative or in her individual capacity. Pollecutt worked for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Johannesburg office, for 4 to 5 months in 1997, first as Communications Officer, and later as special researcher for the hearing into the Media Under Apartheid. This led to her role in research and co-ordination for the TRC hearing on Media and Apartheid in September 1997. Pollecutt wrote the final report with the assistance of Hugh Lewin.

In accordance with the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, no. 34 of 1995, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was constituted. The TRC was required to consider and decide on amnesty applications.

The Commission had the power to grant amnesty if it was satisfied that the submitted application had complied with formal requirements stipulated in the Act. Furthermore, it had to be convinced that the incidents being addressed indeed were constituted as political acts.

The Commission also had to be convinced that the applicants had made full disclosures of all the facts related to the relevant incidents. The Act also exempted successful amnesty applicants from criminal and civil prosecutions.

Julian Knight and Rudolph Jansen were the legal representatives of several former security force members who had been part of the elite South African security police unit, known as C1 or Vlakplaas. From 1981 until the early 1990s, the main mission of this unit was to eliminate and harass apartheid government opposition. The unit was made up of several white officials and askaris, who were former ANC operatives who had switched sides. During this period, these security forces were responsible for gross human rights violations.

From 1980 to 1989, Captain Dirk Johannes Coetzee commanded this unit. During this period, Coetzee and his co-perpetrators were involved with killing Ruth First, Gonisizwe Kondile, Marius Schoon's wife and daughter, Durban lawyer - Griffiths Mxenge, Cradock Four, PEBCO 3 and Piet Retief murders.

The unit was also responsible for bombing, arson, theft and damage to property of activists and church organisations befriending the apartheid government opponents such as incidents at COSATU House, Khotso House, Khanya House, cinemas and shopping centres to discourage the public from watching the Cry Freedom film. Apartheid spy, Major Craig Williamson played an instrumental role in bombing ANC offices in Lusaka and London, the attempted murder of Joe Slovo, and the murder of Ruth First and Schoon family.

Towards the end of 1989, Almond Nofomela, a former Vlakplaas policeman, on death row for the murder of a farmer, exposed the activities of Vlakplaas under Coetzee. Dirk Coetzee fled to Mauritius, United Kingdom and Zambia under the protection of the ANC to whom he revealed the Vlakplaas operations. Nofomela and Coetzee's revelations resulted in the President FW de Klerk appointing the Harms Commission to investigate alleged Vlakplaas murders, hit squads and activities of the CCB. Security force members were encouraged to lie at the Harms Commission thereby discrediting Coetzee and Nofomela.

As a result of Dirk Coetzee's departure from Vlakplaas, Colonel Eugene Alexander de Kock became the new commander until 1994. De Kock and his co-perpetrators, including Marthinus Ras and Gideon Nieuwoudt, continued with the tasks previously entrusted to Dirk Coetzee. During his command, further incidents of abductions, arms caches, bombings and arson, cover-ups, body mutilations, disinformation and discrediting actions, fraud and theft, illegal weapons, intimidations, killings, torture and assaults occurred in defence of the interests of the apartheid regime. Included in these events was the killing of the Motherwell Four, askaris planning to inform the ANC of activities concerning the Cradock Four; parcel bomb sent to Zambia with the intention of killing Dirk Coetzee; Duli Coup and Operation Katzen which ended with the deaths of Onward Guzane and Chales Sebe, framed as conspirators of an attempted Transkei coup and assassination of Bantu Holomisa.

In October 1996, Eugene Alexander de Kock, found guilty of 89 charges and sentenced to 212 years of imprisonment, was one of the first to apply for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

His application, in turn, encouraged many of his co-perpetrators to submit individual amnesty applications.

This collection contains amnesty applications, hearings, evidence and related materials concerning the applications of individuals such as Marthinus Ras, Dirk Johannes Coetzee and Eugene de Kock as well as other individuals involved in the incidents. Included is newspaper cuttings and information on amnesty decisions.

References:

M. Du Preez: Pale Native. Memories of a Renegade Reporter. 2003. Cape Town: Zebra Press

Truth and Reconciliation Report. The Intersection between Work of the Human Rights Violations Committee and the Amnesty Committee. The Former South African Government and Its Security Forces. Vol. 6. Sections 1 - 4.

The records that make up this collection are the proceedings of the conference 'Confession and Reconciliation'.

'A challenge to the churches in South Africa' convened by the Research Institute for Theology and Religion of the University of South Africa (Unisa) from 23 to 24 March 1998. The records come in three formats:

The paper-based manuscript of the conference proceedings for publication

The publication of the conference proceedings entitled 'Confession and reconciliation. A challenge to the churches in South Africa'. The publication is edited by C W du Toit

Two discs of the unedited conference proceedings

Professor CW du Toit, the Director of the Research Institute for Theology and Religion of Unisa, offers seminars within two overarching themes: 'The Forum for Religious Dialogue' and 'Science and Religion'.

In 1997 he elected to conduct a seminar on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as it was the single most socio-ethical challenge of the day. To this end a working committee comprising critical theologians such as the late Dr Beyers Naude, Professor Nico Smith, Dr Nico Botha, Professor Tinyiko Maluleke and others was established.

The working group decided to draft an Open Letter of Confession, which expressed the co-responsibility of religious leaders for Apartheid.

This Letter was sent to twelve thousand ministers of religion. Six hundred and ten of them endorsed the Open Letter with their signatures.

The Open Letter, complete with the signatures, was submitted to the TRC on 15 November 1997. It is now in the custody of the National Archives and Records Services of South Africa, the custodian of all records produced as a result of the TRC process.

The Open Letter had stated that a conference would result from the response of the religious leaders.

The ensuing conference dealt with the TRC itself as presented by Archbishop Tutu, the rationale for and responses to the Open Letter, the necessity of Confession, restitution options and suggestions for a way forward for religious groups.

This conference may well have been the catalyst for members of the various faith communities to respond positively to an invitation by the TRC to make submissions on the role and status of faith communities under and during Apartheid.

The more than forty responses of the faith communities are dealt with in this Directory in the Research Institute for Christianity in South Africa (RICSA) Collection.

The Collection comprises submissions and statements which the African National Congress (ANC) presented to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) at two sets of hearings: the Armed Forces Hearing and the Political Parties Hearing.

This phenomenon is to be understood against the background that the ANC, while still a political party that was to contest the first democratic elections of 1994, had actively campaigned for provisions for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to be included in the Interim Constitution of 1993.

It did so in the conviction that such a commission would contribute to the healing of a society traumatized by Apartheid in order for it to deal with the promotion of societal justice for the emerging post-Apartheid democracy.

The ANC's submissions and appearance before the TRC were unique in that the former liberation movement took collective responsibility for violations of human rights and dealt openly with all questions set by the TRC.

Gertrude Fester is an academic, a gender and political activist and writer. In May 1988 Fester was detained for the recruitment to and promotion of the African National Congress.

She was put on trial with thirteen other political activists in a trial that had come to be known as 'The Yengeni 14'.

In March 1990 charges were dropped and Fester was released.

Fester initiated the Women's Education Artistic Voice and Expressions (WEAVE), a black women's writing collective that encourages and facilitates women's writing as a means to deal with challenges that are specific to the situation of women in South Africa.

It is within these contexts that this paper, which was written in July/August 2001, is to be understood.

Charles Villa-Vicencio is the former Director of Research of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The records accumulations that were generated by the Research Department during Villa-Vicencio's tenure are official TRC records and are therefore in the custody of the National Archives and Records Services of South Africa (NARS). Access to the records accumulations in the custody of the National Archives is governed by provisions of the Promotion of Access to Information Act No. 2 of 2000 (PAIA).

The request for such access is conducted through the Department of Justice.

The URL of officials dealing with PAIA requests is located at: wkekana@justice.gov.za and nlouw@justice.gov.za

The papers that make up this collection originated at various national and international conferences that focused on the South African TRC to which Villa-Vicencio had been invited to speak in his private capacity, but as an expert on the TRC.

Villa-Vicencio has published prolifically. His TRC-related publications are reflected in the Select Bibliography on the South African Truth and Reconciliation that is appended to the Directory of TRC Archival Resources.

The Urban Research Services Group was formed in 1988 of which the staff complement consisted of about 3-4 people

This service organization provided support, in the form of a research capacity, to important civic associations in South Africa, such as the South African Civic Association (SANCO).

Funding was mainly provided by the Swedish Labour Movement. Issues that affected people in Urban areas seemed to be the focal areas of their research, such as Housing and the Mining industry.

Therefore Labour issues were a prominent area of research as well although it has been confirmed that this organization inherited a lot of the Labour related Material from other service organizations.

This service organization operated in a difficult political time in South Africa in the 1980's with the State of Emergency and Apartheid still as the governing law of the country.

The Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) was a company established by the Apartheid government to purchase and store oil in the face of worldwide oil sanctions against South Africa. With the change-over of government, the secrecy and the role of this company came repeatedly under questioning. The Minister for Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna (Minister from June 1996 to June 1999), particularly pursued issues of past oil deals, notably transactions paying commission to an intermediary, Fakhry Abdelnour, trading as Interstate and the African Middle East company (AME), and the apparent discrepancy of R170m in the Auditor-General’s report to Parliament in 1994. The then General Manager of SFF, S.J. “Kobus” van Zyl, was put under scrutiny in a series of inquiries into these issues. The proceedings included an independent audit by Nkonki Sizwe Ntsaluba (NSN) ordered by the Minister, the Auditor-General’s Special Report in response to the Minister’s remarks in Parliament, the subsequent Public Protector’s Inquiry, and the Disciplinary Hearing against Van Zyl, brought by his employer, CEF/SFF.

The material in this collection comprises the papers collected by Van Zyl over this period, which he gave to Stephan Brummer of the Mail and Guardian, then donated to SAHA. It includes transcripts, earlier documents brought in as evidence, reports of the inquiries or hearings, as well as documentation contemporary to the main period in question. The bulk and detail of evidence brought was such that particularly detailed documentation (such as individual shipping movements, audit trails, financial transactions), plus duplicates of pertinent correspondence and reports as presented in sequence, will be found in the series ‘G’ called Evidence.

EGPC - Egyptian Government’s oil trading corporation

GOSM - Gulf of Suez Mix

IPE - International Petroleum Exchange

SFF - Strategic Fuel Fund

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Zenzo Christopher Nkobi (birth date unknown) was a South African who went into exile during the 1960s and who worked as a professional photographer in the 1970s and 1980s in Southern Africa. He was the eldest son of Thomas Titus Nkobi, the longtime treasurer of the African National Congress (ANC) who fled South Africa in 1963, and belonged to the first group of ANC students in exile who studied in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the 1960s. He received a Masters Degree in photography at the Academy of Graphics and Book Art in Leipzig. Before coming back to Africa in 1977, he worked as a press photographer at the Berlin Publishing House, mainly for the Berliner Zeitung while still travelling to events in African countries to take photographs for the ANC and ZAPU. It was not possible for him to return to South Africa so he lived with his father and the family in Lusaka and later on Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. Here he ran his own photo studio and taught photography at the Technical College. For some years in exile in Zambia he was the personal photographer to the late Joshua Nkomo, leader of ZAPU and accompanied him to many conferences in preparation for the independence of Zimbabwe.

Zenzo Nkobi documented the struggle of Liberation Movements of Southern Africa, such as the ANC, ZAPU and ZANU, Frelimo, SWAPO and MPLA. He photographed the refugee camps and the military camps and many liberation leaders of Southern Africa in discussions, at conferences and elsewhere. He photographed the raids on camps in Zambia by apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia. He covered funerals of victims of raids and bombing attacks, the victorious return to Zimbabwe, the first elections there after liberation in Zimbabwe and later on also events of ZAPU and the situation in Matabeleland under the Fifth Brigade.

Zenzo Nkobi also photographed liberation movement leaders at major regional and international conferences, as well as people’s daily lives in exile, in Lusaka and Maputo. In 1980, he recorded the return of exiles and elections in the newly liberated Zimbabwe, including rare images of the Gukhurahundi (Mugabe’s repression of the population around Bulawayo in the early 1980s).

While the African National Congress (ANC) had a photography unit in the 1980s (of which Zenzo was a member), its stored images were destroyed (by water damage) in Zambia in the late 1980s. Moreover, to ensure security, photographers were generally not permitted in residences and camps unless fully vetted by the movement. Zenzo Nkobi, as the son of ANC Treasurer General, Thomas Nkobi, had complete access thus making these images both extremely rare and valuable.

When he died in 1993 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, he left his entire collection of approximately 10000 mainly black and white 35 mm negatives to his wife Edelgard Nkobi, born Schulreich, whom he met and married in Germany.

This collection comprises 5,106 images, scanned from negatives and slides created by Zenzo Nkobi, portraying the activities of Southern African liberation movements in exile from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. These images cover African National Congress (ANC) and Zimbabwean refugee and military camps in Zambia and Botswana in the 1970s. His photographs show ZIPRA military training camps, and rare images of the Freedom Camp massacre and other destabilization raids on Zambian soil by Rhodesian and South African troops.

IDENTIFIED INDIVIDUALS IN IMAGES

Chinamano, Josiah - ZAPU activist

Kaunda, Kenneth - First president of Zambia (1964 to 1991)

Machel, Samora - First president of Mozambique (1975 to 1986)

Maduna, Godwayo - ZAPU activist

Mangena, Nikita - ZIPRA Army commander

Moyo, Jason Ziyapapa - ZAPU official

Msika, Joseph - ZAPU official

Mugabe, Robert - President of Zimbabwe (1987 to date)

Munodawafa, Samuel - ZANU official

Ndhlovu, Bhopa Jane - ZANU activist

Ndhlovu, Edward - ZANU official

Ndhlovu, Skhanyiso - ZANU official

Ngwenya, Jane - ZAPU activist

Nkala, Enos - ZANU minister

Nkobi, Thomas - ANC Treasurer – General (1973 - 1994)

Nkobi, Zenzo - Photographer

Nkomo, Johanna Mama Mafuyana - Wife of Joshua Nkomo and Zapu activist

Nkomo, Joshua (Mdala wethu) - Leader and founder of ZAPU.

Nyerere, Julius (Mwalimu) - First president of Tanzania (1964 to 1985)

Nzo, Alfred - ANC official

Sibanda, Joepe - ZAPU activist

Tambo, Oliver - President of ANC (1967 - 1991)

Tekere, Edgar - ZANU official

IDENTIFIED LOCATIONS IN IMAGES

Arcadia- A coloured dominated suburb in Harare

Barbourfields - High density suburb in Bulawayo

Francistown - Town in Botswana

Harare - Capital city of Zimbabwe

Bulawayo - City in Zimbabwe

Highfields - High density suburb in Harare

Kafue - Town in Zambia

Lusaka - Capital city of Zambia

Maputo - Capital city of Mozambique

Mulungushi - Town in Zambia

Mwembeshi - Town in Zambia

Ntabazinduna - Camp in Bulawayo

Salisbury - Colonial name for Harare

Victory camp - Refugee camp in Zambia

White City - High density suburb in Bulawayo

ORGANISATIONS IDENTIFIED IN IMAGES -

AAPSO Afro Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organisation -

ANC African National Congress (South Africa) -

GDR German Democratic Republic -

ZAPU Zimbabwe African People Union -

SWAPO South West Africa People’s Organisation -

ZANLA Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (armed wing of ZANU) -

ZANU Zimbabwe African National Union -

ZIPRA Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (armed wing of ZAPU) -