The collection consists of audio interviews, video footage, transcripts and project specific documentation.

The collection consists of black and white digital images, sorted by year from 1983 to 1989.

Gille De Vlieg started her photographic career in 1983, and this collection documents her journey through the different provinces of South Africa (North West, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal) to explore and capture events and issues as they happened. She has been meticulous in dating her photographs, so events unfold chronologically through her lens.

She manages to reflect the tranquility of typical day to day life in a serene rural setting, in contrast to the more harsh township lifestyle, against the stark contrast of the sometimes violent political activities of the era. The repetition of certain themes through the years, such as land removals, mass funerals, political protests, etc. further strengthens her body of work as a document to the turbulent political past. Capturing gender and lifestyle issues, for example depicting women embroidering, making batik patterns on cloth, pottery, basket-making, always remain an important part of her work throughout.

Each year, however, is marked by specific political, cultural or other events:-

1983 is a small collection of 7 photo’s of rural lifestyle in the mostly North West province.

1984 focuses on the political activities of the UDF, Cosas and ECC, while 1985, still focusing on the UDF, also shifts to detentions, police brutality and the Mandela Rally in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

1986 is dominated by images of the anti-harassment campaign, death penalty protest, Black Sash activities, and protests against the anti-incorporation into Bophutatswana. Many prominent people feature in these photos, amongst others, David Webster, Winnie Mandela, Sheena Duncan, Frank Chikane, Beyers Naude, Albertina Sisulu, Helen Joseph and Helen Suzman.

1987 contains a smaller number of photographs, and focuses mostly on the effect of the apartheid land removals on women’s everyday existence. Prison releases show photos of activist lawyer Priscilla Jana, Epinette and Govan Mbeki, Albertina Sisulu.

1988 brings an interesting angle to the collection as De Vlieg captures Afrikaner nationalism in all its glory during the 150th Celebration of the Groot Trek (unfortunately not in this collection), and Day of the Vow (Gelofte Dag) celebrations at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. With people like Betsie Verwoerd, PW Botha, FW de Klerk, Pik Botha, Eugene Terreblanche on his horse, she catches the essence of the Afrikaner of the day! She also photographs the AWB swinging their flag with a swastika against the Voortrekker Monument as backdrop.This year also features a large number of photos of the REEA Care Centre.

1989 contains a small collection of photos of street scenes in Harare, Zimbabwe and of Namibia, including Herero and Himba people. Back in South Africa the images of this year focus on street children, evicted and homeless people, and township lifestyle of Tembisa and Eureka, and the ANC Welcome Home Rally for Robben Island leaders.

19 photographs taken by De Vlieg in the township of Tembisa in 1984-1990 were added to the collection in 2011. These photographs were part of an exhibition 'Entering Tembisa - an oral and photographic exploration of the community' which was hosted in the Tembisa West Library to celebrate Heritage Day 2011. This exhibition forms part of an oral history and archival collection project on Tembisa, conducted by SAHA in 2010 and 2011.

While Gille de Vlieg is responsible for the digitisation of some of her photographs, the majority was digitised by Africa Media Online (AMO), a Pietermaritzburg based organisation, in 2009.

Photographs from Gille De Vlieg's collection AL3274 were used in the "Entering Tembisa Exhibition that took place as a part of the project on the 24th September 2011.

Books on a variety of topics relating to South and Southern Africa donated to the South African History Archive (SAHA) by the Netherlands Institute of Southern Africa to allow researchers to consult while vising at SAHA. Also includes posters.

Materials collected from TRC Archival Audit.

The TRC Archival Audit

SAHA and Historical Papers, University of Witwatersrand have embarked on a project to locate and retrieve records relating to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC). The project entailed conducting an archival audit of all existing TRC records in order to identify and locate documentation in danger of being lost.

In the process of conducting the archival audit, SAHA and HP located many collections from individuals and organizations that participated in the TRC process. Selections from these materials as well as TRC related material found in the freedom of Information Collection and other pre-existing SAHA and HP collections, were digitized and can be accessed online at http://truth.wwl.wits.ac.za/.

A guide to archival resources relating to South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission can also be found at: http://truth.wwl.wits.ac.za/trc_directory.pdf

Chandre Gould was the project's sole researcher. This collection comprises a complete set of the research records generated or acquired by her. The set in the form of photocopies, was donated to SAHA by the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) through Chandre Gould in February 2002. CCR organisational records related to the project are not part of the collection. CCR intends to publish a selection of the Project Coast material on the website of the International Security Network (Zurich).

Gould is a freelance researcher, and was contracted to the CCR at the time of the donation. She was an investigator with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from 1996 to 1999, with responsibility for the Commission's CBW investigation. Much of her TRC documentation was copied and brought into the project with TRC permission (see A1).

Project Coast documentation is numbered CBW1 - CBW144(gaps in these numbers do not reflect gaps in the documentation,rather problems with the original numbering system) Many of the Project Coast documents are in Afrikaans - Gould had these translated into English, and the translations are included with the documents.

The Wouter Basson trial was monitored by Marlene Burger. She contributed substantially to the collection of materials on the trial.

For more background information on the apartheid state's CBW programme Researchers are referred to two books published by Gould - South Africa's Apartheid Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme(with Peter Folb), and Secrets and Lies (with Marlene Burger).

Sally Sealey came to South Africa in the late 1960s, and got involved in student politics in the early 1980s. During her stay, she came into contact with the residents of Thokoza and adjacent townships. This area was the epicenter of violence in Gauteng, with a recorded 3500 murders in the first three and half years of the 1990s. She worked very closely with Self-Defence Units (SDUs) in the area. So she could speak as a good authority on matters of human rights violations especially in the Thokoza area, having been involved in the daily life of the people there.

With the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), she became a member attached to the Johannesburg Regional Office's Investigative Unit. Specifically she adopted a defendants' position, helping some of the suspects to apply for amnesty. She was the main external link in applying for amnesty for suspects who had formerly been members of the SDUs unit in the East Rand. She encouraged and helped the suspects to fill in Amnesty applications.

As a result of her experience, this collection includes unique records regarding the processes and information generated during the proceedings of the TRC.

The collection of posters that Morice Smithers donated for the publication of "Images of Defiance: South African Resistance Posters of the 1980s" can be found in AL2446. Ephemera donated by Smithers (t-shirts, stickers and badges) can be found in AL2540.

This collection consists of books, audio/video tapes, photographs, long player records and T-shirts, all related to various solidarity movements for which Lucia Raadschelders worked.

The collection summarises the activities in which Raadschelders was involved during the years that she spent as an anti-apartheid activist, in Holland and in the Southern Africa Sub-region. These concern in particular, the things that she witnessed.

This collection consists of ten photographs of Patrick Fitzgerald, a demonstration and unidentified people. Two duplicates. NEGATIVES of all 10 in the Neg. file. These photographs are stored in the filing cabinet.