Right-Wing Groups - South African Government Information

was launched – it said that they believed that the attack had been launched by
Boers as a result of the PAC attack that morning on White people at the beach
front. (Durban review hearing, December 2000.)
192. Botha and the two other members of his cell, Smuts and Marais, travelled down
f rom Richards Bay to Durban, arriving after 20h00 on the night of the 9 October.
Upon arrival, they drove around the bus terminus area and, observing that the
s t reets were very quiet, decided to attack a minibus taxi that passed them. The
minibus was full of passengers. They followed the vehicle as it travelled fro m
the centre of Durban to KwaMashu but, when it turned off into a densely populated
area, the applicants decided to abort the planned attack.
193. They re t u rned to the highway and stopped at a garage for something to drink.
They then observed a Putco bus full of people driving in the direction of
KwaMashu. Botha decided that they would attack the bus and accordingly gave
the instruction. He was driving the car as they set out to follow the bus in the
d i rection of the Duffs Road off - r a m p .
MR BOTHA: We overtook the bus and I told my colleagues to fire in the dire c-
tion of the bus. We used automatic attack rifles to fire at the bus as we passed
the bus – as we overtook it. Immediately after the attack we re t u rned to
Richards Bay. (Durban review hearing, December 2000.)
194. On the following day, Botha contacted the SABC and, on behalf of the Orde
B o e revolk, claimed responsibility for the attack on the bus. He testified before
the Amnesty Committee:
I don’t know whether the person I spoke to took me seriously, but he was fooling
around and asked me to furnish my name and address. I then put down the
phone and then contacted the news office of the Natal Mercury. I spoke to
somebody in the news office there. I told them that I was a member of the Orde
B o e revolk and that we accepted responsibility for the previous night’s attack,
and I also furnished the reasons why we launched the attack. There was no
report in any of the papers the next day regarding this incident and I re a l i s e d
that there was a state of emergency at the time in Natal and I suspected that
either the security police of the government or both had probably suppre s s e d
news of this kind.
I once again contacted the Natal Mercury offices, spoke to the same re p o r t e r
and told him that I was aware of the fact that news of this kind would norm a l l y
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