Dirk Coetzee

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Dirk Johannes Coetzee [ kuˈt͜sɪə ] (born April 15, 1945 in Phokwane , South Africa , † March 7, 2013 in Pretoria ) was a colonel in the South African police during the apartheid period . As head of the secret task force C1 (formerly C10), which came to be known as Vlakplaas , he was responsible for combating popular resistance from 1980 to 1981 , particularly the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). He was responsible for numerous political murders .

Life

At the age of 18 Coetzee began to work in a post office, where he stayed for six years and worked in the investigative department. After nine months of training in the South African Navy , he became a member of the South African Police in 1970 . He was promoted to commander in Oshoek, a border crossing into Swaziland . From there he was appointed to the security police in Middelburg and shortly afterwards to the headquarters of the security police in Pretoria . In 1979 he was co-founder as Captain and shortly afterwards as Colonel in command of the newly created unit C10, whose headquarters were at the Vlakplaas farm . From 1980, his superior was Brigadier Willem Schoon .

He carried out numerous attacks on members of the opposition, including in neighboring countries, and was responsible for many deaths. In 1981 he and several subordinates committed the murder of attorney Griffiths Mxenge . In the same year he was demoted. Jan Coetzee was his successor. In 1986 Dirk Coetzee was released. In 1989 he fled to Mauritius , joined the ANC and revealed himself to a journalist for the Afrikaans-language weekly Vrye Weekblad . The then commander of Vlakplaas, Eugene de Kock , sent him 1990 a letter bomb at his former residence in Zambia Lusaka . He used the name of a lawyer who was friends with Coetzee as the sender. Since Coetzee did not accept the program, it was returned to the lawyer who was killed trying to open the program.

In February 1990, by order of the South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk, the Harms Commission was set up to investigate the incidents. It was headed by the South African judge Louis Harms and met temporarily in the South African embassy in London . However, Coetzee was classified as unreliable because the other police officers questioned contradicted his statements.

In 1993 Coetzee returned to South Africa. From then on he worked for the National Intelligence Service . From 1996 Coetzee and those also involved in the murder of Mxenge were tried before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He detailed the deeds of Vlakplaas. At the same time he had to answer before a court and was found guilty on April 5, 1997. However, Coetzee was given amnesty by the TRC on August 4, 1997 . Eugene de Kock was sentenced to a long prison term in 1997 for the attempted murder of Coetzee and the murder of his lawyer, among other things.

In 2012, Coetzee was employed as a safety advisor at the textbook company EduSolutions . He publicly reported about corruption in the company in July 2012 . In 2013, Coetzee, who had suffered from cancer, died of kidney failure in Pretoria .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ polity.org.za ( Memento of March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b c Dirk Coetzee: Vlakplaas and the murder of Griffiths Mxenge. In: Anthony Minnaar, Ian Liebenberg, Charl Schutte (Eds.): The Hidden Hand: Covert Operations in South Africa. Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria 1994, ISBN 0-7969-1563-6 , digitized version ( memento of October 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Vlakplaas hit-squad boss dies at iol.co.za (English), accessed March 7, 2013
  4. ^ Hearing on Dirk Coetzee's request for amnesty before the TRC (English), accessed on July 13, 2012
  5. ↑ Photos and reports from the TRC (PDF file, English; 1.2 MB), accessed on July 13, 2012
  6. ↑ Decision on TRC proceedings against Eugene de Kock , accessed on July 13, 2012
  7. ↑ testifying before the Harms Commission, Which was taking testimony at the South African Embassy in London, former police Captai. In: South African History Project , April 25, 1990, accessed July 13, 2012.
  8. ^ Harms releases his report. In: South African History Project , November 13, 1990, accessed July 13, 2012.
  9. ↑ a b Textbooks: Vlakplaas man speaks. In: News24 , July 8, 2012, accessed on July 13, 2012.
  10. ↑ Mxenge murder accused Dirk Coetzee found guilty. In: South African History Project , May 15, 1997, accessed July 12, 2012.
  11. ^ Apartheid-era commander Dirk Coetzee dies. In: Mail & Guardian , March 7, 2013 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Coetzee, Dirk
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Coetzee, Dirk Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African police officer during apartheid
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Phokwane
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 2013
Place of death Pretoria