Justice Denied

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

1983 South Africa, Kwazulu Natal

The power and support of the Africa National Congress, ANC, was growing and opposition to the ruling white government, both at home and internationally was strengthening constantly.

For the government, opposing the ANC was a difficult task, but it was one that was aided, paradoxically, by the Inkatha Movement, led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

The Inkatha Movement was seen as the only black alternative to the ANC and was aided in its efforts by the inception of Operation Marion.

The operation was essentially a covert, government sanctioned effort to train and equip a paramilitary offensive force for the Inkatha movement.

This covert operation was the brainchild of the then Prime Minister P W Botha and his defense minister Malan and the resulting warring between the ANC and rival Inkatha faction would see over 20,000 fatalities in the province during the decade.

“Sergeant!” Shouted Captain Wolf, “Get that biltong out ya mouth and move those kaffirs out the road!”

“Yes Sir!” replied Sergeant Everhaas, “Sorry Sir, I was in a bit of a dwaal.”  And then, turning straight to the two privates following him, he yelled,

“You heard him! Get that kak out the way and back in their homes. We want to be clear here before dark!”

The Sergeant wished he hadn’t been on the beer with his mates the night before, drinking mampoer, a very potent sort of moonshine, until it was past 2 am when he crawled into the barracks and now, late in the next day, his hangover was making his mood more sour than usual.

They had been in the township of Luksethi since early morning under the pretence of quelling a demonstration by a mass of ANC supporters.

When they rolled in and more than one hundred troops clambered out of their trucks, as the officers expected, they found no more than a couple of hundred poor villagers, stunned into silence and rooted to the spot, not knowing whether they should stay where they were or run for the forest.

Even though it was obvious that the people that stood staring at them could scarcely support themselves, yet alone the ANC, the troops knew they were under orders and they knew what they had to do.

Captain Wolf looked around him at the frightened mass of townspeople and almost regretted what he had been ordered to do. They were people after all, even if they were only kaffirs eh? He said to himself. 

Ah well, he shrugged to himself, let’s get on with it.

He looked at his watch and noted the sun was about to go down.

It was this shift from day to night that he had been waiting for, but they still had some much needed light as the sun shrank below the horizon in a red shimmer to bear witness that their task was complete.

As the villagers were herded like livestock back into their ramshackle homes with pushes from the barrels and butts of the soldiers' rifles, the Captain looked again at his watch and thought if they could clear this quickly he could be back at the officers' mess by 10pm.

The idea was simple.

The ANC had been attracting a lot of publicity internationally and the movement was seeing unprecedented support and from bloody pop stars too!

Well the operation tonight would hopefully put a dent in that for them, thought Wolf.

The faceless leaders of Operation Marion had come up with the plan to create an ANC atrocity against an Inkatha supported township and leave enough of a trail to lead any investigation back to the ANC.