BY MAURICE WILLIAMS

Former South African defense minister Gen. Magnus Malan, who organized a "total onslaught" campaign against opponents of the old apartheid regime, was acquitted October 11 of murder and conspiracy charges. Malan and 15 other co-defendants were cleared of accusations by South African judge Jan Hugo in a trial without a jury.

Malan was charged with plotting to arm and train an assassination hit squad that attacked the home of African National Congress (ANC) leader Victor Ntuli in 1987, killing 13 women and children.

Ntuli, who was not home at the time, was eventually assassinated at a political meeting two years after the massacre.

Malan worked closely with former South African presidents P.W. Botha and F.W. de Klerk and led the country's military machine during some of the most violent days of racist rule. He claimed he had no knowledge of the massacre.

Col. Eugene de Kock, commander of a police death squad unit, testified September 18 that de Klerk ordered an attack on the Transkei "homeland" in 1993. Five youth were murdered in that assault. De Kock, convicted on an array of some 90 charges including murder and fraud, testified during his trial how cop units routinely killed and tortured opponents of the apartheid government with the knowledge and complicity of top apartheid officials.

Judge Hugo acknowledged in his ruling that the 1987 murder was committed by members of the Inkatha Freedom Party who were on the payroll of the South African Defense Force. The Inkatha goons were trained at secret camps on Namibia's Caprivi's Strip by the South African military.

"There can be little doubt that the deceased were gunned down by trainees of the Caprivi," the judge told the Supreme Court in Durban. Hugo told a packed courthouse that the assault "was not an officially planned or authorized military exercise."

The day before Malan's verdict, however, Hugo acquitted six Inkatha members accused of the actual shooting in the KwaMakutha township outside Durban. They received special military training in the 1980s.

According to the New York Times, the indictment against Malan asserted the assassination squad was created in 1985, when Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi approached the racist regime for aid in Inkatha's attacks against the ANC. The apartheid government then secretly trained 200 Inkatha men in tactics such as "attacks on identified targets" and "house penetration." They supplied them with AK-47 assault rifles.

Incredulously, Judge Hugo argued that although Malan and other top generals were involved in organizing the military operations against anti-apartheid fighters, they were ignorant of the assassination plans. He dismissed testimony from former intelligence officer Capt. Johan Opperman, who confessed to planning the attack, and his assistant, Sgt. Andre Cloete. And he accused the prosecution of presenting a sloppy case with unreliable witnesses.

The editors of the South African Sunday Independent condemned the verdict declaring, "a man who was instrumental in waging apartheid's dirty war has got off scot free."

Mbusi Ntuli, the brother of Victor Ntuli and whose father and three sisters were killed in the attack, charged prosecutor Tim McNally of deliberately losing the case. Ntuli said witnesses to the slaughter were available to testify, but had not been called to do so. "He engineered this," Ntuli asserted. "If a prosecutor doesn't want to win he won't." The Washington Post reported McNally "was renowned for his refusal to believe that hit squads even existed."

The ANC accepted the ruling from the seven-month trial, but issued a statement that also cast doubts on McNally's court performance. "Questions have arisen as to why McNally decided to prosecute... without ensuring there was adequate evidence placed before the court."

South African president Nelson Mandela accepted the court's decision saying he "will not interfere in the judicial process" in a statement released October 1. "This approach does not mean that the government will not continue to pursue justice and truth," he added. "We give assurance that where persons have died as a result of atrocities, we will continue to investigate who was responsible and who, in regard to alleged third force activities, was responsible for directing these activities."

South African Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi said October 12 that investigations concerning death squad activities in KwaZulu-Natal would continue despite the verdict in the KwaMakutha massacre trial. "Our people will not rest until they know who committed this massacre," Mufamadi said.  
 
 
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