LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

Mrs. Helen Suzman, Progressive Party M.P. for Houghton, appeared in a Johannesburg court this week as a witness for her African servant, Jack Sibanda, who was arrested outside the gate of her home in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, and charged with a pass offence. In her evidence Mrs. Suzman protested about the attitude of the police to “purely technical” offences against the pass laws and to their wasting time which would be better spent on more serious crime. Jack was cautioned and discharged. Later I spoke to

General J.P. Gous, Commissioner of Police, who said he would personally investigate the charge brought against Jack. — July 12 1970

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

Retired police commissioner General Johan van der Merwe says former state president FW de Klerk was briefed on all security force secret projects during the last four years of the apartheid regime. General Van der Merwe, described by the Goldstone commission as a chief architect of the government’s dirty tricks, said he had briefed a cabinet committee reporting directly to Mr De Klerk about all covert operations from early 1990. He would not say which security police projects were given the green light by the committee, appointed by Mr De Klerk to oversee Stratcom, the secretive campaign to discredit opponents of the government. — July 9 1995