Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
‘There will be no hesitation to kill even innocent people’ – PW Botha retaliating to bomb blast
THE events of May 1983 capture the rage of South Africa’s dangerous 1980s, a time when no one was deemed innocent, on either side.
If this was vividly true of the late afternoon bomb blast in central Pretoria on Friday May 21, it was chillingly evident in the words of then Prime Minister PW Botha who vowed retaliation, promising “there will be no hesitation to kill even innocent people”.
Grimly enough, he was true to his word: two days later, South African Air Force jets struck targets in the Maputo suburb of Matola, killing at least six people (some sources claim a much higher toll), including women and children.
The pattern ( reflected in the following reports from May 1983 and May 1986) was repeated over the next few years – insurgent attacks followed by retaliation against sites in what were called the Frontline States, South Africa’s southern African neighbours, from which the liberation movements supported operations against apartheid. PRETORIA. A body flung right through heavy wooden doors, glass- covered pavements, wrecked cars and a pair of high- heeled shoes standing neatly in a pool of blood. These are some of the scenes from the horrifying bomb explosion in Pretoria yesterday.
Accounts tell of the melodic tolling of the clock on Church Square at half past four, and then a deafening explosion, followed immediately by the sound of splintering glass, the crackling of metal awnings and the roar of fire. And then, in a short lull of silence, the moans of the injured. In a bank across the street, bulletproof glass had cracked and a bank official, still visibly suffering from shock, said: “I was flung a metre into the air. When I rushed out the first thing I saw was a body – and then more and more people covered in blood.”
Last night, as scores of policemen and women formed a cordon around the scene of the explosion and squadrons of police cadets in camouflage suits moved in for mopping-up operations, the blood- soaked and glass-spattered pavements told a horrifying story of death and injury. Beneath a small pile of rubble at the entrance of the building where the bomb exploded, a man’s wristwatch was found, inscribed with a name and a loving message.
Elsewhere, someone stumbled over a toddler’s gumboot. Stacked against the entrance to Nedbank Square were blood- spattered handbags, briefcases, shoes and clothing.
Last night the Minister of Defence, Mr Magnus Malan, said the Government would not hesitate to launch more Maseru- style pre- emptive attacks on African National Congress bases to prevent further atrocities.
In a statement issued at midnight, the Prime Minister, Mr PW Botha said: “This act confirms once again that we are dealing with a communist- inspired assault of great intensity in which there will be no hesitation to kill even innocent people.” JOHANNESBURG. South African troops struck at ANC tar- gets in the centre of Harare today. At the same time SADF units attacked ANC targets near Gaborone and clashed with Botswana Defence Force troops, wounding at least three.
In addition, South African Air Force aircraft “successfully attacked” ANC targets outside Lusaka, Zambia early today, the SAAF said.
A statement by the Chief of the Air Force, Lieutenant-General D J Earp, said SAAF fighter jets “successfully attacked the ANC’s operational centre and Department of Information and Publicity (DIP) on the Makeni Plots 15km south-west of Lusaka”.
All the South African Air Force aircraft returned safely to base.
The statement did not iden- tify what type of craft were used.
The statement said the centre had in the past been used “for the harbouring of terrorists and their weapons en route to the RSA; research into and preparation of specific propaganda material against the RSA; some of the research and planning for the terrorist sabotage attacks against Sasol 2 and Secunda in 1980 and terrorist leaders regularly visit this centre”.
● It was the second time South African forces had raided Gaborone, but the first time they had fought with Botswana soldiers. An international outcry is expected over the raids, especially the one on Harare, which hit the main ANC office only a block away from the central police station.