Jeanette Schoon and Daughter Killed By a Letter Bomb – 28 June 1984
On 28 June 1984, former member of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), Jeanette Schoon, and her six-year-old daughter, Katryn, were killed by a letter bomb at Lubango, in northern Angola. The explosion occurred in Schoon’s kitchen. Jeannette’s three-year-old son, Fritz, was also in the kitchen at the time but he was not hurt. Anti-apartheid activist Marius Schoon, Jeanette’s husband, was the target of the bombing because of his involvement in the anti-apartheid revolutionary struggle. Marius was banned in South Africa and had initially taken his family into exile in Botswana, but they moved to Angola because they thought it would be safer there. The letter was facilitated by Craig Williamson, a spy for the security police who pretended to be a family friend.
South African political activist and teacher Marius Schoon became a member of the South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD) in association with the African National Congress (ANC) at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg while undergoing his postgraduate studies. In September 1964, Marius Schoon plotted to bomb the Hospital Hill Police Station in Johannesburg. His Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Unit included Mike Ngubeni (the Unit Commander), Sholto Cross and Raymond Thoms. An undercover police agent provocateur infiltrated Schoon’s Unit and supplied them with a fake bomb with a view to entrapment. Schoon was arrested an
