The Farcical Harms Commission Report
On Saturday, 24 November 1990, apartheid National Party politicians and senior officials in the security forces celebrated the release of the Harms Commission Report, as they reacted jubilantly to the report’s findings. Adriaan Vlok said: “We’ve got the Harms report ... death squads never existed in the South African Police. The police don’t kill people, they arrest them.”
On 13 November 1990, after more than 70 days of hearings, apartheid President FW de Klerk released the findings of the Harms Commission. As it was expected, it became an exercise in futility, especially for the people of South Africa, whose lives had been touched by the death squads. All they got was a deafening silence. The Harms Commission was De Klerk’s response to Captain Dirk Coetzee’s allegations, including those of Almond Nofomela and David Tshikalanga, in late 1989. He appointed a judicial commission of inquiry into the existence of police death squads and his chosen instrument to dissect and expose death squads was Justice Louis Harms.
The one-man Harms commission, headed by Supreme Court Judge, Justice Louis Harms, ironically enough, with a wave of assassinations sweeping the country, targeting opponents of the government, found no evidence to back up the allegations of army and police involvement in hit squad activities. Harms exonerated the police and found that no death squads had existed at Vlakplaas.
In the end, what the Commissio
