Vlakplaas Operatives and Askaris Deployed to the Western Cape

On Thursday, 2 January 1986, Colonel Eugene de Dock was in Vlakplaas, where he instructed Riaan Bellingan to go to Cape Town, where he was going to operate under the command of the apartheid Security Branch. He was to be supported by Joe Coetzer and askaris who were Thapelo Johannes Mbelo, Xola Frank “Jimmy” Mbane and Eric “Shakes” Maluleka, and an older askari known as “Captain Moss”, whose real name was Gladstone Mose (aka “Jackson Mlenze”).

Mose was the group leader of the Transkei section of the Luthuli Detachment during the Wankie Campaign and co-signed the Hani Memorandum following the challenges faced in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) ranks in 1969. Frequently the operatives from Vlakplaas worked with regional offices of the security police on particularly sensitive or complex operations.

One such operation became known as the DairyBelle murders (or the Killing of the “Gugulethu Seven”), where Vlakplaas operatives assisted by the Western Cape apartheid Security Police under Major General Griebenouw succeeded to create and eliminate an “enemy”.

When the State of Emergency was declared in 1985, Cape Town was not included in the 36 magisterial districts around Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth that were affected by the emergency decree. However, unrest spilled beyond those districts into the Western Cape and Natal.

On 28 August 1985, close to 3 000 youthful protesters marched from Gugulethu, in the Western Cape, towards a so-called Coloured township of Athlone, with the ultimate intention to march to Pollsmoor Prison. The police reaction to the demonstration began a spate of persistent rioting.

The clashes turned into urban guerrilla warfare as youths set up barricades and showered the security forces with firebombs. There was a dramatic escalation in armed attacks, including a hand grenade attack on security forces resulting in casualties.

This incident led apartheid police Major General Griebenouw to request the assistance of the Vlakplaas Unit in an operation in the Western Cape against “terrorists” believed to be operating from the DairyBelle Hostel in Gugulethu Township. The Hostel was home to thousands of workers employed by the DairyBelle ice-cream company.

Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock (aka “Mr Fix It”) then deployed certain Vlakplaas personnel, including several askaris, to the Western Cape. After a final briefing from De Kock at Vlakplaas, Bellingan took charge of the mission and they drove to Cape Town in early January 1986. Based at Koeberg, they were briefed by members of the security police and were shown photographs of some activists in Gugulethu who were alleged to be dangerous “terrorists”.

After an unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate Mbelo into the group in Gugulethu, Mbane and Maluleke were sent in. They were given weapons and grenades and arrived at the home of a “squatter camp” leader “Yamile”, claiming to be MK commanders from exile.

As proof, they opened a concealed panel in the minibus, showing their guns and grenades. Yamile believed the askaris and, after introducing them to Christopher “Rasta” Piet, they soon had the core of the group which became known as the “Gugulethu Seven”.

Mbane claimed to have informed both Bellingan and apartheid Security Branch Captain William Liebenberg that these were merely youths rather than hardened “terrorists” and that only one of them – Rasta Piet – was trained. Rasta Piet fell for the story to the extent that Mbane and Maluleke even assisted him in fixing his faulty AK-47 assault rifle.

Liebenberg allegedly informed Mbane that he should see to their training. Over a period of two months, the youths received basic training in military combat work from Mbane and political education from Eric Maluleke.

The plan was to launch an attack on a police bus which ferried senior police officers to Gugulethu police station every morning. This plan was reported to both Liebenberg and Bellingan by Mbane, which resulted in the notorious killing of the “Gugulethu Seven” on 3 March 1986.

The two askaris, Jimmy Mbane and Eric “Shakes” Maluleke were each given R7 000 for their role in exposing and leading the “Gugulethu Seven” into an ambush, with one thousand being paid for each of the seven.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!