Vlakplaas

Faced with the 'total onslaught' by its enemies, in 1979, Apartheid South Africa established Vlakplaas-lit. 'shallow farm', a 100-hectare farm nestling in the hills outside Pretoria on the Hennops River-as a secret operation under the arm of C1, a counter-terrorism division of the South African Police headed by Brigadier Schoon.

The first phase of Vlakplaas operations, up until 1989, was aimed at fighting the enemy: the armed wings of the liberation movements, the African National Congress's Umkhonto we Sizwe (or 'MK'), the Pan Africanist Congress's Azanian People's Liberation Army (or APLA) and the South African Communist Party. The second phase was 'fighting organised crime' in which Vlakplaas itself seamlessly adopted the mantle of organised crime in the notorious downtown area of Johannesburg's Hillbrow. The final phase, the most destructive, was as the murky 'Third Force' that destabilised the country in an orgy of violence in the run-up to its first democratic elections, in 1994.

Operating within South Africa as well as beyond the country's borders, it will never been known how many victims can be attributed to the Vlakplaas agenda-with much of the execution taking place on the farm itself-but a conservative figure of 1,000 murders and assassinations has been mooted.

80 b/w illustrations

About the Author

Robin Binckes was born in 1941 in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Educated at Umtata in the Transkei, he enjoyed a business career that spanned Public Relations, sports promotion, travel and tourism and food retailing. He has written several historical books on South Africa, including the bestselling The Great Trek-Escape from British Rule: The Boer Exodus from the Cape Colony, 1836. He has recently started writing for several Pen & Sword military history series including 'Death Squads' (on massacres and genocides) and 'Architects of Terror'. Inspired by the late David Rattray, he currently works in Johannesburg as a tour guide with his own company, Spear of the Nation, specialising in oratory story-telling.