/-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: IN AMERICA - IN THEATRES NOVEMBER 26
Fox Searchlight Pictures proudly presents IN AMERICA
directed by Academy Award(R) Nominee Jim Sheridan (My Left
Foot and In The Name of the Father). IN AMERICA stars Samantha
Morton, Paddy Considine and Djimon Hounsou. For more info:
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/inamerica
\----------------------------------------------------------/
South African Court Told of Plot for Coup and Ouster of Blacks
October 30, 2003
By MICHAEL WINES
JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 29 - A white extremist sect plotted in
2001 to overthrow South Africa's government, assassinate
its former president, Nelson Mandela, and march more than
35 million blacks and other nonwhites into exile along two
superhighways, prosecutors said in a Pretoria court on
Wednesday.
A police informant described the bizarre plan during the
first day of testimony in the trial of 22 members of the
extremist group, called the Boeremag, on charges that
include treason, murder and terrorism. The case is the
first treason trial since South Africa dismantled its
white-ruled apartheid system in 1994.
The 22 defendants were arrested last October after bombings
in the black Johannesburg suburb of Soweto and at a
Buddhist temple in Pretoria, the capital, left one person
dead. The police then identified them as members of the
Boeremag, a band of right-wing Afrikaners, the descendants
of the Dutch settlers who first colonized South Africa and
who ran the country during its final years of white rule.
Boeremag is Afrikaans for "Boer Force."
In daylong
testimony under heavy security, the police informant,
Johannes C. Smit, offered a detailed description of the
plan, under which 8,000 rebels would stage a coup and seize
military bases.
Mr. Smit, who said he also had belonged to an Afrikaaner
paramilitary group before being recruited by the police,
testified under a pledge of immunity from prosecution. He
said he had learned of the coup plan, known as Document 12,
from the Boeremag leader, Mike Du Toit, in June 2001.
As described by Mr. Smit, the grandiose plot envisioned
recruiting a shadow army of commandos within the South
African National Defense Force, the national military, and
financing the coup through robberies of armored cars. The
plotters were said to have approached several former
military and police officials for help and had identified a
handful of military bases as targets for takeover.
As the force was assembled, he said, the plotters intended
to assassinate key figures in South Africa's elected black
government, beginning with a bomb attack on a car carrying
Mr. Mandela to a public appearance. Prosecutors have said
that the bomb plot collapsed when Mr. Mandela changed
travel plans, taking a helicopter instead.
In the plot's final stages, the commandos would have
sabotaged SABC, the publicly funded national broadcasting
network, and seized fuel depots and the South Africa mint,
which was to be converted from striking coins to producing
weapons.
All that, however, was but a buildup to the coup's ultimate
goal: to drive South Africa's 35 million blacks and more
than a million citizens of Indian descent permanently from
the country. To that end, Mr. Smit testified, Mr. Du Toit
proposed that blacks be forced north along the N1 freeway
from Johannesburg into Zimbabwe, and that Indian-descent
citizens be marched along the N3 route to the country's
east coast, for deportation by ship to India.
"Blacks and Indians who resisted the Boeremag's
repatriation efforts would have been summarily shot," Mr.
Smit was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.
Although the defendants are accused of bombings, robberies
and illegal weapons possession, among dozens of other
charges, there has been little evidence that the coup plans
ever neared fruition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/international/africa/30AFRI.html?ex=1068911819&ei=1&en=1124733d62fdb803
---------------------------------
Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine
reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like!
Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy
now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here:
http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html
HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters
or other creative advertising opportunities with The
New York Times on the Web, please contact
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo
For general information about NYTimes.com, write to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
Is your computer infected with a virus? Find out with a FREE computer virus scan from McAfee. Take the FreeScan now! -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug
