Keltria
01-06-2005, 10:51 AM
South Africa had the 3rd highest judicial execution rate in the world. Between 1980 and July 1989, 1109 people have been hanged in South Africa. That made it about 138 per year over an 8 year period.
At the end of July 1989, a total of 283 prisoners were being held on death row at Pretoria Central Prison. 272 of these prisoners were black and 11 were white. According to the Minister of Justice, Kobie Coetsee, death row was 43,5% overcrowded. In March 1988, 53 people were on death row for politically related crimes.
The death penalty, a weapon of terror used against thousands of working people in South Africa, had been abolished in a unanimous decision June 6,1995. South Africa's Constitutional Court voted to ban the use of capital punishment. A prison official at Pretoria Central penitentiary reported that the news was greeted with "shouting and clapping and general jubilation on death row."
But others are calling for an outright return to hanging.
"I believe it should be reintroduced," many people say. "I look at America for instance, where they have the death penalty. There must be some reasoning behind this."
But the ruling African National Congress has categorically ruled out either a referendum or restoration. "In the history of South Africa, tens of thousands of black people were hanged and it didn't do any good," said President Thabo Mbeki. That was the legacy of South Africa's brutal apartheid past, when there was no distinction between freedom fighters and common criminals.
Does SA want to go through the likes of what you are about to read now.
Wouter Basson and Theron (please note the following may disturb sensitive people)
The small, balding, 57-year-old man told the court that he was involved in the deaths of more than 200 anti-apartheid political prisoners between 1979 and 1987. The deaths, he claimed, were merely a part of his job.
According to Theron, the executions of hundreds of prisoners were a solution to the increasing prison inmate population of several defense force camps. In fact, he told the court that the disposal of the prisoners was primarily his idea, one that he initially proposed to his superiors in 1979. Theron stated that he used various methods to kill the prisoners, including burning, beating, poisoning and strangulation.
One of Theron's acts took place in 1983 in northern Kwazulu-Natal, Africa. According to LoBaido's article The Secrets of Project Coast, Theron claimed to have been instructed by his superior, Dr. Wouter Basson, to tie up three prisoners to a tree overnight and smear their bodies with jelly-like lethal toxins. The primary aim was to test the toxic agent to see if it was capable of causing death. To Theron's dismay, the men did not die as easily as he expected.
The next day, Theron found the men still clinging to life. He decided to get rid of the men in another way. He loaded them into a small plane and flew off towards the ocean. According to an article by South Africa's Sunday Times, during the flight Theron claimed that he injected the three men with lethal muscle relaxants before dumping their bodies into the sea. Theron further stated to the court that a majority of his victims were disposed of in a similar manner, by dumping them into the water some 100 miles off the coast.
Poisoning was the preferred method used by Theron when he killed many of the political prisoners. They were injected with lethal drug cocktails, often administered into the heart, before being tossed into the water. Theron claimed that Dr. Wouter Basson, the former head of South Africa's chemical and biological warfare (CBW) program, readily supplied him with the lethal drugs, which he used on a majority of his victims.
Theron's testimony and confession was a critical part of the trial of South Africa's Wouter Basson for alleged human rights abuses. Dr. Basson was implicated not only in supplying the drugs used to kill anti-apartheid political prisoners, but also in administering them himself. In October 1999, Chris Pessarra, a retired French Foreign Legionnaire claimed he witnessed Basson injecting political prisoners with poison in their stomach during a flight over Mozambique territory. He said that these men were then thrown alive from an airplane in 1979. The victims were five guerrilla rebels believed to have been from the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army.
Pessarra said that before the poisoned, unconscious men were thrown from the plane, they were dressed in camouflage uniforms and supplied with guns and false papers. They were then sprinkled with an unknown powdery substance, which he believed was poison or some kind of lethal chemical agent. He believed the powdery agent was meant to contaminate other rebel soldiers who may happen upon the bodies.
The full story on Wouter Basson can be read here
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/south_africa/
At the end of July 1989, a total of 283 prisoners were being held on death row at Pretoria Central Prison. 272 of these prisoners were black and 11 were white. According to the Minister of Justice, Kobie Coetsee, death row was 43,5% overcrowded. In March 1988, 53 people were on death row for politically related crimes.
The death penalty, a weapon of terror used against thousands of working people in South Africa, had been abolished in a unanimous decision June 6,1995. South Africa's Constitutional Court voted to ban the use of capital punishment. A prison official at Pretoria Central penitentiary reported that the news was greeted with "shouting and clapping and general jubilation on death row."
But others are calling for an outright return to hanging.
"I believe it should be reintroduced," many people say. "I look at America for instance, where they have the death penalty. There must be some reasoning behind this."
But the ruling African National Congress has categorically ruled out either a referendum or restoration. "In the history of South Africa, tens of thousands of black people were hanged and it didn't do any good," said President Thabo Mbeki. That was the legacy of South Africa's brutal apartheid past, when there was no distinction between freedom fighters and common criminals.
Does SA want to go through the likes of what you are about to read now.
Wouter Basson and Theron (please note the following may disturb sensitive people)
The small, balding, 57-year-old man told the court that he was involved in the deaths of more than 200 anti-apartheid political prisoners between 1979 and 1987. The deaths, he claimed, were merely a part of his job.
According to Theron, the executions of hundreds of prisoners were a solution to the increasing prison inmate population of several defense force camps. In fact, he told the court that the disposal of the prisoners was primarily his idea, one that he initially proposed to his superiors in 1979. Theron stated that he used various methods to kill the prisoners, including burning, beating, poisoning and strangulation.
One of Theron's acts took place in 1983 in northern Kwazulu-Natal, Africa. According to LoBaido's article The Secrets of Project Coast, Theron claimed to have been instructed by his superior, Dr. Wouter Basson, to tie up three prisoners to a tree overnight and smear their bodies with jelly-like lethal toxins. The primary aim was to test the toxic agent to see if it was capable of causing death. To Theron's dismay, the men did not die as easily as he expected.
The next day, Theron found the men still clinging to life. He decided to get rid of the men in another way. He loaded them into a small plane and flew off towards the ocean. According to an article by South Africa's Sunday Times, during the flight Theron claimed that he injected the three men with lethal muscle relaxants before dumping their bodies into the sea. Theron further stated to the court that a majority of his victims were disposed of in a similar manner, by dumping them into the water some 100 miles off the coast.
Poisoning was the preferred method used by Theron when he killed many of the political prisoners. They were injected with lethal drug cocktails, often administered into the heart, before being tossed into the water. Theron claimed that Dr. Wouter Basson, the former head of South Africa's chemical and biological warfare (CBW) program, readily supplied him with the lethal drugs, which he used on a majority of his victims.
Theron's testimony and confession was a critical part of the trial of South Africa's Wouter Basson for alleged human rights abuses. Dr. Basson was implicated not only in supplying the drugs used to kill anti-apartheid political prisoners, but also in administering them himself. In October 1999, Chris Pessarra, a retired French Foreign Legionnaire claimed he witnessed Basson injecting political prisoners with poison in their stomach during a flight over Mozambique territory. He said that these men were then thrown alive from an airplane in 1979. The victims were five guerrilla rebels believed to have been from the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army.
Pessarra said that before the poisoned, unconscious men were thrown from the plane, they were dressed in camouflage uniforms and supplied with guns and false papers. They were then sprinkled with an unknown powdery substance, which he believed was poison or some kind of lethal chemical agent. He believed the powdery agent was meant to contaminate other rebel soldiers who may happen upon the bodies.
The full story on Wouter Basson can be read here
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/south_africa/