A dark chapter in SA's history

ON THE night of October 30, 2002, eight bomb blasts tore through Soweto, leaving one woman dead and damaging vital infrastructure. The bombs were the work of far-right white Afrikaner separatist group the Boeremag, whose stated aim was to overthrow the ruling ANC government, rid the country of black people and reinstate a new Boer-administered republic.

- HAMISH MITCHELL

After a cross-country search, 23 men were arrested and charged with high treason after the police seized explosives, home-made pipe bombs, weapons and ammunition in arms caches all over the country.

In what became the longest and most expensive trial in the country’s history, told in reporter Karin Mitchell’s book The High Treason Club, the public learned of a fanatical group driven by nationalism, racism, militancy and fear.

Over the years, Mitchell has also covered the Marikana Massacre, the Oscar Pistorius trial and other significant political events.

She has been writing full time since 2016. This is an edited extract of The High Treason Club.

Treason

It was 19 May 2003, the first day of the Boeremag treason trial. The early days of the trial were held in the Palace of Justice in Pretoria, ironically in the same courtroom where Nelson Mandela was sentenced in the pivotal Rivonia treason trial in 1964. At that time, capital punishment was in effect, and it was almost certain that Mandela and his co-accused would be executed in the Pretoria gallows if they were found guilty of some of the 200-odd charges against them.

Almost 40 years later, the Boeremag accused sat squashed against each other in the same dock where Mandela delivered his famous speech in which, fully aware that he could be sentenced to death, he vowed he was prepared to die for the liberation of black people. The court found Mandela guilty on four charges relating to sabotage against the state.

He was not sentenced to death, as had been widely expected, but was instead sentenced to life in prison. He spent many of the next 27 years excavating rock in the dusty white quarries on Robben Island, within sight of Cape Town and the South African mainland.