The last secretary of the former Secretariat of the State Security Council SSC, Johan Mostert, has come out in defence of former president FW de Klerk, denying claims by apartheid death squad commander Eugene de Kock that De Klerk personally ordered the 1993 Mthatha raid that killed five children.
Mostert, who was present at the State Security Council meeting that approved the operation, said De Kock’s testimony before the Khampepe Commission on Monday was a “substantially distorted” political narrative.
De Kock, 77, known as Prime Evil, launched a scathing attack on De Klerk during his testimony at the commission probing delays in the prosecution of TRC cases.
“He said he doesn’t have blood on his hands… but he’s up to his elbows in the blood of children, that his Nobel Prize must be retracted,” De Kock told the commission.
De Kock claims former president De Klerk instructed General George Meiring to execute the 8 October 1993 SADF raid on a suspected APLA safe house in Mthatha, then known as Umtata.
Five youths were killed in the operation at the Mpendulo home in Northcrest, among them 12-year-old twins Wandile and Samora Mpendulo. No weapons or APLA fighters were found at the scene.
“De Klerk is up to his elbows in the blood of children, and his Nobel Prize should be revoked,” De Kock said, arguing that De Klerk shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela while having blood on his hands.
He added that De Klerk’s Nobel Peace Prize should be withdrawn, calling him an unconvicted killer, and questioned who had granted pardons to De Klerk, General George Meiring and the soldiers involved, saying the entire matter had been covered up.
Mostert, in a detailed reconstruction of events, said De Kock was not at the SSC meeting and misrepresented a collective decision based on faulty military intelligence as a personal presidential kill order.
Mostert said: “On the Umtata raid, refuting Eugene de Kock’s claims — former State President F.W. de Klerk was directly accused by Eugene de Kock before the Khampepe Commission of having issued the order.”
“How should this harsh accusation be judged historically and politically? A reconstruction of the sequence of events provides the necessary perspective.”
According to Mostert, during an SSC meeting shortly before the attack, the South African Army requested permission to discuss an urgent matter outside the official agenda. According to army intelligence, a cell of armed APLA cadres – the PAC’s armed wing – was hiding in a house in Mthatha.
Mostert said three crucial background factors must be taken into account.
First, De Klerk’s ban on illegal operations.
“Since he took over the chairmanship of the SSC from P.W. Botha at the end of 1989, De Klerk made it clear that he would not allow any clandestine or illegal activities by state departments. He explicitly ordered that such operations must cease. Until the Mthatha incident, no covert terrorism operations were considered or sanctioned by his cabinet or the SSC,” Mostert said.
Second, the climate of the ‘Great Storm’. The meeting took place in the aftermath of APLA’s attack on 25 July 1993 on St James Church in Kenilworth, Cape Town, in which 11 people were killed and 58 wounded. APLA was engaged in its so-called ‘Year of the Great Storm’ campaign aimed at civilian targets.
Third, the Transkei context. Mthatha was the capital of the then ‘independent’ homeland of Transkei. Under Gen Bantu Holomisa, it served as a safe haven and launchpad for APLA attacks, making conventional policing impossible.
Mostert said it was clear De Klerk was uncomfortable with the SADF request.
“He immediately peppered the army with sharp questions: How certain is the army of its information? Is it irrefutably an APLA base? What is the risk of hitting civilians? What political and diplomatic consequences are anticipated?” he said.
He said other Council members also questioned the army intensely.
“The Army — through Gen. George Meiring — however, gave an absolute assurance that they had the situation thoroughly under control, that their intelligence was reliable, and that there would be no civilians present in the target house. Although many members of the Council were highly reluctant to agree, no one came up with a viable alternative to halt the immediate APLA threat. Consequently, the SSC approved the operation,” Mostert said.
Mostert further argued the SSC acted under the constitutional duty to protect citizens.
“It is unfair to judge the political executive with the wisdom of hindsight for information that was wrongly withheld from them by the military. The decision was not a reckless or evil plan to murder children, but a bona fide state action carried out on the basis of the facts available at the time to secure the country,” he said.
“The historical record therefore shows that Eugene de Kock’s claim is substantially distorted. De Klerk did not give Meiring a personal, unilateral ‘kill order’; he led a collective SSC decision that was based on misleading information during a national crisis,” he concluded.
The Khampepe Commission, established in May 2025 after pressure from victims’ families, is probing alleged political interference in the prosecution of TRC cases. The NPA has since opened an inquest into the Mthatha killings.