VOLKSRUST: LANDMINES ON FARM

I'm actually sorry that, after the new dispensation kicked in, I had not tried to find out from the ANC why that bomb was specifically planted there. And whether they specifically had something against me?

I was aware that a certain Tony Yengeni (later to become a senior politician) and his ANC comrades at the time were the prime suspects regarding this bomb explosion. They were arrested but were released after 1990 during the negotiations, in accordance with an agreement reached between the ANC and the NP government.

VOLKSRUST: LAND MINES ON A FARM

WO Willie du Plessis

During 1986, Col. Theunissen, the then Standerton District Commandant entered my office and ordered me to accompany him (I too was at that time attached to the Standerton District Head Office).

Arriving at the scene on a farm between Volksrust and Wakkerstroom we saw a large crater in the road at the farm’s gate. The explosion had badly damaged a pickup truck and stripped the bark off a tree next to the gate. The vehicle had flown through the air and the hood of the vehicle landed + -20 feet from the gate, on the dirt road that ran past the farm.

I then proceeded carefully down to the homestead, sticking to the right-hand wheel track that the pickup truck had left on the dirt road (reasoning that, since the pickup had passed there, I wouldn’t encounter other live mines if I stuck exactly to that track). Col. Theunissen tried to call me back, but I pressed on to the house, fortunately without any incident. Arriving at the back door of the homestead, I noticed an elderly woman and servants in the kitchen. They were all hysterical, especially the elderly woman, presumably the mother of the boy who was in the landmine explosion. I could not calm them. They screamed and were very much in shock, so I told them that help would soon arrive and that the army was on its way. I walked gingerly back to the gate along the same track. A tractor meanwhile had also detonated a landmine in a ploughed field some distance from the house. The driver was thrown into the air, but fortunately suffered only minor injuries.

Col. Theunissen and I had a very good understanding, since we were both previously stationed at Jeppe (Johannesburg) during the seventies, and therefore we knew each other well. He was not very happy with my actions, since he was worried that I might step on a booby trap that could crush my legs. Meanwhile the army arrived in 2 helicopters, from Pretoria. Col Theunissen and I then left the scene and went back to Standerton.

The injured boy was in matric and on his way that morning to write an exam in Volksrust. He was seriously injured, and it is a miracle that he survived the explosion. He lost a leg. Once grown up, he became a pastor and is still in the ministry. His father had to sell the farm because of all the medical expenses for his son.