Grim torturer of apartheid era dies at 54 (Biko's killer)

[struggle4progress]

FOREIGN STAFF


FORMER South African security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt, who commanded the torture of anti-apartheid hero Steve Biko, has died at the age of 54 from cancer. <snip>

"He was feared by the people he interrogated, tortured and murdered," SABC radio said, reporting his death in a Port Elizabeth hospital. "He used torture machines, electric shocks, wet bags or poison to extract information from activists, and often disguised himself as a priest."

When apartheid yielded to multi-racial democracy in 1994, he was denied amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the 1977 fatal torture of Biko, founder of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement, who suffered brain damage in interrogation and died after being driven 625 miles naked and bleeding in a police van.

Nieuwoudt was also involved in burning the bodies of three activists from Port Elizabeth in 1985 and a 1989 car bombing which killed three black policemen and an informer who had threatened to detail police atrocities. <snip>

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1814212005

[uppityperson]

1. Good. eom

[bumblebee1]

10. In the words of Bette Davis

My mother told me that I should never speak ill of the dead. He's dead? Good!!!

[Zenlitened]

11. Don't worry. Someone usually comes along in a thread like this...

... and chastises us for "dancing on a fellow human being's grave."

Hell, I'm not dancing on his grave. I haven't done spitting on it yet! :7

[pretzel4gore]

20. why was he like that?

not defending the guy, but he certainly never benefitted from what he did...maybe he thought he was fighting the good fight, and found out, too late, that he was wrong...
the thing is that these men become monsters in the service of some idea: if the idea was polar opposite, they still serve it ruthlessly (and maybe leave to a well respected retirement, where they everyday call talkadio to complain about rampant liberalism and what should be done about it)
the real guilty bastards in south africa (nazi germany, soviet russia, bush usa, etc) never got their hands dirty, and never pleaded for forgiveness, because they had men like this to hide behind...
always defending the underdog (even when he murdered sir steve biko?)

[Zenlitened]

21. "Underdog"?

:puke:

[Zenlitened]

2. Sounds like the world is a measurably better place tonight.

One less sadist in the world.

[The Traveler]

4. It is at least a somewhat cleaner place

now that this scum has been removed from it.

[Endangered Specie]

3. Thats good news

[TahitiNut]

5. Well, that's one less possible * Supreme Court nominee.

:puke:

[loudsue]

7. Just spit beer all over my monitor...

:rofl:


:kick:

[TahitiNut]

9. :-) I hope it wasn't Guinness. That'd be a waste.

:evilgrin:

[Judi Lynn]

16. Amen, amen. Damn, that's good.

http://www.sabcnews.com/article/images/0,1059,26396,00.gif http://www.sabcnews.co.za/article/images/0,1059,28285,00.gif http://www.sabcnews.com/article/images/0,1059,29147,00.gif

Former security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt

Article from last year:

Location: Sunday 18 Jul 2004 > Insight

Broken killer reaps what he sowed


Apartheid murder mastermind Gideon Nieuwoudt is visibly falling apart as he tries for a second time to seek amnesty for his crimes, writes Nicki Padayachee



Crumbling: Gideon Nieuwoudt, who has been refused the forgiveness of the families of the Motherwell Four, for whose murder he wants amnesty. Picture: EUGÈNE COETZEE

Freedom has not been kind to Gideon Nieuwoudt. The former security policeman, implicated in the murder of many anti-apartheid activists, sat in Court A of the Port Eliza beth High Court this week a broken shell of a man.

With wrinkles etched into his face and his teeth visibly rotted, Nieuwoudt, 53, appeared to have shrivelled in his skin.

His dilapidated looks and hunched demeanour contrasted sharply with those of Eugene de Kock, the man brought 1 200km to testify against him.

Captivity has been good to De Kock, head of the apartheid death-squad base Vlakplaas, who has spent the past eight years in a Pretoria prison cell.

De Kock testified this week against Nieuwoudt and two other former security policemen, Wahl du Toit and Gerhard Ras, in their second application for amnesty for the 1989 killing of the Motherwell Four.
(snip/...)

http://www.suntimes.co.za/2004/07/18/insight/in01.asp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In January 1997, amnesty applications regarding the deaths of Mthimkulu and Madaka were received from Port Elizabeth Security Branch officer Gideon Nieuwoudt, Colonel Nicolaas Van Rensburg, Major Hermanus Barend Du Plessis and Colonel Gerrit Erasmus. At a press conference in Port Elizabeth on 28 January 1977, it was revealed that the bodies of Mthimkulu and Madaka had been burnt and their remains thrown into the Fish River near the disused Post Charmers police station near Cradock. The Commission took the families to the site of the killings and disposal of the bodies. At the amnesty hearings later, the security police admitted to having abducted and killed the two activists, but they denied all knowledge of torture and poisoning. Mr Siphiwe Mthimkulu and Mr Topsy Madaka who were abducted and killed by Mr Gideon Nieuwoudt, Mr Nicholas janse van Rensburg, Mr Gerrit Erasmus, Mr Hermanus Barend du Plessis, Mr Jan van den Hoven and Mr Jan du Preez.

Amensty was granted by the TRC on 6 March 2000 to four senior security policemen, Major General Nicolaas Van Rensburg, Major Hermanus Barend Du Plessis, Colonel Gerrit Erasmus and officer Gideon Niewoudt, for the death of Congress of South African Student (Cosas) leader activists Siphiwo Mthimkulu and Topsy Madaka in April 1992
(snip)

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/1266/historical-truthandreconciliation.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Portrait of evil: Security
policeman Gideon
Nieuwoudt and his minder
Mike Barnardo

Sunday Times Recommends

TRUTH & LIES by Jillian Edelstein(M&G Books R220)

Pictured right is Gideon Nieuwoudt, once one of the most feared security policemen in the Eastern Cape, with his witness protector, the bearded Mike Barnardo. Nieuwoudt was photographed by Jillian Edelstein at the amnesty hearings in Cape Town in 1998, when he was applying for amnesty for his part in the killing of Steve Biko. With the faint swagger of his stance, the cheap suit and dead eyes, Edelstein has captured the truism that deep evil hides in the mundane. His amnesty application was rejected.
(snip)

http://www.suntimes.co.za/2002/01/13/lifestyle/life06.asp

[seemslikeadream]

6. The Black Consciousness movement

Steve Biko (1946-1977) was born in Kingwilliamstown, Cape Province, South Africa. As he described in I write what I like Steve Biko went to local primary and secondary schools and finally moved to Natal to complete his higher education. He entered the medical school of the University of Natal in Durban in 1966. (As a black student at a white university, he could only be accepted in the Non-European section). In the middle of 1972, his course was closed down by the authorities. Biko became active in the National Union of South African Students, broke with them in 1968 and formed the South African Students’ Organisation of which he was elected its first president in July 1969.

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/biko.htm

"Biko"

September '77
Port Elizabeth weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

When I try to sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one colour dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is dead

And the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now

Peter Gabriel

[al bupp]

22. When I saw the title of this thread,

I immediately thought to post the lyrics to Peter Gabriel's unforgettable song, but of course, you beat me to it!

"oh Biko, Bii-ko, Becau-uh-uh-se, Biko"

:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

23. Dia duit ar maidin, al bupp

You know I still listen to LiveIreland, have it in my favorites

Go raibh maith agat!

http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com.nyud.net:8090/scans/p-10607.jpg
http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/IRELAND-BARTLETT.htm



http://www.irishmegaliths.org.uk/wexford.htm

[al bupp]

24. Dia's Muire duit, ma cher

As for LiveIreland, ná habair é.

Now I have to go look at Irish megaliths for while...

[Zenlitened]

8. "September, '77, Port Elizabeth, weather fine..."

September, '77
Port Elizabeth, weather fine
It was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
The man is dead, the man is dead

When I try to sleep at night
I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white
With only one colour dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
The man is dead, the man is dead

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
The man is dead, the man is dead

And the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now

"Biko"
By Peter Gabriel

[Must_B_Free]

12. Fraternity Pranks...

he was just blowing off a little steam...

[gratuitous]

13. Denied amnesty

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up after the fall of apartheid, and offered amnesty to anyone who made a full disclosure of his or her deeds. Nieuwoudt appeared before the Commission more than once, but his testimony in connection with the 1989 Motherwell bombing was judged incomplete and evasive.

As far as I can find out, he was never tried and never testified about the death of Steven Biko.

[fortyfeetunder]

14. If there is a hell, I hope he got there by now.

No heavenly kingdom should be disgraced by this scum.

[The_Casual_Observer]

15. Gideon Nieuwoud - Pleasant enough sounding name

:sarcasm:

[Robeson]

17. A real loss to humanity, there....

...:sarcasm:

[Nostradamus]

18. Karma

the appropiate new life has been scheduled...

compassion, not hate, is the best emotion for a lost soul now headed for recasting

[Kipling]

19. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!... Not that I'm dancing on his grave.

I make a point of not splashing my urine about.