Cosas Four

The Cosas Four were four anti-apartheid activists from the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) assassinated by the Vlakplaas death squad from the Security Branch. Their killing in a 1982 bombing attack was the first crime to be indicted as a crime of apartheid, in 2021.

1982 bombing

On 15 February 1982, three members of COSAS—Eustice Madikela, Peter Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo—were killed in a bombing attack at the Krugersdorp mine pump house orchestrated by the Security Branch, while a fourth, Zandisile Musi, endured severe injuries and died of them in 2021. The killing was ordered by Jan Coetzee, who later received amnesty for his role in the killing.

1999 confession to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

After the end of the South African apartheid government, several perpetrators from the Security Branch, including Christiaan Siebert Rorich and Thlomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa, came forward to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1999. They confessed to the murders, confirming that the bombing was intentional. Mfalapitsa was an African National Congress (ANC) activist who had been trained in East Germany before becoming disillusioned with the anti-apartheid movement and voluntarily returning to South Africa in 1981. At his TRC hearing he stated that he did not wish to fight for either side, but "was forced to join" the Vlakplaas death squad. He admitted to accompanying the Cosas activists in a van to the killing spot and promising to teach them how to use explosives. He had left the building and locked it, then went to Rorich who remotely triggered the explosion that killed the three activists.