South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid

Interview Segment

John Daniel interviewed by Sean Fields
October 12, 2004 Durban, South Africa.
"Part of what motivated me to [work for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission] was to find out who had killed all these people in Swailand." [2:58]

John Daniel, who lived in exile in Swaziland for a number of years, researched every major killing by the Vlakplaas South African covert police in Swaziland.

John Daniel was born in 1944; his student days at the University of Natal beginning in 1962 changed his political perspective from the conservative worldview of his parents. He was involved with National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) and became its president. Under threat of being banned, he went into exile in 1968, earned a PhD in the United States and then taught in Swaziland for 12 years, where he provided various kinds of support to the liberation movement. Daniel returned to South Africa in 1991 and worked for the Research Department of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he focused on South Africa’s gross violations of human rights in neighboring countries.

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