Adriaan Johannes Vlok (11 December 1937 – 8 January 2023) was a South African politician. He was Minister of Law and Order in South Africa from 1986 to 1991 in the final years of the apartheid era. Facing increasingly intense opposition and political unrest in this period, the South African government – through the State Security Council of which Vlok was a member – planned and implemented drastic repressive measures, including hit squads, carrying out bombings and assassination of anti-apartheid activists.

Early life

Adriaan Vlok was born in the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape ( ; ; ) is the largest and most sparsely populated Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley, South Africa, Kimberley. It includes ...

town of Sutherland in what was the then Cape Province on 11 December 1937 to Nicolaas Vlok and Bett Oliver where he grew up on a rural small holding along the Orange River. He attended Neilerdrift Primary School and matriculated from Keimoes High School in 1956 located in Keimoes. He obtained a Dip. Proc. from the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria (, ) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and ''de facto'' capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johan ...

in 1962.

Career

Vlok started his career working in the magistrates office for the Department of Justice in Keimoes and Upington joining the National Party in 1959. From 1959 to 1966, Vlok served in Pretoria as the under-secretary for the Department of Justice whilst studying for an Attorney's Diploma at the University of Pretoria. He was then made assistant private secretary to South African Prime Minister B. J. Vorster. He resigned from the Department of Justice with the aim of entering politics in 1970, running a court messaging service. In 1972, he was elected to the Verwoerdburg (now known as Centurion) City Council and was elected to represent the area in the national Parliament in 1974. In September 1984, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence and was then made Deputy Minister of Law and Order a few months later in early 1985. During his time as Deputy Minister of Law and Order his ministry was responsible for the suppression and detention of around 30,000 people. In 1988 as minister of Law and Order he oversaw the restriction of 17 anti-apartheid organisations. Vlok's position as minister became especially controversial after 1990 during the negotiations to end apartheid, with the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

insisting on his dismissal. President FW de Klerk responded by moving him to a less controversial post as Minister of Correctional Services in July 1991. In 1993–1994 he was the last chairman of the minister's council of the

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible g ...

, the white chamber of parliament.

TRC amnesty

In 1999, Vlok was granted amnesty by the

Truth and Reconciliation Commission A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state ac ...

(TRC) – the sole cabinet minister to have admitted committing crimes, including the bombing of the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches at Khotso House, and the COSATU trade union headquarters.

Conviction and apologies

In mid-2006, Vlok came forward with public apologies for a number of acts that he had not disclosed to the TRC, and for which he could therefore be prosecuted. In a dramatic gesture, he washed the feet of Frank Chikane who, as secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches, had been targeted by Vlok for assassination. Subsequently, he washed the feet of the ten widows and mothers of the " Mamelodi 10", a group of anti-apartheid activists who had been lured to their death by a police informant. He said he had become a born again Christian prior to his public apologies for his actions as Minister of Law and Order and cites this as the cause of his change of heart about his role in apartheid and his need to seek forgiveness. On 17 August 2007, the High Court in Pretoria handed him a suspended ten-year sentence for his role in the 1989 plot to kill Frank Chikane. In 2014, he publicly called for more apartheid era perpetrators to come forward and apologise for their actions. As of 2015, he started and ran a child feeding charity named the Feed a Child initiative.

Personal life and death

Vlok died on 8 January 2023, at the age of 85.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vlok, Adriaan 1937 births 2023 deaths People from Karoo Hoogland Local Municipality Afrikaner people South African people of Dutch descent National Party (South Africa) politicians Government ministers of South Africa Justice ministers of South Africa Correctional Services ministers of South Africa Members of the House of Assembly (South Africa) Apartheid government Law enforcement in South Africa University of Pretoria alumni