political intrigue
BOOK REVIEW: Daughter of Robert Smit determined to find apartheid-era killers
Forty years after the brutal murder of Robert and Jeanne-Cora Smit, their daughter, Liza, is still asking questions about who ordered the killings and why. "I think this must be the best kept secret in South Africa," Smit declares. The book, I am Liza Smit, is another attempt by her to flush out those behind the murders, and the title comes from her "not knowing for 40 years who I was". Liza and her brother, Robert, testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). However, the commission’s finding that the Smits were killed by members of the apartheid regime’s security forces in a gross violation of human rights does not answer her question: why? When the soft-spoken, petite mother of two meets to talk about the book written with the help of a Pretoria friend, Raquel Lewis, the anger and frustration she still feels are palpable. She was 13 when her parents were butchered on November 22 1977. Twenty years later, in August 1997, she submitted a report to the TRC in which sh...
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