Vlakplaas

Vlakplaas is a farm located approximately 20 km west of Pretoria, South Africa, that served from 1979 as the headquarters of a counterinsurgency unit officially designated Section C1 (later called C10) of the Security Branch of the apartheid-era South African Police. The unit itself became widely known by the name of the farm. According to Wikipedia's account, established in 1979, the unit grew from a small group of about five policemen and roughly fifteen "askaris" (former anti-apartheid combatants who had been captured and turned) into a formation of nine squads by 1990.

The unit operated as a paramilitary hit squad, capturing political opponents of the apartheid government and either converting ("turning") them into informants or agents, or executing them. The farm itself was the site of multiple executions of political opponents. Documented killings attributed to the unit include the 1981 murder of Griffiths Mxenge and the killing of the so-called "Chesterville Four" in 1986, among other cases.

The existence of the unit became public knowledge after former member Butana Almond Nofomela confessed to his involvement hours before he was scheduled to be executed for an unrelated, non-political murder. Nofomela received a last-minute reprieve so that he could provide further information about the unit's activities.

The land at Vlakplaas was purchased by police in 1979 and later transferred to the national Department of Public Works. After police vacated the property in the mid-1990s, it was left under the care of a caretaker. In 2001 the government held a traditional healing ceremony at the site and announced plans to transfer the land to the Department of Arts and Culture to establish a museum, but the caretaker successfully challenged the eviction in the High Court. In August 2007, the Department of Science and Technology announced plans to repurpose the farm as a center for healing focused on traditional-medicine research, though the caretaker continued to occupy the property for years afterward. The caretaker left in 2012, passing the land to friends who later transferred it to a Christian ministry, Kuriaké, which established an addiction rehabilitation center there. That ministry was evicted in June 2014, after which the government again planned to transfer the property to the Department of Arts and Culture for use as a heritage site.