Tuesday, 12 November 2013
His father Derrick Robert McBride and mother Doris were teachers at a
Clairwood school. His maternal grandparents were Collin Campbell van Niekerk, a
White Afrikaner, and Grace, a Coloured daughter of a Zulu-speaking mother and a
Coloured father.
His father opens a workshop 'Utility Services'. At some point in 1978/79 his father begins burglar guards, fire-staircases and other light engineering steel work, where McBride assists. Robert is also involved in the collection of payment from customers, and has many encounters with gangs.
December 1980, Robert McBride receives his school leaving results, expecting high marks in Maths and Science. The results are poor and for the first time he stands up to his father, explaining the results by saying that he had to work for in the family business.
In 1981 McBride gains entrance to the University of Natal and begins studying Mechanical Engineering. He fails his first semester at university and subsequently drops out. He again works with his father for 3 months and then as a dock shiftworker for another 4 months.
Robert McBride works as an instrument fitter for Sasol for 6-7 months. He is trained at the oil parastatal's Secunda plant in the eastern Transvaal (now called Mpumalanga). Here he meets fellow worker Thomas Matjeke a trade unionist who talks often of the ANC and Frelimo.
McBride is badly burned in a gas bottle explosion at work and is hospitalized in Bethal. He is fetched by his father after an estrangement lasting several months. For the rest of the year he works with his father. Doris, Robert's mother, obtains a gun for protection against gang attacks. Prior to this Robert owned an illegal firearm.
McBride obtains a copy of the Bob Marley "Survival" album, banned in South Africa, and instantly relates to the revolutionary lyrics.
McBride gets close to Rashaad "Ricky" Leonard, a childhood acquaintance. Through him he is introduced to "Soledad Brothers - the prison letters of George Jackson", who was an African-American associated with the Black Panther movement. It becomes one of the most influential books McBride ever reads.
Mcbride enrols at Bechet (Coloured) Teacher Training College and gets elected to the Student's representative Council the same year.
Robert McBride assaults a plain-clothes policeman who, with 2 others, attempts to rob his mother's diner. Later, in a separate incident, he kills one of a group of attackers with his mother's pistol while returning from walking some of his mother's employees home at night. The assailant was a youth of about 18. He reports the matter to the local police station.
Robert McBride and other students form the Bechet branch of the Azanian Students' Organisation (AZASO), a student wing of the United Democratic Front (UDF). McBride meets Vincent James, active in the Congress of South African Students (COSAS).
In June 1986, an ANC armed terrorist wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cell, led by Robert McBride, planted a bomb in a car outside the popular "Why Not" bar and Magoo's Bar on Durban’s busy beach-front. Three innocent defenceless women died and 71 were injured in the bomb explosion, which became known as the Magoo’s Bar bombing.
McBride taped together more than 100 pounds of explosives, attaching a mine with a 15-minute timer as his trigger, and swaddling this propulsive charge with bags of machine-gun bullets and metal scraps for shrapnel. He secreted his lethal contraption in the spare-wheel well of a powder-blue Ford Cortina, which he parked one busy Saturday night on a crowded beach-front esplanade in Durban.
McBride, the bomber, was out of earshot when his device exploded into two busy bars called Magoo's and the Why Not, killing three women, wounding 71 people, and inaugurating a new stage in the ANC's war against innocent South African civilians.
Robert McBride was sentenced to death three times for his part in the attack.
These acts of terrorist war against defenceless civilians still stands for many South Africans as a reason for withholding forgiveness and reconciliation.
In an interview with Bill Keller (1992), he noted with pride that South Africa's reconciliation process came close to breaking down over his case, which is remembered with particular horror by most.
South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled that McBride may be called a murderer, although he had received amnesty for the incident.
On March 9, 1998, (Four years after the ANC had taken over the government of the country), McBride, then a high-ranking official in the Department of Foreign Affairs, was arrested by the Mozambican police in Ressano Garcia, Mozambique, for allegedly smuggling weapons from Mozambique to South Africa. He maintained he was working with the South African National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and was later released by the Mozambican authorities. McBride was appointed Chief of the Metropolitan (metro) Police for Chief of Ekhuruleni Municipality in 2003.
On December 21, 2006, McBride rolled his vehicle at high speed on the R511 near Pretoria and witnesses at the scene said he appeared to be heavily intoxicated.
It did not help matters when the outspoken McBride, not known for keeping his temper, apparently threatened bystanders who were watching the drama unfold.
In an unexpected turn of events, three police officers - Patrick Johnston, Stanley Segathevan and Itumeleng Koko - who had hurried McBride away from the scene on that December 21 night in 2006, seemingly turned their backs on their old boss and obtained court interdicts protecting them, so they said, from McBride and other officials.
The Sunday Times reported (quoted here) that court was told of the following threat by McBride: 'If anyone of you co-operates with the police or gives any statements which directly incriminate me in any criminal activities I will rape your wives before I kill them, kill your children, and thereafter kill everything that moves at your homes, including your cats and dogs’.
Judge Moroa Tsoka ordered McBride to stop threatening, harassing and intimidating the three senior colleagues who allegedly gave damning evidence against him.
South Africa's Police Minister nominated Robert McBride for the position of head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid)
"We believe Mr McBride's appointment as head of Ipid will help this important institution to achieve [its]... mandate," the SA Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said.
The minister added that, "Mr McBride was the successful candidate following the shortlisting, interviewing processes, as well as Cabinet's endorsement,"
The Minister said the SA Cabinet decided to recommend McBride as IPID executive director at a meeting on Wednesday 13 November 2013.
His father opens a workshop 'Utility Services'. At some point in 1978/79 his father begins burglar guards, fire-staircases and other light engineering steel work, where McBride assists. Robert is also involved in the collection of payment from customers, and has many encounters with gangs.
December 1980, Robert McBride receives his school leaving results, expecting high marks in Maths and Science. The results are poor and for the first time he stands up to his father, explaining the results by saying that he had to work for in the family business.
In 1981 McBride gains entrance to the University of Natal and begins studying Mechanical Engineering. He fails his first semester at university and subsequently drops out. He again works with his father for 3 months and then as a dock shiftworker for another 4 months.
Robert McBride works as an instrument fitter for Sasol for 6-7 months. He is trained at the oil parastatal's Secunda plant in the eastern Transvaal (now called Mpumalanga). Here he meets fellow worker Thomas Matjeke a trade unionist who talks often of the ANC and Frelimo.
McBride is badly burned in a gas bottle explosion at work and is hospitalized in Bethal. He is fetched by his father after an estrangement lasting several months. For the rest of the year he works with his father. Doris, Robert's mother, obtains a gun for protection against gang attacks. Prior to this Robert owned an illegal firearm.
McBride obtains a copy of the Bob Marley "Survival" album, banned in South Africa, and instantly relates to the revolutionary lyrics.
McBride gets close to Rashaad "Ricky" Leonard, a childhood acquaintance. Through him he is introduced to "Soledad Brothers - the prison letters of George Jackson", who was an African-American associated with the Black Panther movement. It becomes one of the most influential books McBride ever reads.
Mcbride enrols at Bechet (Coloured) Teacher Training College and gets elected to the Student's representative Council the same year.
Robert McBride assaults a plain-clothes policeman who, with 2 others, attempts to rob his mother's diner. Later, in a separate incident, he kills one of a group of attackers with his mother's pistol while returning from walking some of his mother's employees home at night. The assailant was a youth of about 18. He reports the matter to the local police station.
Robert McBride and other students form the Bechet branch of the Azanian Students' Organisation (AZASO), a student wing of the United Democratic Front (UDF). McBride meets Vincent James, active in the Congress of South African Students (COSAS).
In June 1986, an ANC armed terrorist wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cell, led by Robert McBride, planted a bomb in a car outside the popular "Why Not" bar and Magoo's Bar on Durban’s busy beach-front. Three innocent defenceless women died and 71 were injured in the bomb explosion, which became known as the Magoo’s Bar bombing.
McBride taped together more than 100 pounds of explosives, attaching a mine with a 15-minute timer as his trigger, and swaddling this propulsive charge with bags of machine-gun bullets and metal scraps for shrapnel. He secreted his lethal contraption in the spare-wheel well of a powder-blue Ford Cortina, which he parked one busy Saturday night on a crowded beach-front esplanade in Durban.
McBride, the bomber, was out of earshot when his device exploded into two busy bars called Magoo's and the Why Not, killing three women, wounding 71 people, and inaugurating a new stage in the ANC's war against innocent South African civilians.
Robert McBride was sentenced to death three times for his part in the attack.
These acts of terrorist war against defenceless civilians still stands for many South Africans as a reason for withholding forgiveness and reconciliation.
In an interview with Bill Keller (1992), he noted with pride that South Africa's reconciliation process came close to breaking down over his case, which is remembered with particular horror by most.
South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled that McBride may be called a murderer, although he had received amnesty for the incident.
On March 9, 1998, (Four years after the ANC had taken over the government of the country), McBride, then a high-ranking official in the Department of Foreign Affairs, was arrested by the Mozambican police in Ressano Garcia, Mozambique, for allegedly smuggling weapons from Mozambique to South Africa. He maintained he was working with the South African National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and was later released by the Mozambican authorities. McBride was appointed Chief of the Metropolitan (metro) Police for Chief of Ekhuruleni Municipality in 2003.
On December 21, 2006, McBride rolled his vehicle at high speed on the R511 near Pretoria and witnesses at the scene said he appeared to be heavily intoxicated.
It did not help matters when the outspoken McBride, not known for keeping his temper, apparently threatened bystanders who were watching the drama unfold.
In an unexpected turn of events, three police officers - Patrick Johnston, Stanley Segathevan and Itumeleng Koko - who had hurried McBride away from the scene on that December 21 night in 2006, seemingly turned their backs on their old boss and obtained court interdicts protecting them, so they said, from McBride and other officials.
The Sunday Times reported (quoted here) that court was told of the following threat by McBride: 'If anyone of you co-operates with the police or gives any statements which directly incriminate me in any criminal activities I will rape your wives before I kill them, kill your children, and thereafter kill everything that moves at your homes, including your cats and dogs’.
Judge Moroa Tsoka ordered McBride to stop threatening, harassing and intimidating the three senior colleagues who allegedly gave damning evidence against him.
South Africa's Police Minister nominated Robert McBride for the position of head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid)
"We believe Mr McBride's appointment as head of Ipid will help this important institution to achieve [its]... mandate," the SA Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said.
The minister added that, "Mr McBride was the successful candidate following the shortlisting, interviewing processes, as well as Cabinet's endorsement,"
The Minister said the SA Cabinet decided to recommend McBride as IPID executive director at a meeting on Wednesday 13 November 2013.
http://toxinews.blogspot.com/2013/11/robert-mcbride-man-nominated-by-the-sa.html
AfriForum pays homage to Magoo's bomb victims
Charl
Oberholzer
14 June
2011
AfriForum
today pays homage to the three people who died on this day 25 years ago in the
ANC and Robert McBride's bomb attack on civilians at the Magoo's Bar in Durban.
Apart
from the three women ‒ Angelique Pattenden, Julie van der Linde and Marchelle Gerand ‒ who died
in the bombing, 71 other civilians were injured. The Truth and Reconciliation
Commission ruled that the bombing had been a gross violation of human rights.
Few, if any, of the victims were members of the security forces.
The
Constitutional Court recently ruled that McBride may be called a murderer,
although he had received amnesty for the incident.
"We
don't approve of the history of young Afrikaners being criminalised, while the
history of the ANC is romanticised," said Charl Oberholzer, National
Chairperson of AfriForum Youth.
According
to Oberholzer, it is important to commemorate the incident in the run-up to
Youth Day in order to dispel the myth that the ANC' struggle was entirely noble
and innocent.
"Our
thoughts are with the next of kin of those victims who died and the 71 innocent
victims who were injured in the blast," Oberholzer said.
The names
of the victims are given below.
1. D. Arnold
2. Michael Blair
3. J. Blair
4. E. Booth
5. D.
Bret
6. Kevin Byrne
7. P. Byrom
8. Christopher Clarkson
9. M. Coeks
10. Jenny
Cubbit
11. M.
Cyrnow
12. A. de
Chalain
13.
Lorraine de la Rosa
14. L.
Donaghue
15. F.
Drummel
16. A.
Duncan
17.
Rajesh Durlcharan
18.
Dennis Eaby
19. C.
Edgar
20. K.
English
21. B.
Erasmus
22. E.
Ethell
23. James
Ferguson
24. R.
Ferreira
25. R.M.
Ferreria
26. Mr.
Fiddler
27. Mrs.
Fiddler
28. David
Fletcher
29. L.
Friar
30. B.
Giddy
31. Carl
Hadden
32. Paula
Harvey
33. T.
Hempstead
34. Keith
Hulse
35.
Jonathan Jeffers
36. S.
Jeffries
37. I.
Joao
38. Helen
Kearney
39. C.
Kenning
40. J.
Kerlen
41. L.
Koenig
42. E.
Langridge
43. L.
Livingstone
44. E.
Maker
45. Gavin
Maxwell
46.
Victor Mchunu
47. John
McKenna
48. H.
Merval
49. S.
Mintz
50. L.
Mitchell
51. P.
Mulholland
52. B.
Newby-Fraser
53. C.
Olds
54. L.
Oliver
55. D.
Pavillon
56. M.
Plaatjies
57. W.
Puttock
58. M.
Rathbone
59. K.
Robert
60. F.
Robits
61. M.
Roe
62. J.
Saich
63. Roger
Shillaw
64. A.
Strydom
65. P.
Swart
66. G.
Tonetti
67. A.
van Wyk
68. T.
Vilonel
69. L.
Valentine
70. L.
Waterworth
71. I.
Walton
Statement
issued by Charl Oberholzer, AfriForum Youth national chairperson, June 14 2011
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=240990&sn=Detail&pid=72308
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=240990&sn=Detail&pid=72308
