Gay Teen Dead After Inhuman Treatment at Camp That Makes “Men Out of Boys”

He was severely emaciated and dehydrated, had brain damage, a broken arm and bruises, and cigarette burns all over his body. His mother was told that the chances of him surviving were “virtually zero”. He died two weeks later.

“I sent my son on this course to make him a better man, to give him a better future,” Wilma Buys told The Daily Telegraph. “I trusted Alex de Koker with his life.”

Mr de Koker, 49, and employee Michael Erasmus, 20, are currently on trial for charges of murder, child abuse and neglect, along with two cases of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in relation to Mr. Buys’ death.

During trial last week, Gerhard Oosthuizen, 19 — who had shared a tent with Buys — tearfully recounted how Buys was chained to his bed after he tried to escape, was forbidden from using the bathroom and repeatedly soiled himself. According to Oosthuizen, on one occasion when Buys went to the bathroom in a field while the recruits worked, he was forced to eat his own feces.

Oosthuizen also described seeing Buys in a hut with a pillowcase over his head as de Koker and Erasmus shocked him with a stun gun. “He screamed,” Oosthuizen said. “I was scared and ran away.”

Four years earlier, de Koker was charged with the death of two young men: 18-year-old Erich Calitz and 19-year-old Nicholas van der Walt. de Koker escaped charges in van der Walt’s death, which was ruled to have been caused by a heart attack, and was handed a suspended sentence in 2009 for Calitz’s death from severe brain injuries.

Calitz’s sister said he was beaten when he asked to quit the camp and that de Koker “told him that he wasn’t gay and he would make a man out of him.”

Gender activist Melanie Nathan suggests the three teens  were all “perceived as gay and clearly effeminate” and de Koker’s methods had “gay repartaive undertones”:

The idea of the camp is to apparently make men of teens and to “cure”  ‘”feminine traits’ in male youths…” another way of saying gay reparative therapy, instead in this instance that therapy involved “beating the gay out of the kid”…

de Koker and Erasmus have both pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder, child abuse and neglect, failure to provide adequate clothing, food, housing or assistance and two charges of assault, in a case postponed from November last year.

(h/t: Gay Star News)