MR KOOPEDI: The applicant before you is Doctor Mathebe, Chairperson, he is ready to be sworn in.
CHARLES DOCTOR MATHEBE: (sworn states)
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Koopedi
MR KOOPEDI: Thank you Chairperson.
EXAMINATION BY MR KOOPEDI: Mr Mathebe, I'm referring you to a bundle of documents which is before this Honourable Committee and a document which starts on page 1 of this bundle is an application form. Is this your application form?
MR MATHEBE: That's correct.
MR KOOPEDI: At the end of this application form and that is on page 6, there is a signature appearing at the bottom. Would that be your signature?
MR MATHEBE: That's correct.
MR KOOPEDI: Now this Honourable Committee and every one in here has heard the evidence of your three fellow applicants. I would like you to briefly tell this Honourable Committee what your involvement was and perhaps start by indicating when you joined the ANC, how and where were you trained.
MR MATHEBE: I joined the MK in 1987. I received my training from JJ Maake who was our Commander. I was involved in operations, other operations, those that have been mentioned here today and I agree that I was a full member of that unit that they have been talking about.
MR KOOPEDI: Your evidence is that you were involved in some of the operations. Can you explain that, or at least that's what came through the translation. In which operations were you involved? Perhaps let me rephrase the question. In the operations which have been referred to by your co-applicants, is there an operation where you were not present, particularly the planning thereof?
MR MATHEBE: Yes, for instance the operation in Mothethe, that involved Mr Fourie, I was not present, but I heard about it later and the other operation that took place at the police station in Dennilton, I wasn't present and the operation that involved a limpet mine at the Administration offices, I was not involved, but I was involved in an operation that took place at Kwagga police station. I was the driver in that operation. I was also involved in the operation at Khala, I was also there the driver. That is Tsantsabela.
MR KOOPEDI: Now regard being had to the evidence given by the three applicants before you, your application form and the brief evidence you have given before this Honourable Committee, is there anything that you think that you have not told this Honourable Committee in as far as your involvement?
MR MATHEBE: I have told this Committee everything.
MR KOOPEDI: Now, did you receive any personal gain for having involved yourself in the activities of this unit?
MR MATHEBE: No. There was no intention, or it was not our intention to receive rewards after the operations and there is no one who received a reward.
MR KOOPEDI: It then seems that there are basically really two operations, I speak under correction, where you were really involved.
MR MALAN: Mr Koopedi, just before you proceed with that, looking at his amnesty application, he discloses only the one incident which is the Elvis Mnisi/Khala incident. Do you need an amendment or can you just point us, where in the application does he apply for the other incident?
MR KOOPEDI: I have seen his application, Chairperson and also noted that it also referred to the Khala incident.
MR MALAN: Can you just help me? Where is that referred to?
CHAIRPERSON: It's the same one.
MR MALAN: Khala and Mnisi is the same incident and he now accepted some responsibility for involvement in this Kwaggafontein incident.
MR KOOPEDI: Yes, Chairperson.
MR MALAN: Where is Kwaggafontein referred to in his application?
MR KOOPEDI: In his application, I have not seen Kwaggafontein and I discussed this matter with him this morning. This was done as a precautionary measure as to whether one should apply for amendment of his application. The explanation that was given to me was that he does not know even today whether there was an explosion or not and basically that is why he did not include that incident in his application.
MR MALAN: I think then we must accept that that's not before us. It's not in his application, it wasn't timeously done, except if you come with a substantive application for an amendment.
MR KOOPEDI: I must say, I'm not bringing an application in that, like he said, he does not know if there was an explosion. I've asked around, it doesn't seem to me that anyone was injured by the ...
CHAIRPERSON: None of the other applicants know whether there was an explosion or not.
MR MALAN: So we accept Kwaggafontein is not before us as far as this applicant is concerned?
MR KOOPEDI: That is right.
MR MALAN: Thank you.
MR KOOPEDI: That's okay. Now I wanted to establish and perhaps let's read the, as guided by the Committee, the incident involving Mishi or Mnisi, what would you think was the political motivation? What would you say was the political motivation?
MR MATHEBE: At that time, we received a message from the members of our community that there is somebody called Mishi who usually comes and abducts comrades. He was working in cahoots with the police and they explained or described him to us and then we decided that we should go and fetch him. That's when we made a decision that we'll go there and fetch him.
MR KOOPEDI: Chairperson, that's the evidence-in-chief for this applicant.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR KOOPEDI
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Engelbrecht, do you have any questions you wish to put?
MR ENGELBRECHT: No questions, Chairperson.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR ENGELBRECHT
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Steenkamp?
ADV STEENKAMP: No questions, Honourable Chairman.
NO QUESTIONS BY ADV STEENKAMP
CHAIRPERSON: Adv Sandi?
ADV SANDI: No questions, thank you Chair.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Malan?
MR MALAN: No questions thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Mathebe, that concludes your testimony. You may stand down.
WITNESS EXCUSED
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Koopedi, are you calling any further witnesses?
MR KOOPEDI: Chairperson, that is the application. We are calling no witnesses. We have with us, like I indicated earlier, the person being referred to as Khala. We have looked at the facts and the suggestion from our side is that we do not need to call him as a ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: There's nothing to even suggest a contradiction to the fact that he may have been abducted ...
MR KOOPEDI: Precisely Chairperson, and that is our application.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Engelbrecht, are you calling any witnesses?
MR ENGELBRECHT: We are not calling any witnesses, Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Steenkamp?
ADV STEENKAMP: Chairman, we are not calling any witnesses.
CHAIRPERSON: Are you prepared to make submissions at this stage?
MR KOOPEDI: I can make very brief submission, Chairperson and I'm prepared to do it now.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Koopedi, you may proceed.
MR KOOPEDI IN ARGUMENT: Thank you Chairperson.
Chairperson, Honourable Committee Members, you've had four applicants before you. It is my first submission that the applicants before you have complied with the requirement of full disclosure. Chairperson, Honourable Committee Members, according to the evidence and the documents before you, all the operations or the incidents for which amnesty is being sought, were not done under pressure. That is to say, none of these applicants was in prison for those operations and was then asking for or applying for amnesty to try and get out of prison.
It is my submission that in the spirit of full disclosure and reconciliation, these applicants, on their own, applied to be granted amnesty.
It is my further submission Chairperson, that there was a question asked, I think two or three times, as to why did the ANC not accept responsibility for this operation. Unfortunately I do not have with me the submissions made by the ANC, but from my head I can recall that this incident was not referred to, but my argument is that failure to refer to this incident as one of the ANC's operations, would not necessarily mean that the ANC was repudiating that operation.
MR MALAN: No, but Mr Koopedi, you don't have to argue that any further. That's accepted.
MR KOOPEDI: Thank you Chairperson.
It is my further submission that it has been unclear as to when, how, the operation which we have I think perhaps badly referred to as the Fourie operation, planned. My submission, Chairperson, Honourable Committee members is that having listened to the evidence and perhaps even consulted with the applicant, it is very clear that there was no single person targeted or identified as a target. The unit had decided at some stage, the evidence is that perhaps two or three weeks ago they identified a spot as a favourite spot for the police and then, which spot would then become a suitable spot for an ambush, but it was not decided that is then and there as to when to go and stage this ambush. This place was like earmarked as an ambush, looked at and assessed as an ambush place at some stage. It is also unclear, I wish to submit Chairperson, that the applicants would have elected to have given you time and said we planned today, we planned on the day of the operation, three days ago, but because the applicants could not recall, they honestly told you that they did not recall exactly when was it then agreed that people should move to the area and execute this operation.
MR MALAN: Mr Koopedi, nothing really hinges on this but does the evidence not tend to favour an explanation that from the moment of this decision to implementation, minimal time would have elapsed because there was no logistic preparation, they had the AKs available, evidence was they knew that the police were regularly stopping there every night. On the night of the implementation of the operation, they did not expect to wait long for a police car to stop. Nothing indicates that there would have been any long-term planning, or detailed planning.
MR KOOPEDI: I seem to agree with that suggestion and perhaps I was making this submission in an attempt to try and clarify the issues which seemed not very clear when evidence was being given.
It is therefore my final submission, Chairperson, Honourable Committee Members, that the applicants before you here, have to the best of their ability, told you all they could remember and have complied or tried to comply with the requirements of the Act, to enable you to consider their applications and that's my submission in brief, Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Koopedi. Mr Engelbrecht, do you have any submissions?
MR ENGELBRECHT: Chairperson, I do have submissions, but I think it will only be appropriate if I quickly for five seconds, we need not stand down, learn from my clients whether they have any other ....(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, certainly Mr Engelbrecht. I'll give you longer than five seconds.
MR ENGELBRECHT IN ARGUMENT: Thank you Chairperson.
Chairperson, my submission and that of my clients, or my client, more specifically Mrs Fourie now Willers, is that we have difficulty to accept the credibility of the witnesses and when it concerns those elements of Section 20, then it concerns more specifically the full disclosure part of it. When it was testified today, there was testified, amongst others, that no decision approvals were required for the operations, but the operations had to be reported to Lusaka and to the best of my remembrance, like four months or three months afterwards.
CHAIRPERSON: I think in that regard, Mr Engelbrecht, the usual procedure, although it hasn't been said here, was the reporting was usually done orally. You know, they didn't see telegrams or letters because of fear of there being interception etc, so reporting would be done when one of the operatives, usually the Commander, actually went back to Lusaka or wherever his superior was, it might have been Mozambique or even in Botswana. In this particular case, Lusaka. That would explain the delay, and then when they were there they would then mention the operations sort of thing.
MR ENGELBRECHT: Thank you Chairperson. However, Chairperson, on page 33 of the compilation, it is recorded that by Mr Mathebe
"Yes, the ...(indistinct) unit Commanding structure identified and approved these operations. Furthermore, higher levels of MK were informed and approved such operations"
and there is definitely, to my understanding chairperson, a conflict in doing operations without getting prior approvals and what is recorded here and there might be an explanation for that, this is not the core of my argument, but I wish to put it on record.
Secondly ...(intervention)
MR MALAN: May I just ask you on this point, could approval not come after the fact?
MR ENGELBRECHT: It certainly could, Chairperson.
Chairperson, furthermore, only in view of the normal credibility tests, it is my submission that the credibility of the witnesses is questionable in view of the following. Conflicting statements and probabilities. When it concerns the conflicting statements, I did put on record that I will argue about that. In the statement of the Chief Mathebe as it is captured on page 74 of the compilation, where he says that he had:
"the second operation which was also sanction by our structure, was that of Lieut Fourie and his son at Mothethe"
and then what is recorded on page 56, Chairperson and 57, to my opinion definitely is conflicting. That is for the Panel to decide upon, but it's my submission that those are not the same statement, that it definitely conflicts and that it casts, in my mind, some questions about the credibility of that particular witness.
Concerning the probabilities, Chairperson, it is my submission that there were not 400 or 4 000 operations, but only 4 operations, of which the Commander testified. The first, second and the third one were that of the Fourie people.
CHAIRPERSON: I think there were five, weren't there?
MR ENGELBRECHT: Yes, Chairperson, but in any event they were not so numerous that, in my mind, a person would not recall such drastic decision with the consequence that it has up till today and the same counts for all the other witnesses that testified, who seemingly have huge problems to recall when the planning was done and the thing is, Chairperson, in my mind the, in whatever way one phrases it, the making dead of people is such a serious conduct and operation that certainly it must have had minds applied to that decision. It has to have been well considered and it should be possible to recall that and in light of probabilities it strikes me amazing that this cannot be recalled by any of the witnesses. Then there are three approximates, either the same day, or two or three weeks before, or more or less a month before.
As for the events, also many scenarios are possible, but the whole issue of the planning and operational side and then also the follow-up, the operation is done, but the operational Commander as well as his operational members, do not know what happened after that, they only learn that long time after the operation has been completed and Chairperson that definitely is peculiar, that a person will do an operation and not assess the achievement of that, or not at earliest convenience.
So therefore Chairperson, it is my submission that in the light of these credibility issues and probability issues, I call upon the Panel to be cautious to just believe the testimonies as they have been testified and I wish to put it that I believe there was political unrest and uncertainties and that whatever happened, could have been politically motivated. I have no doubt about that, but even so, Chairperson, the disclosure is such that I am concerned that it might move the presiding Panel to regard the political vial as such dominant thing that what has happened factually might be forgiven in the light of politics and it definitely is an element that full disclosure has to be made to this Panel and on basis of this, Chairperson, I wish to request that the testimonies of the first, second and third witnesses be regarded cautiously by the presiding Panel. If however the Presiding Panel decides that there has been, it is indeed fulfilment of Section 20, then I wish to put it to the Panel that Mrs Fourie already testified what her - the consequences for here were, immediately after this operation had taken place and it is recorded on page 126 and to regard whatever is to be done afterwards in view of that.
CHAIRPERSON: In the event of amnesty being granted, we are obligated to express our opinion as to who are victims and then refer such victims to the Reparations Committee, which we would do and in that regard I think we would appreciate it if you could speak to Mr Steenkamp and give particulars of who are victims. In a matter like this it would normally be the immediate family at the time of the deceased or injured persons.
MR ENGELBRECHT: Thank you Chairperson. That is my submission, Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Steenkamp, do you have any submissions?
ADV STEENKAMP: Mr Chairman, just one or two things.
ADV STEENKAMP IN ARGUMENT: In regard to the Fourie family, I think they've already been report to the HRV Committee as being victims.
CHAIRPERSON: But still, I know that the fact that they've testified before the Human Rights Violations Committee, but it still for us to - we're actually obligated by the Act to express our opinion as to who are victims.
ADV STEENKAMP: Mr Chairman, I've already discussed with my learned colleague this morning and we are in agreement that such information will be forwarded to the Honourable Committee.
Mr Chairman, Honourable Members, as far as Insp Freddy Sipongwane, this is now in relation to the Dennilton police station attack, he is present here today and was present during the whole presentation of applicants' testimony. My instructions are that he is not opposing the application of any of the applicants, neither did he want to pose any questions and he is of the view in the circumstances, amnesty can be granted as far as the Dennilton police station attack is concerned.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Steenkamp and Mr Sipongwane. Do you have any reply, Mr Koopedi?
MR KOOPEDI IN REPLY: I'll try and have a very brief one.
I will refer to what my learned friend has referred to as conflicting statement. My submission Chairperson that the statements are not conflicting at all. It was - there was a whole hearing where the history of the conflict in Mawudse was being spoken about and when the question was answered by Chief Mathebe in terms of MK's involvement, what he said to me that is when we consulted, is that he was answering the question in the light of what Mr Mogale would have said, referring to an earlier period, so my submission is there are not conflicting statements and perhaps it's worthy to mention that the statement on page 74 which seems to carry this contradiction, this statement was only drawn up last year, after ...(intervention
CHAIRPERSON: I think on that one, because one wouldn't expect him to write "the incident that took place at an unknown date at a T-junction in which we don't know who was injured", it wouldn't have made sense to write it at that stage. To refer to the Fouries at that stage was the obvious thing to do.
MR KOOPEDI: I'm not sure I understand you correctly, Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct - no microphone) Fourie by name was referring to the incident at the T-junction. I mean, it wouldn't have made sense to write that and say: "at which an unknown policeman was killed".
MR KOOPEDI: Yes. The point I'm ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: I mean, I'm sure that any person who wrote this, the second operation was also sanctioned was that of Lieut Fourie, I mean he's just identifying the operation. He could have said the second operation, which was also sanctioned, was that of two unknown policemen. One wouldn't expect them to have said that when this document was written.
MR KOOPEDI: Chairperson, the point I was trying to make is that when Chief Mathebe gave evidence in the Human Rights Violations Hearing, this statement was not drawn up. I believe it would have been a completely different picture, if he had written this statement and he then testified in the HRV hearings and was asked a question and he responded as he did, so I thought it will be prudent you know, in reply to what my learned friend was saying, to show and shed light to the fact that this statement only came after when people were preparing for a hearing and that is why people could have been specific here and not in that hearing.
The last fact or point which I want to deal with is the fact that my learned friend has referred to what is only five operations. From the evidence an my consultations, these are not the only operations. However, these are the only operations which we are asking amnesty for. The Commander was involved in recruiting and in training people and various other things. I am not sure whether one needs to go into the type of operations MK cadres would go into, but perhaps to enlighten my learned friend, people would distribute pamphlets, people would do all sorts of things, however it is only these five that we come before this Honourable Committee for. Thank you, Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Koopedi. We shall reserve our decision in this matter and our decision will be made in the near future in written form.
I'd like to thank you Mr Koopedi and Mr Engelbrecht and Mr Steenkamp for your assistance in this matter.
This then brings us to the end of the hearing and Mr Steenkamp, the next matter we have will only be tomorrow? Is that correct?
ADV STEENKAMP: Mr Chairperson, that will be the role for the day. The other two matters, or actually one matter is still standing down.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, so that's one hearing with two applications. Thank you. Yes, thank you very much. We will now adjourn.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
