CHAIRPERSON: For the record, it is Tuesday 11th May 1999. It is the continuation of the amnesty application of, applications I should say, of W F Schoon and others. In this particular instance we are still dealing with the incident concerning Sadie Pule and Take Five. Yes Mr Visser, I think you had concluded your case yesterday, if I'm not mistaken?

MR VISSER: That is correct Chairperson, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mohlaba, have you got any witnesses?

MR MOHLABA: No, I've got no witnesses to call, Chair, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Thabethe, have you got any witnesses?

MS THABETHE: No witnesses, Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Thabethe, can you just give us an idea, what is the position of Mr Naude?

MS THABETHE: Mr Chair, Mr Naude was notified in terms of Section 19 and he is represented by Mr Bosman, Alex. He was here in the morning yesterday but I didn't see him in the afternoon. I called him on his cell yesterday after speaking to Commissioner de Jager. I left a message for him that you've got a concern that you don't know where he stands, but I did speak to him yesterday morning, he was in the crowd.

CHAIRPERSON: He has not submitted an amnesty application in respect of this incident, has he? I assume not.

MS THABETHE: No, he hasn't.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Ms Thabethe.

Mr Visser, do you want to address us on this one? Are you ready? Alright.

MR VISSER IN ARGUMENT: Yes, Chairperson, I'm ready to argue. We will obviously refer you to the argument which we've presented to you at the initial stages of the hearings. We're not going to repeat it for obvious reasons, barring one aspect and that is that over the weekend, although as you can imagine I didn't have much time, I did very briefly look at the long line of authorities in regard to vicarious liability and I will draw your attention to certain quotes from some of those Judgments for in case they might be of use to you.

Allow me to commence, however, by asking you to regard the circumstances and to consider the application for amnesty in the present incident, against the background of the specific time frame in which it occurred, which was in the mid 80's.

We have heard, before the Amnesty Committees from various people, how the struggle had become extremely intense from approximately 1985 onwards. This incident finds itself in December 1986 and we want to ask you to bear that in mind, particularly if one has regard to the evidence given by Brig Loots and with reference to the statement attached to his amnesty application which we have summarised also, I'm sorry, including the bundle which we showed you yesterday, which we have summarised in his statement.

Chairperson, in that statement and in his evidence, he gave various examples of explosions and attacks by MK cadres, ANC supporters, which took place all over the country. During this period of time there was a marked intensity of such explosions. Also, he gave evidence to you in regard to the high activity of prominent people in Botswana and the role generally which Botswana played during the struggle. We would ask you to bear that in mind when adjudicating upon the amnesty applications, Chairperson.

Chairperson, coming to the South African Defence Force, the position that I was given to understand was that when the whole amnesty process was initiated, the SADF obtained legal opinion from senior counsel. I have seen that legal opinion, Chairperson. What it says is that all cross-border activities of members of the SADF were covered by either the Defence Act and/or International Law. There, specifically, one thinks about hot pursuit actions and striking at bases of the enemy in neighbouring countries as far as the International Law is concerned. The opinion went further to say that, that being thus the case, members of the SADF whose authority it was to protect the borders of the Republic of South Africa against all enemies, could not be held responsible even for such parts of their acts, omissions or offences which were committed inside the borders of the Republic of South Africa. I do not comment, Chairperson, as it is not necessary, on the correctness or otherwise of that legal opinion.

In fairness I may say that we, in one aspect, we do adopt a different attitude in our argument before the Amnesty Committees and I believe we are not certain whether we include it in the present argument, but we adopt the approach that at least for those acts, omissions or offences which were committed by any person within the borders of South Africa, he would be liable to prosecution and civil action within the country. We have the good example of Mr Marius Schoon, the late Mr Marius Schoon, who instituted civil action against Mr Craig Williamson for that which was done inside the Republic of South Africa. By all accounts, it is also the view of the Attorneys-General of our country, judging by the fact that many, many people, many members of the South African Police, have been required to make section 204 statements in regard to matters which were committed outside the borders of the country. But other than that, it's neither here nor there to criticise or to agree with the legal opinion which was received by the members of the SADF. In practice what this means is that for no incident which was not wholly completed within the borders of the Republic, did any member of the SADF ask for amnesty before the Amnesty Committee.

To illustrate this point, the incident of the Nietverdiendt Ten which was heard during the last session before an amnesty committee, the SADF did apply for amnesty because that incident was contained within the boundaries of the Republic of South Africa, but the moment we came to a case like the McKenzie bomb for example, where the bomb was triggered inside Botswana, they did not apply for amnesty which was perfectly in line with that legal advice which they received.

Chairperson we did, however, hear the evidence of the SADF in the Nietverdiendt matter and very briefly may I summarise for the benefit of the Chairperson and Commissioner Gcabashe, the gist of what he said? Commissioner de Jager, if I remember correctly, was a member of that panel.

Gen Joop Joubert was a General in the SADF and he was the commanding officer of Special Forces. Commandant Charl Naude and Colonel Joe Verster were his, if I may - I don't want to go into too much detail and frankly I don't know enough about it to do that, but they were basically second in command. What Gen Joubert told the Amnesty Committee is this. He said that at a certain point in time he took over the command of Special Forces and he was requested to draw up a plan in order to resist the revolutionary onslaught and particularly the plan had to show how Special Forces could more actively and more appropriately be utilised to assist the S A Police inside the borders of the country. Please bear in mind Chairperson, throughout all of what I am saying, that there was a clear delineation between activities of the Security Forces inside the country and those outside the country. Those outside the country, except in the single exception of Swaziland, was the domain of the SADF and inside the country was the domain of the South African Police and more particularly the Security Police and we referred you to the Simonstad Congress/Conference which was held, where this was confirmed.

Chairperson, Gen Joubert then said that he worked out a plan whereby divisions of Special Forces would specially be ordered to assist the Security Police in certain hot spot areas. Therefore, and as a result thereof, Col Joe Verster was ordered to assist in the Witwatersrand and Commandant Charl Naude was ordered, together with his members, to assist the Northern Transvaal Security Police. That later, Chairperson, was widened to the Western Transvaal because of the particular importance of Botswana and that at once explains how the Take Five and Sadie Pule matter came about.

Chairperson, Gen Joubert stated that his plan was approved by Gen Geldenhuys, that is Gen Jan Geldenhuys, and he said that what would happen would be that the Special Forces would have to work closely together with the Security Police and that the way it worked was that the Security Police would provide information upon which Special Forces would act, mostly outside the borders of the country but in some cases also inside the borders of the country. Chairperson, that is, I think, briefly the reason why you won't find any member of the SADF, be it Special Forces or otherwise, as an applicant before you in a matter which concerned covert action, or overt action across borders of the country.

Chairperson, it is perhaps apt at this stage just to make one thing very clear and Brig Schoon was trying to tell you that yesterday as well, that in all operations where members of the SADF assisted members of the SAP, it was always done under separate command structure. The members of the SADF would always fall under the command of their Commander and the same with the SAP. That is what Brig Willem Schoon was trying to say yesterday. It's difficult to understand for someone who hasn't been involved in this, including myself, but apparently the way it worked is that information would be gathered and would be received by the Security Branch and particularly when an operation in regard to that information involved cross-border action, Special Forces would be contacted and they would take over and under their particular command, that operation would be carried out in terms of the information received. I think you, Mr Chairperson, asked a question which is relevant, a very relevant question, "but would you have suggested" you asked Loots, "to Charl Naude that you thought that Sadie Pule and Take Five were to be eliminated?" "Yes, yes, that can happen, it can be a suggestion, yes clearly" and he said so and no doubt he would have suggested to Charl Naude because he already suggested it to Brig Schoon. So that would have been the reason why he went to Charl Naude, is to say, "we know about these two people, they are prominent people, they give us problems, we want them eliminated", but at the end of the day the decision lay with Charl Naude. That we must understand.

So, Charl Naude could either have said, "we're not going at all, we're not interested" or he could have said, "we'll go but we'll do something else", but by all accounts what happened here must have been that Charl Naude agreed with what was proposed to him because they went and they attacked the house, attacking the house in such circumstances that it could only have meant that they intended to kill the people inside the house and that's exactly what happened. A man and a woman were the targets, that his people knew, they came back and they said a man and a woman had been killed.

Chairperson, I would like to refer you now to Exhibit O. This appears to be, in our submission, a very important compilation of documents because it gives you information which we didn't have before and which may be vital in regard to identification of the deceased, etc. What we have Chairperson, starting off at page 1 of Exhibit O, appears to be a cover-sheet regarding a certain Aaron Makwanazi. If you go one line down you will see "nicknames, aliases Lawrence Tshabalala/Take Five Tshabalala, in exile." This statement Chairperson, is not dated. I'm sorry, date of the interview, I'm sorry, the 14th of May 1996, I missed that. It's on the left-hand top side of page 1. I was going to submit to you that clearly it refers to a point in time when amnesty applications had not been filed because, looking at the statement it is clear that it is not drafted with the knowledge of what the present applicants say in their amnesty applications.

What is important about this statement Chairperson is that, in our submission, it corroborates the evidence of the applicants. We start off at ...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: It could have been that amnesty applications have been filed, but they were still secret in the sense that there was no hearing and there was no decision by the commission that the contents could be revealed. It may, in some cases, be that there was a decision that the contents of an application could be revealed, but it looks as if in this case, if there were any applications, the contents were not revealed to the ...

MR VISSER: In point of fact, Chairperson, if you look at the bottom of page 5, you'll find the very best evidence that that was so because Take Five here says that he suspected Lambert Maloi for having sold him out, so it's quite clear that he had no knowledge of what the present applications were going to say.

Chairperson, if I may return to page 3, paragraph 2, it's clear that Take Five joined Umkhonto weSizwe and left for Zambia. He stayed away for 6 years and then he went back to Botswana in 1986. He said in his statement somewhere on the 16th, I think it was. Yes, in the next paragraph - 16th of December 1986. He refers to his girlfriend, Sadie Pule in paragraph 5 and in paragraph 6, well the relevance of paragraph 5 is that the meeting was held between him and his relations and then in paragraph 6 he decided on New Year's Eve to leave. He says that through the past weeks he had seen strange people who were monitoring the house where they were staying. They drove cars with tinted windows with South African registration plates he says and his guests left on the 28th of December, except for his wife and an old lady "who I knew by the name of Terra" We will come back to that. Chairperson, he describes Terra as a person who came originally from Soweto who was a family friend and he says that in paragraph 7, "I thought that an attack on the house would be a good way for the South African Security Forces to start the new year." So he left that New Year's Eve by bus for Gaberone at 18h00. Now that ties in perfectly it would seem, Chairperson, with the information which Modise had received from his source, that they were there and they were going to stay there and apparently when they arrived there, they had left. He then says, "The next morning at 7 o'clock on the news he heard that there had been an explosion in Ramotswa and that three unknown people, a man, a woman and a child had been killed.

Now, if I may pause there for a moment. There appears to be no evidence at all from any other source which corroborates this piece of evidence. The evidence which we have, Chairperson, and which is again confirmed by this document, except for this one statement, was that the man and, rather a woman and possibly also a man might have been killed. If one looks at Exhibit O, to which I will refer you in a moment, it seems that only one person was in fact killed. Chairperson, in paragraph 16 he refers to this Terra as, he says - bear with me a moment Chairperson. He says "A Botswana woman who we later discovered had been an informer, also knew that I was meeting my family at the time" and a name is mentioned. Now that may refer to the very same informer that Mr Modise was talking about.

Chairperson, if I may draw your attention to page 9, we say, "It was quite clear that Take Five knew that he was a prime target of the Security Forces", where he says "The victim had a house next to the South African border. She used it as a safehouse for herself. Botswana had a lot of ANC cadres." The next, under the question "Why do you think this happened to the victim?" "She was at the wrong place at the wrong time, I do not think they wanted to kill her, they wanted to kill me" and under the question "What do you think motivated the act?" he says "Somebody wanted to kill me" which is precisely the evidence before you Chairperson.

Mr Chairman, if I then may take you to page 14. There you find a death certificate of one Mabonyana Terro Sebopha. Now, I draw your attention to the similarity of Terro and the Terra to which Take Five referred in his statement, and I would submit to you that it's quite clear he's referring to the same person. What we have here at page 14 appears to be the only evidence, which originated from Botswana, of whoever may have been killed at that house on that particular day and we say, Chairperson, that it is safe to assume that she was the person there, if you look at the cause of death at page 14 under paragraph 8 you will see that she died as a result of haemorrhage and shock due to firearm and blast injuries.

So that must have been the person and it would be quite safe to assume that that is so.

As far as the other person is concerned Chairperson, we have, if there was a man also involved, we have no information about it.

We have already referred previously to page 15 and I wish to do so again. It would appear that the day after, judging from the newspaper report, the day after, that would be on the 1st of January 1987, the security forces, the Botswana Defence Force rather, went in to this place and found ammunition there and a grenade exploded, as a result of which five of the Botswana Defence Force members were injured. At page 16 there is another article from the Botswana Guardian this time and in the right-hand column, Chairperson, the second paragraph reads "Cordelia," this is the person whom they then apparently identified or suspected to have been an informer, "it is claimed, told her ANC interrogators in Lusaka" If I may just stop there, Chairperson. Apparently she was taken to Lusaka, this particular person and she told them "The day before Abraham Pule left Botswana, I phoned Modise and Smith to inform them. Modise later told me that Abraham got arrested at a road block, having weapons." She also allegedly pointed out Sadie Pule's house in Tokweng, I think it reads, to South African agents, the house which was eventually attacked during the Gaberone June 14 raid a few weeks later. Well that we know isn't so, we know it was at the end of the year, December 1986. Thereby I don't want to say, Chairperson, because I don't know, that during the Botswana raid, this house might not have been attacked, but it would be very strange if it happened because the Botswana raid of the 14th of June 1986 was directed at Gaberone and not at a little village next to the border. Sorry, it's not 86, it was 85, June 85.

Chairperson, I draw your attention then to page 20 where corroboration details are noted and, in the middle of the page under or next to the heading Summary, you will find "An Aaron Makwanazi's testimony is made on behalf of an ANC supporter known to me as Terra. She was killed when the SADF attacked the house she was in at the time in a cross-border raid. It was a safehouse used by ANC people, but according to the deponent she was not the prime target, if at all she was."

The relevance of that, in our submission Chairperson, is that the applicants in their amnesty applications assume that the person that had been killed was an innocent bystander as it were. It now turns out as an objective fact that she was in fact running a safehouse and assisting the ANC.

Turning back, Chairperson, to page 4 that is also confirmed in paragraph 9 where Take Five says "We stayed in a house of locals in Gaberone. The house in Ramotswa belonged to the old lady. She was a well-known ANC supporter and used to be an activist." Chairperson we would submit to you that it makes the application, it makes the case of the applicants much stronger knowing this evidence rather than considering the person who died as a completely bystander.

Chairperson, page 21 that very information is again confirmed where towards the bottom it says, "he only knows Martero who was a veteran of the ANC who had then settled in Botswana". Then there's reference Chairperson that a statement was given to the Human Rights Violation Committee by the family of the deceased. We haven't seen that statement, Chairperson, we don't know what is in it and we therefore can't press you on that. Page 22 is a repetition, page 23 is a repetition of what you've already had and that takes us through Exhibit O. We say, Chairperson, that on the strength of Exhibit O, the evidence of the applicants before you have been corroborated. It makes their evidence particularly trustworthy in view of the fact that at the time when this document was presented, Loots had already given his evidence and had already been cross-examined and had already been asked questions by the Committee and we ask you therefore to accept the evidence of the applicants as being truthful and trustworthy.

ADV GCABASHE: Mr Visser, the one thing I understood Mr Loots to say was that the two, Pule and Take Five, were going to spend the night, 'hulle gaan oornag', that's the information he was given. How do you relate that to what Mr Modise said, that these are refugees who had been living there, which is a totally different thing? Is there anything we should make of that? Did he have any reason to believe it was 'oornag-ing' rather than people who had been living there?

MR VISSER: Chairperson, I was going to submit to you that nothing turns on that point. It may well be that Sadie Pule and Take Five had been staying there. In fact there is some corroboration for that view to be found in Take Five's own statement.

ADV DE JAGER: In the statement he says he's been staying there since the 21st of December.

MR VISSER: Yes, that's the corroboration I'm referring to. It makes no difference, here or there, whether he had or hadn't, what was of interest to Loots was that they were going to be there that night. That night. It may be that Modise didn't tell them that, as far as his information is concerned they had been living there. It may even be that the informer didn't tell him that, that the informant simply told him that he was, they were going to be there that night and that the knowledge which he has about them having stayed there before might have been knowledge that he may have gained later, we don't know. But in a greater scheme of things, what was important here was the fact that they're there and they were going to stay there, 'oornag' there, that night. Now it may even be that Modise gave that evidence to Loots and he might have forgotten about it, we don't know.

ADV DE JAGER: It may even be that the informer wouldn't know they've been staying there from the 21st of December.

MR VISSER: Those are all possibilities. The question is, is it material to your deliberations to decide on whether to grant or refuse amnesty? My submission is no, it isn't, Chairperson. It certainly isn't a material contradiction from the point of view of credibility is concerned. That can never be said.

ADV GCABASHE: And one other aspect arising from Exhibit O, the cars that had been observed by Take Five, we haven't heard any evidence of that at all from your clients, from the applicants, so we can safely assume that they know nothing at all about that?

MR VISSER: Yes, Chairperson, they know nothing. We didn't lead the evidence, but they know nothing about it. There was indirect evidence about the same issue when they said, I think it was Loots that said that he now knows about bicycles, two people on bicycles, but he said it was definitely not their people. So they know nothing about that, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser, your clients have indicated quite clearly that their action was directed against Sadie Pule and Take Five, that's the people whom they intended to eliminate. It turns out that Naude and his men went to go and kill somebody totally different. In fact, your clients have conceded that this was just totally out of sync with what they had in mind, that this woman got killed. They didn't know her, they never regarded her as a target. Under those circumstances, have your clients made out a case vis a vis this deceased?

MR VISSER: Well clearly Chairperson, clearly. The question is whether this act was associated with a political objective and it was. You can't now ex post facto go and say that when they did the operation an innocent person was affected, whom they never intended to affect and therefore they could not have had a political objective in regard to that particular person. The best example perhaps which I can give you is the Brian Mitchell case. In that case Brian Mitchell intended, together with his members, to attack a particular house in, terms of information which he had, where he expected members or supporters of the ANC to gather and the purpose was to attack the house and to kill everybody inside the house. You will remember that case very clearly. What happened is they attacked a completely and entirely different house altogether, there was a mistake, and I think 7 people that were killed there were never targets and of course he was granted amnesty because his motive was that it was a political act, objectively it was an act associated with a political objective for other reasons. The point here is you can't take the victim ex post facto and say because he or she was not a member or supporter of the liberation movement, therefore your act does not comply, your act, omission or offence, does not comply with the Act. You can't work it backwards. It's an objective inquiry in terms of Section 22(b) and it's a subjective inquiry in terms of Section 23(a), with respect, so the answer is a crisp yes, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you suggesting that you can go out and just slaughter innocent people and get amnesty?

MR VISSER: But that's what happened in the Church Street bomb, in the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court bomb, in all cases where bombs were planted, that's exactly what happened. That has always been considered...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, you see, I can understand a situation where you act against a political enemy and in the course of that action innocent people get killed or injured, where your action is directed against an enemy, but I have great difficulty in understanding, perhaps I'm not hearing your submission correctly, I've got very great difficulty in understanding and accepting that you can go into any place and kill innocent people who have absolutely nothing to do with your political struggle, or your military struggle and then you qualify for amnesty.

MR VISSER: But Chairman you've just put the proposition to me quite correctly. It depends on what your purpose is. They were going to attack the enemies of the South African government, Sadie Pule and Take Five and in that operation ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: But they didn't do that. That is the point and that's my difficulty.

MR VISSER: But you can't only consider amnesty to be granted only in cases where the operations are successful. There are many hundreds of operations that were not successful.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, no I accept that. I accept that. The difference that I'm trying to draw is between a case where you are in fact acting against your enemy and a case where you're not, you're acting against somebody totally unrelated to your struggle.

MR VISSER: Are you then saying that the fact that you thought you were acting against your enemy is irrelevant?

CHAIRPERSON: Well, it might be, it might be a fact that gets considered, but it can't - my point is, how can it be the determining factor? You slaughter innocent people and then you come after the event and you say "well, you know I really thought that they were my enemy and I killed all these women and children"

MR VISSER: But Chairperson, these are the very instances for which amnesty has been granted in the past.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, I don't know about those cases. I'm not sitting on them you know, I'm sitting on this one here. So we've done a bit of this debate you know.

MR VISSER: Chairperson, yes, I'd hate to go through it again but the point is here we know it wasn't an innocent bystander that was killed.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, ex post facto, now in this hearing. This comes out by the way, it could never have weighed on the minds of the applicants.

MR VISSER: No, but as an objective fact Chairperson,

as an objective fact it appears that ...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Visser, I don't think that could be the criteria, but if I would plant a bomb in a Wimpy Bar and my target would be that it would be visited by soldiers. Well I'm planting the bomb near the Wimpy Bar and in fact the soldiers didn't even visit the place on that day and four women were injured in the explosion, or innocent people walking by get injured, would they be entitled to amnesty?

MR VISSER: Well, Chairperson, those - that's what I'm trying to say and again we're back on the question as to whether this Committee should take note of what has happened in other amnesty applications. Magoos Bar Bomb is precisely the example which Commissioner de Jager gives me and of course that's correct. If you look at the presentation of the ANC before the Human Rights Violations Committee of the TRC, you will see that they make that point over and over again that, particularly since 198,5 they came to realise that their operations, although they were directed at the "enemy"

...(end of tape) exactly that situation where, on all the information that you have and that you believe to be trustworthy, you launch an operation and it turns out that something happened in between, since you got your information and the time when you execute your operation. I have difficulty in drawing a distinction by saying that that particular case, merely because things went wrong, you now can't be granted amnesty because you were not acting against your enemy. It is more confusing where we now as an objective fact know that they person who was killed was in fact the enemy, although someone else and even in our criminal law as far as murder is concerned, when one talks about operatio ictus, the identity of the person that you wanted to kill is irrelevant. What is relevant is the result, did you kill someone or did you not? The result here is that a person, who was in fact the enemy, was killed although her name was not Sadie Pule or Take Five and with great respect, Chairperson, it could never be a consideration to say well now that we know ex post facto that an innocent bystander was killed, for example as happened in Brian Mitchell's amnesty application, therefore you're not entitled to amnesty.

We submit Chairperson that that is one of the things that must have happened on numerous occasions for which people are asking for amnesty and certainly, there's nothing in the Act that we read in the Act, that excludes such a person from obtaining amnesty.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I've got that submission, Mr Visser.

MR VISSER: Thank you, Chairperson.

Chairperson, to round off, there's not much point in discussing the evidence of each of the applicants. The evidence is fresh in your memories and you saw them, you heard them. In this particular case all four of the applicants acted under orders although Brig Loots said that it was his suggestion to Brig Schoon and it would probably have been his suggestion to Charl Naude that these people be killed. It was, at the end of the day, Brig Schoon who gave the authority of the go-ahead. The go-ahead was, speak to Charl Naude and go ahead with your plans.

Chairperson, Du Preez Smidt, it is difficult to understand why he was there, but he was. He was sitting at home on Old Year's Eve and he was summoned up. He really did nothing except associate himself with the operation for the reasons which were mentioned.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I mean in a sense that seems to be the position of all your clients really because they're really associating themselves with the actions of this Special Forces group because they, although they felt that the operation was successful in the sense that Sadie Pule and Take Five had been eliminated, you know eventually when it turned out that they were not the people who were eliminated and although there was a sense of disappointment in a way, they accepted, they associated themselves with the fact that there might be people killed.

MR VISSER: Yes, that they all gave evidence and of course it would have been very strange indeed if they hadn't said exactly that. But yes, correct, when Special Forces went in it was outside the control of the members of the Security Police who gave evidence before you and when they came back, well of course they just had to accept whatever happened, it was out of their control and that's the reason why they're before you, Chairperson, to ask for amnesty.

Mr Modise is slightly different as far as what he had done, in so far as he was the one that conveyed the information and who arranged for a meeting between his source and Brig Loots and Lieut. Weerman. But that, in a nutshell Chairperson, is, with great respect, the case and we submit to you it's a strong case for amnesty.

As far as proportionality is concerned, Chairperson, we know that the South African Police could not legally go into Botswana and arrest anybody, that option was not an option which was available. In any event, even if one had suggested to Charl Naude and he had accepted that an attempted arrest should be executed, it would have been extremely dangerous where people are in a house, where it is assumed and expected that they would be armed, to effect an arrest there particularly in a strange country and particularly in a village. So, seen from the viewpoint of the harm which was done and would have been done especially by Sadie Pule, we submit, Chairperson, who was more or less a permanent operator in Botswana, and to some extent Take Five and we know that he operated ex Lusaka, not specifically ex Botswana, being part of a broader picture, we say Chairperson, if one bears in mind the arms and ammunition smuggling, the infiltration of trained people into the country to come and perpetuate the revolutionary war, we say that the action against these two people was proportional to the objective sought to be achieved and that would have been to neutralise them.

We say, Chairperson, with respect, that had that happened, it is logical and we submit that you can take account thereof, that the organisation and structure, practical logistics of the ANC in Botswana, would have been seriously affected. That evidence was also given by Mr Marius Schoon in the amnesty application regarding the attempted murder on Mr Marius Schoon where he said that if the operation against him had been successful it would have been a serious setback to the ANC as far as it's structures and infiltration routes in Botswana and from Botswana were concerned. Would you bear with me a moment Chairperson?

Chairperson, my attorney agrees that I've worked hard enough this morning, so I can then wrap it up by referring you to page 2 and perhaps if we can just consider each of the applicants - I'm sorry, page 2 of what yes, page 2 of Exhibit L, I'm sorry Chairperson - to consider what each of the applicants would be entitled to ask for amnesty for. The first would be Conspiracy to Murder, which would apply to all the applicants, Murder of Mrs Sebopha or any other competent verdict in regard thereto, Malicious Damage to Property is the third one, the fourth one, Chairperson, relating to regulations and/or statutory provisions relating to border control, leaving the country unlawfully etc, we would submit that would only apply to Mr Crause and Modise. 'Begunstiging voor en na die daad' an accessory, thank you Chairperson, an accessory, that would be applicable, Chairperson, and then clearly...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Visser, I don't know but can I be prosecuted for conspiring to murder, then being found guilty of conspiring, be found guilty of murdering, be found guilt of being an accessory after the fact...(indistinct) murder, wouldn't it include everything?

MR VISSER: Chairperson that's the rump and we have great difficulty with that. We don't know what an Attorney-General might decide, what he might decide to do. We say that he can charge you only as an accessory, which will mean that you'll be found guilty in effect of murder, we know that, but why should one run the risk of taking the chance that the Attorney- General will in fact charge you with murder?

ADV DE JAGER: But once he's been granted amnesty for murder, can he charge you for anything else then?

MR VISSER: We believe not, Chairperson, we believe not, but should one take a narrow view of this? Each of these instances which we list here constitutes a criminal offence of which a person may be charged. That is the only reason why we've set it out and it really is at the request of Mr de Jager in a previous amnesty application for us to do so, because we believe Chairperson, with respect, but we may be wrong, that if amnesty is granted for any act, omission or offence which constituted an offence or a delict in regard to a particular incident, that would be sufficient. That's what we thought all along and if you looked at our amnesty applications and the way they've been drawn and the way we have brought amnesty applications before Amnesty Committees, that's the way we did it, but then it was brought to our attention, and it was Mr de Jager who brought it to our attention, that sometimes the Amnesty Committee has difficulty in determining how far they should go. What the framework of the order must be to prevent a person who obtained amnesty from not coming later and saying, but hang on, all of this was connected to this amnesty application. That is why we have been trying to narrow it down as much as we possibly could.

ADV DE JAGER: I've got no difficulty with that and it's only I think once you've been granted amnesty for murder, then you can't be charged with conspiring to do the same murder or being an accessory to the murder.

MR VISSER: What about defeating the ends of justice, that would be a separate offence?

ADV DE JAGER: But that's a different thing because that would be connected with an affidavit for instance, or something else, it's different, that wouldn't be a splitting of charges. I'm talking about the splitting of charges here, it's no great concern, I understand what you mean and I am satisfied, so let's not take time with debating it, because I don't think it's so relevant.

MR VISSER: Well, if it's irrelevant, that's all I have to say in argument. Thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Visser. Mr Mohlaba, any submissions?

MR MOHLABA: Thank you Chairperson, I will be very brief.

MR MOHLABA IN ARGUMENT: Mr Chairperson, the family of the deceased Maponyana Terro Sebopha feels that there is no evidence, or sufficient evidence which suggests that she was a legitimate target. At the time of the commission of this offence...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Mohlaba, getting at that, could you point out to me where in the Act it's stated that a target should be a legitimate target and where is a legitimate target defined?

MR MOHLABA: If Chairperson, I can ...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: In the Act it should be a supporter or a member.

MR MOHLABA: Certainly, Chairperson, if I'm allowed to continue I think it's going to tie up with what comes subsequently, if I may.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mr Mohlaba, don't let the questions take you out of your stride. You can make a note of them and respond if you want to, but you present your argument as you have been instructed to do. Carry on.

ADV DE JAGER: If you don't want to reply to a question, you need not do so either.

MR MOHLABA: Thank you, Chairperson. The family feels that at the time of the commission of this offence, the political activities, or the political loyalty of the deceased, if any, was not known and further that even though it may have emerged ex post facto that she was an activist or she has created a safehouse for the MK cadres at her home, that was not the state of the mind of the applicants at the time of the commission of an offence, which I submit is relevant for the purposes of the Act. So her killing at that early hours of the morning, because the state of the mind of the perpetrators at that time, was not an act associated with a political objective. The fact that it emerged thereafter that she was an activist or a supporter of the ANC is besides the point. With regard to the attempted murder on Take Five and Sadie Pule, the two clients of mine feel that the omission, or the refusal or failure by Mr Modise to disclose the identity of the informer while testifying, renders him not to qualify for amnesty on the basis that there was no sufficient disclosure of all relevant facts. Thank you, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Mohlaba. Ms Thabethe have you got any submissions?

MS THABETHE: No, Mr Chair.

NO ARGUMENT BY MS THABETHE

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Yes Mr Visser have you got anything else?

MR VISSER IN REPLY: Chairperson, by way of very brief reply, I think Commissioner de Jager has already pointed out the obvious, the requirement set by the Act in Section 20, 22(b) and the others refer to the supporters or members of a liberation movement and no more than that. My learned friend makes the point that the state of mind of the applicants, because that was directed at the killing of Take Five and Pule, cannot now be superseded by the objective fact that the person whom they did kill did in fact run a safehouse. Well, Chairperson, with respect, there are objective and there are subjective elements which one has to bear in mind.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Visser, the contrary, suppose they would go, their intention was to murder a cattle thief, nothing to do with politics, and ex post facto it's proved that he's been an activist or a supporter, they could never get amnesty then, so why should the opposite, isn't it relevant what ex post facto happened?

MR VISSER: That is precisely my argument, one can't work it in reverse gear. One has got to look at the evidence which leads up to the incident and the incident. You can't say now that all these years have passed and now that we've got all this information, we can now come back and say hang on, as it turns out now, it was either an enemy or it wasn't. One can't place that in the scales when you weigh up whether it was in fact an act associated with a political objective, Chairperson.

ADV DE JAGER: So the fact that it proved that the lady was in fact connected with the ANC doesn't matter at all.

MR VISSER: It really takes the matter no further, Chairperson. ...(indistinct - mike not on)

MR VISSER: Yes, of course, except that the evidence which you heard was that the security police had known before, or some time before that it was a safehouse, in that sense that of course reflects on their state of mind and on the act.

ADV DE JAGER: But there was no evidence that it was ever their motive to kill her because she kept a safehouse.

MR VISSER: That's absolutely correct, Chairperson. We're in complete agreement, although it appears to be an aggressive agreement, with each other. We're in complete agreement with each other, Chairperson. Yes, my submission is simply that you can't take ex post facto matters and impose them on the relevant facts as they lay before the eyes of the actors at the time and say therefore your act, or omission, or offence was not or was associated with political objective. Chairperson, my learned friend made a point of not fully disclosing because of the refusal to disclose the identity of the informer. Chairman, we have had this argument over and over again. We have had a very long argument again in Durban. The Amnesty Committee, I wasn't aware that a decision had been made by the Amnesty Committee, that certainly in argument and in remarks having been made by Amnesty Committees, the Vice Chairman of the Amnesty Committee Judge Wilson, etc. is quite clear that it cannot be expected that any person who was an informer's identity ought to be revealed because of the very dangers it would hold for him and his family. In any event the identity cannot be stated to be a relevant fact in this application. Who she was makes absolutely no difference, or he was, makes absolutely no difference to the facts of the matter and the grounds for amnesty which were advanced before you.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, in this particular case the submission around failure to make a full disclosure might be a bit of a tenuous one, but speaking for myself, I'm not aware of any, because I hear you referring to remarks that are made by a member of this Committee, I'm not aware of any decisions either way on this question of informers and disclosing their identities and things, it's something that doesn't affect us directly at this stage, but I feel compelled to just make that remark myself, you know, I trust that remarks that are passed by some of my colleagues on the Committee doesn't lead to wrong understanding out there.

ADV DE JAGER: But there was a decision by Judge Mall on this point and it was argued at the Commission even, so I can't stand in for what other people would know or not know.

MR VISSER: Yes, Chairperson, I personally, like yourself, wasn't aware but my attorney tells me I'm wrong. He says that there was in fact a ruling and it was in reply to an argument by my learned friend from Pretoria, Roelof du Plessis.

CHAIRPERSON: So there was a ruling in the Hechter matter that for the purposes of that particular matter there was no need to disclose the identity of an informer there, but that related to that particular matter. In fact the ruling says that for "present purposes", in other words it was limited to that particular matter and I think that is perhaps what should be understood arising from that ruling.

MR VISSER: Well Chairperson as you stated correctly, in our submission it really doesn't affect us in this present case. Nothing turns on whether that - it would have been different had the informant played a different role. We had a case in Natal for example where the informant himself was used to lure a person out of the country, well then it becomes relevant. He becomes a co-perpetrator, yes.

Chairperson I forgot - I said I was going to and I forgot- to refer you to some of the authorities. What I have done is, they are long cases to read, difficult cases to read but I have simply made a few extracts in order to support my submission to you last week which was that when you consider whether a man had authority to act in the way he did, the question is whether that which he did was associated with his duties. I submitted, his duties, but apparently I'd forgotten that the cases actually take it further, they say which are associated with his employment. Chairperson, the first case that I can refer you to is Mkize vs Martens which is a matter reported in 1914 AD 382, a Judgment by their Lordships Lord de Villiers, Chief Justice Innes, J A Solomon, J A Maasdorp and de Villiers A J A and the head note says this, Chairperson, it refers to the key words, the fly note is "Principal and Agent, Master and Servant, Negligence of Servant, Course of Employment." Now Chairperson, may I just repeat that the problem which we will have in applying these dicta is that the approach is from the other side, the approach is to determine whether there is liability with the master. What we are trying to say is from the point of view of the perpetrator, could it be said that he had authority to do what he did? So it's really the mirror image of what we are trying to discover, but it's helpful to look at how it's been approached if you keep on reminding yourself that it's approach from the opposite direction. The head note says that- may I just very briefly say that what happened here is two boys were told to guard an ox wagon and the oxen while the person who was the servant of the master went off to a certain kraal to go and drink some beer and when he came back he found that the children had made a fire to make food and they had burned down a farm, an adjoining farm to the road and it says "It was held that although the boys did not usually" in other words it's not part of their employment, usually, "make a fire and although they had no special authority or duty to make a fire on the day in question it was not outside the scope of their employment to light a fire for the purposes of cooking their food when they needed it during their master's absence from the second out span and that the defendant was liable for the damages done." His Lordship Justice Innes, page 389, says this,

He's about my affairs. What we say is that very specifically in the case of all of these policemen, they were about the affairs of the government, Chairperson.

...(indistinct - mike not on)

MR VISSER: "I am answerable for the wrongs of my servant or agent, not because he is" - you don't have to write it down Chairperson, if you're interested I'll go back home tonight and I'll print this out for you and I'll hand it to you tomorrow.

"I am answerable for the wrongs of my servant or agent, not because he is authorised by me or personally represents me, but because he is about my affairs."

And then he goes on Chairperson to say,

"However that may be, we may for practical purposes adopt the principle that a master is answerable for the torts(?) of his servant committed in the course of his employment, bearing in mind that an act done by a servant solely for his own interest and purposes and outside his authority, is not done in the course of his employment even though it may have been done during his employment."

Now why that is interesting is, that is precisely the exception which the Act makes, done for your own purposes and it is in line In fact the Act is really in line with the also with the common law, is what strikes one with this particular quotation.

Chairperson, in the same Judgment at page 394, Solomon J A said this. He said

"The master therefore should be held liable for the negligence of the servant if the latter causes injury to a third person in doing his master's work, or in the language of the English authorities, in the course of his employment."

So again, that which he does in the course of his employment he is considered to have been authorised to do by the master, whether he was in fact so authorised is irrelevant. It goes on, Chairperson,

"If however the act which caused the injury was something outside the master's work, then the master is not liable"

and all sorts of tests for that had been evolved over the years; on the frolic of his own, whether the act was in time and space so far removed that it cannot be said or it can be said that it was done - I'm not going to go into that. We're just dealing with the principle of the matter. Chairman, in the same Judgment at page 400, his Lordship Mr Justice de Villiers acting as he was at the time said,

"Now the law that has been adopted in the case of April vs Pretorius 1906 TSC page 827 is thus laid down by Pothier on Obligations,"

he refers to Evan's translation paragraph 453,

"It is not only by contracting that managers obliged their employers, whoever appoints a person to any function is answerable for the wrongs and neglects which his agent may commit in the exercise of the functions to which he is appointed"

and he relies for this on the digest etc and he quotes Chairperson from page 456, ...(indistinct) and he says,

"Masters are likewise answerable for the faults of their servants when they have not prevented them having it in their power to do so"

and one immediately thinks of what we hear in amnesty applications where the masters must have known about things but did not prevent them. They are even responsible for those which they could not prevent if the servants committed them "in the functions to which they were appointed, for instance ...etc" and he gives examples. Again Chairperson, we say, precisely in point of what our argument is here, that in terms of Section 22(b) when you talk about authority the question is, did they commit that act, omission or offence within the scope of their functions as a policeman? So the point here Chairperson is that authority is very very widely interpreted.

In fact the English cases make very little, draw very little distinction between authority and in the course of his employment, they regard it as synonymous and this has actually been stated by one of the Judges in this particular case.

Judge Wessels at page 143 -I'm sorry I'm referring to a different case. Chairperson, the second case which is relevant is Estate van der Byl vs Swanepoel, which was a 1927 Appellate Division case, at page 141 where Judge Wessels, Judge of Appeal says at page 143, he refers to Mkize vs Martens inter alia and a few other cases and he says that - he's talking about the test and whether the master will be liable, he says,

"The fact that the act may have been illegal in itself is no defence to the master, illegality is only relevant on a question whether the act could have been within the scope of employment. The question is whether the driver was on a frolic of his own."

So, the way we read the Judgment it says that having gone through all these tests, it goes a step further and says even illegality of the action is no excuse. So, Chairperson, if, in the present instances of amnesty and this could only have been what the Legislature intended with the promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act Section 20 is that even knowing that what we're dealing with is an illegal act makes no difference as long as it was something that was done, not for personal gain or ill will or spite but in the line of the duties which were performed by these policemen. That's the point I tried to make last week, Chairperson.

Then there's Feldman (Pty) Ltd vs Mall, Chairman that is a deviation from a prescribed route by the driver who was - I'm sorry didn't I give you the reference? I'll print it out, but it's 1945 AD 733. I'm sorry Chairperson. He went on a deviated route and the questions of liability were again discussed with special reference to the case of Union Government vs Hawkins, you'll see it on what I print out for you. Chief Justice Watermeyer said this, he said,

"In English Law a master is legally responsible for the wrongful acts of his servant if such act is done in the course of his employment or as the principle is sometimes expressed, if such act is within the scope of his employment."

And then Chairperson he says this,

"There are passages in the reasons of all the learned Judges who gave Judgment in the case of

Mkize vs Martens which either expressly or impliedly state that our law on the subject of a master's legal responsibility for the wrongful act of his servant is the same as the English law but the expression 'scope of employment' is apt to be misleading".

As I said just now, Chairperson, unless one is alive to the fact that the words 'scope of employment' are not equivalent to the words 'scope of authority'. One is apt when using the expression 'scope of employment' in relation to the work of a servant, to picture to oneself a particular task or undertaking, or a piece of work assigned to a servant which is limited in scope by the express instructions of the master and to think that all acts done by this servant outside of or contrary to the master's instructions are outside the 'scope of his employment', but such a conception of the meaning of scope of employment is too narrow. Instructions vary in character, some may define the work to be done by the servant, others may prescribe the manner in which it is to be accomplished, some may indicate the end to be attained. As in our cases, Chairperson and others the means by which it is to be attained. Provided the servant is doing his master's work or pursuing his master's ends, he is acting within the scope of his employment even if he disobeys the master's instructions as to the manner of doing the work or as to the means by which the end is to be satisfied.

Chairperson, there are a few further quotes which you might find interesting, I will print it out tonight and I will let you have it tomorrow, but that is the point I am trying to make, that one must not have a narrow view of the authority referred to in Section 22(b), but regard it as anything which is part of the duty of this person to his master and everything done to obtain the end or to attain the ends of the purpose of his duty for his master.

Here we know about the conflict of the past, we know the pressures that were brought about on the Security Forces to compel them to normalise the situation. This is what they did. They say they thought that was within their authority and Chairperson in that sense, looking at the common law and our case law we say that it is perfectly understandable that something which is objectively an offence, illegal, may still be considered by somebody to have been legally done and properly exercised. Thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Visser. We'll take time to consider the decision in this matter and we'll advise the parties once it is available.

MR VISSER: Chairperson I see it's 5 past 11 and we've now got to make arrangements for the next hearing to come on. Perhaps if you would consider taking the short adjournment now until say 20 past 11, we could be ready to start with the first witness.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we shall do that. We will take the tea adjournment. The matter that follows, is that Mnisi and George and Brown?

MR VISSER: If I may just say that it has been stated in the bundles, or it seems to suggest that there might be an application for abduction of Johannes Mnisi, but that is incorrect. We will give you evidence, Chairperson, to show that Johannes Mnisi was in fact arrested by the South African police, but that arrest was perfectly legal, so that is not part of the inquiry which comes before you. What comes before you is the murder of George and Brown and only that.

CHAIRPERSON: Alright, then we have an idea which is the matter. We'll adjourn and we'll reconvene at 20 past.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

CHAIRPERSON: We will proceed to hear the matter concerning "George and Brown"

MR VISSER: Chairperson, yes, thank you. It's now 24 minutes to 12. The reason why we are apparently starting late after we adjourned until 20 past is because Ms Thabethe apparently has received some communication from Mr Broodryk and I was given to understand that she wanted to hand you something or address you on the issue.

MS THABETHE: That is correct, Mr Chair. I've made copies. We have received a letter from Mr Broodryk. He is saying in the letter that he is not interested in coming and he doesn't know anything about the incident. I've made copies, I'll hand them now as soon as I've stapled them.

CHAIRPERSON: Alright. So when you hand that in we'll give it a reference number and things.

MR VISSER: Chairman, we had a letter from Mr Gloy, I think. I was wondering whether one could - I'm just looking for it. I prepared a new list of Exhibits to bring it up to date, Chairperson.

ADV DE JAGER: It was Exhibit K.

MR VISSER: Thank you Chairperson. Perhaps because it deals with the same incident one might mark this Exhibit K2, K1 or K2. K1. Yes. We haven't seen the document yet so we don't know if anything turns on it but if he only says he knows nothing about it, that accords with the evidence that we gave you from Schoon.

Chairperson, in the incident of Brown and George. Very briefly, this is an incident which took place apparently just inside the border of Swaziland near Oshoek border post, in which it appears that two people were killed. Chairperson, we have been able to establish, by virtue of a news clipping from the Oggendblad which came into my possession via Gen Wandrag, that this incident apparently took place on the 8th of December 1981. The newspaper report is dated, the newspaper itself was distributed on the 9th of December and it refers to "The unrecognised bodies of two persons were found close to the Oshoek border post. A firearm was in one of the person's hands" and then the rest Chairperson contains a lot of speculation on the part of the newspaper which I don't believe is relevant for your consumption at this stage. So we won't hand in the newspaper report, but the point is that it is fairly clear that it was two people and there was a question of a firearm and it's dated the 9th of December referring to yesterday, which will bring us to the 8th of December. So in that sense Chairperson, and I don't want to ask for formal amendments, but where a different date, I think they refer to August/September 1981, all the applicants, you will then read into that the 8th of September, if you will, no December, if you will.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you Mr Visser. Can I just get the housekeeping in order? Can you just indicate which, I have a whole list of names, who do you represent in this, or can I read to you what my list says?

MR VISSER: Chairperson, there is an easy way. I appear for everybody except the two Vissers, G Visser and S Visser. Mr Moolman has since died. He handed in an application but he has since died, Chairperson. His application, I'm just looking for it now, it's in bundle 4 Chairperson, it's a little thin bundle and it's stated in the index as page 815 to 820. He has since died.

CHAIRPERSON: Very well, I've got that.

MR PRINSLOO: Chairperson, I appear for Gert Visser AM5002.

MS VAN DER WALT: I appear for Schalk Jan Visser, AM5000/97.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. The panel is as indicated on this record. Mr Visser, are you going to commence?

MR VISSER: Yes, Chairperson, I will. Provisionally we have agreed with my learned friends that we will lead five witnesses and in order of sequence, the sixth witness will be Gert Visser, thereafter we'll deal with the rest. In order to give you as coherent a picture from the beginning as possible we will deal with the witnesses in the order of Mr Nel. Although he wasn't the Commanding Officer at Security Branch he's the one, you will hear from him, who carried the docket in relation to the Voortrekkerhoogte attack and this is really what sparked off this whole incident, the information which was gathered by him, as a result of that. So we'll ask him to take you through all the facts and give you the background.

We will then deal with his immediate Commander, Gen Viktor, Chairperson and then we will, with your leave, move an application to have Brig Schoon included here and you will have noticed that his name is mentioned all over and this particular incident in not specifically identifiable in his amnesty application. We would like to move a very brief application in that regard. If it's successful, we'll call Schoon.

Then we will call Strydom - I'm sorry - then we will call Gen Wandrag, who was the commanding officer of the Task Force to tell you what he knows about it and the instructions he gave to the next witness, which will be Gen Strydom, who was the Commander of the Task Team and at that stage we'll go to Gert Visser. We'll be jumping around a little bit between the Security Police and the Task Team, but that can't be avoided.

CHAIRPERSON: Gen Wandrag you say was the Commanding Officer of the Task Force and Strydom was in charge, the Commander of the actual group.

MR VISSER: That is correct, Chairperson, yes.

ADV DE JAGER: So Moolman is the one that is deceased and his application, will you continue with his application for the delict?

MR VISSER: We will continue with it Chairperson. His role will be very clear from the evidence of the others and at the end of the day we will ask you to grant him amnesty for his participation, particularly in so far as his estate may become liable as a result of these applications for damages in regard to any delict which he may have committed.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser, please can you just continue running down that list? You are then going to interpose Visser.

MR VISSER: Yes, Chairperson, but after that we haven't got a further arrangement, but we will let you know as we go on, but the witnesses who come after that really have very little to tell you, you will see. It will be covered basically by the evidence of Nel on the part of the Security Police as well as Strydom on the part of the Task Team. Once you've heard their evidence, that's really all the evidence that you would need, but the rest of them will come and tell you what their personal involvement with the incident was.

We would then ask you to allow Mr Nel to give evidence. He prefers to give his evidence in Afrikaans. We've prepared a statement for Mr Nel, Chairperson, which is already before you, on your list it will be Exhibit E and my attorney instructs me that you have it before you. We will of course refer to Exhibit A. We will also refer to bundle 5 and we will refer to bundles 1 and 4 as well Chairperson.

FREDERIK JACOBUS PETRUS NEL: (sworn states)

EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Mr Nel, you applied for amnesty in the incident which is referred to as the Murder of George and Brown. Is that correct?

MR NEL: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Your amnesty application appears in bundle 1, from page 99.

MR NEL: That's correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: To page 107. Do you confirm the correctness of the contents of your amnesty application?

MR NEL: I do, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: A statement has been drawn up for you, which is before you, which serves as Exhibit E. You will refer to that statement and you request that the contents of Exhibit A, which serves before the Committee, be taken into consideration when your amnesty application is considered, as well as references as referred to in Exhibit A. If we could just pause at page 99 of bundle 1, there is a very cryptic set-up of your service in the Police Service and you mention at which departments you are. Is it correct that from 1957 to 1963 you were attached to the uniformed branch in Johannesburg North? Is that correct?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR VISSER: And from 1963 to 1969 you were attached to the Detective Branch and this was first of all in Sandton and at Halfway House?

MR NEL: That's correct. Sandton, Norwood, Halfway House.

MR VISSER: And then from 1969 to 1994 you were attached to the Security Branch at Pretoria.

MR NEL: Up till 1985 I was at Security Branch at Pretoria and then from 1985 to 1986 I was at Soweto and then I was at Security Head Office.

MR VISSER: Was this from 1986 or 1987?

MR NEL: 1987.

MR VISSER: And then from '87 you were attached to Head Office. In 1981 we refer to December 1981, what was your task specifically with the Security Branch?

MR NEL: It was mainly the investigation of terrorism.

MR VISSER: Was it normal investigative work, or was it a special type of investigative work?

MR NEL: It was a more specialised investigative work.

MR VISSER: And what was the work focused on?

MR NEL: It was internal security matters which entailed treason, terrorism and so forth.

MR VISSER: Very well, and this is what is referred to in another application which is referred to as a Special Task Team which investigated specific acts of terrorism?

MR NEL: That's correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: If you would have regard for Exhibit E and on page 2, paragraph 2, please tell the Committee what your knowledge and participation in this incident was.

ADV DE JAGER: What was your rank in 1981?

MR NEL: I was a Captain Major. I think in 1981 I was a Major.

MR VISSER: Very well, please continue.

MR NEL: At approximately ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: Please, I will interrupt you. May I interrupt you for one moment? These procedures are interpreted in different languages and I would like to request you to go at a reasonable pace and after a few sentences, please pause, so that the interpreters can keep up with the interpretation, Mr Nel.

MR NEL: At the middle of 1981 an attack was launched with a 122mm rocket on the Voortrekkerhoogte Military Base. The date was the 12th August, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Yes, while you pause there for a moment, I've already referred the Committee in bundle 5 at page 3 under the caption MK in action, you will find various attacks set out for which the ANC SACP Alliance and MK of course accepted responsibility and if you go to page 4, right at the bottom of that page on the right-hand side, you will see a date, 11th August, Voortrekkerhoogte Military Base hit by rocket attack in Pretoria and then at page 7 of that same bundle there is a little news clipping about this incident and then particularly at page 8 in an interview with the then President of the ANC Mr Oliver Tambo, reference is made to this but the date is given as the 12th of August, in the left-hand column at the top and this must have been correct because the interview was on the 1st of September of that very year, 1981, so it was very close after that incident that this interview was held and that was the date given so it was either the 11th or 12th, but probably the 12th of August 1981, when this attack took place Chairperson.

MR NEL: At approximately the same time the Impala electrical sub-station on the Pretoria/Bapsfontein Road outside Elardus Park, Pretoria was damaged with limpet mines.

MR VISSER: Chairperson, that you will find at page 4 of bundle 5, although it is not identified as the Impala sub-station, it's the one under July the 21st. Where it refers to 3 power stations in the Eastern Transvaal, it included this particular one, I am told. Is that correct, Mr Nel?

MR NEL: That's correct. The name is not visible there but from the city council I established that the name was Impala.

The African National Congress, the ANC, accepted responsibility for both these incidents and we've already pointed to that fact. Capt Gert Visser and myself handled the two dossiers. Our investigations led to the fact that one, Philemon Molefe of Mamelodi was arrested. He had a Ranchero vehicle which agreed with the description of a vehicle which caused suspicion in the vicinity of Laudium during the Voortrekkerhoogte attack.

During his interrogation he supplied valuable information with regard to both mentioned incidents and in co-operation with the investigative team, he contacted a certain Johannes Mnisi in Swaziland by telephone. Johannes Mnisi was already known to the security community as a prominent MK activist. Molefe set up an appointment with Mnisi to meet him at the Oshoek border post in the RSA. This information was conveyed to Head Office by the Divisional Commander of Northern Transvaal, the then Col J J Viktor. He is currently retired and is a Lieutenant-General. An ambush was planned and Johannes Mnisi was arrested close to the Oshoek border post within the RSA. During his interrogation he admitted that he received military training from the ANC. He has applied to the Amnesty Committee for a number of incidents where he was involved, amongst others the Voortrekkerhoogte attack.

MR VISSER: You were present during that application, if I'm correct?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR VISSER: And what other incidents did Mr Mnisi apply for?

MR NEL: He applied for the Impala electrical sub-station and for the attack on Magoos bar he also applied, as well as a few other sub-power stations which were damaged in the Eastern Transvaal. Mnisi admitted that he was sent to the RSA by Siphiwe Nyanda, Abubaker Ismail with his MK name Rashid, and MK George who were all prominent leadership figures in MK Special Operations.

During his arrest, Johannes Mnisi had in his possession a piece of see-through plastic, A4 size, with blue stripes. His instruction was to find a certain number road map and a motor vehicle. If the plastic, which was found in his possession, be placed on the road map the blue marks would indicate where the electrical line rand from the Eastern Transvaal to the Witwatersrand and Natal, close to the freeway. His instruction was to inform himself where all these points were so that he could lead his sabotage group from Swaziland. With his arrest the Security Branch was able to prevent infiltration and acts of terror. Mnisi gave his co-operation to the South African Police.

MR VISSER: This piece of evidence of the blue plastic, is this from personal knowledge, from your own experience?

MR NEL: This is from my own knowledge, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: He then co-operated with the South African Police?

MR NEL: Yes, he co-operated with the South African Police. He gave, he contacted a certain telephone number which was known to him in Swaziland where he arranged with one of his instructors, MK George, to fetch him in the RSA. Col Viktor requested authorisation of Gen Johan Coetzee to work along with Col Wandrag and a Special Task Force of the South African Police to arrest the person who was to meet Mnisi close, or at the border of Swaziland and such authorisation was given. All attempts had to be made to arrest these instruction givers so that the sabotage group could be arrested.

MR VISSER: Why was the Task Force brought in for this operation, can you tell us?

MR NEL: We had a strong suspicion that those persons, or we knew that those person were trained persons and we had a strong suspicion that they would be armed and the Task Force people were better equipped to handle such a situation.

The reason why the Task Force's co-operation was requested was because the persons, it was suspected that the persons would be armed and they would resist any arrest. It would seem that MK George did not want to come to the RSA to fetch Mnisi and he gave him an order to come at a certain time to a point in Swaziland. This was the evening of the 7th and 8th of December 1981. It was decided to continue with the attempt to find MK George but this would entail an abduction.

The following persons were involved with the operation, Col Wandrag, Col Viktor, Capt Visser, Detective W/O Selepe, he's deceased, Johannes Mnisi and myself and a number of members of the Special Task Force under the command of Capt M B Strydom. I have also determined in the meantime, although I don't have his name, is that Brig Schoon was also involved or he was present.

Lieut. Col Visser, the then Divisional Commander of the Security Branch Middelburg, met us at Oshoek border post and was informed. At Oshoek Capt Gert Visser took the Task Force members to the agreed meeting point in Swaziland. The other officers remained at Oshoek. At some stage members returned with the news that the car which was described to Mnisi did not stop at the right place and that the action was abandoned. The Task Force members then left for Pretoria. I drove with Mnisi to Carolina where he contacted MK George again.

MR VISSER: How far is that?

MR NEL: I speak under correction, but I think it is 30 kilometres. He contacted George to tell him that he had seen his vehicle but that he had stopped at the wrong place. He then again indicated the place which was identified by Capt Strydom and we returned to Oshoek. The Task Force members were told to return before or after I returned with Mnisi from Carolina, I think Capt Visser would give more evidence there.

The Task Force members went back into Swaziland.

At some stage we heard some gunfire in Swaziland and a while later Capt Visser and Capt Strydom reported that the vehicle had arrived. An attempt was made to arrest these persons and a skirmish followed. No persons escaped from the vehicle since the vehicle was set alight and the occupants had died. I would accept that two persons had died in this action and I would also assume that these person were MK George and MK Brown and I unfortunately do not have any more particulars with regard to the identity of the deceased, or any other information. I am aware that the attempt to abduct these persons from Swaziland was illegal. I also accept that the killing of these persons was illegal and I was aware that where the arrest would be carried out that the chances would be 50% or more than 50% that these persons would be armed and that they would resist arrest and I therefore knew that a skirmish would ensue whereby people could be killed or injured and I reconciled myself with that. After the incident I did not reveal the true facts and therefor I made myself guilty of defeating the ends of justice. I omitted, during the execution of this order and I acted on the behalf of the previous government, but in particular the National Party, whose interests I wanted to promote and protect. The actions and omissions to which I am guilty of, I did, I executed during the official execution of my duties and according to the instruction of a senior officer and which formed part of the opposition of the struggle and I therefore request the Committee to grant me amnesty with regard to these actions and omissions.

MR VISSER: Do you agree with everything that is contained in this document and aspects and things of which you are aware and do you request that the whole document be applicable to you?

MR NEL: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: You did not find anything in there that is not applicable to you?

MR NEL: You have quoted the headings in Lesotho and Botswana. I was not present or involved with those incidents but I am familiar with the circumstances and I reconcile myself with that.

MR VISSER: That is the evidence in chief, Chairperson, thank you very much.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR PRINSLOO: Mr Nel, Mr Gert Visser, who I represent, was under your command. Is that correct?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Visser was also mostly busy with investigations that you had done and also specifically this Voortrekkerhoogte incident that was referred to?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Visser was also known, also knew the facts that you had just given in evidence, especially this specific case surrounding Johannes Mnisi and George and Brown and also the commanders Siphiwe Nyanda and Rashid.

MR NEL: As he was known as MK he did have that information.

MR PRINSLOO: And Rashid and also Siphiwe Nyanda were highly trained people?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: And if you are referred to bundle 5 that is where there is a reference made to Seshaba, 1981, where deeds are referred to from January 26th up to the incident at Voortrekkerhoogte. Then it is a reasonably big amount that the ANC accepted responsibility for, is that correct? Are you aware of it?

MR NEL: I am.

MR PRINSLOO: And on the staff that you served on, you also had insight on this and you made a study of it. Is that correct?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: Just a moment. The plan that you referred to, it is also a document that Mr Visser studied, that was also discussed with you. The two of you discussed it together.

MR NEL: The plastic plan?

MR PRINSLOO: That is correct.

MR NEL: Myself and Visser drove on those routes with Mnisi in the vehicle and we determined that that plan was correct and that it agreed with the high tension wires as it had existed in reality.

MR PRINSLOO: ...(indistinct) and Mr Visser, also before they went into Swaziland, did you agree with this? And in this action he also served under your command with the approval of higher command which was discussed with him by you. Is that correct?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: And he was at that time your subordinate, he was either a Senior Lieutenant or at the beginnings of being a Captain?

MR NEL: That is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Prinsloo.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms van der Walt.

MS VAN DER WALT: No questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Thabethe

MS THABETHE: No questions Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Nel, what was Mr Schoon's participation in this event?

MR NEL: He accompanied us due to his position at Head Office, otherwise he played no leading role that I can recall.

CHAIRPERSON: Who else from Head Office was present amongst the names that you have provided in Exhibit E?

MR NEL: Gen Wandrag, he was at the uniformed division of Head Office.

CHAIRPERSON: Was there anyone else?

MR NEL: Brig Schoon, I think he was then Col Schoon, who was a Security Head Office where he had an ANC desk position.

CHAIRPERSON: Are these the only people from the Head Office?

MR NEL: That is all. Gen Viktor was then Col Viktor and he was at Division Northern Transvaal and that is Pretoria Security Branch and that is where we worked at that time. The Security Branch at Pretoria consists of Head Office and then the Northern Transvaal Security Branch which is the Regional Branch of the Pretoria Region and that was situated in the ... (indistinct) Building where the Police Museum is situated.

CHAIRPERSON: When did Mr Schoon become involved in this incident?

MR NEL: I'm not sure if he departed with us from Pretoria in one of the vehicles. I'm not sure, but he was with us at Oshoek.

CHAIRPERSON: So you are not sure whether he accompanied you from Pretoria but you definitely saw him at Oshoek?

MR NEL: He was there, I just don't know which vehicle he was going in. As far as I can remember, myself and Mnisi and Selepe drove in my vehicle. I don't know and I can't remember how the other people were picked up, but he was definitely at Oshoek.

CHAIRPERSON: And what did he do at Oshoek?

MR NEL: I knew that he represented Head Office but he did not give me any orders at that stage.

CHAIRPERSON: Is this the Security Police Head Office?

MR NEL: That is correct Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: He did not give you any orders?

MR NEL: He did not give me any orders, that is correct. It may be that he had talks with Gen Viktor higher up.

CHAIRPERSON: I'm sorry, I don't have my note here, what was Mr Schoon's rank at that stage?

MR NEL: I think he was a full colonel at that stage.

CHAIRPERSON: So was he the most senior person?

MR NEL: He had the same rank as Col Viktor at that stage

and if I recall correctly, Gen Wandrag was at that stage either a full colonel or a brigadier. But no-one had a uniform on, we were all in civilian clothes.

CHAIRPERSON: So who was in command?

MR NEL: The senior person there was Gen Wandrag.

CHAIRPERSON: The then Col Wandrag. So he was in command of all the police?

MR NEL: I would accept it like that yes.

CHAIRPERSON: So you cannot tell us what Mr Schoon did?

MR NEL: As far as I know, he represented Head Office and that is all.

CHAIRPERSON: But you cannot tell us how he represented them?

MR NEL: No I cannot. I cannot say exactly what his role was.

CHAIRPERSON: You didn't see him doing anything?

MR NEL: No, I didn't see him do anything. He was definitely not at the shooting or at my planning where I spoke to Mnisi.

CHAIRPERSON: So it looked as if he was just standing around there?

MR NEL: Well, he mainly had knowledge of what was to happen and then he would convey that to Head Office.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that what you understood?

MR NEL: Yes, that is what I understood.

CHAIRPERSON: That he was there to see what happens and then he would report back?

MR NEL: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: The other person that you refer to is MK Brown. Who is he?

MR NEL: That was the person that, one of the two people that was in the vehicle.

CHAIRPERSON: But who is he?

MR NEL: He is also and MK member who at that stage was in Swaziland.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you know him?

MR NEL: His names was mentioned to my.

CHAIRPERSON: By whom?

MR NEL: By Mnisi.

CHAIRPERSON: Did Mnisi say this was MK Brown that was with George in the vehicle?

MR NEL: No, we made several telephone calls from Pretoria to Swaziland and Mnisi made these calls and he told us that in Swaziland he spoke to George and Brown, who works with George. So we knew both George and Brown and Rashid. At that stage we only knew Rashid as Rashid, we did not know his true identity.

CHAIRPERSON: But how did you know Brown was in the vehicle?

MR NEL: I only learned about it later in articles in news that I had received and I also saw now that his name appeared. I don't know if this came from the investigative officers.

CHAIRPERSON: So you do not have personal knowledge?

MR NEL: I never personally saw the people.

CHAIRPERSON: If we accept that there were two people killed, I accepted that two people were killed and I knew that I had received information somewhere of George and Brown but because I did not know their true identity, I can't say that it is them.

CHAIRPERSON: We'll just hear what your colleagues say.

Please tell me which Task Force is this that you were involved with, or what is it?

MR NEL: It is a special unit that was formed that could do special tasks and that also received special training to handle certain tasks.

CHAIRPERSON: Are these people from Head Office?

MR NEL: They would fall under Head Office and that is why they would fall under Gen Wandrag and also other commanders there.

CHAIRPERSON: Is this then a group of police officers?

MR NEL: Yes, it's police officers who had received special training to penetrate buildings and such like activities.

CHAIRPERSON: So they did not fall under the Security Police?

MR NEL: No.

CHAIRPERSON: They were available to the whole police force?

MR NEL: That is correct. If I recall correctly, they worked right through the country at that stage.

ADV DE JAGER: They were also at the Silverton incident?

MR NEL: That is correct.

ADV DE JAGER: Maybe we'll get it later directly, but what was their specific name?

MR NEL: They were the Special Task Force.

CHAIRPERSON: Were they known to you, the people involved here, this group that you refer to in paragraph 18?

MR NEL: I knew Capt Strydom at that time because he was involved at the Silverton bank incident.

CHAIRPERSON: And the other people, who are they?

MR NEL: This is Capt Strydom and the other people that were involved I did not know at that stage.

CHAIRPERSON: You did not know the other members of the Task Force apart from Strydom?

MR NEL: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: How many were they, the other members of the Task Force?

MR NEL: I would not be able to say. I didn't have anything to do with them personally.

CHAIRPERSON: You did not see them?

MR NEL: I saw them at a distance but I did not talk to them or anything apart from with Gen Wandrag and Strydom.

CHAIRPERSON: Just a couple of them, not just one?

MR NEL: I would estimate they were about 10.

CHAIRPERSON: And is this the group that shot the people in the vehicle?

MR NEL: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Was Mr Strydom involved in this, in the shooting?

MR NEL: Strydom was there, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: So he and his men shot?

MR NEL: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Nel. Are there any other questions?

ADV GCABASHE: Do you know anything at all about the circumstances surrounding Mnisi's arrest? You say here in paragraph 5, I think it is, or is it 4 - essentially the evidence is that Mnisi was arrested - point 8.

MR NEL: Yes, I know about that.

ADV GCABASHE: Is that part of your amnesty application, whatever might have occurred at that time?

MR NEL: Mnisi's arrest was quite legal. He was arrested about 1 kilometre from the Oshoek border post inside South Africa.

ADV GCABASHE: On the South African side. Is he still alive?

MR NEL: Yes, I saw him during his amnesty hearing in Pretoria, that was last year.

ADV GCABASHE: Then as you understand the brief to the Task Force they were either to try and abduct the two, bring them back into the country for questioning, or failing that to deal with them at that point in time?

MR NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: And all you knew about the two at the time was what Mnisi had said to you about them?

MR NEL: Yes, at that stage I did not know who was to be in the car. We did make some deductions that it could be Rashid and/or Brown and/or George, or anyone else but that is, we did not know how many people there would be or exactly who would be there.

ADV GCABASHE: And what you wanted from them was further information on the planning, the sabotage they had planned, that Mnisi?

MR NEL: As investigating officer I would very much have liked to get more information with regards to deeds of terrorism that were done and those that were still to come.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Any re-examination?

MR VISSER: No re-examination that you Chairperson.

MR VISSER: The next witness will be Gen Viktor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: (sworn states)

EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Gen Viktor is not on the list so far, so his statement which has been handed to you now will be Exhibit P. Chairman his amnesty application is in bundle 1 page 108 and follows.

General you applied for amnesty with regard to your participation in an instance which took place as we know on the 8th of December 1981 just inside the border of Swaziland. Is that correct?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: You have completed an amnesty application which serves before the Amnesty Commission in bundle 1 on page 108 up to page 109. Do you confirm ...(intervention)

MR VIKTOR: This is not the complete application.

MR VISSER: Or up to page 114. Do you confirm the correctness and truth of that application?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: In 1981 you say on page 109 of bundle 1 you were the Commander of the Security Division, Northern Transvaal. Is that the Security Division or the Security Branch Northern Transvaal?

MR VIKTOR: It's the Security Branch, Northern Transvaal.

MR VISSER: And what was your task there precisely and the people under your command?

MR VIKTOR: I was the Commander there, Chairperson. Our task was investigation of acts of terror, terrorism, politically motivated offences, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And the previous witness Mr Nel, was he under your command?

MR VIKTOR: Yes, he was.

MR VISSER: And at that stage was Mr Gert Visser also under your command?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: A statement was drawn up for you which serves as Exhibit P before the Committee. Do you have that before you?

MR VIKTOR: I do, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And there you refer to Exhibit A, have you read Exhibit A;?

MR VIKTOR: Yes, I have Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Is there anything in Exhibit A which you feel is not applicable to you?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson, I feel that I can reconcile myself with what is said there.

MR VISSER: And do you request the amnesty application to consider Exhibit A when considering your amnesty application?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: You have also already testified in the hearing or before the Amnesty Committee on the 23rd of June 1997 in Benoni, is that correct?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And you request that all that evidence be taken into consideration here?

MR VIKTOR: That's correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: If you could continue, there are two paragraphs 1, I apologise for that. If you can continue and please tell us what your participation and knowledge is of this incident, Mr Viktor.

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson, I confirm that I acted in this incident as mediator between Security Head Office as represented by Gen Coetzee and Brig Schoon and the particular members of the Task Force and the Security Branch at Middelburg. The action was pre-empted by actions to which F J P Nel refers to and I confirm his evidence, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: You do not have to go through all of this but you have set it out here, the rocket attack in 1981 at Voortrekkerhoogte, the limpet mine attack on the Impala electrical sub-station that the ANC accepted responsibility for both these attacks. You have referred to Seshaba October 1991, that Visser and Nel handled these dossiers, that a certain Philemon Molefe was arrested in Mamelodi and that he had conveyed, or supplied information and that with his co-operation Johannes Mnisi was later arrested and you confirm the plastic with the blue stripes which was found in his possession and what his tasks were. You yourself knew of the sabotage group which would come into the country and you were also aware that it was arranged by Johannes Mnisi that he would be joined.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser, you are also always reminding your witnesses that they should speak slowly for the interpretation yet you are running the gun here.

MR VISSER: I will accept the criticism. It is very applicable. Johannes Mnisi arranged that M K George, who was a prominent leadership figure in special operations, would meet him at or close to the border in the Republic and that it would seem that M K George was not willing to come to South Africa and that the operation changed into an operation of abduction or kidnapping. Then you say that, on page 4, that you received, or you requested authorisation from Gen Coetzee to co-operate with Gen Wandrag and the Special Task Force and a person from the Security Branch who would arrest this person at the Swaziland border and the authorisation was then granted. That it was your purpose to attempt to rather arrest these persons, than to eliminate them because you had a need for more information with regard to these sabotage groups. is that correct?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Will you please continue on page 4 at paragraph, well page 5 at paragraph 4.

MR VIKTOR: You said page 4 paragraph 4?

MR VISSER: Would you please continue on page 5.

MR VIKTOR: The reason why the Task Force's assistance was called in was because we foresaw that these persons would be armed and that they would resist any attempts of arrest. It seemed later that MK George was not willing to come to the RSA side. It was decided to continue with the attempt to find MK George, but this would entail abduction. It was then arranged that Johannes Mnisi arranged a rendezvous point close to the border where it would also be attempted to arrest them.

ADV DE JAGER: May I interrupt you General? You say in paragraph 6 that a decision was taken to continue but it would now be abduction. Where was it decided? Amongst you at the border, or who decided this?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson no, if I recall correctly it was there at Security Branch if I recall correctly, during telephone discussions between Mnisi and his contact in Swaziland that he was not willing to come to the RSA.

ADV DE JAGER: And was that at Oshoek?

MR VIKTOR: No, no.

ADV DE JAGER: This was at the office?

MR VIKTOR: Yes, this was at the office, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Maybe we should just offer some clarity here.

Before you departed for Oshoek it was already decided that it would be an abduction?

MR VIKTOR: To be truthful we would later hear that Mr Gert Visser and Mr Strydom already beforehand left and that the Task Force had Russian arms because they knew that they would act across the border.

MR VISSER: Were you aware of that?

MR VIKTOR: It is indeed so, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: It is then clear that before you left you knew that you would cross the border. Very well. At paragraph 7 I have to say that I have just copied this from Mr Nel's statement. You can criticise me if I have put in something that should not be here. I did not discuss this with you specifically but will you please go through paragraph 7 and say if you agree with it.

MR VIKTOR: The following persons were involved with the operation, myself, I think it was Brig Wandrag, Capt Visser, Detective W/O Selepe, Johannes Mnisi, Major Nel, the then Lieut. Schalk Visser, Divisional Commander of Security Branch Middelburg, and some members of the Special Task Force under the command of Capt Strydom.

MR VISSER: Do you recall whether Brig Schoon was there?

MR VIKTOR: Yes, he did accompany us.

MR VISSER: Did he accompany you?

MR VIKTOR: If I recall, he accompanied me. Chairperson, if I can just inform you. Col Schoon, although he was my junior in rank was at Head Office and an action like this Col Schoon was in command of C1 where I was the Commander previously and it would be the correct procedure to follow to go through him to the Commander of the Security Branch at Head Office who was then Gen Coetzee.

MR VISSER: He was therefore a delegate of Head Office?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did he have to accompany you?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson, I would believe that to have first-hand information from the incident, to report to his Head Office.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you go through him to Gen Coetzee?

MR VIKTOR: I had to do this, this was the procedure and this is what I did.

CHAIRPERSON: And you received permission to continue with this operation?

MR VIKTOR: Yes, from Gen Coetzee.

CHAIRPERSON: And was it in your mind that Mr Schoon had to accompany you?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson, at this stage I cannot say, but he did indeed accompany me. I don't know whose idea it was.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it not the order of Gen Coetzee that he had to accompany you?

MR VIKTOR: As I have said Chairperson, I do not know. Maybe I might have invited him to come along, I do not know.

CHAIRPERSON: Otherwise, he just drove with you?

MR VIKTOR: Yes, he was a passenger here, he was not really involved in this whole operation.

CHAIRPERSON: Very well, please continue.

MR VIKTOR: Gen Wandrag later in the day joined the group to arrange, to make the necessary arrangements at the border post with regards to patrols along the RSA/Swaziland border so that there would not be a collision between the planned operation and the patrols.

MR VISSER: The patrols you refer to are the normal border patrols?

MR VIKTOR: That's correct, Chairperson. At Oshoek Capt Gert Visser accompanied the Task Force members to the agreed rendezvous point. The other officers remained at Oshoek. At some stage the members returned with the news that the car which was previously described to Mnisi did not stop at the correct place and that the action was abandoned. The Task Force members then departed for Pretoria. Nel drove with Mnisi to Carolina where he contacted MK George to inform him that he had seen his motor vehicle but that he had stopped at the wrong place. He once again indicated the place which Capt Strydom identified.

MR VISSER: Did you, is this from all of your personal knowledge?

MR VIKTOR: No, this was reported to me. The Task Force was then returned and went into Swaziland. At some stage we heard some gunfire within Swaziland and a while later Capt Visser and Capt Strydom reported that the vehicle had arrived. An attempt was made to arrest the persons and a skirmish followed. No person or persons escaped from the vehicle because the vehicle was on fire and the occupants had died. I will accept that two persons were killed in this action. I will also accept that they are MK George and MK Brown. I unfortunately do not have any information with regard to the deceased identities or any other information.

MR VISSER: But the persons are described on the roll here as MK George and MK Brown. And you say you cannot argue with that, if it is indeed so?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: You know from reports that came to your knowledge that two persons were killed in this action?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct, Chairperson. I am aware that the attempted abductions of persons out of Swaziland was illegal. I also accept that the killing of these persons is illegal. I also realise that where the arrest would be executed the chances were good that these persons would be armed and that they would resist. I therefore foresaw that there would be a skirmish where people could be killed or injured and I reconcile myself with that. The actions and omissions which I have executed during the execution of my official duties was part of the struggle and this was aimed at the supporters of the liberation movements. What I have done was to protect the Government and the National Party's interests and to oppose the revolutionary onslaught. I therefore request that amnesty be granted to me with regards to these actions and omissions.

Thank you Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairman, that's the evidence in chief.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Prinsloo.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR PRINSLOO: Thank you Chairperson. Mr Viktor, your function was also the tracking down of terrorists?

MR VIKTOR: That's correct.

MR PRINSLOO: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Oh, just another question Chairperson. In paragraph 1 of your application or of your statement you say that what was previously described, it should be by Mnisi not to Mnisi, I read it wrong.

MR VIKTOR: I read it wrong. That's correct Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Any questions?

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS VAN DER WALT: Thank you, Chairperson. Mr Viktor on page 2, paragraph 2 you refer that you were the mediator between Security Branch Head Office and Security Branch at Middelburg. At that stage was Brig Schalk Visser Chief of the Security Branch at Middelburg? is that correct?

MR VIKTOR: That is correct, Chairperson.

MS VAN DER WALT: Why did you contact him? Can you tell the Honourable Committee?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson, it is only correct that when there is any action in another person's division that that person be contacted.

MS VAN DER WALT: And Oshoek was part of the Security Branch of Middelburg in the Eastern Transvaal?

MR VIKTOR: That's correct.

MS VAN DER WALT: No further questions thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Thabethe any questions?

MS THABETHE: Just one, Mr Chair.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE: Mr Viktor exactly who were the persons who carried out the abduction or the arrest of MK George and Brown? Who had to carry it out?

MR VIKTOR: Please repeat, you speak very softly.

MS THABETHE: Who were the persons who had to carry out the abduction or the arrest of MK George and Brown?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson it was the persons under the command of Capt Strydom.

MS THABETHE: No further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: The question is who were they?

MR VIKTOR: I knew Capt Strydom, the other members I just knew by face, by seeing them.

CHAIRPERSON: Were they under your command?

MR VIKTOR: No Chairperson, this was a uniformed branch.

CHAIRPERSON: So you do not know any of their names?

MR VIKTOR: Capt Strydom was the Commander.

CHAIRPERSON: Except for him you do not know any of the other names?

MR VIKTOR: No, I do not know the other names, I just knew them by face.

CHAIRPERSON: With regard to the patrols that you mention in paragraph 8.

MR VIKTOR: This was uniformed patrols Chairperson, as I have it.

CHAIRPERSON: Were these police officers?

MR VIKTOR: Yes, they were police officers.

CHAIRPERSON: Would there be a problem surrounding this?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson it could be that if they had no knowledge of any operation in the area, our operation, or the persons in our operation could be confronted with this group and problems would emanate.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you inform them?

MR VIKTOR: This was left to Gen Wandrag because it was uniform members and he is a uniform man.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you leave it to him to inform them?

MR VIKTOR: Gen Wandrag would have informed them because he was a uniformed man and it was a uniformed branch.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know whether he informed them?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson yes, he did do so.

CHAIRPERSON: Very well. Yes, thank you. Are there any other questions?

ADV GCABASHE: One question. The identities of George and Brown. Mnisi did not tell you during his interrogation, during the time you had him under arrest, who these people might be, their real names?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson no, they were just known as MK George and MK Brown.

ADV GCABASHE: Thank you. Thank you Chair.

ADV DE JAGER: At some stage when things did not go according to plan you abandoned the arrest or the abduction?

MR VIKTOR: No Chairperson.

ADV DE JAGER: Or you postponed it?

MR VIKTOR: Chairperson, the Task Force persons departed immediately and if I recall correctly, it was, we stopped them on the way and we told them please return because in the meantime

Maj Nel went with Mnisi to establish telephonic contact in Swaziland to say that there is a problem.

ADV DE JAGER: This is all that I wanted to find out. Did you also depart and did you return?

MR VIKTOR: No, no Chairperson.

ADV DE JAGER: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN: ...(indistinct)

MR VISSER: No thank you, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Viktor, you are excused.

MR VISSER ADDRESSES COMMITTEE: Mr Chairman, may I move an application? May I hand up to you an affidavit by Brig Willem Frederich Schoon. I'll just wait a moment to allow the documents to be handed to you. Mr Chairman, in his evidence before you in regard to the two PAC persons for whom Brig Schoon applied for amnesty, he gave evidence to you, which evidence has been included in this affidavit, about some confusion in regard to his amnesty application. He now says Chairperson in his affidavit that he was the Commander of Unit C at Vlakplaas, at Security Head Office, paragraph 2 and paragraph 3 tells you that he was also therefore in control of Vlakplaas and he refers in paragraph 4 to the evidence which he already gave before you about how matters developed from the beginning when the amnesty process started and how there was doubt in the minds of many policemen that it would be the right thing to do. He then says that he was convinced, together with others, by Gen van der Merwe and Attorney Wagener, my attorney, to participate in the process and to apply for amnesty and at that stage there was very little time. Now he has applied, I believe it is for 18 incidents Chairperson and he handed in his amnesty application, he says in paragraph 5, before the first closing date in December 1996 and he says "My intentions were to make a full disclosure of all the incidents were I was involved during the struggle". If one looks at the evidence which Brig Schoon has given on various occasions before the Amnesty Committee, it is clear that that was his bona fide intention. He says Chairperson, paragraph 6, that there was very little time left when a decision was taken by the policemen to apply for amnesty and he says that during that short period of time the applications of approximately 100 other applicants had to be processed at the office of Mr Wagener. He says that long after he handed in his amnesty application, paragraph 7 he says this, but in any event after the last closing date for applications to be handed in, he re-read his whole amnesty application and then he realised that there were problems. He says first of all two incidents were duplicated and we refer to them, paragraph 9 at the bottom, two incidents were duplicated and one incident apparently fell out in the wash. Now he says, Chairperson, he has a very bad memory and he says that as a result of circumstances at the time, this gave rise that in his written application form the incident under Voorval 12, that is bundle 1 page 68 and Voorval 15, bundle 1 page 81, were duplicated and he explains what this means. He says "Insofar as both refer to an incident in Swaziland on the 14th - 16th December 1986, where three members" ... (indistinct) Sepo and Busi but in the other one he doesn't "were killed while incident 12" has to refer to an incident where three ANC terrorists were killed in Swaziland on the 12th February 1989. In this process the incident of MK George and MK Brown and the death of two ANC terrorists in Swaziland, 8th December 1981, went missing". But as far as Swaziland is concerned the police, as you heard the evidence, that was an area where the police operated, not the SADF so there were many incursions into Swaziland at the time. Brig Schoon, if I'm correct and I might be making a mistake, is involved in 4 such incidents. One has been duplicated but is explained by him here as referring to two incidents. That leaves us with MK Brown and MK George and then there's yet, well I think there's another two incidents. The one is Nyanda and McFadden and then there's another incident as well, so in all there are 5 incidents Chairperson and the long and the short of it is this, in the time where Brig Schoon completed his amnesty application, somehow he overlooked the fact that he was involved in George and Brown. Now he's never hidden that as a fact. The moment he was reminded about that, we realised that it is not in his amnesty application and at all times it was the intention for him to bring this application at the appropriate time, which is now.

He sets out in paragraph 11 his explanations and apologies for the incident, Chairperson, and he says in paragraph 12 that in the circumstances he was bona fide under the impression that he had applied for everything, but apparently the facts show that he didn't. Chairperson we know that the TRC Act expected and required of amnesty applicants to hand in their amnesty applications prior to certain dates which were later extended the last of which was in May, September 1997. We also know that this application comes after that date. The point here Chairman is that, and this is the only submission I wish to make to you, that in terms of the Interim Constitution which gave stature to the agreements which were entered into in which the Watershed agreement was reached, that a political solution was found for the conflicts of the past in this country. It was done on the basis that amnesty would play a major important role and as was stated in the Azapo case, that amnesty had to be approached on the widest possible basis. Here we have a person who has made application but one of his incidents has fallen by the wayside.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Visser, what does that mean? Does it mean that he had forgotten or does it mean that he had instructed that that incident should be included and somebody has left it out? Or what does it mean, what has gone wrong according to him?

MR VISSER: Chairman, he thought it was there while it wasn't and how precisely the mistake came about is not clear today. My attorney says that he doesn't know whether the fault doesn't lie with him. Schoon says he can't remember whether he told the attorney specifically about this matter. At the end of the day, Schoon thought he had applied for everything in which he was involved. It now turns out that he didn't apply for everything in which he was involved.

CHAIRPERSON: Does he give any reason why he is only raising this thing today?

MR VISSER: I thought that that was clear Chairperson. We had to wait until the appropriate time which is now, when the George and Brown incident is heard. This is the reason why we waited until now. We've known for some time about this now, but where should we then apply for an amendment other than at the time when the incident is heard and that is what we advised him, that at this stage today will be the appropriate time to move such an application.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, if that's his advice, perhaps that doesn't really touch upon the crux of this matter which is you know, do we have the power to condone this sort of thing? We're way beyond the time for these applications. What happens if we open the floodgates now, where do we end with this kind of thing? Wasn't it exactly this kind of scenario that legislature wanted to avoid, to get us into this situation?

MR VISSER: Chairperson, you're actually correct. That is the ...(indistinct). The submission I was busy making is this. Clearly if you look at an interpretation, the normal interpretation of the words of the Act, what you've put to me is precisely that which is in the Act, but we want to invite you to consider where there isn't a wider scope of it and I want to refer you to what happened in regard to the 37 members of the ANC who applied for amnesty on the broad basis of what was done by persons under their command, without specifying any incidents. You will recall that as late as this year even, 1998, we're in 1999 now, towards the middle of last year, in 1998, the Amnesty Committee still extended to these people an invitation to come forward with specification of incidents. Chairman, we have had situations also before where a person would say that I know that I participated in attacking ANC supporters' houses, there were many, I can't remember all the instances, but they took place between such- and-such a date and such-and-such a date. And in that which we submit are the broadest of terms, a person like Hechter for example, got amnesty, where those separate incidents were not spelled out.

Now here Schoon does not say I apply for amnesty in regard to incidents which took place in Swaziland, I can't remember all the incidents but as time goes by hopefully I will, and if I don't give me the kind of blanket amnesty which you gave to Hechter, that's not his case. What he is saying is that I genuinely thought that what I placed before the Amnesty Committee was all the incidents in which I was involved. He turns out he's mistaken. It turns out there is one that has fallen out.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Visser, I think an application, I think there was, we've had quite a lot of precedents where an application has been amended. This is not quite an amendment, but we've got an application before us. It's not that we're introducing a late application, but have we got facts which we could say would include this although it's not specified. I think, for instance I had been sitting SDU matters where they applied and said "I've been involved in various incidents during that period. People have been killed." Well, that sort of gave you a framework in which you could fill in and here we have a broad framework in this sense that he was involved and that he gave orders and that he was involved in the struggle, but I don't know if there is a framework in which this can actually be managed.

MR VISSER: Brig Schoon's sin is that he tried to be specific in the interests of making full disclosure rather than simply saying what has just been put to me.

Perhaps that is his sin, he didn't say that in his amnesty application, but what we're saying he did say, in the interests of full disclosure, he really believed that at the time and under the pressure in which he was due to his bad memory he did not include this incident which he never intended to deny. That's the point and what I'm saying Chairperson is that, if the Amnesty Committee was prepared in a spirit of granting amnesty in the widest possible terms, to invite the 37 ANC people to give them specifications at the end of the day it should be something that should be handed out even-handedly to all the applicants.

ADV DE JAGER: In Hechter's case we had medical evidence that he could not remember certain things and his evidence was that if the other people say that I was involved in this, then I accept that I was involved in this, but I cannot remember it. But you see, initially in his application he said that there might be incidents that I cannot recall and thus there was a framework in which one could find the details.

MR VISSER: ...of what Commissioner de Jager is putting to me and I wish I could tell him that it was different in Schoon's case or the same, but it isn't. What you're referring to Commissioner de Jager is at page 26, I don't think you've got this volume before you, the decisions, it was at page 4 of Hechter's application , his decision on his application, under the heading Schedule 4 and it's simply mentioned to be various incidents of arson relating to the burning of houses in Mamelodi, Soshanguve and Attridgeville during the period 1985 to 1987 and ...(end of tape) that is what he received the amnesty for. Amnesty is therefore granted to the applicant and the said van Vuuren, as will be seen, for various incidents of arson relating to the burning of houses in Mamelodi, Soshanguve, Attridgeville between 85 and 87. Now that is not the application of Brig Schoon. He has attempted to give you specifics as I say in the interests of full disclosure and in the process either he forgot about it, or he might have thought that he told his attorney about it and he didn't, or he might have told his attorney about it and his attorney may have been confused. We don't know today what the position is. All that we know is inadvertently this incident was left out and that's the furthest I can take it Chairperson. On the basis of here is a man who's applied for 18 incidents of amnesty, it would be a sad day in the whole amnesty process if he obtained, if he were to obtain amnesty for 18 incidents and at the end of the day have to go to jail for something which he fully intended to disclose, but for some reason or other, which he can't remember exactly it happened, it fell out and on that perhaps passionate ground I want to ask you to consider this application favourably. I see it's 10 past 1, I'm sorry to have kept you past your lunch hour.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Those are your submissions in regard to this matter?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Prinsloo, you are not directly involved in this matter, do you have anything to say?

MR PRINSLOO: I do not have anything but it handles here on full disclosure. I am not participating in his case, it just handles on full disclosure.

CHAIRPERSON: Please make your submissions as you think you should.

MR PRINSLOO: I don't have any submissions.

CHAIRPERSON: Have you got any submissions?

MS THABETHE: I leave it in the capable hands of the Committee. I have no submissions.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we'll adjourn and reconvene at 2 o'clock.

CHAIRPERSON: This is an application by Willem Frederich Schoon for an order condoning his failure to include the incident known as the murder of MK George and MK Brown in his amnesty application.

There are a number of former colleagues of the applicant in the S A Police who have applied for amnesty in respect of the same incident and we are presently hearing those applications. The present application for condonation has been interposed in the sequence being followed in hearing the applicants referred to.

According to the applicant and in terms of the submissions made by Mr Visser, who appears on his behalf in these proceedings, this omission was discovered some time after the expiry, the cut-off date for submitting amnesty applications.

The applicant indicates in an affidavit which has been filed in support of the application, that he was under extreme time pressures to timeously lodge his amnesty application, that he's experiencing problems with his memory, and that he has moreover been involved in a large number of incidents of a similar nature of which there are no documentary records and these have all exacerbated the situation in which he finds himself.

It is not clear and it appears that the applicant is not sure whether he simply forgot to include the incident in his original application, or whether he might have mentioned it to his attorney who in turn might have neglected or forgotten to include the incident in the, when the amnesty application was drafted. The original application which is serving before us in that we are hearing a number of the incidents which are detailed there, is an extensive and a detailed one which deals with 18 incidents in which the applicant was apparently involved. We have no doubt that it is so as submitted on behalf of the applicant, that he never had any intention to conceal his role in the incident in question. We have in fact already heard the testimony of a number of applicants in this matter, who have all confirmed the applicant's involvement and the role that he had played in the particular incident.

We have considered the matter and we feel constrained to give this ruling forthwith in order not to unnecessarily delay the proceedings before us. Unfortunately this is the normal kind of pressure which goes with this process.

The application, in our view, is seeking leave for the applicant to be allowed to raise a matter which has not been raised at all in the original application. There is moreover, in our view, no basis or framework which has been established for entertaining the incident in the original application. In fact there has simply been no reference to the incident at all. In our view there is no legal provision entitling us to grant the application. It is in our view a necessary result of failing to submit an application for amnesty in respect of a specific offence or delict in the stipulated time period that the matter cannot subsequently be considered by the Amnesty Application.

In all the circumstances of the matter the application has to be refused and it is ordered accordingly.

MR VISSER: As it pleases you Mr Chairman, and members of the Committee.

May I go on directly with the next witness Mr Chairman?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I think you indicated it would be Mr Wandrag.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------MR VISSER: The next witness is Gen Wandrag, Chairperson. I'll address you the moment he has taken the oath.

ALBERTUS JOHANNES WANDRAG: (sworn states)

MR VISSER: General you apply for amnesty in the current

incident, is that correct?

MR WANDRAG: That is correct, Chairperson.

INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.

MR VISSER: Your original application is to be found in bundle 1, page 156 to 163, is that correct?

INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not one.

MR VISSER: Do you confirm the correctness and truth thereof?

MR WANDRAG: I do confirm so, Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: I don't know what we have lost here. We refer to your original amnesty application in bundle 1. You say you confirm the content thereof?

MR WANDRAG: Yes, I do, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: General, if I may refer you to page 157 at the top of the page you say that from the 31/12/89 or from September 1972 until 31/12/89 you were in different posts at the Counter Insurgency Unit of the SA Police.

MR WANDRAG: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Would you please briefly give us the information as to what the situation was at Counter Insurgence and whether they had different divisions and where you fitted into the picture, who the Commander was, just in brief please.

MR WANDRAG: Chairperson, ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: Excuse me, may I interrupt? Please specify or think in terms of 1981 because that is the year which is of interest to us, in December of that year what was the position?

MR WANDRAG: In December 1981 the Commanding Officer of the Counter Insurgency Unit was Major General Verster. I was then a brigadier and I served under him as the overhead Commander of the Special Task Force which was a subdivision of the Counter Insurgency Unit. But under my responsibility resorted as well border control which entailed the handling of different police bases on the South African border with the neighbouring states surrounding South Africa. The responsibility of these persons at these bases was to patrol the border physically to counter any insurgencies of terrorists, as well as other illegals and to control these as well as counter any persons wanting to leave the country illegally.

MR VISSER: You have studied Exhibit A, the general background, and you have knowledge of what is contained therein.

MR WANDRAG: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And do you concur with the contents thereof?

MR WANDRAG: I do, but however I would just like to mention that in paragraph L on page 3 or paragraph 11 on page 3 at the bottom "members of the Security Branch were exposed to war situations" that something else has to be added there, that the Security Branch and Special Task Force were exposed to the war situations.

MR VISSER: Very well.

MR WANDRAG: And then paragraph 25, exactly the same. To maintain this level of efficiency would mean members of the Security Forces and the Special Task Forces had to work long hours under very difficult circumstances.

MR VISSER: Very well. Except for that you would agree that the contents of this document are applicable to you and be incorporated in your application as well as the evidence that is referred to in Exhibit A? A statement was drawn up on your behalf, which will now be Exhibit Q, do you have that exhibit before you?

MR WANDRAG: I do Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And do you confirm the correctness of the contents of that statement?

MR WANDRAG: I do so confirm Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Would you please address us from paragraph 1 on page 2, or excuse me, there are two paragraphs 1, the second paragraph 1.

MR WANDRAG: By introduction I would like to mention that since 1978 I was the Overhead Commander of the Special Task Force which was a branch of the Counter Insurgency Unity of the South African Police. Gen H V Verster was the Commanding Officer of the Counter Insurgency Unit during 1981.

MR VISSER: I would just like to ask you, what was the purpose of the Special Task Force, General?

MR WANDRAG: The purpose of the Special Task Force, Mr Chairperson, was to handle hostage dramas within the South African Republic, as we did do during the Silverton bank incident. Secondly, the stopping of insurgency units. Thirdly, it was in support of the South African Police right through South Africa at high risk operations where, and with this I mean rescue operations which would include the rescue on dams in the country and at sea and finally to be applied in instances where expertise would be needed to deal with a situation.

MR VISSER: And consequently it is correct to say that the task of the Special Task Force was to act in situations which were extraordinary and to be of assistance to the South African Police?

MR WANDRAG: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: But the Special Task Force was not the Security Police?

MR WANDRAG: No, it was an independent unit.

MR VISSER: And it was a uniformed Task?

MR WANDRAG: Yes, it was a uniformed Task.

MR VISSER: Would you please continue? You would also be involved in normal civil incidents that had nothing to do with politics where a hostage would be taken, a child, and you would be called in such situations?

MR WANDRAG: That is correct, Mr Chairperson and it is still used to that effect today.

MR VISSER: Would you please continue with paragraph 2?

MR WANDRAG: I confirm that my unit during 1981, the Special Task Force, was requested by Col Viktor to be of assistance in the arrest of suspected terrorists at the Swaziland border. This action was authorised by the then Security Head, Gen J Coetzee.

MR VISSER: And you told us that special expertise was needed in this incident?

MR WANDRAG: That is correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And why were you needed there?

MR WANDRAG: Because, Chairperson, the request that was made to us and it was made clear to me that the arrests of the suspected persons or terrorists at the border would, or entailed two high profile MK members who according to information conveyed to me by Col Viktor were highly trained MK members and who maintained a high profile.

MR VISSER: Was there any talk of their being armed?

MR WANDRAG: Yes this was conveyed to me and it was because of that they needed the expertise of a specially trained unit and that the persons may be armed and it was necessary to apply the services of the Special Task Force. The idea was that they had to be arrested. The instruction was that it had to be done so as to arrest the persons so that the Security Branch could continue with investigations which they were dealing with.

The Operational Commander of the Special Task Force, was then Capt Strydom. I called Capt Strydom to my office. I sketched the background to him as to the approval of the operation and the request that was directed at me or to me and instructed him that he had to liaise with the Security Branch and all necessary information had to be collected by him and then, in co-operation with the Security Branch, they had to devise a plan so that these persons could be arrested.

MR VISSER: Did you give him any other instructions in the case of whether an arrest would not be possible or there was any possible danger?

MR WANDRAG: If there was any possible danger, they had to ensure that none of the Special Task Force persons be injured, or if a skirmish ensued, they had to ensure that if any Task Force person was killed in the crossfire, then he had to brought out to the RSA.

MR VISSER: Did you give any instruction as to how he must react in case of danger?

MR WANDRAG: This was left to his own judgment because on ground level the Commander during the operation is responsible for instructions and orders given.

MR VISSER: Please continue with paragraph 3.

MR WANDRAG: On a date, we know now that it was the 8th of December 1981, members of the Task Force departed to Oshoek. The Task Force members also later departed to the Oshoek border post. The Security Branch members who left for Oshoek, whom I later met, were Col Viktor, Col Schoon, Maj Frik Nel, Lieut. Schalk Visser, Capt Visser and Sgt Selepe.

I joined the group later during that day to make the necessary arrangements at the border post and we were stationed at the Oshoek border post to limit the patrols on the Swaziland/RSA border, to ensure that the Task Force, while executing the operation to arrest these persons, that they would not come into contact with a patrol on the border because such a meeting would cause, or would have the effect that they would shoot at each other and after I made this arrangement that patrols not be carried out, I returned to Oshoek border post and joined the group of Security Branch officers.

The Task Force members, accompanied by Capt Visser, had already crossed over the border to the specific point where a source of the Security Branch had pointed out to them. Later that evening members of the Task Force returned and Capt Strydom reported to me that the vehicle did indeed arrive as they had planned but that it had stopped in the wrong place and they could not execute an arrest and he had withdrawn his men. At the request of the then Col Viktor arrangements were made that the person or persons would return to the rendezvous point and I gave instruction that the Task Force members who had moments before departed, be caught up with and that they be told that they needed to return, which they indeed did.

I told the Operational Commander, or I asked the Operational Commander if it is possible to try once again to execute the arrest, which they did indeed do.

I waited at the Oshoek border post along with the security officers and at some stage we heard the gunshots from automatic rifles and afterwards everything was quiet. A while later Capt Visser and Major Strydom reported back that during the execution of the operation circumstances necessitated them to fire on these suspects and that some of them had been killed. He could not however supply any more particulars. He also further told me that because of the skirmish no arrest could be executed.

Capt Strydom informed me that because of a person who had spoken when the vehicle stopped at the scene and had heard the noise of a machine gun being cocked, he did not act further and execute an arrest and then they decided to fire. The Task Force members withdrew immediately after the incident and returned to Pretoria, after it was established that none of them had been injured during the incident. The same day in the early morning hours I returned to Pretoria.

I was aware that the attempted abduction of persons from Swaziland was illegal, I accept that the killing of these persons was illegal and throughout I was aware that, where arrests be executed, that the chances were great that these persons would be armed and that they would resist. I then foresaw that a skirmish would ensue where people could be killed or injured and I reconciled myself herewith. Furthermore after this incident I did not disclose the true facts and made myself guilty of defeating the ends of justice. I had heard that two persons were killed in this incident. I refer to a newspaper extract which accompanies this. We have already drawn the attention of the Committee to this newspaper extract. No names were given there.

The actions and omissions of which I am guilty I had executed during the execution of my official duties and as part of my opposition to the struggle and was aimed at supporters of the liberation movement. What I have done I did to protect the interests of the government and the National Party and to ward off the revolutionary onslaught.

Chairperson, I request that amnesty be granted to me for my actions and omissions in this regard. Thank you Chairperson.

MR VISSER: That is the evidence in chief.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Visser. Mr Prinsloo?

MR PRINSLOO: No questions, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms van der Walt?

MS VAN DER WALT: No questions.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE: Mr Wandrag, I've got one question for you. According to the reports that you got after the attack, was the reason furnished, was it the only reason furnished that they heard a cock of an AK47, that's why they shot back? I don't know whether that was your evidence, or I'm misinterpreting?

MR WANDRAG: No, he reported to me that he'd heard a person talking loudly and he'd heard the noise of a weapon that's been spanned.

MS THABETHE: And that's what gave rise to the killing?

MR WANDRAG: That is when he wasn't prepared to risk the lives of his men and that's why he gave the order to fire.

MS THABETHE: Thank you, no further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Did Mr Strydom tell you where the weapon was cocked?

MR WANDRAG: Right at the vehicle that was stopped Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Did he given you any other reports with regard to the vehicle and the occupants? Did he tell you how many persons were there, of which sex they were, or anything else?

MR WANDRAG: No, he did not tell me what sex they were but he did mention that it was two persons, but he did not mention any sex.

CHAIRPERSON: Were these unknown persons?

MR WANDRAG: To us they were unknown persons.

CHAIRPERSON: What did you understand, what did this operation entail, who was to be involved here, who had to be arrested?

MR WANDRAG: I was informed that the Commanders of one Mnisi who had already been arrested and that it was high profile Commanders and Commanders of the ANC and that they had to be arrested to combat the onslaught specifically in the Northern Transvaal.

CHAIRPERSON: How many of these Commanders had to be arrested?

MR WANDRAG: They said that there were two, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Did they give you any names?

MR WANDRAG: No, they did not give me any names, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: They didn't talk about MK George?

MR WANDRAG: Not with me, Mr Chairperson, it was only mentioned that two Commanders had to be arrested.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you have any knowledge of an MK George at that stage?

MR WANDRAG: I did not have knowledge because I did not have that information at my disposal at the time, Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: And MK Brown, did you have any knowledge of such a person?

MR WANDRAG: No, Mr Chairperson, it was totally unknown to me at that stage.

CHAIRPERSON: That name was also not mentioned in those conversations?

MR WANDRAG: No, Mr Chairperson, not when the request was made.

CHAIRPERSON: What did Strydom tell you? Did he tell you that there were two people killed?

MR WANDRAG: No, he did not say two people were killed, he said that they had apparently been killed because the vehicle had caught fire.

CHAIRPERSON: How many men did you send on this operation?

MR WANDRAG: If I remember correctly Mr Chairperson, approximately, I didn't count them, because they were already in vehicles, about 8 to maximum 10, if my memory serves me correctly.

CHAIRPERSON: And they were all from the Task Force?

MR WANDRAG: All from the Task Force, Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you, did the Police of the Special Forces also use the army at that stage?

MR WANDRAG: Not at that stage. The Security Branch did, Mr Chairperson, but myself and the Commander of the Task Force never used them.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you said that you were also in the Security Police?

MR WANDRAG: No, Mr Chairperson, I was never.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you have any knowledge of the situation under which the Special Forces would be used by the Security Police?

MR WANDRAG: No, Mr Chairperson because that was completely on a different level than my responsibility.

CHAIRPERSON: Good. Did you beforehand think the people would be killed in this operation?

MR WANDRAG: Well, I expected, according to the information that was available to me, that there could be a resistance to arrest and that it would be possible that violence would be incurred and I was therefore prepared for it Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: You cannot say if the right people were confronted and attacked?

MR WANDRAG: I cannot say that Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Wandrag.

ADV GCABASHE: Mr Wandrag I noticed that you don't mention Mnisi as being one of the party, was he not there when you joined them?

MR WANDRAG: He wasn't there, I have seen him with them at all.

ADV GCABASHE: So you don't know him at all?

MR WANDRAG: I don't, he wasn't there.

ADV GCABASHE: Thank you.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, may this witness then be excused and may I then be permitted to call Gen Strydom?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Thank you Mr Wandrag, you are excused.

MR WANDRAG: Thank you Mr Chairperson.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------MARTHINUS BLANCHE STRYDOM: (sworn states)

EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Mr Strydom, your amnesty application is in bundle 4 from page 835 up to 843. You are aware of the contents of this amnesty application, is this correct?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Do you confirm the truth and the correctness of the contents thereof?

MR STRYDOM: I do confirm it.

MR VISSER: On page 936, you refer to that in ‘95 you were made a General Major in your current position as Chief of Border Police. Are you still related to the SAPD?

MR STRYDOM: That is true Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And all incoming and outgoing points on borders will be under your control, is that correct?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct.

MR VISSER: You had a look at the background document, Exhibit A, is that correct?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Do you agree with the contents thereof?

MR STRYDOM: I do agree.

MR VISSER: Do you want this to be incorporated?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, I do, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: There is also on your behalf ...(indistinct) as amended by General Wandrag to include Special Task Forces members.

MR STRYDOM: That is also my request.

MR VISSER: There is a declaration set up from information that you had given. It is Exhibit F, which is currently serving in front of the Committee and herein you ask that Exhibit A must be incorporated, is that correct?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And do you confirm the correctness of the contents of this document, Exhibit F?

MR STRYDOM: I do confirm this.

MR VISSER: Can you please inform the Committee, from paragraph 2 please, on page 2.

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, I'll do this with permission. During 1981 I was a Captain in the South African Police and I was working in the Special Task Force in Pretoria as the Operational Commander. Chairperson, My direct Commander was Lieut. Gen A J Wandrag. He was then Brigadier.

Chairperson on a date and I heard this morning that it was stipulated as December 1981, Gen Wandrag called me in and told me that the Security Branch, Eastern Transvaal, asked assistance in an operation. He gave me orders to contact the Security Branch Eastern Transvaal in order to get the full details so that I can give the necessary assistance.

MR VISSER: Yes, and then you contacted the Security Branch Eastern Transvaal and you got the name of Capt Gert Visser from them , is that correct?

MR STRYDOM: That is the case Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And did you then talk to him about the matter?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, I did Chairperson.

MR VISSER: And what did this information that you got from him entail?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, it entailed that certain people within Swaziland had to be arrested and had to be brought to the RSA to be interrogated and this had to be done by members of the Security Branch. I was told that the specific persons apparently had been identified as terrorists that had valuable information relating to Security.

Chairperson I was then told that there would be - that a meeting had been organised by means of a contact person who was in the RSA with people in the Swaziland and the people who were expected were MK Commanders. I was told by Capt Visser of the Security Branch that the Security Branch places a priority on these people for the interrogation or to eliminate them. Seeing as the people were trained MK Commanders, provision was made that they would probably be heavily armed. Chairperson this was also the reason why the help of my unit was called in, seeing as how our training made, equipped us the best to do these kinds of operations.

Chairperson, I'd realised that the SAP had no jurisdiction to arrest anyone in Swaziland and Chairperson this is also the reason why I placed the word arrest in quotation marks in my written amnesty application. I realised that with the word arrest, it is actually meant that those people had to be abducted. I also realised that there existed a very good chance that things could go wrong and that those people then would have to be killed. I accordingly realised that the steps that were planned would be illegal steps and these facts I did communicate to the Task Force members who accompanied me across the border at a later stage. Chairperson, myself and Capt Visser departed to the Swaziland border, close to the Oshoek border post. After dark we went over the border so that we can go and do reconnaissance work of the ...(indistinct). We agreed on a scene where this specific operation would be executed. Captain Visser would identify this place to the contact person so that this meeting could take place there.

After Capt Visser departed I, during the same evening, visited this place twice on my own to be able to identify certain things and so that I could get to know the route and the environment and to finalise my planning for the operation.

MR VISSER: About how far away from the border was this place, if you have to remember.

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, approximately a kilometre, maybe a little bit more. I can't remember exactly.

MR VISSER: But there's of the other people that say it was about 100 metres.

MR STRYDOM: No, it was definitely further than that and it was a difficult terrain on the way there. The following day a group of approximately 8 to 12 members of the Task Force called me.

Chairperson, I just want to mention here that I really cannot remember the number of people, and that is just an estimation.

MR VISSER: So you cannot exactly remember who was there?

MR STRYDOM: Some of the members I can remember, but I can't remember all of them.

MR VISSER: Maybe you must just - oh, you do say that later. Please continue.

MR STRYDOM: I met the members close to the Oshoek border post and I gave them complete intelligence about this operation. Capt Gert Visser joined me once again and he crossed the border with the group.

MR VISSER: Was this on the same day, or was this the following day when these events happened?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: You went along with Gert Visser?

MR STRYDOM: I accompanied Gert Visser across the border. At night we went back and that same evening I crossed the border twice again and then early in the morning, just before dawn I returned. That evening the Task Force members joined me and the next evening we went in for the operation.

MR VISSER: So this would then be the 8th, the following day, is that not true? So the 7th you would have gone there the first time and the operation took place on the 8th?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct, Chairperson, the 8th of December.

MR VISSER: Good, continue.

MR STRYDOM: Seeing as the operation would take place in a foreign country, I gave orders that everyone would be, would have Eastern Block weapons. It was the practice that if an operation would be done outside the country then we would use Eastern Block weapons.

MR VISSER: But the question is why did you do this?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, just so that we could not lose or leave own weaponry if the operation was not successful.

MR VISSER: Because this would be a reflection on the South African government?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, that is true Chairperson.

At the border there were quite a number of members present. I do not know if I can remember everyone, but I do remember that Gen Wandrag, Gen Viktor, Capt Gert Visser and a couple of other people were present there. As a result of the long time that has gone past since then, I can't remember exactly who the Task Force members were that were involved in this operation. I now understand that it was among others, the following persons, and that would be Messrs Hope, Dirkson, Steenberg and le Roux and also two other members that have died since then and that would be Moolman and Prinsloo. I am not so sure about their precise roles in this operation any more and there could possibly have been more members of the Task Force present.

During this specific evening, I led the members of the Task Force across the border and opposite the place where the suspected terrorist would arrive in a motor car and they would stop, we took in our place. The order was to overwhelm them there and bring them back physically across the border to the RSA. As planned, the vehicle came closer but it parked at the wrong place and outside of our reach. After a few minutes the vehicle turned around and it drove away. I immediately withdrew the members under my command and I went back to the RSA from where we went back to Pretoria.

Chairperson shortly after this a vehicle approached us from behind and stopped us. It was a member of the Security Branch, Eastern Transvaal and he informed us that, on request of Gen Wandrag, we had to turn around so that we can try again to execute this operation successfully. Back at the border Gen Wandrag informed me that it was organised that the terrorist would again visit the rendezvous point during the same evening. I can remember Chairperson that the General asked if there would be enough time that evening and I said there would be.

Myself and the members of the Task Force then crossed the border for a second time. I led the leaders and I gave them their positions at the rendezvous point of the planned operation with certain amendments so that we could cover a wider area this time. The vehicle approached us again and once again did not stop at the right place. This time it was a lot closer than the first time, however. I gave the necessary signal that the members should go and attack the people sitting in the car and I suspect that the people sitting in the car heard something when we moved closer because I heard someone shouting in the vehicle, in a Black language and I could hear that an automatic weapon was being cocked in the vehicle.

MR VISSER: I see. You say that you could hear how an automatic weapon was being cocked, so that does differ somewhat from the typing that appears here.

MR STRYDOM: Pardon Chairperson, automatic weapons in the vehicle, that is what appears in front of me.

MR VISSER: Yes, but what was the position?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, it is very long ago. I really cannot put my, stick my neck out about whether it was one or more automatic weapons. The sound I could hear very clearly but whether it was one or more, I really cannot say.

MR VISSER: I just want to refer you to your application. I'm just looking for the place but I believe that you also referred in your application to automatic weapons in the plural. Yes, it's on page 838, Mr Chairperson, the 2nd paragraph which starts with the words "I suspect that the people sitting inside the car heard something" and he says that "we could hear how automatic weapons were being cocked in the vehicle." But you say that today you cannot say or you cannot remember if it was one or more, but you can remember that you heard at least a weapon being cocked?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Please continue. Paragraph 22.

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, seeing as at that stage we had no cover and the members were very close to the vehicle, I gave the command that the vehicle should be fired at.

MR VISSER: What did you think would then happen?

MR STRYDOM: I did not doubt, Chairperson, that we would be fired upon from the weapon and they would fire at us. This order was executed by the members closest to the vehicle. Myself, Mr Steenberg and Hope did, to my knowledge, shoot at the vehicle. I can't remember how many shots I fired.

MR VISSER: What rifle did you have?

MR STRYDOM: I was carrying an AK47 Chairperson. The vehicle caught fire and we moved closer but the fire was so hot that the heat drove us back. We could not reach the vehicle. Accordingly I withdrew all the members and we moved back to the RSA. The vehicle was destroyed by the fire and later I heard that two people had been killed in this action.

MR VISSER: All this information is stuff that you had heard later?

MR STRYDOM: That is positive Chairperson. I accept it in this way Chairperson and I also accept that they were MK George and MK Brown. Unfortunately I do not have more specific details about the identity of the people or other information. At the border I made a situation report to Gen Wandrag to the effect that the operation was a failure. I then went back to Pretoria. The main aim was to try and abduct the people or persons in the vehicle and not to eliminate them. If the last was our aim, we would have done it when the vehicle had stopped the first time. In the light of the available information with regards to the terrorist and also the situation at the scene, I had no doubt that the lives of myself and the relevant Task Force members were in danger in that in all probability we would be fired upon from the vehicle. I had no other alternative than to give the order that the vehicle had to be fired upon. Chairperson with this I do not want to try and admit that our behaviour was regular. The whole operation was, according to me, irregular and illegal, but it was done in a time in which the Security Forces found themselves in a war situation against supporters of the liberation movements. The specific people were also military Commanders and operatives.

What I did I did to stop the revolutionary onslaught. I believed that my behaviour was justified and morally correct. I believed bona fide that my steps had fallen within the ambit of my duties as a member of the Security Forces. I don't want to use loose language, these are my words.

MR VISSER: The Task Force, can it also be used as part of the Security Forces?

MR STRYDOM: Definitely, we were part of the South African Police.

MR VISSER: Good.

MR STRYDOM: And that it was something that was related with such forces and competencies. I took these steps in the execution of an order and with the authorisation of the South African Police or the previous government but for the National Party whose interests had to be promoted and protected thereby. What I did I did in the execution of my official duties and as a result of an order of a higher officer as

a part to opposing the struggle and it was aimed against the supporters of liberation movements. I humbly ask that amnesty be given to me for my deeds and omissions in this regard.

MR VISSER: Mr Strydom, Mr Moolman and Mr Prinsloo are both deceased.

MR STRYDOM: That is correct Chairperson.

MR VISSER: They were members who served under your command on that evening?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: As far as you can remember, did they execute orders that you had given to them?

MR STRYDOM: No one did anything there Chairperson, that did not do anything on my order.

MR VISSER: And they were aware of who these people were who were - that you were to abduct and what their status in the MK was?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct, Chairperson. The only thing that we were really interested in was the level of training of these people and if it was really identified terrorists. The finer detail was not given to us by the Security Branch in relation to the people's names and other details.

MR VISSER: And when you gave the Task Force members the task after they arrived at the border post, did you give them this information that you have testified about today to them?

MR STRYDOM: I gave them all the information that was given to me by the Security Branch.

MR VISSER: So they would have known that it was steps during a struggle aimed against supporters of a liberation movement?

MR STRYDOM: Absolutely Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Thank you Chairperson.

NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Prinsloo?

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR PRINSLOO: Mr Strydom, at that stage Mr Gert Visser was your subordinate, is that correct?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, we had the same rank. Mr Visser was with the Security Branch and I was at the Task Force but I think he was my junior with a year or so.

MR PRINSLOO: And this specific place where this vehicle stopped for the first time, on the other side of the border, did it stop at the same place for the second time?

MR STRYDOM: No, Chairperson, the second time it stopped a little closer to us and not at the same place as the first time.

MR PRINSLOO: But it was a short distance difference?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, it was a short difference.

MR PRINSLOO: And the second time you situated yourself at a different place?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct, yes.

MR PRINSLOO: And the place that you investigated, this was the place that Mr Visser gave you?

MR STRYDOM: That is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: So he had this knowledge that he had gathered?

MR STRYDOM: I accepted it like that Chairperson.

MR PRINSLOO: Thank you Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MS VAN DER WALT: No questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Thabethe, any questions?

MS THABETHE: Yes Mr Chair, Thank you.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS THABETHE: At paragraph 4 of your statement you mentioned that you were with other Task members. No it's not paragraph 4. Anyway somewhere in your evidence I must have missed the paragraph number, you mentioned that you were with other Task Force members. Who were they?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, these are the names as I had given them to you, that I can remember, the two deceased members, and also Messrs Hope, Dirkson, le Roux and Steenberg.

MS THABETHE: Thank you Mr chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Strydom, your unit was independent of the Security Police.

MR STRYDOM: Indeed Chairperson. We were members of the uniformed branch of the South African Police. These are the people who maintain law and order, the uniformed persons.

CHAIRPERSON: These are the policemen who the public see as the police officers?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, we resorted under the uniformed branch but we did not wear any uniforms, we wore camouflage.

CHAIRPERSON: It's a camouflage uniform?

MR STRYDOM: That's positive, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: This was an unlawful story, do you concede?

MR STRYDOM: I do, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: What did you think of this whole business?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, we were involved in a war and we would have executed an order, it did not matter what the order was.

CHAIRPERSON: In what war were you involved in as part of the uniformed branch?

MR STRYDOM: The onslaught against South Africa was not also against the Security Forces, it was against the whole South Africa and we were part of it.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you act as a person of South Africa?

MR STRYDOM: No Chair, Sir I acted as a member of the Special Task Force.

CHAIRPERSON: But your status as a resident of this country?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson this is my country, I had to do whatever I had to do.

CHAIRPERSON: So you saw your duties on two levels, you had a duty as a uniformed police officer and you had a duty as an inhabitant of the country?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, what I had done, I had purely done as a serving member of a Task Force and as a member of the South African Police and I saw this as my duty.

CHAIRPERSON: So you just executed an order. You did not think to yourself, listen this is part of the war, it is my duty, despite the order?

MR STRYDOM: It is my duty as part of this war to become involved. I definitely saw it as my duty as a civilian, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: And did you deem it as just in your capacity as a civilian?

MR STRYDOM: That is a very difficult question to answer Chairperson. The action I had executed, I executed because of the fact that I was a serving Task Force member in the South African Police who received an official duty to execute an operation.

CHAIRPERSON: Because I would put it to you that if I understand you correctly, this Task Force of yours is a unit of the police who was used in a broad sense, this was not a covert type of unit.

MR STRYDOM: No, Chairperson, it is not.

CHAIRPERSON: And it is not the type of unit, as we understood the situation, who would be involved in any unlawful acts. At Silverton you went and took out those bank robbers. This is the type of thing that you did, do I understand you correctly? You were not as members of the Security Police who participated in this process who one could say they were almost in a situation where they were regarded as soldiers.

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, we were serving members, as I have repeatedly said, and the problems of the South African Police Force were our problems. We would have acted wherever we received an instruction to act. But it is correct, what you do say indeed, that we were more in a policing role. We were not specifically used for this type of operation.

CHAIRPERSON: These were illegal actions. Did it not matter to you with the position that you occupied at that moment, let us say that in the absence of a better word, a normal policeman, your standard police officer?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, I don't know how to react to that question. I can just repeat that the instruction which we received, we would have executed and I think it has to be seem in the time period of that time.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you think that this whole story was justified?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, Chairperson, my unit would have executed this operation even if we had to swim to Russia to execute this operation. This is how convinced we were. But we did not question any orders, we did what we were told to do.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it the first time that your unit had to undertake such an operation?

MR STRYDOM: That is true Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: That you had to leave the country in the middle of the night?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Were your members trained for this type of situation?

MR STRYDOM: The members had a high level of training and night operations were one of our specialities, but this was within the borders and external operations were alien to us.

CHAIRPERSON: Because you say you fired on the vehicle and it caught alight?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you fire many rounds at the vehicle?

MR STRYDOM: I can explain the fire as follows. Because you cannot see your bullets, because you load your magazine differently so that one can see a little light and we put tracer bullets in the magazine so when you fire there is a dazzling effect, there is a little line, a little dotted line that follows so that one could see where the bullet is actually going.

CHAIRPERSON: What did you call it, a tracer bullet?

MR STRYDOM: That's correct Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: So do you think that this is what caused the fire?

MR STRYDOM: Undoubtedly Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: It is not that men were in an alien situation and that they acted out of the ordinary?

MR STRYDOM: No, Chairperson, the unit did not act out of the ordinary.

CHAIRPERSON: The other members you have mentioned, Hope, who are these persons?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, they were serving members of the Task Force at that stage and in all probability they were the section who were on duty whom I called in from Pretoria.

CHAIRPERSON: I do not have these names directly before me, is this in your application?

MR STRYDOM: No Chairperson. I referred to the brief submission. They are here, they are all applicants, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: They're applicants, Chairperson. On your list you'll see Mr Hope, Mr le Roux, Dirkson and Steenberg, they're my clients, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Then that problem is sorted out.

ADV GCABASHE: One question again. You didn't go in with Mr Mnisi?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, the name Mnisi and the other names, I heard for the first time when we applied for this amnesty. I did not have that information to my availability , I did not know those persons.

ADV GCABASHE: The reason I ask is, you know, I wonder how you could be certain that the vehicle that stopped at that particular spot was the vehicle you were targeting? This is the reason I ask. I though maybe Mnisi had gone with you to be able to identify at least the vehicle or the frames of the people in it. How were you able to determine that that is the vehicle?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson if I recall correctly, we had a description of the vehicle. I cannot recall what type of vehicle it was. I know it was a Sedan, it was not a large vehicle and it was a light coloured vehicle, but the fact that it was at that time of the evening at such a remote place and that the second time it came to stop at that specific place, it left no doubt with me that this was the target indeed.

ADV GCABASHE: Was that exactly the same vehicle that had been there the first time?

MR STRYDOM: Yes, Chairperson, it was the same vehicle.

ADV GCABASHE: And just tell me, after the first incident when the vehicle came and you decided it was too far away to do anything, you decided to drive back to Pretoria?

MR STRYDOM: That was the instructions that I had and that was the decision we took, Chairperson.

ADV GCABASHE: Now how far were you when you were stopped by Gen ...(indistinct)?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, a couple of kilometres outside the border post, I cannot tell you how far.

ADV GCABASHE: So it's not that you were racing back, they were actually able to come and catch up with you?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, you have to understand that these vehicles were hidden in the veld. We returned on foot from Swaziland. We had to move to the vehicles. Persons had to secure all their weapons and we had to climb into the vehicles. We had to make sure that we had not left anything behind, so there was some time until we departed, so these persons had enough time to catch up with us.

ADV GCABASHE: I might have missed this, at what stage did you communicate that you had not been successful at dealing with these people the first time? At what stage and to whom did you communicate?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson, the point where Gen Wandrag was, was at the border post itself and we were quite a way from there at the border. While my members were preparing to move back to Pretoria, I went to Gen Wandrag and reported the situation to him and I returned to the vehicles to return with my members to Pretoria.

ADV GCABASHE: And in that time he had enough time to find out that Mnisi was actually making a second telephone call, to drive and catch up with you and ask you to go back and try again. There was enough time?

MR STRYDOM: I must make the inference that it was quite some time Chairperson.

ADV GCABASHE: Thank you. Thank you Chair.

ADV DE JAGER: It was put to you that you were not a member of the Security Police and were not directly involved with the war as such, if we could call it that. Do you recall that?

MR STRYDOM: Indeed, Chairperson. It was put to me.

ADV DE JAGER: You are also aware that there were attacks on police officers?

MR STRYDOM: I am aware of it Chairperson.

ADV DE JAGER: As well as attacks on police officers and their houses, black police officers specifically. Was any distinction made by the attackers, whether you were a normal police officer or a security officer or a municipal officer?

MR STRYDOM: Not at all, Chairperson. As far as we were concerned they did not even distinguish between us and civilians, they attacked anyone. So from our side there was no distinction.

ADV DE JAGER: Were you convinced that you would be a target?

MR STRYDOM: I was convinced chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Any re-examination?

RE-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Perhaps just one aspect which arose from what Commissioner Gcabashe asked. I just would like to know, you say that the border post is at this point and then operation was executed somewhere within Swaziland in, if you have the image before you and the fence is there, the border fence, as you've moved the kilometre which you speak of, is this along the fence or is it perpendicular into Swaziland?

MR STRYDOM: Chairperson when one approaches the border post from the South African point it was approximately a kilometre in the direction of Waverly border post.

MR VISSER: But how far from the fence was this incident?

MR STRYDOM: I would say a kilometre.

MR VISSER: Still a kilometre.

MR STRYDOM: About a kilometre from the border post along the fence and inwards into Swaziland.

MR VISSER: Well that gives us clarity, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Strydom you are excused.

MR STRYDOM: Thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, in fact I have to attend to something which would more than likely affect yourself and Mr Wagener, so I have to get in touch with our other colleagues. I would only be able to give an indication as to what would happen in the rest of this matter once we've done that so I'm going to ask for it just to stand down for a minute until I've sorted this out. We'll stand down.