Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1997-08-13

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, I'll be relatively brief.  I personally have no problem with the compliance by the applicants with the provisions of Section 21(a) and (c).  And I think the Committee can accept
that the events of that morning, when the PAC people attacked the Whites near the beach-front, were events which can be described as political as contemplated in Section 20, Sub-Section 3(b).
	Mr Chairman, your colleague on the Committee, Mr Justice Wilson, I think raised that also with my learned friend for the victims.  And in general, I agree with the arguments and submissions which he has made.  There are one or two points of difference.  I do not believe that the applicants' acts were malicious as contemplated by the meaning of that term in Section 20, Sub-Section 3(f) - 2, the exclusion Sub-Section so-called.  Certainly the act was malicious, to kill anyone is malicious but I think the Act is referring to personal malice, so with respect to my learned friend for the victims, I don't think that point raised by him is valid.  
	I do have a problem however, with whether or not the applicants have complied with the provisions of Section 20, Roman - Section 21(b) and Section 23(f).  Mr Chairman, members of the Committee, I think the weakness of the applicants' case falls to be decided, not on whether they received an implicit order to kill or a direct order to kill.  The point is that they were out for revenge.  They denied that it was revenge, it was retaliation in terms of policy - Orde Boerevolk policy.  
	Unfortunately, we do not have a constitution of Orde Boerevolk.  We do not know how many members there are of Orde Boerevolk.  All we do know, that a certain Mr Piet Rudolph was the founder of this organisation.  And all we know is  that the applicants were members of a cell in the Northern parts of this Province.
	So when they go to Durban after leaving Richard's Bay, they have it in mind to make a statement, a political statement.  Now to pause there for a moment - from there point of view, so far so good.  They believed that the White who had been attacked in the morning were victims of a political event and they were going to retaliate.  That's why I say, so far so good.  
	But what they could have done to bring this thing more within the political ambit of what they had in mind, was to have sort out the PAC.  Sort them out in the sense of looking for them and bombing their offices if need be, or even going as far as the top and assassinating the chief of the PAC - as ...[inaudible] as that might be.  They had the power to do it.  
	But they go on what they conceive to be a merry spree and that's probably wrong - it certainly wasn't merry, but on a spree to decide to make a political statement.  They see a taxi, they follow the taxi with a view to shooting it or shooting the passengers in it because the passengers were all Black.  The taxi pulls into a residential area and they decide, as I understood the evidence, not to shoot at the taxi because this was a residential area and bystanders might have been killed.  Mr Chairman, members of the Committee, if you accept that, you'll accept anything.  That is manifest nonsense and untrue.
	The reason they did not shoot the people in the taxi was because they were terrified that had they done so, they might well have been surrounded and killed, -themselves.  So they the taxi alone - they now think what shall be do?  They go to the garage and have cooldrinks and unfortunately, the Putco bus comes past and they decide to follow it and they commit what can only be described as a cowardly, cold-blooded mass murder.  Nothing more, nothing less.
	And I agree, with respect for my learned friend for the victims, that they appear not to have shown remorse.  It is true that the applicant Marais, indicated that he had severed all connections with the right-wing but the point is, that is ex-post factor.  What was his attitude and the attitude of his co-applicants at the time?  
	If one believes that at the trial their belief when they killed these people, was they were killing people without souls, that they were killing animals.  ...[inaudible] can't be a political motivation because you don't kill animals with a political motivation, you kill them because they trespass on your farm or you slaughter them for food.  But  you don't kill baboons for political objective.  And if that's what they believe when they did it then my submission is, they cannot succeed.
	Mr Chairman, members of the Committee, those are my submissions, the decision is obviously yours.  It's a dreadful decision you have to make.  And unless there's anything you want me to deal with specifically, that's all I have to say.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you wish to reply?

MS VAN DER WALT: Thank you.  I'd just like to begin with the last submission from Mr Brink regarding Mr Botha.  The representative for the victims put it that he had said that they'd killed people because they were animals.  Mr Botha denied that.  After a while there was a reference to a particular passage but it seems now, according to my learned friend's argument, that it wasn't Mr Botha but I just want to put it to you that Mr Botha denied that and that nothing like that came out in his trial.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: What was said in the court was, I think a certain - there was reference to a certain Mr Liebenberg and who subscribe - whose teaching were exactly that.   That Black people were children of satan, they had no place on earth and the like and the - Mr Botha, if my recollection is correct, said that he subscribed to Liebenberg's teachings, he agreed with Liebenberg's teachings.  It may not be Mr Botha, but one of the applicants said that he agreed with what Mr - with Mr Liebenberg's teachings.

MS VAN DER WALT: Mr Marais.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Was that Mr Marais?

MS VAN DER WALT: Mr Marais.

JUDGE WILSON: The note that I have is that we were told it was Mr Marais at page 157 and 158.  [no sound]

MS VAN DER WALT: The representative of the victims read the oath and in his entire submission to you, he mentioned that this incident didn't happen on behalf of a political grouping - the orders and the objectives.  But Sir, the victims' representative didn't read the oath in full.  It was submitted to you that whatever they did, they didn't do it for the liberation struggle of the Boer people.
	But according to the testimony, Mr Botha is very clear and that's point number 3 of this oath, mainly that he committed himself to the liberation struggle of the Boer people to: 
"regarding the steps of the National Party Government, its accomplices who support it and the ANC - just to combat those and the Communist Party with all the means at my disposal"
Now I would suggest that throughout the event, that was Mr Botha's evidence.  That was the reason why those people in the bus were attacked.  It is a fact that it wasn't a particular political party that was attacked, Mr Botha said so but it was to show to the then Government that it was on the wrong road.  
	That's precisely the same as the bomb that was planted in Amanzimtoti in a bar, in a shopping centre rather.  That was also intended to show the then Government that those freedom fighters were against the then Government in what they were advocating.  Innocent people were killed there.  Those weren't the offices of the National Party.   ...[intervention]

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: There's a difference between what you are telling us what happened there.  That bomb which was put there could have killed anybody, could have killed White,  Black so it's not comparable to this case.  In this case the target is specific - it must be Black.  I don't think you can compare between ...[intervention]

MS VAN DER WALT: I, I ...[intervention]