Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-24

MR PRIOR: But the other missions which would have been executed surely this one bomb mission wasn't sufficient?

J P NEL: Please repeat.

MR PRIOR: It seems to me that the only thing you did there was to go to Pretoria for pipe bomb and there to throw it at a cafe?

J P NEL: That was my instruction. I didn't receive any further instructions.

MR PRIOR: Did you shoot at some one at the game farm?

J P NEL: No.

MR PRIOR: So you didn't fire a single shot?

J P NEL: No.

MR PRIOR: But these other bomb expeditions were there not other bomb expeditions planned?

J P NEL: I was not part of the planning. I do not know if there were any further bomb explosion missions.

MR PRIOR: Were there any order groups where you received instructions saying this is the beginning there are going to be, many other are going to follow?

J P NEL: Chairperson several meetings before hand it was said but when we were at the game farm there wasn't an order group telling us. We didn't receive further instructions.

CHAIRPERSON: You stayed in Pretoria?

J P NEL: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: You go on a mission to Pretoria?

J P NEL: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Things didn't work out very nicely. Why do you go to a resort? Why didn't you go home?

J P NEL: Chairperson as far as I know my wife has packed all of her things. The house was empty.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you know that?

J P NEL: I was the morning at my house. It was empty and my wife was angry with me. Because I left her at home.

CHAIRPERSON: That is the day of the mission?

J P NEL: No the 14th of April I already went.

CHAIRPERSON: So you did go to the house?

J P NEL: Yes I was there. That was during the day while we waited for the number plates.

CHAIRPERSON: And what you have done if all the furniture was there?

J P NEL: I would have asked her again to come with me?

CHAIRPERSON: Would you have stayed there that evening?

J P NEL: At my wife?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

J P NEL: My mission wasn't completed yet Chairperson. I wouldn't have stayed there.

CHAIRPERSON: But then you go and visit friends.

J P NEL: Afterwards I completed my mission I went for a visit and I went back to the game farm.

CHAIRPERSON: And you said these people were blind?

J P NEL: Yes two blind men.

ADV BOSMAN: Did you try and determine where your wife was at that stage?

J P NEL: At that stage I did not know how to determine that. I did not know how to contact her. I couldn't reach her. I didn't even know where to look for her.

ADV BOSMAN: But you said that your father could testify to that. Where were they living at that stage?

J P NEL: They were in Watervalboven. I contacted him, I phoned him before I left and I asked him before I left and I asked him to please go and have a look at my wife and children.

ADV BOSMAN: Thank you.

ADV GCABASHE: Mr Nel can you just get the sequence of this right for me please. On the 25th you detonated this pipe bomb in Bloed Street.

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: And you only returned to the camp on the 26th, the following day?

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: Now as you understood your objectives, your objectives were to cause as much chaos as possible to ensure that the election would be stopped?

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: That election was going to take place on the 27th.

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: And yet you do two strange things. One you spend critical time, that is the evening of the 25th with friends. And then on the 26th the day before this election that you are trying to derail you go off and decide as a group that you want to visit your wives. I don't understand this. I would have thought this time was so critical that you would spend every moment planning and executing missions to derail this thing that was going to happen so soon. Can you explain this to me? Why people were so relaxed and yet the election was going to take place the very next day. What was your mission in that case?

J P NEL: Chairperson the Committee member asked so many questions I can't remember all of them. Can't she just stipulate one for one what she wants me to say?

ADV GCABASHE: Yes it is just that I am trying to understand what you were thinking of on that day. And I am actually asking you to put it together for me. I will start again. You went out on a mission. It was important to go out on this mission yes?

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: You then spent the night of the 25th with friends rather than go straight back to your commander to report back. Yes?

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: You returned to camp on the 26th, the day before the election yes?

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: Now with that in mind my question is your objective was essentially to derail the election of the 27th yes?

J P NEL: That is correct.

ADV GCABASHE: Why would you spend critical time visiting friends, asking to visit your wives when the election was pending? It was going to happen the very next day. I would have thought that your purpose, your goal was so important that all the other things could wait. You had to derail this election by all means and yet you all seemed to have been very relaxed and wanting to visit wives and looking after friends you had made promises to. I am just asking you to explain this to me.

J P NEL: Chairperson when I returned from my mission I immediately went and on my way back to the game farm I stopped at these people whom I told that morning that I would come and visit them and from there - in reality we didn't really visit there that long because the explosion happened around eight 'o clock.

CHAIRPERSON: But we've heard all of this. The question is why did you waste time in a time right before the elections?  Because, and this is becoming an important question. It is because the election was going to take place the next day.

J P NEL: It was the 26th when we left again.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

J P NEL: Chairperson I cannot give you an answer. All I know was that some of the people were worried about the wives on the other farm. I cannot say why we did it.

CHAIRPERSON: You were one of the people asking whether you can go and visit your wives on the other farm. Where would you have found your wife?

J P NEL: I was not in the group that asked. I did not physically ask. I stood with the group when they asked it.

CHAIRPERSON: I thought you asked to leave the farm.

J P NEL: I was together with the group who asked it. I did not personally ask for permission because I couldn't go to my wife directly.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you leave the farm?

J P NEL: Yes I did. And that is why I went to the resort.

CHAIRPERSON: And the people who gave you permission to go to your wife was under the impression that you going to your wife?

J P NEL: No Chairperson Major Smit knew. He dropped me at the resort. He knew where I was.

CHAIRPERSON: Then why did you want to leave the farm?

J P NEL: It was not as if I wanted to leave but when everybody left I said no I will go with them, because the others were going to Pretoria they dropped me off at the resort with the people that I met or visited the previous evening.

CHAIRPERSON: So you just took a holiday from this war? Because you were not worried about the danger of your wife because you did not know where she was.

J P NEL: Mr Chairperson I did not take a holiday from the war. I believed in what was lying ahead and in my principles.

CHAIRPERSON: But you said you took a - it is like you took a break from the war?

J P NEL: I would not say that no. After the men drove back to their wives we would have gone just for the day and then returned.