Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-08

MORTIMER: To the best of my knowledge no.

DENZIL POTGIETER: Thank you chairperson.  I will restrict myself to one or two issues that are burning at this stage there are many other questions but I understand that this is not the occasion for that at this stage.  General Mortimer on page 49 of your submission you deal with the Civil Cooperation Bureau and you deal with the question of available records and you make the point that no documentation other than contained in the records of the Harms Commission is believed to exist.  Now is that in fact the case?

MORTIMER: Yes.

DENZIL POTGIETER: Are there no records available of the CCB apart from those few documents that were handed in at the Harms Commission?

MORTIMER: In the preparation of this paper we failed to find anything else.
Denzil Potgieter :  Now if there were records would you have expected to have found it because I am trying to understand what the position is because it says it is believed that those are the only records available.

MORTIMER: Well, we looked for other records which would I think indicate that one would expect to find it but we have failed to do so.
Denzil Potgieter :  Now, would that imply that those records have been removed or destroyed?

MORTIMER: Or that they have all been handed over to the Harms Commission.   The possibility does exist that things have been destroyed, yes.
Denzil Potgieter :  And if they have been destroyed would there be a record of those destructions as General Meiring has indicated this morning, everything that was destroyed was recorded, would this be an unlawful act.

MORTIMER: I cannot answer that question with any accuracy.  I would have to request that that be investigated.
Denzil :  Now, you have also said very little about the CCB in this submission and as I have indicated to the general it is obviously an issue that we are seized with and that we are very interested in as a Commission have very many questions around this organisation.   Would you be able as the nodal point to facilitate further particulars some more information about this organisation or would you much rather refer the Commission to particular individuals who were in charge of this organisation and for us to deal with in terms of the powers that this Commission has to obtain information.

MORTIMER: Could my colleague answer.
Klopper :  Mr Commissioners, as far as we have ascertained there have been no documents available other than documents that have been referred to in the Harms Commission and in the Harms Commission in their finding which is the only document I have seen of it.  There is also a reference to documents that have been destroyed or that have vanished.  Yes the nodal point will further assist as far as it is humanly possible to see if there are any documents available.  I am not talking about documents other than documents in official keeping.  There might be documents available with people that I don't know of.
Denzil :  Would you be able if that is the case that there are documents with people that don't form part of your officials records, would you be able to direct us to those people.
Klopper :  If we were to know if we had to come to know of documents in existence with people we would assist the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in finding them.
Denzil :  Just to make sure that I understand correctly.  This organisation according to your submission here was only terminated in April 1990 and it was finally closed in February 1994, so it seemed to have continued to exist after the Harms Commission so there must have been some official record of existence after the Harms Commission.  Do I understand it correctly?
Klopper :  The only official documentation that could exist could be on the termination, the administration of the termination.
Denzil :  Thank you and then perhaps I don't know whether General Mortimer will deal with that.  On page 52 of your submission the last sentence of that paragraph under background where you say that the SADF was pre-eminently a peacekeeping task force but owing to the perceived threat and increasing instability in Southern Africa the SADF strategy was directed at ensuring the security of the people of the RSA by taking offensive pro-active steps.  Now firstly would you be in a position to specify that, give more particulars about the nature of that steps that you are talking about, that's the first point.  Perhaps you want to respond to that eventually perhaps not immediately and then more importantly these offensive pro-active steps did that ever amount to operations inside the country within the borders of the RSA.

MORTIMER: The cross border pro-active steps are those ones which we have listed here as cross border operations those would be examples of them.  Those are the examples we have found by studying existing documentation.  At this stage from studying existing documentation we have not identified such operations internally.  However as I tried to indicate that documentation is not necessarily all available at a central point at this stage.  One would have to identify potential or possible operations.  Identify the area in which they took place and then try to trace it according to the level and the place where it occurred.  As I say from our studies at this stage, no.
Denzil :  And then just in conclusion is that what you mean on page 61 where you say that the list of operations as is set out here may not be complete, so you may be able to come across some more operations as you do your work as the nodal point.

MORTIMER: Yes, it would of course facilitate matters if the Commission could direct the search into specific areas then it might be possible to find these but a generalised search in the time that is available is probably not going to produce the results which specified searches aimed at trying to find a specific piece of information on the grounds of other information available to you would possibly give results.
Denzil :  So are you saying that a general search as the one that you have done has only come up with these ones here (yes) and if we are more specific as a Commission you might very well come up with some other (yes) information on more operations.

MORTIMER: To a certain extent this is a historical study.  It's very broad based and the time available is not necessary as thorough as it should be and so yes.
Denzil :  Thank you very much, thank you chairperson.
Boraine :  Thank you, Wildschut.
Wildschut :  General Mortimer my question is related to the comments my colleagues made about the narrative or descriptive nature of your presentation.  I would like you to perhaps just take us through the process a little bit, perhaps just in a few sentences.  Tell us why the nodal point and persons involved in the collation of this information decided or got to the point that this submission would be purely descriptive.  Why was the decision made that it would be just a narrative without some interpretation at least.  So take us through that process a little bit and also could you tell us if there are inferences that we should be drawing from this?  What do you want the nation to know in this public submission about the work of the SADF and what kind of inference should we be drawing from this submission.