Amnesty Hearings — White River — 2000-05-02

MS MTANGA: What caution would you say was exercised in ensuring that if the bakkies could trigger landmines, then ordinary bakkies being driven by civilians, would not fall targets to the landmines?  What sort of caution was taken by your structure?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: The people who were asked, were instructed to carry this, were instructed to carry out reconnaissance.  We are aware that any vehicle, even a ...(indistinct) could carry ordinary workers and it would trigger such a landmine, but we relied on the people to carry out reconnaissance in order to place these mines where it was more likely that the military, the police or the farmers who were connected to this Security network, would trigger it, rather than ordinary people, that is why these landmines were planted late at night and were planted at a time when we thought the patrols were taking place.

MS MTANGA: Mr Nyanda, I understand your evidence but I also have a problem, especially with regard to this Diepgesit incident, where it really seems on the facts of the matter, that that landmine was indeed placed not too far from this residential area and in the light of the fact that your evidence is saying these landmines could be triggered by ordinary bakkies, I find it difficult to understand how would you have exercised caution for ordinary people not to be injured, what caution was there?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Mr Chairman, I said that these mines were intended for the military largely, and just perhaps to illustrate the point which reinforces what I said about the people who were asked to do this, who were instructed to do these things, having had to carry out reconnaissance, some of them were actually planted in urban areas and I'm aware of landmines that were planted in the urban areas, in the heart of Gauteng which were triggered by military vehicles, although these are busy places and they could have been triggered by bakkies, but because people did reconnaissance, because people had to do reconnaissance, had to satisfy themselves that it is more likely that it is the military that were going to trigger these, then we had to rely on these people.  In other words, we relied heavily on reconnaissance, on people doing reconnaissance, establishing for themselves that it was most likely that the mines would be triggered by military vehicles, by the actual targets.

MS MTANGA: Obviously in these incidents, your office or their structure, the people involved in planning and directing these operations must have foreseen civilians being injured in these circumstances?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes, certainly, there was always a possibility that civilians were going to get injured.

MS MTANGA: How would you politically justify those incidents?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Mr Chairman, we were involved in the struggle and we tried to choose our targets carefully.  We tried to ensure that civilians don't get caught in the cross-fire, but it was not always possible for us to ensure, to guarantee that no civilians would get injured in whatever operation, whether it involved landmines, or it involved bombs, or it involved placing bombs on trains, to be triggered by trains, whether it involved shooting at policemen in police stations, whether it involved bombing Voortrekkerhoogte, there was no way that we could guarantee that civilians would not get injured and there is no war ever that has been fought which can do that.

MS MTANGA: I have no further questions, Chairperson, thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS MTANGA

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Ms Mtanga.  Has the Panel got any questions?

ADV SANDI: Yes, thank you Chair.  General, the third applicant, Mr Mkhonto, was he known to you at that time?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: He was.

ADV SANDI: Can you tell us, what did you know about him concerning these operations?  Did you have any direct dealings with him by way of giving him instructions?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: I had no direct dealings with him, but I knew him even before he worked in this structure of ours, because I was the Commander, I was the Chief of Staff of the Transvaal Machinery and he worked in that Command.

ADV SANDI: Thank you for that.  My next question would be on 0 you have said you relied entirely on  local people, people who resided in those areas.  Now if- would I be correct to understand you as follows?  If there was a failure of judgment on the part of a local person who had been used for a particular operation, is there anything you would have been able to do about it?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: No, well I think, Mr Chairman, I think I would obviously have had to reprimand a person if I thought that there was a failure and this justified a reprimand.

ADV SANDI: That is after the operation, but if there has been, I'm talking about the stage before the operation is carried out, if there has been a failure of judgment on the part of this particular person you are wanting to use in that particular area, is there anything you can do about it before the operation is carried out?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: No, there is nothing I can do before the operation is carried out.  I have to give him the general guidelines and to try to advise him how to avoid unnecessary casualties or injury to civilians, but there is nothing that I can do.

ADV SANDI: Yes, but you've also said some of the operations would be carried out without you knowing and you would know after an operation has been carried out.

SIPHIWE NYANDA: That is exactly why I am saying that there is nothing I can do if he exercises bad judgment.

ADV SANDI: My understanding concerning the period, this is after the Kabwe Conference Resolution of 1985.

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes.

ADV SANDI: My recollection, I cannot locate it in the bundle, is that the resolution where you organisation said with the intensification of the armed struggle, it would become inevitable for more and more civilians to be caught up in these operations?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes, Chairman, that's exactly what I was saying, that it would be difficult for us to avoid civilian casualties, even though we were not targeting civilians, we were targeting the military and the police.

ADV SANDI: concerning the specific incidents that we are looking into today, did you receive any reports at the time, that such operations had been carried out?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Sometimes we'd see in the press that a police van has detonated a landmine, or a military vehicle has detonated a landmine.

ADV SANDI: Sorry, you misunderstood me, I'm talking about the incidents where these specific victims whose names appear at page 3, did you know anything before those operations were carried out?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: I have no particular recollection of the incident being reported to me before it was carried out, as far as these were concerned.

ADV SANDI: Thank you General.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Sibanyoni.

MR SIBANYONI: Thank you Mr Chairperson.  Maybe General, as a follow-up to Adv Sandi's questions, the last one, what made it difficult for the operatives inside the country to always report to you in Swaziland?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Well, in the first place chairman, they did not report directly to me, they reported, they had people that they reported to.  In this instance I've indicated that there was a Chief or Operations called Viva and they would have reported to him perhaps, depending on, of course, on the particular circumstances of individual operatives.

MR SIBANYONI: If I understand you correctly, Viva was a Commander of the unit inside the country, sort of.

SIPHIWE NYANDA: He was the Chief of Operations of the project, "kletshwayo"

MR SIBANYONI: Yes.  Is it the same Viva we once had in one of the applications by the Vlakplaas operatives who was killed in Vosloorus Boksburg, when they tried to arrest him?