Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-22

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, it was two rooms which were set aside for me and opened up for me to establish my office and I told Mr Kavouris that I was conducting my investigation unit, Staal Burger and Associates, from this hotel.

MR LAX: Yes, but you were also running the hotel as a General Manager for him as well.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: That's correct.

MR LAX: It's just occurred to me, maybe that's why you spent a lot of time, not less time, doing things in the CCB.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, I did devote very little time to the CCB, if I look back at it now in 89, but in the same breath I can also say that it was quite some doing if you had a high profile to lead people to believe that you did not have any links with the State and so on so a lot of time was devoted to that link and the camouflage of that link.

MR LAX: Did you use Kavouris and his own networks for information?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I didn't really get down to that, no, but that was one of the objectives.

MR LAX: Right.  Now I want to just take you back to another aspect and that was the question of whether you were asked:  "Well, did you have the discretion to veto suggestions and suggest other alternatives and so on", do you remember that?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: It was towards the end of Mr Kahanovitz's cross-examination.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: And you know if you wanted to stop a bunch of bombers from carrying on with their activities and give them  a huge fright, surely you could have got them arrested under Section 29 of the then Internal Security Act?  That would have put them out of business immediately, they would have spent at least a month or two in custody, they would have been questioned by the police about those activities.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, I think the problem there was that we couldn't link ourselves to the police by conveying information to them because then they would know that there's an organisation working on the ground, that they were not aware of.

MR LAX: But you didn't need to, I mean you could have just made an anonymous phone call.  You could have dropped an envelope in the local Security Branch's office anonymously.  I mean Hardien could have gone and taken the very letter that was in your file in which one of the chaps whose name escapes me for the moment is alleged to have indicated that he was responsible for the bombs and we've heard testimony that that letter existed and it was in your file and you must have seen it.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I think the strategy was to create division within their own ranks as a result of the explosion of the limpet mine which would have meant that it could have been one of their own bombs exploding and through that the police would have paid attention to this aspect.

MR LAX: But how much better to give the impression that one of their own members was like an informer, here was this letter in his own handwriting, give it to the police, it would cause untold damage to the structure, such an obvious simple thing.  You had the letter in your possession.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: That's a good way of reasoning but that's not the way we operated.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Lax.

MR LAX: Please, go ahead Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: To do with this - did you really believe that the CCB was an entire secret to everybody other than its members and the couple of generals outside who were aware of it?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, I believed that it was an absolute covert organisation where the Managing Director's only contact outside of the CCB circle would have been the Chairperson of Special Forces and he on his part, it would have been the Head of the Defence Force.

CHAIRPERSON: But what about - are you saying that somebody like Ferdi Barnard was unaware of the existence of the CCB?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: He was supposed to be - not to know about it, but as it seemed later on he was in the system.

CHAIRPERSON: His friends were there, he participated in more than one project, we know.

MR WESSELS: With respect, Mr Chairman, I think you've got it -  perhaps not the evidence before you, but Ferdi Barnard was initially recruited to become a CCB member and he was then dismissed, so he knew of the CCB.

CHAIRPERSON: And so he knew of the CCB, do you think that his integrity was such that he would never mention it to anybody after he had been discharged from it, that it would be his secret?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Ferdi Barnard?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, Mr Chairman, I think that was one of the problems with Ferdi that he couldn't keep it to himself.

CHAIRPERSON: So in other words it might not have been such a secret, so to go to the police, I mean - you could have gone to the police around - you could have given it to Security Forces to take - I mean not Security, what's it called, Special Forces, to take to the police.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, there were ways to take it to the police.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Sorry, Mr Lax.

UNKNOWN: Could I just place on record, there is other evidence indicating that Mr Barnard had a vehicle paid for by the CCB?

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr du Plessis.

MR LAX: I'm sorry, I know it's late but there are just a couple of things that I need to clear up in my own mind.  One of them was this whole issue of this structure that you will have heard of called Trevits.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Called?

MR LAX: Trevits.  I can't remember exactly what it stands for, but it was a structure that identified targets by primarily and it co-ordinated intelligence activities between all the different intelligence arms in the country.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, I never knew about it.

MR LAX: Ja.  It's precisely the sort of structure to which, if you wanted to confirm that somebody was a target, information would be sent.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, I didn't know of its existence.

MR LAX: Right.  Now Region 9 was which region?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I don't know what region it was, I know there was somebody called Anton and it seemed to me as if it was a kind of a sociological funny region, I didn't know what it was.

MR LAX: Surely all the other regions were working externally?  You were the only region, you were specifically established to work internally?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: That's correct.

MR LAX: That's the impression we have been given.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: Now why was Region 9 working internally?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I don't know.  There are lots of things that we are unaware of ourselves.

MR LAX: Now, I'm just puzzled about your attitude to talking about matters that you were involved in externally, when it's your strong suggestion that you did nothing wrong externally, nothing whatsoever, so what are you afraid of?  If you did nothing wrong, you can't be prosecuted for anything that you may have done.  What - there's no policy that I'm aware of that prevents you from disclosing anything you did externally to us, whatever policy the Defence Force may have that you may think you are bound by, is of no consequence here at all and I'm just puzzled that you persist in this attitude that you're not going to talk about things you did when you didn't do anything wrong, it just doesn't make sense to me.  Do you see my point?  I mean you don't have anything to worry about extradition, because you didn't do anything for which you could be extradited, that's been one of the bases upon which those people have been, who've kept quiet about things they did outside, have kept quiet about them.