Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — 1997-02-27

UNKNOWN: No, Mr Chairman.  What I would like to concede here is that as a result of 
statements which were made by members of the previous regime as result of certain limited incidents, 
where members of the previous regime were involved, which are regarded as illegal under the present 
circumstances and which amnesty is being applied for, to the ordinary man and when I refer to the 
"ordinary man" I am referring to people who were not directly involved, a perception could have evolved 
that the act which he committed bore the approval of the government, but not necessarily that the 
government in some way or another came to know about it and silently approved of it or omitted, 
deliberately omitted, to take any steps and in that way identified with that.

ADV DE JAGER: And if the government or a member of the government gives, awards a medal for an 
incident or involvement in an incident, would you consider that to be approval?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: As far as I know, Honourable Chairman, it applies to external activities which I am 
aware of, that 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

MR CURRIN: 236	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: goes without saying where, even where the previous government in some or other way was aware of the 
actual circumstances it was not necessarily true that they approved of it.

MR CURRIN: I am still not absolutely sure of the answer to this question which I understand is a difficult 
one because there was no policy.

HASSAN MALL: Well, are you merely dealing with perceptions, perceptions in whose mind?   In the mind 
of the perpetrators or in the mind of the victims?

MR CURRIN: Well, I am trying to establish whether or not there was authority, either implied or 
expressed in regard to some of the Acts which were committed and I am having specific reference to the 
provisions of the Act. One of the factors obviously which will be taken into consideration by your 
Committee, Mr Chairman, is the question of authority, and clearly on behalf of the victims we need to 
know whether the acts which were committed against the victims for whom we appear, did have the 
authority.

HASSAN MALL: Now I understand that I am not clear in my mind whether your questions relate to 
perceptions that may be in the minds of victims that so and so had authority or did not have authority.  Or 
perceptions in the minds of the perpetrators who believe that they may have had authority. If you clear that 
up maybe we will make progress.

MR CURRIN: Yes, sure, okay.  We are referring to the perceptions in the minds of the applicants, the 
perpetrators.  What we are trying to gather here, what I am trying to get on behalf of the victims is - and I 
will deal specifically with the various cases in a short while, where a - let's take for example one particular 
case, Sergeant 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

MR CURRIN: 237	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Mutasi who was killed by security policemen as well as his wife, on information which was given to them 
that he was giving information to the ANC. They took it upon themselves to murder, to kill him and his 
wife. Can it be said in a situation like that, which is clearly a preemptive attack, preemptive unlawful 
killing that they had authorisation to do that, and that you as the - well at that stage I think you were the 
Commissioner at that stage, it was in 1989 or no, you were the Deputy Commissioner at that stage, whether 
you in fact at least by implication authorised an act of that nature?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I am sorry, may I come in here. The question was phrased by Mr 
Currin from a specific point of view, evidence has not been lead in that matter.  And I want to state here on 
record that the applicants' version of the facts of what happened there differs slightly from what Mr Currin 
stated to the General.

HASSAN MALL: I think you may formulate a question differently.  So the evidence relating to Mutasi has 
not yet been led and he may or may not be aware of that specific instance. Now you might be asking him 
questions on matters ...(intervention)

MR CURRIN: I understand. Let's look for example then at the matter of the Nietverdiend attack on the 
vehicle in which there were a number of young ANC activists. They were led to believe that they were to 
be taken out for training. In a way, according to the evidence, one could say that a trap was set for 
them.They gathered at a house, they were enticed into a kombi, into a vehicle, and they were driven out 
towards the border and in Bophuthatswana they were killed preemptively, without having actually yet done 
anything, 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

MR CURRIN: 238	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: committed any acts of violence. Could one say that they did that with the authorisation of the South African 
Police force and the government of the day?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Chairman, once again, and I have attempted to explain it as such, it depends on what 
their perceptions were, in the mind of the person who was involved.  Against the background of all the 
circumstances which prevailed at the time certain Acts which did take place with the permission of the 
government and also certain utterances which may have been made by members of the previous regime. I 
would like to answer that by saying that if a person was to judge it objectively, then it definitely did not 
bear that approval.  If one was to look at it subjectively from the point of view of the person who 
committed the act, my opinion would be that that person believed that in the light of other similar instances 
could be regarded in a similar light that he was still busy acting within the permission, so there was implied 
permission granted although there was not expressed permission granted.

MR CURRIN: Surely the question of authority, even if it is implied authority or ...(indistinct) authority, 
doesn't depend on the mind of the perpetrator, doesn't it depend on the mind of the principle?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Yes under normal circumstances.  Here we were in a combat situation. I do not think 
that one could consider dealings which happened under those circumstances as compared to what happened 
under normal circumstances and also the reaction of persons under normal circumstances.  But you are 
correct, under normal circumstances it would obviously have been, it would have been like that, but here 
were dealing with abnormal circumstances.
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

MR CURRIN: 238	GEN V/

JUDGE WILSON: You talk about abnormal circumstances, are these what you have set out in your 
submissions in paragraph 18, page 22?  You refer to the prevailing circumstances, the lowering of the 
morale of the community and the security forces and the belief that the enemy had to be destroyed no 
matter what, and that this was aggravated to a great extent by speeches and pronouncements made by 
certain people and the police who were emotionally involved, or the - sorry it's not - the security forces who 
were emotionally involved were just not able to distinguish between what was normally justifiable and 
what was not.  That is the position you are talking about?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: That is correct, Mr Chairman. Thank you very much.

MR CURRIN: I understand your evidence then to be that to the extent that there may have been implied 
authority, depending on the circumstances, there was certainly no general authority giving the security 
police carte blanche to go out and to kill and to commit unlawful Acts according to a whim or a feeling at a 
particular time?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: That is correct, Mr Chairman.

ADV DE JAGER: General, if a member of the previous regime were to say make a public statement to the 
affect that the movements, let's say the - should eliminate the ANC or PAC, what did you understand by 
that and what do you think the perception would be of ordinary members of the police?
GEN V/