Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-20

CHAIRPERSON: But I think, General, we heard evidence that they were believed to have blown up a bomb, I think it was at the Magistrate's Court, the Athlone Magistrate's Court ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: The post office.

CHAIRPERSON: Post office ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: And the Magistrate's Court.

CHAIRPERSON: ... and the Magistrate's Court, so it wasn't only anticipated that they were going to be starting their bombing campaign, they were already bombers, they had done bombs before.  One would think that they would have been believed by you to have been hardened.  I mean they've done it before, they've been brazen enough to put a bomb at the post office and the Magistrate's Court, now your information is that they're going to bomb again to disrupt the coming elections.  Okay so you put a bomb in the hall where they had a meeting and some of the people might leave because they don't want to get involved in this, it's now getting a bit hot and a bit heavy for them and they'll leave, but those ones that are hardened, they'd already done the bombing, that had planned to do the bombing, would carry on and do it.

EDWARD WEBB: It's possible, but at that time we decided no casualties.  You must remember this is my first physical operation that I approved in Region 6.

GEORGE BIZOS: You see put into the scale on the probabilities also that according to Mr van Zyl, Mr Verster said that if another bomb goes off, he will be held responsible, if you believed that they were responsible for letting off bombs, surely the only way in which you could guarantee that they wouldn't let bombs off in the near future for the election, was to wipe them out?  That would be the sure way.  Wouldn't it?

EDWARD WEBB: That question you must ask Mr Verster, that's not what we discussed.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well yes, I think you were all in the same boat were you not?  You were all concerned, as misguided as some of you may have been, particularly in relation to these people that you were going to blow up, that on your thesis these were dangerous enemies of the State, why would you not want to blow them up?

EDWARD WEBB: The idea came that there would be no casualties and that's what we went for - no casualties.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, the question was, why would you not want to blow them up if they were such - if they were terrorists and you believed that they were about to blow up places and people and candidates in particular?

EDWARD WEBB: That was the decision ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: Why wouldn't you want to blow them up in order to achieve your objectives of the CCB, as evidenced by the evidence of Mr Verster, the evidence of Mr van Zyl, on his briefing, the evidence of Exhibit L?  Why would you want to spare them?

EDWARD WEBB: That's the decision we made.

GEORGE BIZOS: Ja, I know.  The question is, when I ask you to give reasons if you really want to motivate your reason, it is no answer to say "This is the decision we made."  We call it - you know we lawyers call it the ipse dixit, you know I said so, therefore don't ask me any more questions.  Can you give us any reasonable explanation as to why you would want to spare the lives of these terrorists?

EDWARD WEBB: All I can say, Chairperson, is this was my first approval of an operation of the CCB, possibly that also played a role.

MR LAX: Can I just ask something, Mr Bizos.
	Surely if you blew up their place that they met at, weren't you running the risk that you'd get them so angry they'd go and definitely plan more bombs in response, in retaliation?

EDWARD WEBB: That's also a possibility, it can also happen, but for us the possibility was stronger that they would be frightened.

MR LAX: But they were not the sort of people, they were the sort of people who plant bombs, that implies they're not easily frightened.

EDWARD WEBB: Well not all of them ...(indistinct) had planted bombs, it must have been some of them.

MR LAX: But you knew they'd planted at least two already, on the information you were given.

EDWARD WEBB: On the information I was given, yes.

MR LAX: So you know that's not the sort of people who are easily frightened.

EDWARD WEBB: Well that's the decision we made at that stage.

MR LAX: But you see the - I'm just trying to understand that if you weighed up all the odds and you knew who you were dealing with, why make a decision that's going to have almost no affect, based on what I've just said to you, for example.  You concede the likelihood of someone who is a bomb planter to desist from planting bombs just because you blow up his meeting place, it's hell of a small.

EDWARD WEBB: Once again, people differ.  Let's say that the bomb planter is somebody who never felt that the police were watching him, he felt safe and suddenly he doesn't feel safe anymore, it has a great influence on him.  He might decide not to plant the bomb because somebody's watching him.  Psychologically it's very possible.  It's not just about the building, it was also that the bomb had to explode after the meeting so that the people would get the message.  If it exploded at 3 o'clock in the morning, there was no message, it was only a destroyed hall, it wouldn't mean anything.  If I was in a meeting and I am busy with terrorist acts and an hour or half an hour after I'd been there, there was a bomb, I'd ask myself "Maybe this was aimed against me."  It might change my ideas radically.

GEORGE BIZOS: As a General, do you expect your orders or your wishes or your statements to be respected by your underlings?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: And did you make it crystal clear to Verster, that every possible step must be taken to avoid the loss of life?

EDWARD WEBB: All possible steps had to be taken.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now let's discuss the possibilities.  If Burger said this to van Zyl, Burger could only have got it from Verster, correct?  Because you had no direct contact with Burger.

EDWARD WEBB: Correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: So that we would have had the situation that not only does Verster not take heed of what you said to him, but he communicated to Burger the opposite, who in turn communicated to van Zyl the opposite of what your order or wishes were.

EDWARD WEBB: Could you show me Col Verster's evidence that you now speak of, that he communicated that?  Where you read that there were allegations made by a third/fourth party, not Col Verster's evidence.  ...(transcriber's interpretation)

GEORGE BIZOS: No, this is what ...(intervention)

EDWARD WEBB: No, no, no.

GEORGE BIZOS: Just listen to me please.  Burger could only have got it from Verster, if it went down the line, would you agree with that?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Otherwise Burger either made it up on his own and told van Zyl.

EDWARD WEBB: But what you read is a third/fourth party's evidence, that is not Slang van Zyl or Burger's evidence, it's not Joe Verster's evidence, so you start making allegations all the way.

GEORGE BIZOS: No but you see, we are trying to examine the probabilities of how this statement came to be made by Mr van Zyl, attributed it to Mr Burger, but let me put the gravamen of the question.  Let us assume that a couple of the Kewtown people were in fact killed, what would you have done about it?

EDWARD WEBB: I would have gone to higher authority to report this.

GEORGE BIZOS: I beg your pardon?  You would report it to higher authority?

EDWARD WEBB: I would have gone to higher authority, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: And what would you have done to Mr van Zyl that pushed the button, on one version, for the bomb to go off?

EDWARD WEBB: I didn't know that he pushed the button.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, but you surely would have made an enquiry if there was a loss of life ...(indistinct)

EDWARD WEBB: Afterwards there would have been an investigation, yes.