Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-07-29

CHAIRPERSON: Am I correct from your evidence, Mr Nortje, that you played no role in the compilation of this statement, it was merely presented to you for signature and in fact you said you didn't even read it until this week?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That is correct, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: So you had no input before that was drafted?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No.

MR MOERANE: Of course you know that the incident was actually covered up.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes, I know.

MR MOERANE: And that amongst the people that were involved in the cover-up was W/O Pienaar.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That is correct.

MR MOERANE: Brig van Wyk.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: I don't that personally, but I see here that he must have known what the circumstances were.  I don't have personal knowledge of it, but I assumed that he was part of the cover-up.

MR MOERANE: Well one way of covering up is preparing statements and getting people to sign them.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That's correct, that's why I know he did not attest to this before me.

MR MOERANE: Yes.  You were present when Col de Kock confirmed that Brig van Wyk had actually conducted an incompetent investigation.  You heard that.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That's correct.

MR MOERANE: Now you confirm that it was not only incompetent, but that it was also a dishonest investigation.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That's correct.

MR MOERANE: And of course the third person who was involved in the cover-up is a person who is now General Krappies Engelbrecht.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That is correct.

MR MOERANE: Mr Nortje, for those are not very familiar with that unit, Koevoet as you've already testified, was a paramilitary police unit.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That is correct.

MR MOERANE: And you saw service in that unit?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That is correct.

MR MOERANE: And how many of the persons who were involved in the events of the 12th of June, had been Koevoet members?  Apart from yourself and Col de Kock.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: I think the only one who was involved there as well, was Vermeulen.  I beg your pardon, Mr Tait was also there for quite some time as well as Ras.  I beg your pardon, he was also there.

MR MOERANE: So Vermeulen, Mr Tait, Mr Ras were ex-Koevoet members?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes, that is correct.

MR MOERANE: Now would I be correct that although Koevoet in a sense was a police unit, it performed functions of pursuing Swapo fighters and killing them whenever it could?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: That is correct.

MR MOERANE: In fact, would I be correct in saying that a culture developed amongst Koevoet members, of obtaining as many scalps as possible?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes, I'm sure there were some people who viewed it as such, but that was not my opinion.  I know that there were people who were head hunters, as you have put it, but to be honest, Mr de Kock and I did not share that perspective.

MR MOERANE: Actually I didn't mean it in a literal sense, I meant it in a figurative sense, that the number of killings was important, not necessarily that you went and actually collected heads.  I know that some people did that ...(intervention)

MR MALAN: Sorry, that wasn't his response, I think you misunderstood his Afrikaans.  He simply said - he understood it in the figurative sense too and answered it in that way.

MR MOERANE: I see.  Did you understand it in a figurative sense?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes.

MR MOERANE: Not in a literal sense?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No.

MR MOERANE: I see. Well just to put it beyond any doubt, wasn't it part of the culture of Koevoet to have a tally of the number of kills that a person had?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes, it was a factor under those circumstances.

CHAIRPERSON: And to take no prisoners?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No, I cannot say that, Chairperson, because we took many prisoners.

MR MOERANE: Didn't that prove troublesome, taking prisoners?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No, not at all, we would get them to work for us immediately, with the assistance of the other black members who were with us.

MR MOERANE: Well didn't that prove rather difficult and rather troublesome, trying to recruit and turn SWAPO fighters?  In the end, didn't you find that the success rate was very, very limited?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No, I wouldn't say that.  It wasn't a considerable factor with regard to dangerous situations or the possibility of information leaking out.  If circumstances allowed, we would catch certain people and those prisoners that we captured would eventually become part of the team and work for us.  There was no danger of information leaking out because we didn't really work with information as such.

MR MOERANE: What I'm trying to suggest is that, isn't it general knowledge that many of these SWAPO fighters that you had captured defected and went back to SWAPO?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes, there were cases of that.

MR MOERANE: Did you bring your experiences from the Namibian war back to South Africa when you joined C1?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes, we did.

MR MOERANE: Now this modus operandi at Vlakplaas, of performing illegal acts in the fight against the ANC, is it something that you were actually told by someone in authority?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No, it was never stated specifically that we may commit illegal acts, but the circumstances dictated that we had to do this.  We were protected.  If we were not protected we would never have done these things.  We did not act recklessly.

MR MOERANE: And who protected you?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: The senior officials of the police and whoever else may have followed after that.  But I assumed that our direct heads would protect us and that is why we continued with our actions.  We were not hindered in any way.  On the contrary, we were just given more instructions and the whole thing escalated.

MR MOERANE: Are you referring in particular to Brig Schoon?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: He too, yes.

MR MOERANE: Did you receive instructions from anyone higher than Brig Schoon?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No, I did not liaise directly with those persons, I received my orders from Mr de Kock, who in turn received his orders from Brig Schoon as well as Engelbrecht and those people.

MR MOERANE: Well I'll ask you some of the questions that I asked Mr Vermeulen.  With regard to rules, did you observe any rules such as how to treat captured persons?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: No, we did not.

MR MOERANE: So you made you own rules, in effect?

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: It's difficult to say rules, we acted according to the circumstances.  But the rules one always maintained the laws in the back of your mind during actions, but as I've said, sometimes circumstances created a situation where you would have to do illegal things or commit illegal acts, but there were no fixed established rules indicating what we were allowed to do and what we were not allowed to do.  I don't think that there was anything like that.  We were led by circumstances and the commanders who took the decisions were also an important factor.

MR MOERANE: Yes.  What you have said to me boils down to what I put to you, that you actually made your own rules.  In other words, you decided who was to live and who was not to live.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Sometimes that was the case, yes.

MR MOERANE: But you must have known that that was wrong because as the learned Chairperson of the Committee put to one of the previous witnesses, that - or was it Mr Malan, I don't know, that when you had committed crimes, in the reports that you made you covered up and you presented them in the light where they would be seen as legitimate police action.

WILLEM ALBERTUS NORTJE: Yes, that is correct.