Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

JEREMY CRONIN: Well, because after 40 years of being banned in the case of the Communist Party, 30 years of being banned in the case of the ANC, massive persecution, the execution of many of our leaders, the assassination of many of our leaders, we weren't sure whether we could take - at face value, our unbanning, we weren't sure whether the unbanning would not be used as a way to flush out the leadership and then arrest them, so we had to naturally be cautious.  But we took the negotiations seriously but at the same time we were uncertain about the safety of our leadership.  In the case of Chris Hani, he was being pursued, he sheltered for a time in the Transkei because he was being pursued by the security forces.
	In the end all of that pursuit - one should add, turned into nothing - I mean, there were attempts to bring people to court, trials and so on, none of it turned out to be anything more that legitimate political underground structures which had been carried through from the underground period and which in the process of surfacing.  	There were no trials, there was no - there's was a great deal of disinformation and STRATCOM operations in the period of 1990/1991, but it all came to nothing.

MR PRINSLOO: But why was there any need for an underground political structure, one can understand if it's a military structure but a political structure?

JEREMY CRONIN: Because we were banned as - long before the Communist Party had got involved in an armed struggle, we were banned.  We were banned in 1950, so being banned and therefore having to operate underground, had nothing to do with violence, it had everything to do with the distaste that the apartheid regime had for the kind of politics that we had.
	And the attempt - therefore, to outlaw any legitimate opposition particularly that of expressing the views of the majority of Black people in our country.  That's why we had to operate in the - we didn't choose to operate in the underground - it's not pleasant operating in the underground, it's much better being out in the open but we were forced into the circumstance - that is the short answer to your questions.

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Cronin, my questions is actually directed at the time after the ANC was unbanned in 1990.

JEREMY CRONIN: Well, as I say, we were in the process of coming - surfacing but we didn't do it all at once - for the reasons that I've tried to explain, but we did it very rapidly.  If you consider that we're talking about a 40 and a 30 year period of underground - within a matter of 18 months roughly, I don't think there were any underground structures left, so it was a pretty rapid process of surfacing and  of returning people from exile and so forth.
	But there was a degree of caution and perhaps we weren't cautious enough, I mean we exposed leaders like Chris Hani to assassination, so perhaps we were not sufficiently cautious.

MR PRINSLOO: Wasn't the ANC leadership at that stage - in particular members of Vula, already at that stage in the country?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes.

MR PRINSLOO: Operating openly?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, as I say, it was a process.

MR PRINSLOO: Yes, but why was the necessity then - if they were operating openly in the country, to operate underground - on the other hand?

JEREMY CRONIN: Because - one, we were trying to move into an above ground situation, we had to seek amnesties, we had to get - there was an attempt to exclude some of us from the - we were coming back into the country - those who were in exile, in order to engage in the negotiations process.
	There was an attempt for instance, to exclude Joe Slovo from that negotiations process and it was the instance of Mandela and Tambo that said: "The ANC is not going to negotiate with you unless you allow Slovo into the country", so it wasn't as if we were free citizens in the post-February 1990 South Africa. 
	There was continuous persecution of leaders and the Vula - the anti-Vula measures, the forcing of Ronnie Casserells and others again into the - Ronnie Casserells was above ground, he was operating in the negotiations process and he was then pursued by the apartheid police because of the Vula connection and so he was forced back into the underground.  
	We weren't lurking in the underground by choice, it was persecution that was - the fear of persecution and actual persecution, that led to people operating in the underground for some 18 months roughly, after the unbanning of our organisations.  They were not properly unbanned - the organisations, in February 1990.  That too was a process and a popular process, people in the streets unbanned those organisations.
	In parts of our country - like Bisho, Ciskei, Bophutatswana, it was still not possible to operate above ground.

MR PRINSLOO: With regard to the self-defence units Mr Cronin, would it be fair to say that the self-defence units at that stage were totally undisciplined?

JEREMY CRONIN: No, it would be very unfair to say that, as Chris Hani correctly reflects in the passages that I've read, there was a mixed track record with the self-defence units.  In our estimation, in many situations without the self-defence units, many, many more lives in townships would have been lost.  It was precisely because there were self-defence units present in townships that we were able one, to prevent huge massacres of our people and we were also able then to expose the third force activities of others.
	So, they played a role but there were certainly cases, serious cases of deviation and of some self-defence units getting out of control and Chris Hani was the first to say so and was certainly the one that got deployed frequently into those situations to instil discipline, to expel people who were simply criminals posing to be self-defence members and so forth.

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Cronin, in the media and the press, isn't it correct that the self-defence units were described as being out of hand and not being properly controlled?

JEREMY CRONIN: There were occasions in which self-defence units were so described by the press, yes.

MR PRINSLOO: So, if that was perceived by the public like that, it would have been not - on their part, as far as the media is concerned, a correct reflection?

JEREMY CRONIN: Who is this public?

MR PRINSLOO: I beg your pardon?

JEREMY CRONIN: You keep talking about: "The public", are you talking about White conservative opinion?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes.

JEREMY CRONIN: Well, that's not my definition of public but if you mean White conservative - a small White conservative public view, then it's certainly possibly that they would have self-defence units as a distasteful reality and out of control - out of instinct, if for no other reason.

MR PRINSLOO: And members of the Black community, were they satisfied with self-defence units or were they afraid of them?

JEREMY CRONIN: Well, as I'm saying, in many townships I believe that they saw them as their line of defence in the face of some horrific attacks but in other cases the communities themselves were - and our own structures, were deeply concerned about the role that some self-defence units were playing and asked us to intervene to sort the matter out, so there was a mixed record certainly.

MR PRINSLOO: And  the self-defence units, were they introduced by the ANC?