Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

MR DE KLERK: Mr Chairman I must just also put on record that at least part of these documents have been issued to the press. I'm really deeply concerned in terms of normal rules of procedure and fairness that these documents have been dealt with in this way and I would like to officially record that.
As far as the general question of how do you define levels of decision-making is concerned, maybe it will enlighten the Commission if I explain that in terms of convention which has been applied for decades and which is still being applied also in the Government of National Unity to the best of my knowledge, essentially there are no specific rules as to what should be decided at which level except in cases where legislations specifically provide and say the Minister, or the President, convention then, where no such legislative prescriptions exist, convention dictates that it is essentially in a minister's discretion, when he wants to take something in order to establish collective ability, to the cabinet or to a cabinet committee or whatever, and when he wants to take the responsibility which he has on his own shoulders. The same applies then with regard to executive decisions of officials. In the end there is an unwritten law that a director general or a commissioner of police would take certain things to his minister and would do certain things on his own.
One of the important, let me use an example, when we come to budgeting, a minister never gets involved in all the details of budgeting, that is done below him and the highest level for certain budget decisions might be a chief director, might be a deputy director general, might be a director general. The minister is involved in the broader what goes to which programme, what is the policy, what gets precedence over what, what are the priorities within the department? The main budget for which the cabinet then has collective responsibility, deals with totals, big totals, so much for the Department of Education, so much for this department. 
So with regards to many aspects once again, you can only determine what the highest level for a specific decision is by looking at the context of such a formulation, at the nature of the decision which has to be taken, is it an economic, financial budgetary decision, is it an operational decision, and in different instances you would get different conclusions as to what the appropriate highest level is under such circumstances.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I just... (microphone not switched on)...the status of that document, it was a document that they were going to be using and which would have become public as...(intervention)

MR GOOSEN: Mr Chairperson when I handed Mr de Klerk a bundle of the documents to which we referred, I also made available, is that the document that you're refer has been circulated to the press, the bundle of documents?

MR DE KLERK: Ja.

MR GOOSEN: Yes it's been made available to the press, at the same time that it was made available to you.

CHAIRPERSON: Because I think they were taking umbrage at the fact that it had been so publicised, distributed and now are saying it was going to become a public document.

MR GOOSEN: Yes Mr Chairperson the bundle of documents to which we're referring, is the one that Mr de Klerk has indicated that he's objected to certain passages of those being referred to by me. That bundle of documents, since this is a public inquiry, when we made it available to him at the outset of the questioning, when I got to that point we also made them available to the press.

MR DE KLERK: That is not the main problem, the main problem remains the fact that I am asked, without prior knowledge, without disclosure of the document in terms of general fair procedural rules, to sort of deal with documentation which I have not had the chance to study in depth and where I haven't been given prior notice what the purpose of the use of these documents ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: No I thought, I mean there was an explanation that the nature of his questions doesn't actually require that you have a deep knowledge of the document, it's not directed at the contents of the document, it is talking about principles.

MR DE KLERK: It might also be argued Mr Chairman and I leave it at that, that it is, that somehow or another, use of documents which you have ruled should not be used is being made.

CHAIRPERSON: No. I said if he is going to ask you questions that are based on the document then I would rule that out and he has sought to explain that his questioning doesn't in fact require, I mean you can actually say, I'm not going to be able to answer that question until I have studied the document.

MR DE KLERK: But I have replied to every question so far but I thought it was necessary that we know that we are dealing again with the documentation and I'm asked to interpret wording read from a specific document that I haven't had the time to study.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Glen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Mr de Klerk, you are on record as stating that the third force discussed by the State Security Council at it's 12 May 1986 meeting related to nothing more than a suggested description for police crowd control. Now let me make it clear, I accept that the SAP at the time were looking to expand the riot or unrest control units and I also accept that no third force as a separate force, separate from the SAP and the SAD

<UNKNOWN>: in the way in which it was discussed at the State Security Council, was set up. However, there is one aspect which emerges from the debate at the State Security Council about the establishment of the third force as it was conceived by the State Security Council at that time, and that is the establishment if you like of a special counter-revolutionary capacity. 
Now in the discussion a document was tabled at the State Security Council compiled by Brigadier

<UNKNOWN>: erreira and submitted on behalf of the South African Defence

<UNKNOWN>: orce, that document for your information is in the bundle as well. In that document the position that is articulated by the SAD

<UNKNOWN>: at that point is that in essence there's no need for the establishment of a third force because to a greater or lesser extent it already exists, that capacity already exists within the security forces. And in that regard, it is referred to existing within the army's counter-insurgency forces, the SAD

<UNKNOWN>: Special

<UNKNOWN>: orces, the SAD

<UNKNOWN>: 's Directorate of Special Tasks, the SAP Security Branch, the police's counter-insurgency forces and SAP's special task force elements. 
Now those components, from your understanding of the security forces and those components of the security forces, would you agree that those components don't have anything to do with crowd control?

MR DE KLERK: Up to that point and also later on use was made of police for crowd control and at times use was made of defence force soldiers for crowd control. Or defence force people would be brought in to relieve police of certain guarding duties or whatever, in order to set police free. The need for crowd control was to have a mobile force ready at call because a riot or something like that develops in a moment sometimes and this led to the, when this idea of a third separate overt force was rejected, this led to the establishment within the police of a special unit called the Internal Stability Unit.

MR GOOSEN: I accept that. And I also accept that certainly SAD

<UNKNOWN>: forces, troops were utilised in support of police throughout the 1980's, but I think you'll agree with me that the SAD

<UNKNOWN>: troops that were mobilised to provide that support, generally did not come from the specialised units, from Special

<UNKNOWN>: orces, from Directorate of Special Tasks, from the Counter Insurgency

<UNKNOWN>: orces that the South African