Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1997-04-08

MRS VAN DER WALT THE COMMISSION: A great deal of evidence has been placed before the Committee, relating to the political education, indoctrination and motivation of the applicants.
	The aims and objectives of the AWB and the BWB.  Excepting which, should the Commission accept that the act for which the applicants seek amnesty were in deed motivated by reason of this indoctrination, and with a view to obtaining a political, or making a political statement, that is as far as I can say as opposed to obtaining an objective.
	I respectfully submit that when one coldly analyses some details relating to the actions taken, the actions are in my submission grossly out of proportion to the objective sought by the applicants.
	I say that for a number of reasons.  Mr Harmse was not acting under orders as such to commit or to target a particular community.  He was given carte blanche to use his discretion how to achieve the broad aims and objectives of his Organisation.
	He appointed a young man of some 17 years to reconnoitre the area and with his, Harmse's, approval, a target in a fairly isolated part of South Africa, I say that with all due respect with Bronkhorstspruit, was selected.
	They had in fact considered targets in Pretoria.  Now at no stage did either Mr Harmse or Mr Froneman indicate that they even considered placing a bomb in a government building or government institution which would not be occupied by people at the time of the detonation.
	We are told that after war had allegedly been declared by their Organisation, the enemy was government.  The enemy was the ANC/SACP alliance.  The enemy was at one stage the large, it included large financial corporations.
	The names of the likes of Anglo American were mentioned.  Now, my submission as to why the acts are out of all proportion to this objective are first of all the nature of the target which was selected, a easily accessible commercial centre which was to be frequented by ordinary civilians.
	It was submitted by Mr Prinsloo for Mr Harmse that the bomb was placed there at about 4 am in the morning, but Mr Harmse in his evidence, when asked as to when he thought or
when he expected the bomb to explode, he said when the shops were opened.
	Obviously targeting at life, not simply to allow a bomb to explode in a uninhabited shopping complex and thereby make a statement and gain the publicity, but he clearly foresaw that people would be killed.
	Mr Froneman on the other hand says that he thought property would simply be damaged.  Mr Harmse on the other hand said that as his Commanding Officer, he was satisfied that Froneman was aware of the fact that people would be killed.
	So first of all it is the place and the target selected, then if one has a look and studies the nature of the device used, as a Committee member, Mr de Jager quite correctly points out, it was tantamount to laying a landmine.  
	That nature, the device was an uncontrolled explosive, it could kill anybody indiscriminately, it could be set off by a heavy truck or the vibrations of a truck just driving by.  So it was an indiscriminate killer similar to landmines.
	I submit that that is another fact that contributes to the proportionality and considering the act.  Why I say that is if it was a controlled device, deliberately set to go off at a time when no civilians would be about, it may put a different light on the issue.

JUDGE WILSON: Can I have a difficulty I have to you in this regard which I would like to hear you on.  We are told by the applicants that they now felt that war had broken out, that they were fighting against the government and to avoid takeover by the ANC, the SACP and others.
	This was - they had now joined the war.  All of us who had lived in this country, know what happened during that war, we know about bombs in shopping centres, we know - we have been told by Mr Prinsloo about many instances where innocent people were killed.  If one has to have regard to proportionality, does one say that when these people do it, it is disproportionate, although the other people have been doing it for years?

MR BLACK: In reply to that Mr Chairman, I would submit that one should be careful in making a sweeping deduction perhaps from other instances which have occurred.
	My submission is that this particular instance, the Committee or myself, I am certainly not aware of what orders were given for example in respect of any particular instance which may be generally be referred to in the past.
	But when looking at this particular act of selecting a civilian target, my understanding - or it does not appear from the evidence placed before us that the Organisation to which Mr Harmse belonged, either authorised him or ordered him to target civilian targets.

JUDGE WILSON: It is my problem.  You are trying to make this an orthodox war.  He says as I understand his evidence, this was the war against those people and that war would be fought in the same way surely.  Orders were not binding quite clearly on members of this Organisation, they were not in the military, they were not binding on members of the ANC.
	The point that causes me concern is can one distinguish the type of targets and say that if you - you are being disproportionate if you choose the same sort of target as have been chosen in the past.

MR BLACK: I think the Organisation such as the ANC is on record as saying that they do not target, civilians were not targets.  In this particular instance ...

JUDGE WILSON: Well then I am afraid that a lot of the convictions that have taken place in our courts, must have been totally wrong, because there are cases where civilians were targeted and were killed in bars in Durban, for example.

MR BLACK: Yes.  In this particular instance Mr Harmse was given to understand that the government and members of the ANC alliance together with big business, if one wants to call it that, were the enemy.  What I am trying to say is I find it difficult to understand why the Muslim community civilians were targeted without there being any evidence or any evidence whatsoever that, first of all no government institution was involved, no attempt was made to find government institutions and secondly there is no evidence that the Muslim community as such in Bronkhorstspruit are all predominantly ANC supporters.
	And I do not think that a shopping complex of that nature would, or there is no evidence rather, that it belonged to any big business organisation.
	And my submission is that this act should, which was committed, is out of proportion therefor to the political objectives sought by the applicants.
	And clearly ...

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Black, would I be wrong in saying that the leadership of the BWB approved of what they had done?

MR BLACK: This was specifically asked of Mr Harmse and he avoided saying, he said that he didn't receive any specific congratulations, but he assumes that it was approved of,
would image, because first of all he was promoted to the rank of General, Mr Froneman was awarded wings and he put it in a negative way saying that no one disapproved of ...

ADV DE JAGER: What would you say, is that an approval or a disapproval?

MR BLACK: It can either be, I would assume it was an approval or it could have been an opt-out in many ways, because I should imagine in my submission, that there must, as Mr Harmse says, it so happens that this act brought about tragic consequences for some person who ...

ADV DE JAGER: Yes, at least we could accept that there was no demotion?

MR BLACK: That is so Mr Chairman.

JUDGE WILSON: And the wings were produced and given and I gather, I may be incorrect in this but the statement was made to the media, that this was an act performed by the Boer - BWB and never challenged by anybody.