Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-19

EUGENE DE KOCK: Chairperson, it was an active and operational Unit.  There were several facets attached, the one was internal operations which were covert in nature and sometimes overt, and then it was cross-border operations to neighbouring States, and then at the same time it was a Unit that handled previous members of the ANC and the PAC, the liberation movements who walked over or were caught and then decided to join the Security Police.

MR HATTINGH: And they were known as so-called askaris?

EUGENE DE KOCK: That is correct Chairperson.

MR HATTINGH: Very well, Mr De Kock, some more background on this aspect.  When you joined Vlakplaas, you were not the Commander there, were you?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No Chairperson, I was not the Commander.

MR HATTINGH: Who was the Commander when you joined there?

EUGENE DE KOCK: With my arrival there, Colonel Jack Cronje was the Commander of Vlakplaas.

MR HATTINGH: And afterwards did somebody else follow him up?

EUGENE DE KOCK: That is correct Chairperson, I succeeded him.

MR HATTINGH: How many years were you attached to Vlakplaas before you succeeded Brigadier Cronje?

EUGENE DE KOCK: For about 18 months Chairperson, during the middle of 1983 up to 1985.

MR HATTINGH: During that time, that is the period before you took command, were you involved with operations that were carried out by the Vlakplaas Unit?

EUGENE DE KOCK: That is correct Chairperson, amongst others there were cross-border operations to Swaziland where the Chief of the Military Unit in Natal of the ANC was killed in a house, McFadden and then an internal operation where handgrenades, the detonators of handgrenades were changed from 4.5 seconds to 0 seconds and it was given to activists on the East Rand and six or seven of them were killed, and six or seven were injured, lost their hands.

MR HATTINGH: In other words Mr De Kock, what you are telling the Committee is that Vlakplaas were involved before you took command of it, and were involved in violent incidents where persons were killed or injured?

EUGENE DE KOCK: That is correct Chairperson.

MR HATTINGH: And those actions, was this on the orders of anybody?

EUGENE DE KOCK: That is correct Chairperson.

MR HATTINGH: Who gave the orders usually?

EUGENE DE KOCK: The direct order came from Colonel Cronje, but amongst the Officers as myself who served under him, we were aware that it came from amongst others the Chief of Security and the Commissioner of Police.

MR HATTINGH: Very well.  That is briefly the position before you took command.  You then took command of Vlakplaas - when?

EUGENE DE KOCK: It was in June or July of 1985, Chairperson.

MR HATTINGH: This type of action thereafter, did it continue, the cross-border operations?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson, there was an escalation in these incidents as there was an escalation in the opposition of the liberation movements.

MR HATTINGH: And the actions where you were involved as a Commander, is this something you decided on yourself or did you received orders in this instance?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No Chairperson, orders were issued at these instances.

MR SIBANYONI: I am sorry Mr Hattingh, for the intervention, Mr De Kock, who was the Commissioner of Police at the time you are talking about and who was the Chief of Security Police?

EUGENE DE KOCK: If my memory serves me correctly, it was Gen Van der Merwe who was the Head of Security and Gen Coetzee, was then the Commissioner of Police.

MR SIBANYONI: Thank you.

MR HATTINGH: Were these gentlemen aware of these actions or some of the actions in which Vlakplaas had been involved?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson, and not only from Vlakplaas but also that some of the members had already been used in operations, in other words the bomb attack in London of which the Commissioner and the General had knowledge.

MR HATTINGH: That was the explosion at the offices of the ANC in London, is that correct?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: When you were involved in that, were you already connected to Vlakplaas?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No, I was still a serving member of Koevoet and another member and I were flown out from the north of Namibia to Pretoria and then to London for this specific order.

MR HATTINGH: The questions that I am putting to you in this relation, are directed at evidence which Gen Coetzee who was the then Commissioner, has given before the Commission during which he has stated that Vlakplaas was a Unit which was established primarily with the objective of providing accommodation for so-called askaris, and that these askaris would then be employed to identify former colleagues of theirs and to assist in the arrest of these persons as well as the giving of evidence in court thereafter?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: He maintained that it was not an operational Unit?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No Chairperson, it was an operational Unit, it was a fully operational Unit in all aspects.

MR HATTINGH: Was Gen Coetzee ever informed regarding some of the incidents in which Vlakplaas had been involved, according to your personal knowledge?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson, among others Brigadier Schoon and I and various other members of the Security Police of the Eastern Transvaal and Soweto, informed him one morning just after five, about an attack which we had just lodged in Swaziland and he wanted to know immediately whether or not it had been a success, and he congratulated the relevant persons.

MR HATTINGH: Was this an incident during which people were killed?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: (Microphone not on)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Hattingh, if I could just briefly intervene.  Mr De Kock, Vlakplaas, did it have any other name, the Unit?

EUGENE DE KOCK: The Unit's reference on the Security Police's organogram, was Section C1.  That was defined as a Counter Terrorism Unit.  I must just mention, not only Counter Insurgency, but Counter Terrorism.

CHAIRPERSON: And by the time you became the Commander, could you just give a (indistinct) figure of the size of the Unit, how many members did it have?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Chairperson, when I took over, I will give you an approximate estimation, there were about 14 whites, or 15 whites and 20 to 25 black members.  That was a combination of members from the SAP, full members of the SAP and former members of the ANC or PAC.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Hattingh.

MR HATTINGH: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Mr De Kock, upon the occasion that you reported to Coetzee, were you on the way back from an operation in which you had been involved?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes.

MR HATTINGH: And did you go to his home on the way back?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes.

MR HATTINGH: And did you report back to him in his home?

EUGENE DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR HATTINGH: Just broadly speaking, without going into too much detail about the incidents about which you have already given evidence and for which you are still applying, you were involved in the explosions of Cosatu House and Khotso House and what is the name of the other one, Khanya House?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: And did those actions take place upon the order of higher Officers?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct and as well as senior politicians, such as the Minister of Law and Order at that stage.

MR HATTINGH: Thus was Vlakplaas involved in various cross-border operations in Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana, is that correct?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: During which people were killed and injured?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: Were any awards given to you for your involvement in these actions?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes.

MR HATTINGH: In his evidence before the Commission, Gen Van der Merwe stated that you were probably the Policeman who received the most awards for actions in which you had been involved?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.