Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-11-21

MR COETSER: This friendship or this communicating or this visiting with these people, was it not perhaps designed to confuse the South African Military Intelligence Organisations as to who was who, who was MK, who was not?  Weren't you using them as a cover?

MS ANDERSON: No, they were our friends, genuinely our friends.

MR COETSER: Well if they were your friends, why did you place them at such risk?

MS ANDERSON: I think if you look at may statement, Sir, in point 6 you will see that I had suggested to Mike that because my house and his house had been mentioned in the court case, it might be worth his while moving out and I think that you will see in there that he dismissed this, pooh-poohed it because there's no possible way he could have been a target.  There was no, on our side, on the regime's side there might have been a cavalier approach to who they killed.  On our side there was care and loving of that community, it was a very loving tight community and we have never had a community like that since.

MR COETSER: But you, Ma'am just to finish off, you were living in a completely abnormal situation, you were at war with the South African Government.

MS ANDERSON: Correct.

MR COETSER: How possibly could you think in those circumstances, that you could try and create within Gaberone a normal society?

MS ANDERSON: I think at the beginning Danny Berger asked permission to be able to describe the type of community we had in Gaberone and there was a bit of debate about it, but this is precisely what we did.  In this abnormal world, a world where people had been victimised in terms of colour, we had created an entirely non-racial alternative community based around things of light, or art, of music, of culture.  We were a tight loving community, supportive of each other.  From the time that that community was smashed in the Botswana raid, we all went on our own and never ever managed to reconstruct that type of community again, but basically what was killed was a community and a culture that was so exciting and so warm and so loving and everybody was creating and that's what was killed.

MR COETSER: I can completely understand and sympathise and appreciate what you have just said, but all I'm putting to you is that wasn't MK, Umkhonto weSizwe somewhat naive about trying to create that type of society in this war situation?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Coetser, where are we getting with this cross-examination?

MR COETSER: The point is, the tenor of the evidence that is being led by Mr Berger at this point in time, relates perhaps not so much to the technical legalistic aspects of whether the particular applicants should be given amnesty or not, but relates more the morality of the raid.  All I wish to do is try and create some sort of balance in this process by indicating to the witness at this particular moment in time that it would appear that MK need to carry a degree of responsibility to what happened based on negligence and fraternising with these individuals.

CHAIRPERSON: Well Mr Coetser as Mr Berger ought to know that the question of moralities doesn't enter the issue when we consider the Act.

MR COETSER: Yes, I'm afraid however that that is what has been happening.

CHAIRPERSON: Well you should also know that we're not going to take it into consideration as far as the moral point of view is concerned, because we're not entitled to.

MR COETSER: Certainly.  That is all I have to ask.  Thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR COETSER

CHAIRPERSON: Shall we take the tea adjournment?
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

MR VISSER: Thank you Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Ms Anderson, do you agree if I understood her evidence correctly with Ms Mbethe's evidence, that all these people that were attacked were ANC members, that she was not aware whether they were involved with MK?  Do you agree with that statement?

MS ANDERSON: I don't agree that they were all ANC members.  I agree they were all part of the ANC broader community.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Now I want to ask you about that ANC broader community, that sweet loving tight community which you described to this Committee.  Would it appear to someone from the outside as an ANC orientated or sympathising community?

MS ANDERSON: You mean someone from the outside, someone who was supposedly doing reconnaissance?

MR VISSER: For example, or anyone else for that matter.

MS ANDERSON: I would say it was a broader progressive community than simply ANC because as I explained we had Botswana people, we had expatriates, all as part of that broader community.

MR VISSER: And those Botswana people and expatriates, were they sympathisers with the case of the other people there who were closer to the ANC, if I may put it that way?

MS ANDERSON: In my experience the entire world ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: No, no, no, just answer the question.  I'm talking about this tight, loving community, I'm not talking about the entire world.

MS ANDERSON: Would an outsider have seen this as being an ANC supportive community?

MR VISSER: Yes.

MS ANDERSON: Yes, I'm sure they would have.

MR VISSER: Thank you.  Am I wrong if I heard you say that Mike Hamlyn and Uriel were ANC members, in your evidence-in-chief, did you say that?

MR ANDERSON: I said they were not in the ANC.

MR VISSER: Not in the ANC?  But you then went on to say that they were sympathisers of that?

MS ANDERSON: Yes.

MR VISSER: And you also stated that there was quite a material disruption of this community after the raid.  Would that be also a disruption of ANC structures in Botswana at the time?

MS ANDERSON: There was certainly a disruption of the ANC structures.  A lot of ANC people were asked to leave.

MR VISSER: Yes.  And what about safe houses and so on, was there disruption as far as that was concerned, transit facilities?

MS ANDERSON: I left within a week of the raid, I've no idea what happened to various safe houses.

MR VISSER: Fair enough.  Fair enough.  I just want to get some clarity on what Commissioner Malan asked you, because I don't think that you really gave an answer to the question.  The question as I understood it was this.  Do you categorise an ANC member at that time as a person who was either a card-carrying member, or a person that was working in a confined ANC structure, in Botswana?

MS ANDERSON: I would - we certainly didn't carry cards in those days.  I would consider an ANC member a person who was working within a unit, an ANC unit, receiving instructions on behalf of the ANC and implementing them.

MR VISSER: Are you now changing your evidence from a person working in a structure, to confining it to a person working in a unit?

MR BERGER: Chairperson, with respect, there's no change in the evidence.  It's unfair to put that to the witness.

MR VISSER: Well did you say in your evidence in answer to Mr Malan's questions, that you considered an ANC member as a person who had been in a structure of the ANC?  Did you say that or didn't you?

MS ANDERSON: In an ANC unit or structure receiving instructions and working under discipline, working under ANC discipline.

MR VISSER: Do you then consider a unit and a structure as one and the same thing?

MS ANDERSON: I'm talking about ANC units or cells.  People working within ANC units or cells, I would regard those people as ANC members.

MR VISSER: Let me ask you again, you obviously didn't hear my question.  Do you regard a structure and a unit as one and the same thing?

MS ANDERSON: I find that a very odd question, because a structure could be a much larger thing than a unit.

MR VISSER: That's the point, you see and I'm asking you again.  Didn't you refer to structures when you answered Mr Malan's question, people who worked in structures were members of the ANC.

MS ANDERSON: By structures I was, and I think I explained at that time, you had cultural structures, you had political structures, you had military structures.

MR VISSER: Yes, thank you.