Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-06

WITNESS:   Sorry, may I finish?  I do concede in my report that there is on at least one aspect where Mr Opperman was less than frank with the Court and that was the question of whether they were simply going to surgically murder Mr Ntuli or whether, in fact, they were

MR VAN ZYL: /going to

MR VAN ZYL: 5B going to take out all the occupants of the Ntuli household.  So I don't believe that Mr Opperman is not to be believed.  He was not a good witness, that I concede.  That he was disingenuous on one point to protect his own image, I concede that further, but the general thrust of his evidence, I think, ought to have been accepted, especially seen in the light of these documents, because the documents absolutely back up his case.

MR VAN ZYL: Okay, then I just want to put it to you that you will probably recall that Mr Opperman testified that in more or less February of 1987 specific orders were given by Brigadier van Niekerk, inter alia, that no further offensive actions should take place.  That part of his evidence, do you accept that?

WITNESS:   I do recall that there was evidence along those lines ... (intervention)

MR VAN ZYL: I know, do you accept it or not.  I am sorry, I'm not shouting, I just want to get finished with the evidence.  Do you accept it or not?

WITNESS:   I will finish if you permit me to answer.

MR VAN ZYL: Answer it, please.

WITNESS:   And, further, it isn't simply a matter of on one day an instruction is issued and therefore that is the end of the story.  Quite clearly that wasn't the end of the story, and Mr Opperman was obviously not party to decisions taken at other levels, and in any event one can debate that until the end of tonight if one wants to.  The fact of the matter is that a capacity of self-sufficiency was given to these people.  They carried out a whole range of offensive operations with and without the support of the SADF and ultimately they had no connection to the South African Defence Force and that's the crux of this matter.

MR VAN ZYL: /Well, Mr Varney,

MR VAN ZYL: 5B Well, Mr Varney, you now gave us detailed argument and you didn't answer the question.  Do you accept that part of his evidence as true or false?

WITNESS:   That he received that specific order at that time?

MR VAN ZYL: Yes.

WITNESS:   No, I accept that.

MR VAN ZYL: So then there couldn't have been any further actions after February 1987, if his version is true?

WITNESS:   With the greatest respect, I have just attempted to articulate and set the scene as to why you simply cannot say that because of one particular instruction given by a brigadier to a captain at one particular time, therefore it cancels everything that happened post that.  And it's evident from the documents that a lot happened post-February 1987.  There was much going on in 1988.  They had to conceal offensive element members who were being sought by the police.  So clearly something else happened - something more happened than that.  That's quite obvious to see.  (Inaudible) ... a simplistic and, in my view, a ridiculous interpretation of the documents.  One can do that, but that would be disingenuous, in my view.

MR VAN ZYL: Well, I just want to put it to you, Mr Varney, that it's my opinion and also my submission that by hand-picking the parts of the evidence that's favourable to your conclusions and by discarding those that are unfavourable to your conclusions that you want to draw, it's one of the reasons why your report is absolutely not correct and subjective.

WITNESS:   But, to the contrary, you will see I have in this report analyzed in great detail all that supposedly positive and negative evidence and that is there for the record, so I reject that argument as being ridiculous.

MR VAN ZYL: /Thank you,

MR VAN ZYL: 5B Thank you, Mr Chairman.

MR VAN ZYL: NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VAN ZYL

MR LYSTER: Thank you.  I don't see any more hands and I'm very grateful for that.  Those people who have not asked questions and those people who didn't ask enough questions or still want to pursue Mr Varney's evidence more can obviously do so by means of submission of a written document.  I'm afraid we are not able to dissuade them to do that.  We are adjourned then till 10 o'clock tomorrow.  Thank you very much.
PROCEEDINGS ADJOURNED TO 1997/08/07
/PROCEEDINGS RESUMED