Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-07-08

DR KNOBEL: Doctor Randera, in my briefing to the TRC on the programme I went out of my way to try and clarify my initial position and why I became involved with the medical service in general.  I can sum it up by saying that I initially did not want to join the permanent force because I was quite happy in the academic environment and I was making a contribution in the citizen force.
 However, my predecessor had been battling to separate the medical service from the army and the airforce and the navy and creating a separate arm of service which is unique in the world.  Today there are quite a number of countries that have followed suite but at that time it was totally unique.  He inspired me with a missionary zeal to help him to establish that and the emphasis at the time was to create for ourselves our own image, our own ethic, our own code of conduct, our own uniform, our own budget, our own command and control system.
 All of that had been achieved, but one of the issues that was very strongly conveyed to me, that as an academic I had to bring in the academic approach to elevate what was basic military training, with military emphasis, with military requirements and with typical military disciplinary code as being the guiding line.  I had to bring into it the professional code, the code of conduct of the various professional statutory bodies and to write a code of conduct for this which was a unique situation, a professional person in uniform.
 That process took at least 15 years.  And that is really the process that I tried to convey to the TRC at my last briefing, which I was very proud of.  Every profession, there are 27 statutory professions in the medical service, every profession has had designed for themselves a caduceus which they wear to comply with the requirements of the International Red Cross recommendations in terms of the Geneva Conventions.
 Every bit of conduct within the military environment in uniform, but in the uniform of the medical service, is designed to comply with the Geneva Conventions with relation to the conduct of medical personnel.  
 Having listed to this hearing, having heard what we've heard with regards to what I intend to submit to you are mavericks in the organisation, has horrified me and I'm very distressed by it and I'm absolutely in total agreement that whatever comes out of this hearing, one of the things that should come out of it is how do you prevent this sort of thing happening again, without losing what has been established on the positive side.  I would feel very, very, distressed if we lose what is on the positive side because of what is emerging on a negative scale.  That I would like to make a contribution to prevent from happening.  
 I will say this, and I've heard testimony by a number of the other witnesses, as far as the ethics and the morals are concerned I can see no difficulty with the Surgeon General been given the responsibility of being involved or even co-ordinating a project which will ensure that the medical personnel act within international conventions and accepted international conduct. 
 We've had discussions here about whether CR, is it right to develop something like CR.  You've heard the answers, people have said it's much better to use something that will either incapacitate or subdue a crowd rather than shooting them.  I feel the same way.  I feel the same way about the carrying of weapons.  It is true that the medical service carried weapons but strictly according to the conditions as set out in the Geneva Convention, to protect themselves and to protect their patients.  
 The Geneva Convention states very clearly: if there is an international conflict and a declaration of war, those conventions apply fully but they also recognise that there are other conflict situations which is not an open declaration of war and where circumstances prevail where the position of the medical personnel is different.
 I've considered all of that and I have constantly been measuring the medical service against that, particularly in our situation and what we used to call: "the bush war" and within the internal environment.  
 I'm distressed with you about the possibilities that have come out here about the indications, I've admitted to that.  I think the biggest dilemma and I've said that before this morning, the biggest dilemma is that we have found ourselves in a position where we only had one person with the very wide powers of self decision making, freedom of movement and the only person who had all the skills and knowledge of this very, very complex programme.  We've lost the other few that we had and we've nobody to replace him.  That is a fact, we have no-one to replace him.

CHAIRPERSON: Advocate Potgieter?

UNKNOWN: Thank you Chairperson.
 Doctor Knobel, just on the same vein of the parameters of this project that Doctor Randera has touched upon and the concern that we've expressed about abuse and perhaps touching upon your concern that the evil will live after the project, as Shakespeare reminds us.  You see the stuff that seemed to have been produced in very large quantities, staggering quantities to my mind in some respects, are the drugs, the common drugs. Let's take methaqualone, 1000 kilograms, just to think of one.  I'm quite sure there's some other examples in this documentation.  Ecstasy, so-called MDMA or whatever the technical name was that was ...[indistinct] about here for the substance.  Have you ever had any doubt in your mind at any stage, even during these hearings, that this aspect, the drug aspect to this thing had nothing to do with this project and that was potentially ways in which this could have been absurd for whatever purpose?

DR KNOBEL: No, certainly after hearing I'm sharing your concern about that.  At the time I was satisfied with the destruction of those substances, that we had in fact destroyed them.  And we discussed it at length yesterday, I can't remember if you were here then.

UNKNOWN: Probably not.

DR KNOBEL: But we discussed at length the way in which the certification took place and so on.  And certainly I suggested yesterday that maybe we should get more confirmation from the officer of Counter Intelligence who was involved and so on, and even other members who were there, airforce people.  However you are right, I am concerned about that today.
 I must however say that I also share the view of Lieutenant General Neethling when he said that the tablets that we were talking about, I think it was 200 000 tablets, that really is not all that many tablets.  What I am concerned about is if a thousand kilograms of substance were then converted into tablets, that would be a major problem.  I'm not sure if we have proved that Advocate Potgieter.  We've indicated that there is such a possibility and I'm gravely concerned about it, that I would admit.

UNKNOWN: And that one is left with some serious doubt whether there is any credence that one can attach to the point that was purportedly made here, that those things could have been used for crowd control purposes.

DR KNOBEL: No, I'm afraid there we have to disagree Advocate Potgieter, because the fact of the matter is that I think General Viljoen has said something like that recently as well in the press, the intention was to have dual use capabilities.  We all knew that at some or other point there was going to be a new Convention and we would have to rethink the position of retaliation.  We all knew that, we said that, we advised government in that regard.
 You know today we are sitting with a very large quantity of CR both weaponised and non-weaponised and it is being maintained at the instruction ...[intervention]