Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — 1997-05-16

GEN VILJOEN: No, this is certainly not.  In fact I started off by saying that I can never isolate myself from the politics of the past although I've been a military man.  I share the responsibility with P W Botha, and I am sure that he will share the responsibility with me.  There's no doubt about it.
 I think that the concept of taking apart politics and the military of the past is not really possible in South Africa.  It has been a political war.  In fact we have participated, from the Defence Force point of view, by even advising the government on political issues.  When we met the Cabinet, the previous Cabinet, on four occasions, one of which I still have a document, 1982, we addressed the situation in South Africa and we then said, in fact we were counting the costs as I explained earlier on in my analysis of just war decision.  We were counting the costs and we said to the government, we in the military are not going to win this battle, we will certainly prevent you from losing it, but the solution is not the military one, the solution is a political one.  
 And we then explained to them, we went into much more detail.  We didn't prescribe to them as to what solution they should accept.  But I remember saying to them that you have to be creative in thinking ways out in which you can also involve the rest of the country's population and make them happy in the dispensation for South Africa.  Now I would never prescribe to them.
 But the point I am making is maybe we were in a privileged position because as a military officer I have studied every insurgency war that you can mention, we've studied it, and we've listed all the lessons from those wars, and we have tried to convince the past political masters about these lessons, but there was a sterility within the ANC that we could not beat. And maybe, maybe we are part of the guilt because we were too strong and they were depending indefinitely on the military power that we had, but we had consistently told them it is time for you to find ways out of this impasse.  We have to find a solution.

DR BORAINE: Mr Ntsebeza.

MR NTSEBEZA: General mine is just a very small request.  You have referred to this document which you made all these advices to government, is it possible for us to get a copy thereof?

GEN VILJOEN: Chairperson yes, I have the document, I don't have it here, it is marked "Secret".  I am not sure whether I am bound by my oath to keep "secret" secret, and I will just have to make sure as to whether it will be possible.  Recently I had a discussion with Mr P W Botha and he said to me look here, you must not allow the Defence Force to get all the bashing, the politicians must also carry the responsibility and that document, why don't you pass it on.  But now as I say it is secret and I have to stick according to my undertakings, but I will certainly find out and see whether I can make that available to you.

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much.

UNKNOWN: General let us move on to what you call the abuse of power that is found on page 13, the last paragraph of your document.  Now on the abuse of arbitrary powers during the state of emergency in your response you make the following statement which requires some form of clarification and I will quote
"In many cases the counter-revolutionary strategy made provision for security and administrative special powers with little or no link to the political perspective underlying the conflict.  This political resistance to change was at the root of the evil".
 In this can not the same be said of your party and perhaps the alliances then when the World Trade Centre was forcefully entered into, and making reference again to the Mmabatho situation as it then happened in 1994, that it is the same as you have quoted here that you also did in that in the World Trade Centre negotiations were taking place to effect a political change, and if I may use the word, the "storming" of the World Trade Centre was then counter that change, wouldn't you be in a position to accept that allusion to yourself?

GEN VILJOEN: I would just like to recall the specific incident.  That was a planned demonstration to bring to the attention of the negotiators and the international world the demands of the Afrikaner for self-determination.  This took place on the 25th of June 1993, and the intention was to go to the Trade Centre in great numbers, to hand over basic documents where the negotiators were requested to take care of this specific urge for freedom amongst the Afrikaner people.
 Unfortunately the AWB, which was part of the Volksfront at that stage, and it was not my party, it was still in the Volksfront days, the AWB then got out of hand.   I cannot explain why this happened, in the same way as I cannot explain why in the 11th of March 1994 in Mmabatho they disobeyed a legal order.  They got out of hand and they did not obey my orders, where all the other people, all the farmers and so on that were present, they obeyed my orders. 
 So you must not, you must please not credit us with the acts of storming the World Trade Centre.  This is certainly not the character of decency which we are trying to maintain in the Freedom Front political approach.  We don't believe in that.  We don't think that it is on. 
 Now you've referred to the fact of resistance of change and you've asked me whether this is not the same with my party.  I think we have accepted the change, I've already said so.  When we accepted the change we did so in a deliberate and considerate way by considering the need for an accord.  And we have completed the accord before the election and that has assisted us from moving through the election, but we have not given up our drive for self-determination.  
 The only thing that happened is we agreed that this is a complicated issue, it has to be addressed, it will be addressed in a way, in line with democracy and not contrary to the democratic principles, and that it will have to be negotiated.  Because self-determination, if it has to be a conflict-preventing measure is something that you cannot claim for yourself and do it the way you want to.  You have to argue your case, you have to convince the other parties in the country about self-determination and then you have to implement something which is generally mutually acceptable.
 Can I quote an example.  When we discussed this in the constitution-making process it took a long time, two years, but eventually when we came to the final constitution we had unanimous agreement of all the political parties within the constituent assembly.  And this was a victory for the process that we have gone through so far, and if I can help it, if I can give a contribution, I would like to see that when we come to the final implementation of self-determination that it will be done in the same way, completely acceptable to all the people of South Africa.  And this is my duty and my party's duty and that is what we are trying to.  Because if we don't do that then the party will become rejectable in the new South Africa and there will be conflict and there will not be peace and prosperity will only be a hope.