Amnesty Hearings — Pietersburg — 1997-07-02

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, the following witness which we would call, with your permission, is Mr Koos van den Berg. Just to refresh your memory, what we said at the beginning, Mr Van den Berg and Mr Fourie are the two links between the receiving of the information, Mr Chairman and the actual events.  So we are just covering the links and we will come to the event.
	Mr Chairman, may I refer you to page ...

SISI KHAMPEPE: It is page 31.

UNKNOWN: Page 30 and following of B.  Thank you, Ms Khampepe.

ADV DE JAGER: Will you please stand to take the oath.

J P VAN DEN BERG: (Duly sworn, states).

UNKNOWN: Mr Van den Berg, do you have in front of you a copy of your amnesty application?

J P VAN DEN BERG: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: You are an applicant and you are requesting that amnesty be granted to you for any offence or delict which may have been found to have been committed by you during certain events which took place from May to the 10th of July when six insurgents were shot dead at Eendvogelpan near the Botswana border.

J P VAN DEN BERG: That's correct.

UNKNOWN: Your statement, do you confirm that you have read through this statement and that the facts are true and correct?

J P VAN DEN BERG: Yes, I do.

UNKNOWN: In your statement you refer to a document titled - it is on page 37, Chairperson, titled The Submission of the Foundation for Equality before the Law, and you also refer to a submission made by Genl Jan Velde van der Merwe on the 21st of October 1996 before this Amnesty Committee and you are requesting that the facts in those submissions in so far as they are applicable to you, must also be incorporated in your application.  Is that correct?

J P VAN DEN BERG: Yes.

UNKNOWN: As far as the political objective which you sought to achieve is concerned, that you set out in paragraphs 10(a) and (b) and do you confirm that you stand by that?

J P VAN DEN BERG: Yes, I do.

UNKNOWN: And lastly, you refer to the amnesty application of Andries Johannes Gerhardus Erwee and you are requesting that that application should be incorporated into your application as far as the facts of the event are concerned.

J P VAN DEN BERG: Correct.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Visser, sorry to interrupt you. This submission from the Foundation for Equality before the Law, that submission, as far as I know has never been placed before the Amnesty Committee.  So we are not aware of the contents of that submission and hasn't yet been submitted in evidence before us.

UNKNOWN: Chairperson, the information which Adv De Jager has now placed on record, we only found out about that yesterday from Mr Black, that you are actually not in possession of the document.  In other words, the explanation would be that the statement or the submission was not made or submitted to the Amnesty Committee but to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  My attorney has told me that these documents are indeed available at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and he said that we should put it to you that he undertakes to arrange for the document to be made available to you and if the TRC can't do so, then we will make a plan to do it ourselves.  May I just consult with him for a moment?
	Chairperson, my attorney also informs me that he has a clean copy of that submission with him, if you want to have a look at it immediately.  As we said at the outset it is not our idea to actually deal with that background detail at the moment, but rather to leave it for a later stage. If it pleases you we can focus on that at a later stage.  At this stage it is important to firstly place the evidence before you, but the copy is available if you want to have a look at it.

ADV DE JAGER: My problem, is I don't know what the document contains.  I don't know whether there are facts contained in that document which I might want to put to this witness or whether some of the other legal representatives want to cross-examine about it.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairperson, I am told that it is approximately 400 pages.
	Mr Chairman, I heard what Mr De Jager said and of course that is correct. The only point which we would stress here, is that there will be no prejudice at all because the witnesses who apply here for amnesty know that they have got to keep themselves ready and hold themselves available in case in future, this Committee wishes to put any further questions to them and for them to be recalled as witnesses.  They are fully aware of that.  So that Mr Chairman, I would submit that we can go on with the work in hand at the moment, to get the evidence on record. It should appear later that there are questions as Mr De Jager suggests, that he would have liked to have put to the witness, they  will simply be recalled, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I suggest a compromise somewhat for now, for the purpose of this hearing.  Is it possible for you to tell us in broad terms just what this is all about?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, in broad terms it gives a complete history of the strife of the past in this country.  It commences with the establishment of the ANC in 1912.  The split between the ANC and the PAC in 1960. It deals with the important incidents throughout the history.
	It really is a comprehensive summary of the history, Mr Chairman.  It gives a clear insight, we submit, in the commencement of the struggle;  what prompted that struggle to commence and may I add, it is a fairly objective work, in our submission. What happened as a result of conditions pertaining at the time and how people reacted, and how those incidents and reactions led us to where we are today. It is an interesting document. It is also being summarised somewhat in book form and that book is available on the book shelves, Mr Chairman.  It is a book called The Other Side of the Story.  The author of that is Genl Herman Stadler.  That book perhaps, Mr Chairman, it is a book that costs, I think R50,00. I  am not promoting the sale of the book.  I am just saying that that is really a condensed form of the document which we are now referring to, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: You know, one reads so many documents, you know, and all that, but is this a document which in the end or somewhere - I thought this was the document.  I may be wrong, but I thought it was a document which in the end emphasises the fact that there be even treatment, or evenness in the treatment of the people who committed crimes or atrocities, who were so-called liberation fighters on the one hand and also the security forces.  It is not that book?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, I have no doubt, speaking from recollection, I have no doubt that that subject would possibly be touched on, but that certainly is not the purpose of the work.

CHAIRPERSON: I see.  Maybe I am confusing it with something else.
	Well, anyway, it gives a historical perspective of the events.

UNKNOWN: And that is the value of that.

CHAIRPERSON: No, well, we have an idea of what it is all about.