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

CHAIRPERSON: Possibly he will have come and testify here if he says that because you know he was very well represented here by lawyers who haven't really projected that image to us.  If anything the lawyers who represented Mbeki and his government have given us an indication that that office is very pleased about the way in which we have handled these hearings.  We don't regret having taken the decision that we took.
 And quite frankly General Knobel, you know the more I hear you speak the more I distressed I personally become because you, inasmuch as you seem to say we do not appreciate the good things that the project was all about, it seems to me you do not appreciate what the Commission is about.  
 The Commission was not set to discover how good South African was in the past, it has a specific mandate to examine amongst other things but more particularly perpetration of gross violations of human rights in the context of looking at the motives and perspectives, the antecedents, the context, but with a clear mandate to look at violations of human rights.
 It may well be that the CBW programme, and at this stage I'm not even making a decision because the panel has got to do that, but it may well be that it did all the good things that it did and I don't think there is anyone here who is going to gainsay that but the fact of the matter is that your scientists came and sat here and testified about the other things that they did which you yourself are admitting ought not to have been done and that is unfortunately what we are here about.  We are not here to say because 90% or even 99% of the work that was done by the CBW programme was advancing the interest of science and technology in this country, then we should ignore the 1%, we would fail in our duty.  
 It is not about whether or not the percentages were 80/20, 70/30, 99 to 1%, it is about the fact that if all this evidence points to us being satisfied that things that have been testified about here are in fact capable of being concluded to have happened, it is about whether or not any decent society should have had those aspects of technology being used in the advancement of those objectives.
 If we come to the conclusion at the end that even though 80% of the work that was done by that programme was good, was well intentioned, advanced in the ways in which you have said, it advanced the image of this country, we will not because the 20% of it is making us a prier in the world of today, we should not refrain from making those conclusions.
 So it really is not about whether or not, it's the same thing we hear now and every day: apartheid was not so bad, we produced the best schools, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, we produced professors in all fields of human endeavour.  Yes, that is true but again we produced the worst of schools, we produced the worst of universities some people were denied by virtue of that same ideology of becoming the best that society could have produced.
 So please, let us, especially if that is your contribution to what the question to you, it is certainly not a contribution.  You are being asked about a specific aspect, what do you consider your contribution or lack thereof to have been in that part of that CBW programme which to us appears to have been obnoxious in the extreme, to have been intended for purposes for which that programme had not been set.
 Don't tell us about the good thing, we all know them, we accept them.  Take it for granted that we accept and we laud them for what they were but what is your responsibility when once you discover that there was such a horrifying programme that that man was at the head of.  What is your contribution?  Do you feel remorseful about not having acted and acted strongly enough in order to counter what he was doing?  In fact, did it ever strike you that you may have had to apply for amnesty for your role in being part and parcel of that machinery?  If you feel that you didn't have to apply for amnesty, that you have nothing to be apologetic about then say so but don't please let us weigh in terms of which was more advancing the interest of this country and which not because we are going to forecast on that which should not have happened.  If the evidence that we have heard here is to be believed, and we will weight that, and we come to a conclusion that it is credible evidence, that which should not have happened will be considered in that light.

DR KNOBEL: Mr Chairman, may I reply to that?

CHAIRPERSON: You can, in fact you should.

DR KNOBEL: I was still giving an exposition of how I felt I should reply to that question and I referred at the beginning to the fact that I'd given a voluntary briefing here at the TRC on the medical service as a whole.  I just want to state very clearly that when this inquiry started I co-operated fully because I believe in the process of truth and reconciliation.

CHAIRPERSON: We accept all of that General.

DR KNOBEL: Yes, but let me just please come to this point.  When I finished by briefing, May last years, I said the following and I'm reading from the statement that I made
"If however there is evidence that any professional member of this organisation has acted outside the directives according to the mandate role and functions as discussed or acted in an unethical ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: General, just on that, do you as you sit there now, do you accept - I'm asking you now, do you accept that in fact the evidence that we have heard here does suggest exactly what you are saying?

DR KNOBEL: Yes, I've testified to that.

CHAIRPERSON: So why are you conditioning it now?  We are asking you, not at the time that you wrote that memorandum, not at the time that you wrote that affidavit, we are asking you at the end of the testimonies that we have heard.

DR KNOBEL: I'm coming to that Mr Chairman.  I would just like to say what I said then and what I add now.  Do you want me to continue?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, yes.

DR KNOBEL: I said that
"If there's any unethical or unprofessional action according to the guidelines of the various statutory councils with whom they are registered then I would like to apologise on behalf of the organisation to any member of the South African community that may have been adversely affected by such actions"
I also at that time as Surgeon General said I would take with my command council, whatever steps are deemed necessary to investigate and bring to justice such actions. 
 I now want to say with the wisdom that I've obtained during this hearing that I am like you, horrified with the possibility that those sort of actions could have taken place.  I am very disturbed by it and I absolutely agree that one should do everything in your power to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.  And I want to assure you that my support to the following investigations of the Attorney General as well as of OSEO will continue, to bring whatever injustices have been carried out or criminal deeds have been carried out to justice.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Doctor Knobel.
 Mr Vally, do you still need to call ...[intervention]

MR VALLY: No, thank you Mr Chair, I'm through.
 Thank you General Knobel.

CHAIRPERSON: Are there any questions from the panel to General Knobel?  Doctor Randera?  Advocate Potgieter?

DR RANDERA: ...[inaudible] you've taken a great already but I think for the record I just want the General's comments on two specific areas.  One is the question that arose yesterday from Doctor Mijburgh in terms of the production of these million capsules with whatever was in it.  Now as head of the South African Medical Services, was that a method that was used by the medical services to buy drugs from private companies?

DR KNOBEL: No, it was not.

DR RANDERA: Have you ever known of that, has that ever happened in the time that you were the head, the Surgeon General of SAMS?