Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

MR GOOSEN: Mr Vlok, Mr de Klerk in his submission and when he presented evidence at the Commission, in the National Party submission, I'm not quoting it exactly but this is the effect of what he said, he said the test to be applied if responsibility is going to attach in a particular set of circumstances, is whether there is an effective mechanism in place to prevent abuse.  Now as I understand the answer that you've just given, that you recognise and you accept that there wasn't an effective mechanism in place to prevent abuse because of the limited communication that a minister would be subject to in the circumstances. And then do I understand that it is because there was no effective mechanism to prevent abuse that you in effect now accept overall political and moral responsibility for the abuses that occur?

ADRIAAN VLOK: That is correct and I accept responsibility because I was the political head of the department and I'm not going to run away from my responsibilities, not towards the people out there who actually put me in that position, who had trust and confidence in me and I will accept the responsibility also vis a vis the good people, the ninety nine percent of good people who had to deal with the violence.  I'm not going to deny responsibility vis a vis them but I want to get back to what Mr Goosen said what Mr de Klerk said.  I don't know exactly what he said but I would like to give you and example in respect of the abuse of funds.
 In the police there was an internal auditor who had to audit all the funds used from the Secret Fund.  Now what more did I have to do, there was a man who I thought was independent and who actually audited the way the money was used? I didn't tell anybody to steal money. If I had that knowledge I would have charged him for theft but as far as other actions were concerned, what did we have in the police?  We had the Detective Branch, the Security Branch and so on, but we didn't have independent monitors such as we have now, it's been established since then.  But we didn't have it in those days, he was simply dependent on the people in the structure and in the system, and if there was somebody in the system who was actually abusing it, then you were lost.

MR MALAN: ..the question and I also want to go back to Mr F W de Klerk's testimony.  He tried to give us a model of where responsibility lies and he came up with the idea of bona fides and over zealous actions and the mala fides conduct, but he said, that that is what has to be tested on the level of the applicant, if I understood him correctly.  Now you come here today and it sounds quite laudable to say that as far as your own constituents are concerned you're not going to run away, you're going to assume responsibility and you are accepting that they perhaps have the bona fides belief that it was policy and that it was expected of them to kill people and to act unlawfully as a result of misinterpretations and misunderstandings regarding words and terminology and you'd like to protect them.  So it actually sounds like a sort of an umbrella which you are offering them.  But at the same time I'm saying that not for one moment there was any document and in which it was said that a person was killed and we killed him.  They always say that the ANC took him away or it happened in the course of another conflict and so on.  Now Mr Vlok, I want to ask you if you really believe that they thought, believed that it was policy, why didn't they have the confidence in you to report to you in terms of the way they carried out their duties.  Not in one single case, according to you, can you recall where it came to your knowledge that the operatives at a lower level or the general level or whatever had killed people by means of illegal action and reported that to you?   Now you are shocked to hear that that happened. Why do you want to protect them if they didn't have the trust and confidence in you at the time if they had the bona fide belief that that was policy at the time?

ADRIAAN VLOK: May I say at the outset that I did not assume responsibility only in respect of policemen.  My submission also refers to the victims because I've also expressed my apology and my sorrow as regards the victims and people who died during these actions and that's on record and I would like to express that again, reiterate that.  I also didn't come and say all these things because I want to help them in respect of their amnesty applications.  If that is a natural consequence of what I've said and that is good and well but I also said that it has to be proved, or if it is proved in that person's amnesty application that that person misinterpreted a certain document or language, then it's for the Amnesty Committee to decide whether he should receive amnesty, but this man, policeman or whatever would never have told me that he had killed somebody because it wasn't policy.  If he had told me I killed a man, I would have said to him, but who gave you the right, why did you do that?  Then we would have stopped him and then we would have said but what on earth are you doing?  It's only being revealed now and that's why I'm saying what I'm saying now. The news and these revelations are only coming to the for now and I simply couldn't believe my eyes and my ears as to what these people were saying that they had gained the impression that they were authorised to do certain things and they are saying that they gained the impression from documents which are no longer in our possession.  So it wasn't policy, so the policeman on the ground couldn't have said it was in line with your policy.  If they had done that then we would have stopped it there and then.

MR MALAN: Mr Vlok maybe you're not understanding me correctly.  During Mr Goosen's questioning of you you conceded, in fact confirmed the fact that lots of these people would have been under the impression that their illegal conduct was within the policy framework.

MR VISSER: That is not correct Mr Chairman.   Mr Vlok's evidence was quite clear that he concedes if he is asked to say that they might have been.  He did never say that they were and this is the basis of the question and that is why the witness answered the question in the way in which he did.

MR MALAN: Thank you, if that interpretation is Mr Vlok's interpretation then I will accept that. Can I then just repeat the question from a different vantage point?
 Would you then say that if the vast majority accepted it as policy they would also have reported to you quite openly.

ADRIAAN VLOK: Yes Chairperson.

MR MALAN: But the fact that you never received such a report means that in your view and judgement the vast majority, perhaps an exception here and there which will be tested during amnesty application, that the vast majority were under the impression that they could not have done that, is that what you're saying?

ADRIAAN VLOK: The vast majority of policemen out there were of the view that they shouldn't do that.

MR MALAN: Chairperson may I ask one more question?  Mr Vlok, in your submission on page 9 paragraph 37.3.1, you refer to the counter revolutionary strategy with the three components and you say that, the very last sentence, bottom of the page,
"Our conduct was regarded largely as so-called holding action whilst the authorities had to make progress with the other two components".
Is that correct?

ADRIAAN VLOK: Yes.

MR MALAN: Mr Vlok I want to ask you, because you also said that you were the man on the ground's man, the policeman's man.  Did you see yourself as part of the authority, a member of the authority or as the advocate for the policeman on the ground and as his friend, or where was your first responsibility?  Was it a cabinet responsibility which also made the other two tasks your responsibility?