Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-13

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct - no microphone)

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, I'm sorry yes, on page 4 the answer must surely be negative, Mr Chairman and not affirmative.  I'm sorry, but the Heads of Argument were settled very late last night and early this morning.
	Now there is another important factor, Mr Chairman and that is that we are dealing with reconciliation.  If in fact a person was a member of an organisation whose purpose was to murder people, what sort of reconciliation can one expect by saying:  "I will choose to apply for amnesty only for those cases on which there was no loss of life, which you have here and I will keep quiet about all the others and you can't ask me any questions about it."  Now, that would be tantamount to rendering the provisions of the Act nugatory, Mr Chairman.  There is a difference between asking someone who has applied for amnesty for one act and says:  "Don't ask me if I committed any other acts, because they've got nothing to do with this" but the case law is very clear that where the acts are performed in furtherance of a conspiracy, then the evidence in relation to the other acts is admissible, in this case there cannot be full disclosure.  
	Let me illustrate it in another way.  There was a conspiracy to kill Mr Gavin Evans.  We haven't been told by this witness, but I suppose others may fill it in, that this was done for reasons a, b and c.  As part of the policy he was a legitimate target.  Surely we are entitled to say:  "What was the policy, what other decisions were taken in relation to that policy and where did you not call  your operatives off, but you actually allowed them to kill them", in order to test whether or not Evans was a legitimate target within the framework of that policy.  If we are prohibited, as my learned friend objects that we cannot deal with other matters, there cannot be any full disclosure.  Of course there are difficulties facing the applicants.  They will say:  "Well, we haven't applied for amnesty for these things, therefore we, if we give evidence here albeit it is not admissible against us in any criminal prosecution, we may on the information that may become available, be prosecuted."  They have made their bed, Mr Chairman, and they must sleep on it.  It was they who chose to choose the four or five acts in respect of which there were no deaths, they chose to apply for amnesty only for those violations of fundamental human rights which came to the fore in the Harms Commission, they have decided to keep quiet about everything else.  We cannot be prohibited in terms of the Act from inquiring to what else they have done, but in relation in particular to this witness, who is one of the leaders, we have already got an unqualified admission on, he must know if he even says at the end of his application, "if you can remind me of anything, I will deal with it".  Well, we want to take him up on it and remind him of many things, Mr Chairman, that happened during his stewardship of the CCB whilst he was one of the figures and I submit with the greatest respect, that we cannot be prohibited from asking relevant questions to the matters that we have raised in the Heads of Argument and what I have supplemented, but we do agree with you, Mr Chairman, that we do not have to go into the minutia in relation to the happening of every particular act and we will naturally obey any ruling by you Mr Chairman and Members of the Committee if we try and stray too far, but to be gagged on the grounds of irrelevancy in relation to what was the nature of the conspiracy, what was its policy, what was its extent and how many people they successfully killed, would be an undue restraint on us and not in terms of the ...(indistinct) of the Act.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Wessels, do you have any response?  Do you want some time or whatever?

MR WESSELS: Yes.  Mr Chairman, Mr Bizos says that  my client elected to make application for only these few matters or offences that we're dealing with now.  If Mr Bizos had read his application, he will see that there are a number of other offences that he also made application for here in this application and some of those have been dealt with and others or another one is to be dealt with in due course.  We have been brought here only on these three matters where we've made application for amnesty. 	Mr Chairman, the Act gives you jurisdiction in terms of Section 20 to grant amnesty.  After considering an application for amnesty, if that act or omission or offence to which the application relates, is an act associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflict of the past in accordance of the provisions of (ii) and (iii) and the applicant has made a full disclosure of all relevant facts, it shall grant amnesty in respect of that act, omission or offence.  It is not so wide as to allow you to deal with all matters that may have ensued over 10 or 20 years, apart from that particular act.  If that had been the intention, it would have been possible to frame it more widely than it did.  If that is the intention, then certainly this Committee will be busy with the CCB for a very long time, if we have to deal with all those issues.
	It is my submission that you are here to deal with all relevant facts concerning these various offences for which amnesty has been applied for, that you are not here to go outside that and have a review of the Harms Commission and to all aspects of the CCB internally or externally.  We have been brought here, we've prepared only on the basis of these three offences for which the applicant has applied for amnesty and it is my submission that you should restrict the questioning in so far as relevancy is concerned, to these issues and anything that can contribute to these particular three offences.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Anybody else wish to make any submissions?