Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-11

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Ja.  Yes Sir, this was discussions I had with Wouter Basson.  I argued this matter also in the presence then of Surgeon-General Nieuwoudt.  At the meeting I think the 2 I/C, my friend General Knobel might have been present, Charl Jackson might have been present.  This was sort-of the more formal meetings to establish this company and how should the company be established.  I was quite prepared that we establish this as a military unit under the control, the financial and hierarchial structure in the military, because I worked in a government department, strictly controlled, budgeted, all the bureaucratic things in place.  I have dealt with the military for many years and I have no problem in working for "volk en vaderland" for this matter inside the military.
 The final arguments pushed from Wouter's side basically was that, no, we cannot do this in a military milieu because the movement of the production side of the company will be too slow in the bureaucratic systems.  
 Secondly, you will not be able to recruit the very top scientists which were needed into the military situation.  And it was agreed upon then by the Surgeon-General, and I also supported the point at that stage then that we do this as a front company.  
 But Mr Chairman you must also remember now this was just the post-info scandal and the public and the government and the politicians and everyone was very, very aware of the mismanagement of taxpayers' money.  And that was why I said look, I don't want to be involved in the info thing, this is taxpayers' money, I want to have it clean etc, etc.  And I brought up the thing of doing it within the military per se then.
 But once agreed upon that it should be a front company, a clandestine operation, we set about to do that.

CHAIRPERSON: Can Dr Randera ask a clarification question.

UNKNOWN: Dr Goosen just make us understand at the time of setting up the company you decide to ask Dr Basson who is he, where does he come from?  You are making enquiries as to his status within the military establishment.  But when you talked earlier on about passing on toxins to him, whether it be snake venom or endotoxins, were you not asking those questions already and not made up your mind as to who this person was and what his status was?  Because surely you are not going to hand over work that has been scientifically done by your colleagues, because that's what I understood you to be saying?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Yes, yes, no, Mr Chairman I understand your question, I can reply to that, that it's two different matters.  The one I have no doubt that he was connected to the military.  I had no doubt that he was connected to special operations.  I had no doubt that he had a lot of very, very top information on the war situation.  He recited for us, many times, the structures of the ANC.  Who were the enemies etc, etc, he convinced us of this threat and what the people planned etc, etc.  So that was no problem that I knew he was connected and I knew he was from the military.  We had formal official projects.
 If I import a dog from Israel, a special desert dog that could withstand the desert conditions in Namibia and give him this dog to go and fight a war, that's one thing.  Giving him a bit of poison - I know he was fighting in the war and I assumed it to be legitimate for the government then.
 But if he comes to you and says "look, I want you to sacrifice your career", I was at that stage '82, what 30, 35, something like that.  I was - we can recite the few of my - if you want to establish my credentials but I was young and I had a promising career.  I had to sacrifice that to go into this effort on this man's word.  Then I wanted to know more, really, did he have the backing of millions to establish this facility ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: Sorry Dr Goosen you've answered my question.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Chaskalson.

MR CHASKALSON: So it was decided that a front company would be formed.  Can you tell us what the brief that you were given for this front company was?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Yes Mr Chairman.  The brief for the company developed.  It started off as one thing and then it expanded.  The first instruction or the first line of thought was to establish an evaluating facility.  This is exactly the same facility as we planned to do.  In other words use animals, animal models to determine the effectivity, in this case the lethality, or damaging effect of substances using animals as models.
 I have then learnt, and this was in the very early days before we officially launched the company, it expanded the brief that there was a chemical company already producing chemical weapons, chemical substances.  It remains a weapon.  And there was no facility to produce biological weapons.  So it expanded then or it later on also included to create an ability for the country to test, in the first place; and secondly, develop biological and even chemical weapons.
 Now Mr Chairman defensive and offensive, the whole argument, if I may elaborate one second.  Defensive and offensive was not really a topic of discussion.  We were in a war situation and a weapon is a weapon.  A weapon can be used offensively or defensively.  So I have a bit of a problem with all this big discussions around was it a defensive capability or was it an offensive capability.  It was a capability.  The applications of the weapons was not supposed to be our problem.  But in discussions I've had and already outlined to you, there was no doubt in my mind, and there was no doubt in anybody's mind, that it was offensive, intended to be used offensively.
 There are certain things which cannot be explained as being defensively, and I don't want to go into details.  One can speak to the broader principles and put the issue aside for once and for all.
 If you build a factory and planned a factory like Delta-G, which I have seen the plans and know about them, it is a factory producing to the quantities of tons, chemicals in the quantities of tons.  Okay you can produce defensive neutralising stuff in tons.  It is a possibility.
 But then our final brief, or the other brief was, and very, very important one, was to develop a product to curtail the birth rate of the black population in the country ...(intervention)

MR CHASKALSON: Could you tell us a little bit more about this.  Who asked you to develop this product?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: The person who directly instructed us or asked us to do this was Dr Basson.  Now there was a lot of talk about the ethics of this, that and the other and the rest, and he spent some time quoting to us the censorship figures of 1982 or '81 or whenever the census was, I can't remember exactly, that the census office stopped counting the black people when they reached 45 million.  And the government decided that it is not feasible to make known to the public that there was 45 million blacks.  It was just too many.  And this was mainly one of our big threats.  I think the figure of about 28 million was made known.  Now if those were true facts I wouldn't know.  Up till today I don't know.  But that was presented to us by Dr Basson.
 This very fact - now I agree again with what Dr Schalk van Rensburg said.  If you make the product and there are very, very good legitimate reasons for making the product and for my own ethics I was convinced and believed that if an ethical product, which doesn't cause pain, permanent damage etc, could be developed it could also have been in the advantage of the black people because of purely over-population.  Taking for granted that these figures were true that were quoted to me we would run out of water, we would run out of natural resources etc, etc.  I cannot deny this, gentlemen, this is what we discussed.  This was why we started.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Sooka.