Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-16

MR VERSTER: About a week.  And in that week - you must keep in mind that the statements of, I think, Kalla Botha and Ferdi Barnard and Slang and the rest, their statements were already there and the police then tried to interrogate me, but I did not speak to anyone.  I think eventually I answered a question for 15 minutes in detention but it was part of this intimidation attempt.  I do know the names of the persons.  And during the Harms Commission I was there to supplement this thing about another incident for which I've already received amnesty, when I said that I will no longer lie along and according to the State's plans and I was called by a Brigadier and he said that "the Minister says that tonight we will withdraw your legal team if you do not speak up the following morning 8 o'clock."  And that night I decided I shall not speak to anyone any longer and that night I decided that to prevent the further lies, I will not go to the Commission at all, but nobody knew this.
	The following morning the telephone rang and it was Gen Jan Geldenhuys and Gen Jan Geldenhuys then said that he wishes me luck - this was the first time that he called me, and they were all concerned whether I would expose them the following day or not.  Then I just stayed away and the reaction to this stay-away of mine as a witness, who was the Managing Director of this terrible CCB, said that they will get me in future.  To me it was as if it was a confirmation that things were happening here in the Commission that were purposefully aimed against the CCB and myself as a person.  
	I would like to just get back to the authorisation.  I understand what the current circumstances are, I feel that I am not dependent on the approval of Gen Webb, I am not afraid to admit anything, I'm not afraid of anyone.  I admit - and it is in writing, that I had signed the documents, but it is not practically possible in the financial plan as it was originally correct, that I could commence projects that I under the command of Gen Webb, could steal money from his headquarters where I may not go or could receive a limpet mine from his stores where I could not go.  Or whatever came from Special Forces, it was not possible for me to go there to go and get it.  But there was a written principle guideline for all Commanders, and that was that a Commander functions two levels down.  That means that Gen Webb can speak to me at my level and he can speak to Staal Burger, I can speak to Christo Britz and Slang van Zyl, or I may speak to Christo Britz and Staal Burger, but the detail on the ground, I do not have the direct facts, but my responsibility is to those two levels and ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: Mr Chairman, with respect, a simple question was asked, I would appeal to you, Mr Chairman, to direct the witness to answer this simple question.  He has been speaking for the last 10 minutes.  He has counsel to re-examine him, Mr Chairman.  If we are to make any progress, I would appeal to you, Mr Chairman, that the witness be directed to answer the questions directly so that we can get on with the matter.

MR VERSTER: Chairperson, may I just ask, I am of the opinion, it is an attempt on my side to put the facts forward so that questions can be asked of me, because we will ask questions about the same thing for the next three weeks.  I thought that maybe I should provide you with the guidelines in order to assist the Commission.  And this is all in regard to what I had asked now and now I am speaking with regard to the authorisation itself, whether an authorisation was given or not.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes I think, Mr Bizos, he's explaining why his evidence as transcribed in this document, is so very different to what he's saying.  I'll allow him to proceed, but I'll ask you to bear in mind just to restrict your answer to the explanations as to why it's different.  I think we've a good idea of what your attitude was at that time, that you felt that - well you strongly felt that you and the people of Region 6 were being made scapegoats etcetera, etcetera, and we've got that, so ...

MR VERSTER: I understand that, thank you very much, Chairperson.
	With regard to the authorisation I wish to say that all these projects, whether they were monitoring or not, developed over a period of time, over a period of time of a few months, which was accompanied by a procedure which I could not forge, that I could not conspire to do it differently because I did not have it in me personally to find money and equipment to do what I wanted to do with it, and we had our weekly meetings.  So it could have easily have happened that we spoke about Region 6 and I present all the regions to the Chairperson, the General, he knows what the projects were, but there could have been a misunderstanding, the way I interpreted it, where he said yes.  But that project was not just put together just like that, it was just a following step that had developed over five months, in yearly, quarterly and half-yearly presentations and the final presentation was before there was a clear decision about it.  And I will accede that Gen Webb may have misunderstood me.  I have already said that I authorised it.  Now that authorisation was part of the State's manner to prove that Verster was doing what he wanted to do, Verster had developed and established a secret organisation and used 30-million and used this to make war.  I stand by my point that that is not what I did.  And afterwards I realised that the region would have a further problem if I do not stand by what we have said, and that is that the project had been authorised and that we had received money in a legal manner and equipment was received in a legal way, and everywhere I put it in that manner.  Thank you, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Verster.

UNKNOWN: Mr Verster, we can continue for a very long time like this, and you say that then there was a dispute with regard to the authorisation.  Your evidence at the Harms Commission indicates that there was no dispute with regard to the authorisation, but let us read from page 1629 and 1630 and further.  Exhibit G, Chairperson.
"Now we are ad idem that there was a project with regard to, existed with regard to Gavin Evans.  That is as I have told you, it was with regard to monitoring."
		"No, I refer to a project to eliminate Gavin Evans."
		"No, there was no such authorisation."
		"There was no such authorisation.  So in other words, if there is evidence before this Commission that there was a project launched to kill Gavin Evans, it was not submitted to yourself or Gen Webb?"
Then you give another explanation and then you continue and -
"You say there was no authorisation to eliminate him?"
		"That's correct."
		"There was no authorisation by Gen Webb, do I have it correctly?"
And your answer -
"To eliminate him?"
		"Yes, and there was no authorisation by yourself?"
		"That is how I said it, yes."
		"Was there a submission made to you for his elimination?"
		"No, except monitoring, there was not."
	So I put it to you this is contrary to what you are saying today.  And I continue on page 1631, at the bottom -
"If money was spent on a plan that was aimed to eliminate Mr Gavin Evans, then you do not have any knowledge of this?"
		"That is correct."
And then it is put to you that the persons could have done anything - all these things on their own.  You may comment on it, I won't go any further.

MR VERSTER: I would like to comment ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: May I just finish my statements?  Adv Bertelsman(?) who asked you
"And similarly we come to the same conclusion with regard to the proposed elimination of Dullah Omar?"
		"No, there was no proposed elimination."
Now you can comment.