Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-24

MR VISSER: Who is 666?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: You tell me.

MR VISSER: No, no, no, you say his identity is revealed.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: No I say there are only two agents appearing in this report.

MR VISSER: Oh I see,

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: 666 and 664.

MR VISSER: Can I refer you to J2, paragraph 2?  PN684, PN677, PN678, PN689, PN 664, PN666, please Mr Maharaj, so you stand corrected?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: No, no, no, we were dealing with J1. now you jumped to J2 to prove to me that there are 4 or 5 agents?

MR VISSER: I think my question was - I don't want to belabour the point but my question to you was very clear, is there anywhere in Exhibit's J1 - J5 where the identity of an informer was revealed and you already said there wasn't.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Chairperson, I'm now being forced to say, can we play that tape of this evidence? ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: Mr Maharaj...(intervention)

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Because counsel is putting to me a question , where so far he has dealt exclusively with J1 and when I tried to go to J2 and 3 he said "Don't, we're talking J1".  Suddenly he says he put a question to me dealing with all the documents and I think that if this is going to be the attitude, I need the protection of the Court and let's listen to that recording.

MR VISSER: Alright, Mr Maharaj, the record will speak for itself and if I were unfair to you, certainly I'd be the first to apologise.  Are you prepared to accept that?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: I certainly will, I'm known for generosity.

MR VISSER: Alright.  No, no, it's not generous, it's a question of fact.  Now, there was very good reason, was there not, to protect the identity of informers on both sides, Mr Maharaj, not so?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Sure.

MR VISSER: It just made good sense.  What's the point of divulging the identity of your informer, because he would be killed, more likely than not.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Sorry, the statement is being made so wide, that very good reason to protect informer, yes.  The question here is protection within the Security forces.

MR VISSER: Yes, okay.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: That doesn't with the general, this goes to clandestine work, need-to-know principle.

MR VISSER: May I then direct your mind to the broader picture?  Would you agree with the general statement that it made good sense to protect informers in general, by both sides.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Sir, I don't know the relevance of that. ...(indistinct - talking simultaneously with Mr Visser)

MR VISSER: Don't you want to answer the question?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Well, I don't know the relevance of it.

MR VISSER: Alright.  Do you refuse to answer the question?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: No, I'm not refusing, I don't know what is the meaning of the statement that there's very good reasons why the identity of informers should be protected, from who?

MR VISSER: Right, I can't force it out of you Mr Maharaj, let's go on to the next question.  You had an informer according to your own evidence in the Security Branch in Port Natal?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: I never said an informer, I said informers.

MR VISSER: Right, many informers, alright, more than one informer.  I think that's what's generally referred to as an owl, is it?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: No, you got it wrong again.

MR VISSER: Oh, I'm sorry, I got it wrong.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: There is no Intelligence jargon called an owl.

MR VISSER: Okay, you're absolutely correct and I withdraw that and I apologise.  Are you prepared to tell us today who those persons were?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: No, Sir, because I'm not the applicant here.

MR VISSER: No, no, no that's not the point.  The point is that there's still good reason in your mind not to divulge the identity of those people, isn't that so?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: I said, if I was the applicant here, I would give the names.

MR VISSER: Yes, well I'll leave that for argument.

MR LAX: Sorry, Gentlemen, can we get a move on here.  Time is limited.  I mean both of you, please.  Let's stick to the facts, let's get through the issues as quickly as possible.

MR VISSER: I want to put it to you that Exhibit J1 and now I'm going back to J1 does not show that Mr Ndaba was not an informer by 14 February 1988.  I put it to you, that document doesn't show it.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: That he was not an informer?  I disagree.

MR VISSER: Fact, it doesn't show that he was or he wasn't.  It's totally neutral, as far as Mr Ndaba's concerned.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: It's not that neutral when Capt Botha is the handler.  It's not that neutral.  Chairperson, the paragraph we're dealing with, Mr Botha's commentary, does not oblige a commentator to comment on every aspect of a report.  He could have been silent on paragraph 37(6).  There was nothing that obliged him to put that paragraph 37(6) into his commentary.

MR VISSER: Now let's just go, very briefly, through the balance of the exhibits which you placed before this Committee.  I put to you exactly the same statement as far as Exhibit 2, 3, 4 and 5 are concerned.  None of those show, or present any ground for arguing that Mr Ndaba was not an informer of the Security Branch.  None of those documents.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Sir, I have produced these documents over a time sequence to show the manner in which Charles Ndaba was being reported upon, was to suggest that he was of intense interest to the Security Forces.  I have also said that in other instances, Security Force members have testified that as late as June 1988 they were seeking to kidnap and/or kill him in Swaziland and within the country and I am saying that Capt Botha, centrally involved in all these reports of their processing together with Taylor, could have taken measures to show that he was protecting the identity of his informant, if Charles Ndaba was an informer.  I cannot prove definitively that he was not an informant, but I can certainly help to shake the view put by the applicants which is the definitive statement that he was an informant and who say that they have no records because they shredded them.

MR VISSER: Yes.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: But I'm saying that these reports show that you would not handle it that way if you were a good Intelligence man and he was 17 years an Intelligence man.

MR VISSER: Mr Maharaj, how do you suggest that the Security Police in Durban in July 1990 know what the addresses of the safe-houses used by Operation Vula were, who the operatives were, who did they know to go and arrest, do you suggest?   How did they come by that information?