Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-12

MR LAX: You see, I want to question what you are saying in essence, because that is not how Mr Verster put it to us the last time we were here.
	The proposals for these actions, came from you guys, as the kinds of projects you were suggesting should be carried out.  You were the people who made those proposals, you made the presentations to the Regional Managers for their consent and approval.  There is a big difference between taking orders and putting forward a proposal which you want them to approve and that is really the emphasis of my question.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: My first instruction, when a project was identified or a target was identified,  being elimination or burning it out, I would receive an instruction from my Regional Manager who would tell me, here we have information, let's name the bus incident, "here is information relating to the bus incident, I want you to do a pre-study about how this bus would have to be burnt out" and with this instruction I would come to Cape Town and I would meet my structure, I would make a proposal, I would put the proposal in writing and I would send it back, or I would submit it to the Regional Manager.  As a result of this proposal, an "in-house" is held where the project would then, at the end of the day, be approved or altered a little bit.

MR LAX: So, if I understand you correctly, you are saying the initiative came from above, you simply did the reconnaissance, the fact gathering and so on, and then sent it back up and the decisions were taken at that level?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is absolutely so, Mr Chairperson.  The initiative did not lay with us at grassroots level, we did not identify people and persons and say "here is Mr X and we propose that he be eliminated".  Those instructions came from the top, and we were only part of the preparation that was made in order to execute these instructions.

MR LAX: And as I have said earlier, in my lead into the question, that is in essence a different view to how Mr Verster put it to us when he testified?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It might be the case.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Thank you Mr Lax.   Mr van Zyl, let's clarify the various stages of the evolution of a project, because it is going to come up again and again.
	Before you would make a written presentation to the Co-ordinator, Mr Basson, what would happen?  What would cause you to start taking steps?
	For instance in the Omar case, you said that you were given names about certain prominent figures, you came up with the name of Mr Omar, take us through the next stage before you start preparing this written document, that you would give to Mr Basson, what you call a "voor-studie"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Is this specifically regarding Mr Omar?

MR KAHANOVITZ: No, no, just in general terms.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: What would happen is I would either receive an instruction from the Co-ordinator or from the Regional Manager, that would be specific and it would tell me "go and investigate the possibility that this site must be damaged, or go and investigate the possibility that this person would have to be eliminated."  In other words, I would then receive an instruction to do a preliminary study and then I would have to come back.
	I would have to contact my structure and I would evaluate the situation and investigate it and then I would go back to my Regional Manager, with the post possible proposal or to the Co-ordinator and I would say to them "listen, I propose that this project can be executed in the following manner."

MR KAHANOVITZ: Let's pause there, because you have already given evidence that Adv Omar's name was not handed to you from above, but in fact was supplied by you from below, as a consequence of information that was fed to you by your informants based in the Western Cape?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, what I said is that it is the case that Min Omar's name was given to me by my structure and then that I gave this name to the Co-ordinator so that the Co-ordinator could process it.
	But the instruction, the further instruction in terms of Min Omar, came from the senior structure, to do a preliminary study.  The gathering of the information, that phase relating to Omar, was a secondary part of my work, and I executed it and I did it, but I did not necessarily expect them to come back to me relating to Min Omar and say to me "prepare a project".  
	They could take this information and they could have given this information to a person in another region to handle it, or they could have given it to another person who was in my cell, to handle it.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Two central questions I would imagine that are involved on each occasion - who is the target, who is the target; why are they a target and thirdly, what steps should be taken against that target.  Do you agree with me, those are obviously three central issues.

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

MR KAHANOVITZ: When you present your written "voor-studie", would you deal with those issues?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.  Because in my preliminary study, a target had already been identified to me and this target would be identified to me by the command structure.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Yes, but Mr van Zyl, obviously they want to know from you as the man on the ground, as regards what steps should be taken.  Please Mr van Zyl, tell us in your "voor-studie", are we talking about breaking a window here, burning a car, or killing the person?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, when I receive my instructions regarding a preliminary study, they would say to me as was the case with Omar, a preliminary study would have to be done, so that he could be eliminated.
	A preliminary study would have to be done in terms of the bus, so that it could be burnt.  I will receive my instruction, it is not a case of me getting a cheque that I can fill in any amount.   I will just follow specific instructions.

MR KAHANOVITZ: So the "voor-studie" is merely concerned with the strategy and the tactics that should be employed in order to achieve the objective that is being handed to you by your superiors?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, if we take the burning of the bus, you said that you were told by Peaches, was it, that the bus belonged to a SWAPO member who were transporting people to and fro for a trail, is that right?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Then you would have then fed that information to your Head Office, is that right?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is so.

CHAIRPERSON: But would you at that stage have said, made any recommendation that the bus should be burnt or the SWAPO member should be killed?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, not at all.

CHAIRPERSON: So you just say "there is a bus, there is a microbus, a kombi, that is ferrying people to and from a trial that we believe belongs to a SWAPO member, fullstop?"

MR KAHANOVITZ: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: So somebody then makes a decision rather to burn the bus than to slash its tyres and to kill the owner, that comes from somebody else, and you have no input in that at all?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No.  That is absolutely correct.

CHAIRPERSON: So your instruction is then to investigate the possibility of burning the bus, not just "investigate and come back to us with what would be the best course to follow"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Regarding my projects, I had specific instructions that I received and I can explain myself in this way, and I can say that in my cases, regarding all my projects, I had clear instructions and no proposals came from my side, saying that we had to do this or that.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Kahanovitz?

MR KAHANOVITZ: But Mr van Zyl, I am finding this very difficult to understand because just imagine a conversation with you and Mr Basson, okay, you are now going to tell Mr Basson "I've received this information about this microbus, what I can tell you, there is a microbus, it is in Cape Town, it belongs to someone from SWAPO, it is used to transport people to a terrorism trial"?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.