Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-05-06

MR VISSER: You see Mr Ismail from the point of view of the victims they find it hard to understand how they could have been part of what was identified as a military machine when some of them were mere typists, telephonists, people who worked with books, but they were employed by the government, yes.  But they find it very hard to understand that.  What do you say to them?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson no military machine will work without all these administrative people as well.  A military machine is part of a whole and the whole was targeted. They are legitimate targets.

MR VISSER: Alright.  So that's what you have to say to them.  Now, my next question is this perhaps just before tea time if you will allow me Mr Chairman.  Perhaps we can break now.  It's three minutes to eleven Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: It's a convenient time.  Yes we will take a tea adjournment now.
HEARING ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: (s.u.o.)

MR VISSER: (cont)
	Thank you Chairperson.  Mr Ismail just to refresh your memory, just before the adjournment we were discussing the question of the Church Street bomb and the question whether the target that was hit was a - "military target".  I think you described it somewhere in your papers or in your evidence as an "overwhelmingly military target".  Am I correct?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: That is so.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Now I want to ask you this.  Once you have identified a "military target", do you go further to attempt to draw a differentiation between a soft military target and a hard military target with specific reference to the Church Street bomb?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson in this instance we targeted personnel.

MR VISSER: Are you thereby saying that you gave no consideration to the question whether the personnel which you targeted were to be regarded or could be regarded as a hard target or a soft target?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson State military targets all are military targets.  If you wish to classify them as hard targets, those are words that others use.

MR VISSER: No Mr Ismail with respect to you it is words which the ANC used particularly after the Kabwe Conference in 1985, isn't that so?  Those are the words of your President, erstwhile President Mr Tambo.

CHAIRPERSON: Where you mean hard and soft targets?

MR VISSER: Yes Mr Chairman.  Where he stated quite categorically that from that time onwards one would see the difference between hard and soft targets disappear.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: That is so.

MR VISSER: Yes.  My learned friend has the reference at hand.  It's page 13 Mr Chairman of a Sishaba of August 1985.  I believe it's in your documents as well.  But what we will do Mr Chairman is we will make up a bundle for you for reference purposes in due course.  Perhaps I should just read this.  It's at page 13.  He says
"Therefore the struggle must be intensified at all costs.  The question of soft targets was quite out of place during World War 2 to mention a big war.  Ours will be a small one but we are fighting the same kind of system.  It was Hitler who attacked. It is the apartheid system here which attacked and we are fighting that system.  Our own version of Nazism.  I think the distinction between hard and soft targets is being erased by the development of the conflict."
Not so?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR VISSER: Now in the light of having been refreshed what your President had stated let me repeat the question.  When you considered to attack that particular building, the Air Force Headquarters in Pretoria, in Church Street at that particular time of day, as a military target did you stop for a moment to consider whether it was a hard or a soft military target?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson what we considered was that there were military personnel there that we wanted to strike at.  We wanted to show that it was not only MK soldiers that bled.  Because we know that the only way that you could rip the apartheid war machine open was to deal with the soft underbelly, because we believed that the SADF could not take casualties.  We struck at enemy personnel, military personnel.

MR VISSER: Yes.  To put it in the words again in ANC parlance, you struck at the "soft underbelly", not so?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Do you seriously suggest that you can compare the victims, all of the victims of the Church Street bomb with MK cadres, as you have just suggested?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson not all of the victims we know were military personnel, but ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: Well take it, take even the military personnel, you can take them as well.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: ...but, when people enter the Defence Force, when they work, when they are typists and others that work for the Defence Force they become part of that military machine.  During World War 2 more civilians died than military people.  During World War 2 in order to get at the Nazi beast the Allies went in and went on bombing, blanket bombings.  In those days they  couldn't target specific targets.  They bombed cities. All of those are considered legitimate.  Were they tried - no!  They were considered victors.  They were considered as people, they were considered as liberators from the Nazi beast.
	In our case we considered we had to destroy, by whatever means we had at our disposal, those security forces which defended apartheid, and that's what we struck at.

MR VISSER: I want to put it to you Mr Ismail, that per definition this particular target was a soft target in the language of any South African.  Do you disagree or agree with that?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson a military, when you fight what do you do - you kill people.  At the end you don't go and destroy just the weaponry and leave people.  At the end it is people that pull the triggers.  Those same people are the ones before they get into those headquarters or whatever they've been trained militarily.  They are part of a military machine.  The military is the military - they were targets.

MR VISSER: And you wanted to kill as many of them as possible, that much is clear.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Absolutely certainly.

MR VISSER: yes.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: They tried to kill as many of us.

MR VISSER: When was that?  What are you referring to now?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: They, the SADF, the Police and others have been killing the people of this country long before we even took up arms.

MR VISSER: Well Mr Ismail I suggest to you that's a sweeping statement.  I am not going to go into the detail of that.  It falls outside the scope of what I am busy with doing right at the moment.
	Can I give you an analogy.  If I understand you correctly you say military personnel, all organs of State were legitimate targets, particularly the personnel who manned them, not so, that's what you are saying?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: It was especially the military.

MR VISSER: And more especially the military.  And therefore, as far as you  are concerned, to achieve the political objective, whatever that may have been, and we know what you have said, you decided that this was a legitimate target in terms of ANC policy.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR VISSER: I've got that right.  I want to ask by analogy would you have had the same viewpoint if the South African government had sent people to London to bomb the ANC offices in London and it turned out later that they were completely unconcerned as to whether civilians were affected or not, having specific regard - before you answer - having specific regard that what you would have in the London office would be, normally would be administrative staff, how would you feel about that?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson the apartheid state did in fact bomb our London offices ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: Yes but no answer the question.