Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — 1997-10-14

CHAIRPERSON: That should be your last question before lunch, yes, I don't mean it's the end of your questioning because I think we will come back after lunch at two, do you want to put - or should we adjourn now?

MR GOOSEN: Mr Chairperson perhaps we could take the adjournment, that would be fine and we will pick up after lunch.

CHAIRPERSON: I was saying two, but the suggestion is that maybe we should resume at quarter to.  You would be okay?

MR R F BOTHA: Yes no if you say so, I was not bargaining on such a long session quite frankly, but...

CHAIRPERSON: I am sure that we will have I mean finished by - maybe we have another 30 minutes or so.  Okay.  We resume at quarter to two.  Thank you.
HEARING ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: I am going to ask Glen to continue but I can assure you we are, the end is nigh.  Yes Glen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.  Mr Botha just to refer to page 43 of your submission and I will read it through as introduction to the question where you state that
"Not one of us in the former government can say today that there were no suspicions on our part that members of the South African Police were engaged in irregular activities.  The decisive question is not whether we as a Cabinet approved the killing of a specific political opponent, the question is whether we should have done more to ensure that it did not happen".
Is it not so, Mr Botha, that you and your Cabinet colleagues, at the very least by not acting on the suspicions you had but certainly by adopting and approving security policies formulated in language which has been described as at least ambiguous, in other instances unfortunate, but language which was widely used at the time, that in so doing you created a climate in which irregular or illegal activities by the security forces were sanctioned?

MR R F BOTHA: The result I suppose will be that such a climate was created but such a climate was not created intentionally, there is no question about it - this country was at war.  There was a conflict.  I tried at length to explain what newspapers reported in this country, what everybody said, you could go to a hairdresser, barber shop and hear what the people talk there and said but can't the police act more militantly.  Have you heard about that farmer and his wife whose throats were cut last night near Zeerust in the most gruesome manner.  This was the climate.  And I admitted here today that I made a distinction and most people in this country made a distinction between people who crossed the borders secretly and killed other people innocently, and mere political opponents.
 I can again just give you the assurance that we did not take decisions to kill political opponents.  You will find it nowhere, in no record and in no discussion because that was not in our minds at all, and I made it clear that I would have been against that.  That would have been the end of my career in the Cabinet and in the National Party.
 What I said and I admitted is that when you read in the papers that there has been this and then again this, and again this, should we not have challenged them, should we not have done more.  I fell morally, yes, despite what I did personally, it might not be important to you but to me it was important, what I did, and despite that I say I still think I could have done more.  I can't take it further than that.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much Mr Botha.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Boraine.

DR BORAINE: Thank you Chairperson.  Mr Botha there are only two points I want to make in conclusion.  The first I want to identify myself with the comments made by the Chairperson after your - the latter part of your presentation, and to say that it is my experience that what you have said, particularly on page 43, 44, is much more, substantially more than anyone else in the former government has ever done, and I would like to thank you for that.
 I think what some of us are concerned about is that - the point you make on page 42 and the sentence which begins -
"I want to emphasise that neither the SSC nor the Cabinet was a sinister structure divorced from the sentiments of the voters and the institutions which the government represented".
In other words, and I think you've used quite a few words to explain and to say that there was a climate in the country, and frankly some of your supporters were asking you to even go way beyond what the security forces were doing in order to maintain the position of the government.  Is something of your own sense, moral sense, that greater degree of leadership of the white voters, a phrase you use, to help them beyond the sense of wanting to crush the enemy and not taking seriously the fact that the vast majority of people in the country were unrepresented in Parliament, were oppressed, were denied, one of the areas, and perhaps you did this in many of your own statements regarding black presidents and so on, do you feel a sense that greater leadership could have been given, by yourself, by your colleagues, rather than following the sentiments of most white voters who were extremely negative and pretty bloodthirsty in relation to the conflict?  That's the first part of the question.
 The second follows on directly and that is we understand that you wrote a letter to, I think it was Roelf Meyer, you will correct me if I am wrong, with the intent that he should share this with the then President de Klerk, or he may have been Deputy-President at the time, suggesting or at least raising the possibility that members of your Cabinet, former Cabinet, should at least consider applying for amnesty.  We understand that that was actually put and that this was turned away from. Why would you want to suggest that?  Was it in relation to this vacuum of leadership at one stage or a sense of moral responsibility for things that you thought may be happening but didn't test out or what was in your mind when you wanted to suggest that the entire Cabinet should actually apply for amnesty?