Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-10-03

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Sir, that is why I told you at a previous opportunity ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: No, start off by answering the question directly, yes or no?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Mr Bizos, I once again do not want to enter into an argument with you, I cannot answer it on a yes or no, I will answer it in the way in which I can.

GEORGE BIZOS: Try to do it your way.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: This is my style, this is the way in which I answer questions, that is why I told you I was under Section 29 detention, there was confusion concerning the Harms Commission.  You heard evidence in this regard.  It was over a period of 11 years that certain things - and I have to state this for the record, that certain things I wanted to forget and certain things that I could not forget, that is why I take the opportunity to sit in front of this Commission to make a full disclosure and to give you the answers to your questions.  What is stated here is true, I cannot deny it or dispute it, but I can also say that I made this to give as much as possible to the investigative team and also to give them as little as possible.  So in front of the Harms Commission, I want you to see that in the light of the circumstances under which I made this statement.  I can see the discrepancies concerning my evidence in front of the Harms Commission, and as you pointed out, I did say in front of the Harms Commission that at a later stage I became aware of a project.  Once again it was not my project, I did not do research on this project ... was Omar supposed to fall ill because of the pill or was he supposed to be killed using this tablet or pill?  That is why I'm not applying for amnesty for the Omar incident, because it was not my project.  All these questions, and this is my submission, you had to ask of Van Zyl.  I cannot answer for him.  I cannot see the relevance of it.

GEORGE BIZOS: May I remind you that the substance of your answer in relation to a passage of time is completely irrelevant to these two documents.  You signed the document in December 1989 ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: 1990.

GEORGE BIZOS: 1989, the statement.

CHAIRPERSON: '89, sorry, thank you.

GEORGE BIZOS: You were giving evidence in 1990 and your state of mind couldn't possibly have suffered by the passage of so little a period of time about such a dramatic event as to whether or not Adv Omar was going to be killed or not, or whether you had knowledge that Adv Omar was going to be killed or not.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I will highlight two factors, the one was uncertainty, the second one was fear.  Together with that there were elements within our structure and also from the higher hierarchy who worked emotionally on the conscious members in a cell in Region 6, and based on those influences I made certain statements, right or wrong.

MR LAX: May I just interpose, Mr Bizos, may I just ask something?

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, certainly.

MR LAX: You've said it again now and you've said it earlier and I was going to ask you about it but the flow of the questioning moved on, so I was going to reserve it for later, but you said it again now, something about instructions from higher levels at the time of Harms.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct, yes.  At that stage there was uncertainty in our cell and I'm going to use a word that is used a lot, will there be backing from the Generals in Staff, will there be backing from the politicians, will the State President distance himself from us?  And because of these factors there was a lot of confusion, there was confusion in our cell about what we had to say, what we didn't or must not say.  And that was the situation that was at the order of the day.

MR LAX: Yes, that's a state of confusion, I want to know what your instructions were from the higher levels.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: As far as I can recall we had to talk about things that were known within certain guidelines.

MR LAX: Does that mean you had to withhold the truth as long as you thought it wasn't known?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I accepted that is what was said.

MR LAX: And who were the higher levels, individuals that spoke to you?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That was the message that came through and I assume it came from Verster to our Co-ordinator to our Regional Manager.  That's the impression that I had.

MR LAX: Yes, but the question is, who told you that this was the instruction?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Sir, it had to come right through from the Generals to Verster, because Verster was - there was an argument between Verster and the Generals and that is the assumption that was made.

MR LAX: No, you're not answering my question.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I can't mention a specific person, Sir.

MR LAX: No I'm saying, who told you this?  Somebody must have sat you down in a meeting or in a group and said: "Look guys, this is the instruction from above."  I'm not asking you to assume that ...(intervention)

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I accept it was Mr Burger.

MR LAX: Thank you.  Sorry Mr Bizos, please continue.

GEORGE BIZOS: Wouldn't the simple answer to my questions have been that: "We in the CCB decided not to disclose to the Harms Commission that there were any killings within the borders of South Africa, nor any conspiracies or attempts to kill within the borders of South Africa"?  Isn't that what the decision was and weren't you carrying out that instruction deliberately before Harms?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That specific instruction was not given to me.  My involvement in the Webster incident, I worked independently or I decided independently with Mr Barnard not to talk about it.  They never told me not to talk about other potential murders, because I never had such a project.  I never had a project where there would be the loss of life or the result would have been the loss of life.

GEORGE BIZOS: Do you agree that if the proposition that I put to you is correct, that there was such a decision, it would cover the contradiction between your Section 29 statement and your evidence before the Commission?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: You can read it like that, yes.  It is not how I saw it though.

MR LAX: Sorry, are you saying you didn't know at that stage of any project that involved the killing of someone internally?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: Except for the project that Mr Verster approved, this is the project of Mr Barnard where we decided we will not talk about it.  Concerning Adv Omar, my memory is a bit vague concerning that.  I know that there was a project and I spoke within the framework of what I knew at that stage, I did not think it was my place to talk about another individual's project.

MR LAX: You see my difficulty with your answer is this, at the time you testified at Harms you'd already made that statement, that Section 29 statement.

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: That is correct, but I also told the Commission yesterday what my view was concerning the Section 29 meeting.

MR LAX: Yes, but regardless of your mental condition and the affects of being incarcerated, the fact is that you told them the truth in that statement with regard to the pills and all that stuff and it's explicitly said in there that you knew that Omar was to be eliminated.  So if that is the case, how could you say that when you testified before Harms, you didn't know of any plan to kill anybody other than Webster?  Do you see the problem?

CARL CASTELING BOTHA: I do.  As you've said I knew, I could not have known one hundred percent because I was never involved in the pre-study or the approval with regard to the project.

CHAIRPERSON: Because in that statement at page 4 you say
"He further told me that Peaches was tasked to shoot Omar"
So now we know that you weren't part of the project, but I mean if your colleagues start talking, was there any reason to - you obviously had no reason to doubt that, otherwise you wouldn't have put it in the statement.