Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-12

MR VISSER: And Wasserman and Du Preez and the two informants went down to Goolal.  What time of the day was it?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Chairperson I think this was during the afternoon.

MR VISSER: You're driving to Swaziland and the first place that you find is where it says Hluthi, that's not right at the town but where the eye of Hluthi is, there is a crossing there, it looks like?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is that correct.

MR VISSER: How did you travel from there?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: From Hluthi we turned right in the direction of Lavumisa.

MR VISSER: So you travelled back to Lavumisa?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: No Chairperson, we drove onwards in the directions of Malome over Sitobela, Sipho Fanene on the way to Manzini.

MR VISSER: Is that road any good or what do you say?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Up to Sipho Fanene, it's a gravel road and from there to Manzini it's tarred.

MR VISSER: Wasserman and Du Preez will give evidence as to what happened to them, but what was the plan?  That you would go in at Onverwagt and they would go in at Goolal?  Please explain to the Committee what the plan was?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Chairperson, the idea was or the plan was that the two informants would drive with the bakkie.  After they crossed over the border illegally through the fencing and Wasserman and Du Preez would take the vehicle through the border post and they would give the bakkie to the informants who would travel on their own to Manzini and the two informers had to meet Zandile.

MR VISSER: Now when was this arranged?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: This was an appointment that was set up beforehand.

MR VISSER: Before this day?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, you must forgive me for jumping around but I believe that it would give you a better picture of how these matters stick together if we do just that.
	In Exhibit H reference is made to this appointment by MK Jones, it's on page 4 and in paragraph 2 he says that Zandile was in charge of the logistics, money, weapons, services etc. and that she had contact with various units internally, internally probably refers to the Republic of South Africa but it doesn't matter and she reported to the political wing in Swaziland.  And paragraph 3 says:
"One of the units made contact with Fila"
that's Zandile
"and said that they needed armaments.  She gave them a meeting place near Big Bend on a farm near the border"
and they didn't turn up and later - and she refers to a Richard and a Bulelani and they arrived, that's what paragraph 4 says and then in 5 this exhibit says that:
"Members of this unit phoned Fila and told her they would come into Swaziland for the weaponry a day later."
And then he continues and he describes how she got into a bakkie together with two other people, he could not identify because they had Balaclava's on their heads which was pulled up and was on top of their heads and he was three or four vehicles away form them so he couldn't identify them and that was the last time he saw Zandile.  
	Now to return the story you or the informers had an appointment with Zandile.  In the light of what we find in Exhibit H that it was about weapons, can you give us any comment on that, or what reasons they used to make contact with her?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: What's contained in paragraph 3 and 4 - what's written there, I cannot confirm that.

MR VISSER: But what you know is that contact was made and it was on the grounds of that contact that this whole operation in Swaziland was launched?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct.

MR VISSER: What was the purpose why you Taylor and Vorster went to Manzini?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: We would observe the meeting and when she would have gotten into the car with the informant, we would have made sure that they were not followed, that the vehicle was safe and that would get her safely and abduct her.

MR VISSER: The three vehicles you were travelling in, were you in radio contact with each other?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Two of the vehicles were in radio contact with each other, that's the vehicle of Du Preez and the vehicle of Taylor.

MR VISSER: Taylor's vehicle and what other vehicle?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: The bakkie.

MR VISSER: The bakkie.

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Sorry, I apologise, not the bakkie the bus.

MR VISSER: So the car and the bus were in radio contact?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes.

MR VISSER: The bakkie didn't have a radio in it.  When did you see Wasserman and Du Preez the next time.

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: When we got to the appointed place the bakkie was already there.

MR VISSER: And what this appointed place?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: It was a place at the George Hotel in Manzini.

MR VISSER: So the bakkie was already there?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: It's a one way street, the bakkie was parked in front of the hotel.  A whole way behind the bakkie we also stopped, we called Du Preez on the radio, they were parked in the same street in front of us, about a hundred, two hundred metres in front of us and in front of the bakkie.

MR VISSER: And then what did you see, what happened?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: I saw that Zandile came to the bakkie and she spoke to the informants and she got in and she sat between the two of them in the front of the bakkie.  I informed Du Preez on the radio that she did indeed get into the vehicle.  They left with the bus to a place which we already predetermined where we'd meet and where we'd grab her.  We followed the bakkie and we made sure that the bakkie was safe.

MR VISSER: Carry on?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: When we approached the specific point, that's just after the turn off from Manzini to Sipho Fanene, there was a parking area on the left hand side of the road and the bus was already there in place and the bakkie stopped directly next to the bus and we stopped on the left hand side of the bakkie with the result that the informants, when they opened their right door and the sliding door of the bus that was open, one could in one movement take Zandile from that vehicle into the bus.

MR VISSER: So do I understand you correctly, there was no force placed on her in order to get her into the bakkie.  She did that voluntarily?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR VISSER: Convenient at this stage to refer to volume 4, page 462 which is an article in the Sowetan dated the 3rd February 1995 which pretends to be and probably is as a result of an interview with one Jones, which may or may not be the same person as the one mentioned in Exhibit H but we will suggest probably is and he sets out, Mr Chairman, very much the same as this witnessed has testified to and in the third column Mr Chairman, I'm just looking for it, if you'll allow me a second?  Well it's really in the big quotation here, already summarised
"The comrades she was supposed to meet were in a bakkie, they were wearing rolled balaclavas on their heads and she obviously thought everything was okay as she went with them" etc.
Which seems to coincide and my attorney points out that page 464A of the same bundle, Mr Chairman, there is reference to Zandile in the first column under the heading Fila Ndwandwe, just about some background as far as she is concerned.
	Anyway, Mr Botha, so you got to the place where you explained to us you'd made the interception.  What happened them, the vehicles came to a standstill, what happened next?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: The combi's left door was already open, the bakkie's right hand door was also open already, they moved with Zandile, the informers, with Zandile out.  I got out, I stood at the sliding door of the Combi.  Zandile was taken and her hands were tied together with masking tape.

MR VISSER: And now she was in the Combi?