Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

JEREMY CRONIN: The self-defence units were self-defence units, they were there to defend people, they were not there to launch offensive violence.  It is possible that renegade - in fact it's not possible, it's a fact that in some instances renegade self-defence units often infiltrated by a third force - in fact, in every instance that we know of it was a case of infiltration but self defence units which were not ANC but were certainly aligned to or proclaimed an alliance towards the ANC.
	There were cases where these things went off the rails and took the initiative to launch offensive violence against other members of the community, something that we deeply regret, something which we don't just deeply regret now in retrospect but which we were deeply concerned about at the time and which Chris Hani amongst others, intervened into actively in order to prevent.

MS VAN DER WALT: No further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS VAN DER WALT

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mpshe, any questions?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: No questions Mr Chairman, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Any re-examination Mr Bizos?

GEORGE BIZOS: No questions, thank you Mr Chairman.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MR BIZOS

CHAIRPERSON: Andrew?

JUDGE WILSON: ...[inaudible] I can't speak for the rest of the country but certainly in Natal in certain instances, the SDU's just became local gangsters and terrorised the whole community, is that one of your problems?

JEREMY CRONIN: Absolutely, I accept that and it was certainly one of our problems at the time and remains a matter of concern - deep concern.

SISI KHAMPEPE: But Mr Cronin, as you have stated - but just in passing, shouldn't you be emphasising that the SDU's were never an ANC formation?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, no they weren't, they were - we took responsibility as the ANC and as the alliance, to help communities where requested to launch SDU's, so we assumed some political responsibility but you will see again in the quotations that we've used from Chris Hani, that in the week before his assassination he was proposing - let me just find the appropriate quotation on that issue - on page eight, the second paragraph.  That follows the other paragraphs from this speech that he gave on April the 2nd on the East Rand where he says
"Look there's this mixed track record and some have gone off the rails, it's a huge problem"
And he lists the reasons and he says:
"We now need to debate the merits and possible problems of formally locating the township SDU's within the structure of the National Peace Accord.  We need at least to think and to debate this possibility"
In other words, what he's saying is: "We've had some responsibility for their launching, we must continue to have responsibility for problems but they're not ANC structures, they're community defence structures and isn't therefore the appropriate home for them - the National Peace Accord".  
	He was floating that idea and obviously the process overtook us but you can see where his thinking was travelling and that was in line with our conception of self-defence.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.
	Mr Bizos, before we adjourn, can you indicate what is going to happen tomorrow?

GEORGE BIZOS: The intention is to call Mr Visser whom we asked to be here at 8H30 tomorrow morning and we hope that he will be here Mr Chairman and the other is Mr Clarke.  Neither our attorney nor Mr Mpshe have been able to communicate with him at the telephone number that was given to us by Mrs Derby-Lewis, we don't know what we're going to do but it seems unlikely that we will establish contact with him between now and then and even if we do or the information that we have that he isn't likely to rush to the Commission tomorrow even if we get hold of him. 	So we will have to have some discussion in relation to that but as presently advised those are the two persons that are still outstanding as far as we are concerned Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mpshe, are you likely to call any witnesses?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: No, Mr Chairman.

JUDGE WILSON: Is de Waal no longer a potential witness?

GEORGE BIZOS: ...[inaudible]  even the contact number.  We have asked the police officers to help us but we have not had any response back.  We've asked Mr Mpshe to ask the Commissioner's office, on the assumption that they have names - they keep contact with the people that were in the force and I'm sure that they do but don't think that Mr Mpshe has had any response from those quarters.
	It's a matter which came to our notice - Mrs Derby-Lewis's allegations were only made in the beginning of this week, so we couldn't have done anything about that before.

CHAIRPERSON: Very well, I'm now going to adjourn this meeting and the Committee will now resume at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning and not at 9H30, we adjourn.
WITNESS EXCUSED
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS