Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

<UNKNOWN>: urthermore, I have not refreshed my memory, the legislation that you refer to, to the best of my knowledge, were very restricted, it excluded certain types of weapons and if I remember correctly, it defined or endeavoured to define what a cultural gathering is. In that sense of the word, I can't recall having been part of legislation which made carrying of such dangerous weapons freely available to everybody under normal day-to-day circumstances. 
So all the necessary precautions were taken to ensure that on the one hand we don't offend the feelings of a very important cultural group in our country and that we don't inhibit them to practise such cultural conventions. On the other hand to make that possible for them in a framework which was sensitive towards the security needs of the country at that stage.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you. Earlier Mr de Klerk you referred to the Harms Commission. You instructed Mr Tim McNally, Attorney General of the Orange

<UNKNOWN>: ree State in late 1989 to conduct an investigation into allegations made by three former security police officers, Coetzee, Nofomela and Nchikalanga. They claimed that they had been involved in a death squad based at Vlakplaas. The McNally Report which was not made public until November 1990 concluded that there had been no truth to these allegations. Notwithstanding Mr McNally's finding you appointed him as counsel to the Harms Commission. Were you satisfied with the findings made by Mr McNally at that point? The inquiry that he had conducted?

MR DE KLERK: Why would we then have appointed, it was clearly still inconclusive, otherwise the Harms Commission would not have been appointed. I'm once again deducting, I haven't refreshed my memory by looking at any documentation, but the Harms Commission was appointed as a continuation of our efforts to get to the truth about allegations of security force irregularities and misdeeds and crimes.

MR GOOSEN: Under the circumstances then, why did you appoint Mr McNally as counsel to the Harms Commission in the light of the fact that he had, in his report at least, apparently prejudged the issues in relation to Vlakplaas at that point?

MR DE KLERK: Well I appointed, firstly I can't recall that I specifically appointed, I can recall that the Minister of Justice in a Cabinet meeting dealt with the various possibilities and motivated why McNally should do it. I at all times had and still have the highest respect for Advocate McNally and I think it is unfortunate that he has been made the brunt of political pressure. There were instances, fairly recently, where he was put under tremendous pressure in a parliamentary committee, that was before the Malan trial, notwithstanding that fact, Minister Dullah Omar and the President, President Mandela entrusted the Malan trial to him.

MR GOOSEN: During the late 1980's and the early 1990's, the nationalist government, Nationalist Party publicly accused the United Democratic

<UNKNOWN>: ront and the ANC of being the primary cause of violence in KwaZulu Natal through their policy of attacking governmental structures and making the townships ungovernable. It appears however that the State Security Council had been in possession of reliable information since 1985 or thereabouts or shortly thereafter, that the Inkatha Central Committee had taken a decision during that year to foment violence in and endeavour to prevent the expansion of the UD

<UNKNOWN>: . This is evident from the State Security Council document dealing with the unrest situation in Natal which was produced during March 1989. The document was referred to at a State Security Council meeting on the second of May of 1989. And that information, the information about the decision of the Inkatha Central Committee was never made public. 
In essence, a portion of the document would read that during 1985, and this is a translation, 
"During 1985 the express mutual hostility and mistrust between Inkatha and UD

<UNKNOWN>: became a visible reality when Inkatha realised that the UD

<UNKNOWN>: represented a threat to its power monopoly in KwaZulu, and decided at a central committee meeting of Inkatha that the whole of KwaZulu and Natal be turned into a sort of no-go area for the UD

<UNKNOWN>: regardless of the consequences".
Would you be able to offer some comment as to why that crucial information was not made public by the government in its description of the state of affairs in KwaZulu Natal at the time?

MR DE KLERK: I really can't recall that report, I would like to refresh my memory looking at documents, but once again let me just state what the general pattern was and still is, is that security information was evaluated and then from time to time at meetings as still happens in the Government of National Unity, a report is presented sort of as a general information background and that then there would be opportunities to ask questions and that would then be referred to the operational departments to deal further with it. 
Inasmuch as organisations like the UD

<UNKNOWN>: were operating within the law, they had their rights and to the best of my knowledge, they were subject to legislation with regard to when they can hold meetings, when they can hold marches, they must apply, but they were given the normal rights and I can't recall that, let me put it like this - There's no question that, yes we were against the UD

<UNKNOWN>: , the UD

<UNKNOWN>: was one of the fronts of the ANC, the UD

<UNKNOWN>: was an instrument and part of the strategy to make the country ungovernable, so I'm not saying that we were sympathetic in any way whatsoever to the UD

<UNKNOWN>: , and we would be supportive of a strategy, within the law, which would make the task of the UD

<UNKNOWN>: difficult which would frustrate them in achieving their goals. And in that sense of the word, if Inkatha was against the UD

<UNKNOWN>: , they were in principle on the same side as we were because we thought the UD

<UNKNOWN>: was dangerous because it was linked to the ANC, because there was a strategy to make the country ungovernable and to bring our economy to an end.
I think it's very important, if we talk about the violence in KwaZulu Natal, Mr Chairman that a very deep study should be made of the Goldstone Reports in this regard, because Judge Goldstone and his team really spent a lot of energy and dedicated a lot of their logistical capacity to deal with the violence in KwaZulu Natal and you would find there some very very important findings on the side of Judge Goldstone when he investigated these matters at the stage when the facts were much fresher in everybody's mind.