Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-22

MR PHOSA: (cont)
	Yes, Mr Chairman.  I want to take you back - this is something that I've come across in my note which may have led me to perhaps putting to you what you take as an incorrect position.  I'm just reading a summary of how I put it.  You were dealing with the question when you were asked - when you began you answers this morning - being asked by Mr Visser, you were referring - you referred to pressure that came from above, you mentioned how you grew up - your Christian background, you also mentioned your own long career in the police force, certain influences also that had an effect on your - perhaps your decision.  Now you said the pressure came from amongst others, politicians or political organs, the head office etc., for you to produce more positive results.  There was also pressure from - sorry, so far did I sum up correctly what you were saying?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: It is correct Mr Chairman.

MR PHOSA: That was pressure being put to you as the Port Elizabeth branch of the security police, is that so?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: It is correct Mr Chairman.

MR PHOSA: Yes, in other words then I understood from that, to say that the feeling was that your branch - at these discussions, your branch had to do more than other branches to solve the problem.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, we've been through this on more than one occasion and he's given his denial quite categorically, he says that was never the impression.  I was a matter throughout the country, everybody was under pressure to do more to address the situation ...[intervention]

MR PHOSA: I object my learned friend, I give you an answer that amounts to an answer - an objection.

CHAIRPERSON: Nowhere has he said, Mr Phosa, that the pressure was on his branch only, you keep putting it but he has not agreed to that in his evidence.

MR PHOSA: I have the right to put to the witness what I understand from what I've written down and I've been fair enough to write it down, so he has the right to say: "I disagree" - I don't like answers coming from individuals who are other than a witness, with respect.

CHAIRPERSON: Nothing that you have written down accords with the last question you put. You cannot put to a witness something he has not said and say: "That is so", you can ask him: "If that is not the fact you position", but you can't put it as something he has said Mr Phosa.

MR PHOSA: But I've done exactly that Mr Chairman, I said: "That led me to understand that, is that correct".  Who else must I ask, I can't ask the Chairperson, I can't ask Mr Visser, he must answer the question and I put the question - I repeat: "Is that my correct interpretation", I have never heard that I can't say that.  I've given a fair background of what I've written - my interpretation and I'm asking is that fair?  I'm not coming with it from - sucking it from nowhere.

CHAIRPERSON: Was any particular pressure on the Eastern Cape branch other than the pressure on the other branches?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: Mr Chairman, I think there was a big pressure here in the Easter Cape because this division was the flash-point because of the continuous unrest situation.

MR PHOSA: I will get an apology from all of you for being - viewed as being unfair to the witness.
	So quite clearly then when you left that meeting, you felt that your branch or your division was required to do more than it had done up to them?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: I wish to explain to the Chairman the following, it was a once off situation, these discussion that there should be done more in the Eastern Cape, in the P.E. and environment, was a continuous discussion.  It was my duty but because the situation deteriorated, we had to take extra steps in this regard.

MR PHOSA: Whatever your answer is, my next question is, did you as the head of this branch not feel as a policeman - "look, it's a bad reflection on us as policemen to suggest or even give the impression that we are failing", now didn't that hurt your pride as a policeman?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: Mr Chairman, it had nothing to do with my pride or the pride of my people, it had to do with the solution and the handling of an impossible situation.

MR PHOSA: I've heard and understood your answer but I'm deliberately now putting it to you - it was a question, you are at liberty to stick to your reply.  I put it to you that what in fact was - if those meetings did take place in the form you say, what it in fact was, you felt that you as a police force, this branch that you were had failed to contain the situation and in desperation to save your pride - not for political reasons, to save your pride you decided to kill these two young men.

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: Mr Chairman, I deny it in total.

MR PHOSA: You gave a background referring to a number of - to a few instances being examples of what - how rife the unrest or political instability was in the Eastern Cape and you went right back to even as far as the incident at Graaf Reinet, do you remember that - at the funeral in Graaf Reinet?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: I've mentioned that Mr Chairman.

MR PHOSA: Are you saying for instance that that event that took place so long ago with regard to either Mr Buthalezi or his guard - I'm not sure which, that event had a bearing upon your action in 1982?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: I'm saying yes, it did have an influence and it shows what they were capable of already at that stage.

MR PHOSA: Are you also saying the event in Sharpville, Vereniging so many years back had a bearing on what you did here in 1982 regarding these two young men?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: I believe so yes, that from where I have started, my first experience with these political marches, this political unrest that it already became evident that the Black people were not satisfied with the Government of the day and it did make an impression on me.

MR PHOSA: Before I go further on the issues I'm raising with you, just to -for a while confine myself to the Sharpville event, did I understand you correctly to be saying that the people who were shot there were shot because of their own conduct?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: Mr Chairman, I can't comment on Sharpville, I've mentioned it together with Langa in Cape Town.  I was not involved in Sharpville, at that time I was stationed in Cape Town.

MR PHOSA: No, you can't just say things and expect us to keep quiet about them.  What to you is the relevance of Sharpeville and the conduct of people in justifying anything you have done?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: What had happened there, I can't say what had happened there but the political situation arising from a certain march led to certain things, indicating to me that this was leading to chaos and this was what we were heading for during those years.

MR PHOSA: In fairness to you or perhaps in fairness to me, when you were giving that evidence, I listened entirely to the interpretation so it might not be - I'm not saying it's not, it may just be that I didn't get you correctly and I need to say this because I found it strange.  Were you saying that insofar as it was important to you that, the people of Sharpeville - the ones who were shot, went and presented whatever the complaint was and on their way back they behaved violently and therefore got shot?  That's how it came through on the interpretation.  Where you saying that - yes or no?

GERRIT NICHOLAS ERASMUS: If I remember correctly Mr Chairman, after this march in Cape Town the next two incidents arose, the one at Langa and the one in Sharpeville where people were shot dead.  I did not expand on that as far as I know.

ADV DE JAGER: Weren't both incidents part of the freedom struggle?

MR PHOSA: Answer Mr - I'm not sure if the Commission is asking me, your answer please?

ADV DE JAGER: Were the incidents in Sharpeville and the present uprisings part of the freedom struggle?