Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — 1997-02-27

ADV DU PLESSIS: Thank you General.  You testified with regard to reporting of certain incidents, as I 
understand your evidence you said that in most instances the - an incident would be reported to a head of 
department and then it would have become part of the normal criminal report which would be given to the 
State Security Council. 
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: From time to time the Minister would be informed of the crime situation.  What I 
would not like to pretend is that the State Security Council would have specifically paid attention to that 
report.

ADV DU PLESSIS: What I am trying to determine is in how much detail the general crime report were 
compiled.  Would 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DU PLESSIS: 256	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: it for example in the Nietverdiend incident, I don't know if you know about it, it is the case where youths 
were recruited for military training, loaded into a minibus and then eliminated. In such an incident would 
the detail of such an operation be contained in that type of report or would a report be made with regards to 
X-amount of terrorists?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: It would purely have been a report about X-amount of persons having been killed 
under the certain circumstances nothing more.

ADV DU PLESSIS: General, just to add to that, where there were reports made by the applicants about 
actions where they were involved, to their commanding officers and, where there was never any form of 
repudiation, let us forget about the reports going higher up, would you say that it could have strengthened 
the perception of the applicants that what they were busy doing was the kind of action which was, I won't 
say it was approved, but which was implicitly accepted by the commanding officers and the authorities?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: If I understand your correctly, do you mean that all the facts as set out in the 
Amnesty application now for the Commanding Officer?

ADV DU PLESSIS: What I am saying is that if there was a short report given with regards to the core of 
what was happening?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Surely you also mean the involvement of the applicant in that saying I was not 
involved. Immediately that Commanding Officer would have become part of the act which had taken 
place.

ADV DU PLESSIS: What I mean is, I am merely speaking about the perception of the applicant if no one 
went back to the 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DU PLESSIS: 256	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: applicant with regard to this act would the applicants' perception then be deemed that the authorities 
approved.
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Then it was no longer a perception, then it was a fact, if his Commanding Officer 
knew about this act and did nothing about it then implicity the Commanding Officer agreed and then he 
had all the reason in the world to believe that he bore the approval of his Commanding Officer, because the 
Commanding Officer then granted his implied approval.

ADV DU PLESSIS: General, could you tell the Committee about your involvement at Vlakplaas. You 
were never a Commanding Officer at Vlakplaas but could you just tell the Committee about your 
involvement at Vlakplaas and how you were involved with Vlakplaas at Commanding Officer level.
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: I think I have already testified about Vlakplaas, if you remember correctly where I 
said that the Unit there was brought to a halt with the view to arresting persons there and rehabilitating 
them - persons who had been arrested had to be rehabilitated and then I did try and assist in tracing persons 
who were coming from the outside to commit acts of terrorism here and also use them as witnesses against 
such persons in a court of law and there was no objective for that Unit, and what happened in the course of 
time is that it developed due to the circumstances. I think I, myself was there twice at the most. I had no 
liaison with them, but that is as far as my knowledge of Vlakplaas goes.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I was referring to the rank structure, were you ever Commanding Officer there?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: No.

ADV DU PLESSIS: I won't question you about that anymore. I 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DU PLESSIS: 257	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: would now like to come to an aspect which came to the fore in the application of the applicants, that is the 
involvement of youths in the Liberation Movements. You knew about the ANC and the liberation 
movements' methods, their tactics and their ideologies, can you briefly comment to this Committee about 
your experience and your knowledge of the involvement of youths, and now I am referring to specifically 
school children in acts of terrorism and also instigating boycotts and stone-throwing incidents and so forth 
in areas where unrest was rife, especially in the '80's.
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman after the 1976 riots, which of course focused on the youth mainly, 
there was a sharp increase in the involvement of youths in the struggle. Large amounts of youths went out 
to receive military training and these youths became much more militant and the ANC also realised, mainly 
the ANC, realised that this was an opportunity for a new approach because it was generally accepted that in 
1976 it was the watershed as far as the liberation movement of the ANC was concerned. Thereafter, we 
experienced the situation increasingly where youths were becoming involved in violence to such an extent 
that during the State of Emergency in 1986 and 7 and thereafter we were obligated to detain large amounts 
of youths who, not only participated in actions, boycotts and such in the townships but were also involved 
in necklacing.  And we had great problems with that because you can obliviously imagine how much 
opposition there was to the fact that there were even persons as young as 13 whom we would detain, due to 
the fact that their parents could not control them and they spiralled out of control under those 
circumstances.
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DU PLESSIS: 258	GEN V/

ADV DU PLESSIS: Very well General, I do not want to go into the commanding channels in too much 
detail, but I would like to ask a question, the Sanhedrin that we heard about here, is it possible that the 
Minister or Deputy Minister of Defence would occasionally attend meetings of the Sanhedrin and then 
would issue instructions there as well?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Did you say the Minister of Defence?

ADV DU PLESSIS: No the Minister of Police.
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Surely, it is possible that the Minister would attend from time to time by way of a 
courtesy gesture but not on a regular basis,.  It was possible that he could have made the input from time to 
time, just shared ideas, but I cannot think of specific incidents but it could have happened during the course 
of events.

ADV DU PLESSIS: General, in the South African Police itself with regards to training and normal day to 
day activities, the normal policemen who were busy with the work and specifically policemen in the 
Security Branch, were they aware of the revolutionary onslaught of the Liberation Movements, the 
ideologies behind that and the objectives of the organisations?  Before you answer that I would like to 
show you a document.  It is a document called "Die Strategy of the ANC" it is dated 15 March 1985. It was 
compiled by the ...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: You put it very euphemistically by saying it is a "document"?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I have not been provided with a copy of this document which is now put to 
my witness. I am just wondering whether there is a specific reason for that?

ADV DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, the specific reason is Mr Mpshe also hasn't got a copy, I apologise, I 
haven't made 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DU PLESSIS: 258	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: enough copies, I had copies available.