Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-11

MR VISSER: It's in fact not terribly much, Mr Chairman, it's about 30 pages.
	Mr Chairman, coming then to the issues before you now, we have the situation where Vorster tells you and we know is common cause, that one of the most important aspects of the quest in the conflicts of the past was the question of information.  He's referred to the circular in his amnesty application, where the need to recruit informers was specifically mentioned.  We know that one of the reasons why the Security Forces were as successful as they were during the conflict of the past, was primarily because of their ability to recruit informers of all sorts and shapes and were able to take pre-emptive action or proactive action and thereby sustain the government of the day.
	Mr Chairman, it was no different in the present case, except for one factor and that is that according to the evidence of Mr Vorster, he had received an indication from his informer, Goodwill Sikhakane, that this particular victim, Mr Cele, was interested or was willing to become an informer.  As Mr Botha said, well that made it an extra incentive then to approach Mr Cele.  The way in which they did it, Mr Chairman, and this we have seen also in the case of Ndwandwe, was where the person was outside the borders of the country he would abducted and attempts would be made to recruit that person to become an informer.  
	The process, Mr Chairman, of that recruitment has been discussed in previous amnesty applications.  We saw fit not to do so again, but in essence it's a matter of common sense.  When you recruit a person you have to inform him of contact points, contact persons etc., and in a sense you lay bare your own information network to that person.  That in turn implies that before you do so you have to have complete faith as far as it is humanly possible, that the person is genuine when he indicates that he will work with the Security Police, in order not as it were, to blow your own cover.  
	In the case of Cele this did not happen except to the limited extent of Goodwill.  His cover was clearly blown the moment he enticed Cele to get into the kombi and thereafter was abducted and Goodwill was left behind in Swaziland.  Clearly if the operation, the attempts to recruit Cele would be unsuccessful, Goodwill's situation would clearly be compromised if Mr Cele would have been released thereafter.  Which in turn formed one of the options which was considered at the end of the day by Vorster and Taylor and perhaps to a lesser extent by Wasserman, although he said he associated himself therewith, in deciding that Cele had to be eliminated.
	Now Mr Chairman, I'm not going to repeat the evidence, you heard the evidence.  What we would like to submit to you is that there appears to be no material conflicts on the evidence, the real question here would turn around perhaps proportionality.  As far as the political background in concerned, Mr Chairman, we submit that there can also be very little doubt that these policemen didn't do so because they had nothing else to do, but they did so in order to do their duties, perform their duties as they saw it as policemen, in order to sustain the government.
	One can argue about the merits or demerits of the method of wanting to recruit an informer and then going about it in the way in which the applicants did, namely entering Swaziland and abducting that person.  Well Mr Chairman, of course in those times people were killed on both sides of the line and you have heard evidence time and time and again on many occasions, of the risky position in which informers found themselves.  
	Ms Thabethe suggested why instead of abducting him, that is Mr Cele, didn't you simply send Goodwill to go and talk to him and ask him whether he's prepared to work with the police.  Well that would have been a crazy suggestion, Mr Chairman, because if Mr Cele - if he had misread Mr Cele, he would have signed his own death warrant by doing so, because he would have exposed himself.
	It is also clear, Mr Chairman, that members of the Security Police couldn't go into Swaziland and attempt to recruit him there, they would be off their normal domestic ground, they would not know what situations they would encounter there and by far the safest would be to bring them back to the Republic of South Africa.
	This in turn, Mr Chairman, brings up this whole question of the accord which was entered into between the South African Government and the Swazi Government.  We hear about this accord, Mr Chairman, but frankly, speaking from our side, we have never heard any evidence presented at any of these hearings that the Swazi Government allowed a free hand to the South African Security Forces in Swaziland.

CHAIRPERSON: I think the information one gathered over the period of time was that there may be a few highly placed individuals in the Swazi Government who may be playing ball with the South African Government, rather than an arrangement between them at a government level.