Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

MR VALLY: Thank you Archbishop. What I'll do is I'll include all my questions regarding Inkatha, I'll set them all out once and then the ANC can answer as I go on.
My first question relates to still the 1980's period. Did the ANC send in cadres in the conflict between UDF and Inkatha? And the reason I'm asking this question is in this document given to us, under the heading, Report on the Activities of the Natal Machinery During the Period 1983 to 1988 when it was in the command of Musi Ngwenya, alias Tami Zulu, there's a statement, we can let you have a copy of this if you don't have it readily available, but let me just read it to you first. It says, I'll give you my highlighted copy after I have read it.
"On a number of occasions correspondence to TZ (that's Tami Zulu) after December 1987, and again his briefing in April emphasised the need to infiltrate smaller groups to deal with Inkatha warlords".
Then the paragraph further down it says
"The realisation of these plans was to be militated against by both objective and subjective factors both in Swaziland and Maputo."
Now it's not clear if cadres were infiltrated or not and that's the question I want to put to you, that this issue was discussed and what was the decision taken?
Going on into the 1990's and this issue has been raised with us by other political parties as well, the ANC leader Mr R Gadebe on the 4th of May 1992 in Pietermaritzburg made the following statements
"The South African Police and Inkatha are perpetrators of the violence, they are our enemies. We will kill the South African Police, we will kill the SADF, we will kill the Kwazulu Police, we will kill all our enemies".
The Nationalist party amongst other parties has claimed that the ANC and others are now attempting to dismiss all violence that occurred in the conflict between various black groupings, including its struggle against the IFP, as a result of third force activities. This is patently absurd, bearing in mind that kind of quote.
My final question regarding the IFP is the IFP has asserted that between the period 1990 and 1994, the leadership of the former Transkei government allowed its territory to be used as both a sanctuary as well as a spring board for attacks on IFP personnel in KwaZulu Natal, and would the ANC like to comment on that?
Those are my questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Modise.

MR MODISE: The question that was put to us now which relates to correspondence going to Tami Zulu requesting him to send in small groups to deal with Inkatha warlords. This has not been brought to the knowledge of Military Headquarters.
One other thing that needs to be known is that cadres of MK were briefed within certain parameters, the targets that they were to deal with were clearly spelled out. And also in the training of cadres, and I think this was said yesterday, the policies of the movement, particularly military policy, was clearly set out and instructors dealt with it, put it across to the what's the name, so when officers went out and also cadres they were supposed to operate within this broad framework within the parameters that have been worked out by the movement.
But there was a lot of flexibility because we did not have this two-way process where instructions are given directly to forces on the ground and there is a response on the ground, because of the problems of security also. There were areas where we used radio communication but it was used very sparingly. Telephone messages were sent cryptically but we suffered a lot of casualties also through this method because the telephones could be intercepted and then they would lead to areas where they came from and who used them.
So we had those problems. So units of the African National Congress, of MK in particular, were given these broad instructions. Commanders on the spot took decisions but those decisions were expected to fall within the broad frame work.
So this correspondence to Tami Zulu that he should send in units to come and assist with the warlords, was not conveyed to Headquarters and as a commander on the ground we expected him to, he's got the latitude to act. Warlords were a special type of people within the country, we had this problem at Rayton and I think, I don't want to believe that they have completely, the situation has subsided but I don't think that the warlords, have completely disappeared, some of them might have gone underground. Warlords were a group of people who organised units under them, or groups under them or gangs under them that would go on the rampage and begin to attack those that were perceived to be their opponents.
In situations like that it's understandable if Tami had responded to requests from the people who were being slaughtered by these warlords and their units, it's understandable that he would have responded positively to that request. But I want to repeat that this particular incident of Tami Zulu was not brought to our notice.

CHAIRPERSON: Matthews Phosa.

PREMIER MATTHEWS PHOSA: Thank you Chairperson, I heard that you made reference to Mozambique and I want to state very clearly that Mr Tami Zulu was also a member of our command structure in Mozambique. We never discussed a matter like this one. I never even saw as a person who was in charge, a request of that nature, I'm hearing about it for the first time here. So I must speak for my colleagues as well who were with me in Mozambique at the time.

CHAIRPERSON: Have they answered all your questions?

MR VALLY: No they haven't Archbishop. They haven't answered the question on Transkei, they haven't answered the question on allegations that all the activities were third force activities are not true based on, amongst other things, Mr Gadebe's statements.

CHAIRPERSON: Ronnie Kasrils.

UNKNOWN: Mr Vally, thank you Archbishop, the statement attributed to Reggie Gadebe, what date was that?

MR VALLY: That was on the 4th of May 1992 in Pietermaritzburg.

UNKNOWN: According to the statement he talked about"We will kill the SAP , SADF" and?

MR VALLY: And we will kill the KwaZulu police, we will kill all our enemies. Shall I repeat that question?

UNKNOWN: No, no we've got it now. Reggie Gadebe was an ANC leader, secretary in fact in the Midlands and he's made this speech, I can't remember any statements being made to distance the ANC from that speech. I can't remember the speech. Your question is do we sanction that kind of statement?

MR VALLY: No my question was that the NP for example stated,
"The ANC and others are now attempting to dismiss all the violence that occurred in the conflict between various Black groupings, including conflict between with the IFP as a result of third force activities. That this is patently absurd".