Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

ANSWER: I think one, when sort of going to the house you
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MR MPSHE	31	D J COETZEE
expect mainly to go for two targets who is living in that house, Joyce and Rola Dibali.   There is of course always a possibility of other people being in the house too which as proved in the past and other incidents unfortunately their lives were also then sort of not saved, it's decisions that had to be taken on the spur of the moment and it was difficult to select targets at night where you were in a hurry to just kill and get away safely out of that neighbouring country.

<UNKNOWN>: Yes, but I think it was difficult for Joe Mamasela to know that the woman he shot at close range was not Joyce Dibali because he knew her.

ANSWER: I suppose it should have as Joyce was very, very well-known to him.

<UNKNOWN>: Do you then agree with me further that if that is the case that this woman was just an innocent person, this woman had nothing to do with the political motivation the applicants referred to or you refer to here?

ANSWER: I would not be able to tell at all whether she was in transit in the house, whether she was a member of the ANC, what her role was and why she was sleeping in that house that night.

<UNKNOWN>: Yes.   You told us in evidence that the specific instruction you gave to Mamasela and others is that they must enter the house and shoot at anyone they find in the house.   Did I quote you correctly?

ANSWER: That is true Mr Chairperson.

<UNKNOWN>: How do you reconcile this with your evidence again that you went there and the instruction for you and for your guys was to kill ANC cadres?

ANSWER: Well as you would enter that house I'm sure the
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MR MPSHE	32	D J COETZEE
other ANC cadres that would be in that house, as it was apparently used for that purpose as transit and house ANC cadres, other ANC cadres, it would be very difficult to say only concentrate on two targets while there might be three other ANC cadres in the house, armed to the teeth and you get shot in the back.   So unfortunately in an operation of that kind it's very difficult to say take that target and don't touch that one.   So the easiest way is shoot at sight anybody in that house that would approach you or you would come upon.

<UNKNOWN>: Even if that person is not an ANC cadre, you just have to shoot?

ANSWER: Well as I say, the idea or what was going through my head and what was explained to me what the house was used for, anyone in that house would 99% sure be connected with the African National Congress and involved in ANC activities.

<UNKNOWN>: You testified that these two women who were, you saw them as they were entering the house, am I correct and a candle was lit inside the house?

ANSWER: They were on their way out from the bedroom part of the house coming into the kitchen with a lit candle on their way out to the bakkie that was parked outside I presume.

<UNKNOWN>: Would you perhaps remember who had the lit candle between the two women, between Joyce Dibali and the other woman.

ANSWER: I up to this day don't know Mrs Joyce Dibali or the other woman, I would not be able to recognise one of them, their faces.

<UNKNOWN>: But a person standing outside seeing these two
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MR MPSHE	33	D J COETZEE
women moving inside the house would know that is Joyce and that is not Joyce.

ANSWER: With kitchen curtains and rain pouring down and the small little verandah where we three didn't even fit into next one another, I did not have the time to do identification.

<UNKNOWN>: So all what you saw were two figures moving inside?

ANSWER: I could identify two women were walking into the kitchen.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MPSHE

CHAIRPERSON: So there is a distinct possibility that people who are totally not connected with ANC activities may have been killed?

ANSWER: That is correct Mr Chairman.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ...instructions to you was to go and kill people who lived in the house?

ANSWER: Ja I think I was specifically referring to Joyce and Rola.   Can Mr Chairman just please refer me to this page.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Page 90 I suppose of your manuscript.

ANSWER: "Occupants of an ANC house in Gaberone", I think uppermost in my mind was the names of Joyce and Rola Dibali, but except as I say always that anyone present in the house could be armed, the house was used for ANC purposes and you can be shot if you start identifying targets it takes a long time, specific persons in the house and to separate them from other people in the house, you could end up dead because the house was used for ANC activities.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I appreciate that but I'm trying to find out the precise nature of your instructions because the
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MEMBER OF COMMISSION	34	D J COETZEE
manuscript says that you were on a mission into Botswana to eliminate the occupants of an ANC house in Gaberone, that's what the manuscript says on the one hand.

ANSWER: That's correct.

<UNKNOWN>: Your application says that you were instructed to go, you were on a plan to go and kill Joyce Dibali and her husband and they are not the same.   I want to know precisely the nature of your instructions?

ANSWER: The instruction at headquarters was to proceed, by Brigadier Schoon, to proceed to the farm near Kopfontein where I will be briefed on this specific issue by Captain Jan Coetzee and Captain Rudy Krause.

<UNKNOWN>: That's the briefing I'm talking about, what was the briefing, was the briefing that you kill occupants of a house or was the briefing that you kill Joyce Dibali and Rola?

ANSWER: Well the main targets as I said was Joyce and Rola Dibali, that was the main target.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: What is it that is not the main target?

ANSWER: Well that was the purpose we entered for and I mean if you found any other people in that house it was not for me to decide to wait or to leave, it was to accept that they were then also ANC involved and to shoot first and ask questions later.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Do you remember exactly what the nature of your instructions were?

ANSWER: No Mr Chairman except, apart from that the main targets were Joyce and Rola Dibali.   I don't think that the briefers could say at the time that there would be more than that, than only those two people in the house at the time.  I think what they should have said is that there was a great
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possibility that there would be more than just this two people in the house and explained it further.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: So you were approaching the house with this idea that you were going to kill whoever was going to be found in the house or were you in fact targeting specific people?

ANSWER: Targeting specific people, Joyce and Rola Dibali and of course any one else you might bump into in the house that would be, unexpectedly be in the house at the time of the raid.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: The lights went dead?

ANSWER: No there was a power failure in the town, there was no streets lights and no lights in the house at all.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Visibility must have been poor obviously.

ANSWER: It was poor, that's correct.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: And these people were relying on a candle light in the house?

ANSWER: That's correct Mr Chairman.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Why didn't you call off the mission in the light of the fact that there was a real danger that you might mis-identify your targets?

ANSWER: There was never a possibility to call off the mission, whoever was in that house was accepted as being targeted because of being involved with the ANC for which purposes that house was used.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Well then it didn't matter whether there was light or no light, in any case whoever was in there would have been shot dead.

ANSWER: If they would have obstructed us or came in our way, that's correct Mr Chairman.