Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-11-17

MR B WILLIAMS: No, no, Sergeant Bellingan, you mentioned specifically that the operation was 100% successful when you dealt with this in your Section 29 evidence which you gave.  Now, if I can just, if ...

MR BOOYENS: Which page there, please.

MR B WILLIAMS: If the Chairperson of the Committee will just give me a second, I need to find the page.  It is page 82, I believe.  If I can approach you Mr Bellingan, you say, and I quote from line 23 on page 37,
"As far as I am concerned I feel that it was an operation which was 100% successful.  I would not have organised an operation in which I got myself shot."

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.

MR B WILLIAMS: Is it not correct, Captain Bellingan, that the operation was considered by yourself to be so successful that you presented the video, the gruesome video which we have seen, to Cabinet Ministers as an indication of your success?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That was not my idea.  We have to be very clear about that.  After the Guguletu 7 incident I reacted, I and some of my people reacted to some information which we got from Guguletu Detective Branch and there was an ANC freedom Fighter, Lizobright, which we arrested in Crossroads and from that ten or 14 more arrests followed and we were also involved in the Tony Yengeni case.  We arrested him with the help of the local security police and we then decided to compile a video for State President P W Botha, a video of 18 minutes to be able to justify our police budget.  I think the Deputy Commissioner was General Hennie de Wit at the time and General Liebenberg flew up and then made a video of all the successes and other arrests which we had achieved.  So, our successes were used to actually push through our budget.

MR B WILLIAMS: No, this is precisely my point, Mr Bellingan, you held out this operation as a trophy.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: At that stage it was a major success.

MR B WILLIAMS: Now, what was the reason for that success?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Good policing on the ground, good networks, good intelligence gathering, good command.

MR B WILLIAMS: No, the reason for the success, I would like to put it to you, is the fact that you killed seven people.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That was only part of the video.

MR B WILLIAMS: Is there anything else significant on that video, Mr Bellingan, with the greatest of respect?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That video was made for the benefit of the members of the Cabinet, whether people were killed or arrested or whatever.

MR B WILLIAMS: I want to put it to you, Mr Bellingan, that you should like the Committee to believe that you acted out of political conviction, not so?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.

MR B WILLIAMS: But I want to put it to you that your being chosen as a member of the Vlakplaas and your measure of success as a Vlakplaas operative was by virtue of your ability to eliminate people, to use your words.  What do you say about that?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I would not agree with that.

MR B WILLIAMS: Is that not why you stayed on until the dying throes of Vlakplaas?  You have no answer to that, Mr Bellingan?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: No, I do not agree with what he is saying.  I stayed there, because I believed in what I was doing, I was part of the dispensation of the time, I was part of the security police and today it can be interpreted in a sinister way, but at the time I believed in what I was doing.

MR B WILLIAMS: You see, Mr Bellingan, it is all too easy to say at the end of the day that I relied on superior orders, I relied on my political convictions, but it was your hand that had to pull the trigger.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: But I do make it clear in my amnesty application, if, I say I am sorry that I took a life and I am asking for amnesty for it, where I did take a life.  It has happened and it is past and I think one should just try and prevent this kind of thing happening again.

MR B WILLIAMS: No, Mr Bellingan, we will be coming to the details of your amnesty application in respect of the Guguletu 7 matter in a moment.  What puzzles one in your application and, perhaps you can explain this, is that your original application you apply for amnesty in respect of this matter being conspiracy to murder.  Am I that correct?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, I explained it just now why I did that.

MR B WILLIAMS: Correct.  Your most recent and more complete application, however, seems to indicate that if you are found to have committed a delit or an offence, if I understand your documents correctly, then you are applying for amnesty.  Am I correct?  That is what you say.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.

MR B WILLIAMS: Well then, Mr Bellingan, why are we sitting here today?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I was notified by the Truth Commission that some of my former colleagues had implicated me, wrongly implicated me in the Guguletu 7 matter and they were saying things about me and that is why I thought it fit to do this, because was no shooting incident ever happens exactly as planned.  There was a lot of sensation around this incident and I thought it a good idea to apply for amnesty for whatever went wrong there.  I shot that person in the intersection, he was not, he did not have a weapon and if that is the case then I ask for amnesty for that and also for the planning that went wrong beforehand.

MR B WILLIAMS: Captain Bellingan, I do not want to burden you with a legal issue which I am sure your council is going to be dealing with, but you will agree that in your second application you are actually not conceding or admitting that you have done anything wrong.  Am I correct?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I just want to try and find the relevant paragraph.  (end of tape 2B).
	Page 37, paragraph 36 I said it was pointed out to me that it could be argued that in the circumstances I had acted overhastily to shoot this particular person.  It, I must, however, point out that this happened during the course of a shooting incident and then, and the rest of the paragraph I deal with that issue.  So, if I was involved in an offence I apply for amnesty and for all delicts flowing from that offence or offenses and I want to assume the responsibility for the juniors who were with me that day, if they give a different version of what happened there that day.  The responsibility is mine and I stand up today and I say that I take responsibility for Constable Mbelo and the askaris who were with me on that day.

MR B WILLIAMS: Ja, Captain Bellingan, it is, I am concerned about why you are applying for amnesty here, because you use the words "indien".  In other words, there does not appear to be a concession by yourself that you have done anything wrong.  Perhaps, I speak under correction.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Something wrong was done.  To come down here and infiltrate people with AK47's and so on is normal practice, but later I was questioned by the Truth Commission and I was told about these allegations against myself and Colonel de Kock and some of the other members.  So, I did not know where exactly I stood and that was the reason why I applied for amnesty and if the members actually overplayed their hands with this ajan provocateur situation then I assume the full responsibility for that.

MR B WILLIAMS: Yes, but now can you explain to the Committee if you are saying that perhaps there was unlawfulness in sending in askaris and that is, perhaps, the unlawfulness for which you are maybe making application for amnesty for.  What I would like to know is why did you then in your first application indicate that you apply for amnesty for conspiracy to murder?