Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-11-19

UNKNOWN: Yes.  I have said it in my submission that I owed no allegiance to the Pretoria Government.  On the contrary I had a lot of fights with them, and they definitely did not like me.  They would never have supported me on anything.  I am saying it here for the record and it can be checked and double checked and I would never have done anything which they said I should do because personally I have never condoned apartheid, and I have never acted against my Black brothers for their sake.  I have a history that should be known about it.  Even from school there are incidents that show it.  Even from early positions where I worked there are positions that show it.  So I want to reject any implication that I may have been a puppet of White used against Black.  I am saying it with no fear of contradiction.  I don't know Pik Botha's help and instruction on anything, I actually was at his throat every time we met and talked, and they eventually sabotaged me quite a lot to make sure that no development projects that I initiated or wanted support from in terms of bilateral agreements were brought to fruition, thus effectively undermining me and my authority and even frustrating my efforts.

MR POTGIETER: Thank you.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Thank you very much Brigadier.

BONGANI FINCA: My questions are on page 1 of the testimony and on page 6, and I am grateful to Brigadier Gqozo that in his main submission he correctly identifies the political context within which the massacre happened as a context that we should also look into in this inquiry, and I want to agree that that is very correct.
 Before I raise the question Chairperson I just want to note that we have perhaps experienced a moment which has touched us.  I note that that moment has not come out of the submission made by Brigadier Gqozo, it came out of the question period, but I want to underline that the integrity of that moment, the integrity of the confession, the integrity of the apology will really be tested on how far Brigadier Gqozo is prepared to tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Without that I think the apology, the confession, the tears will be hollow, and I am raising two questions in that context.  On page 1 of the submission Brigadier Gqozo on the last paragraph, third line refers to the philosophy behind the TBVC states.  
"These states were to all intents and purposes autonomous little countries where Black man was to rule Black man".
a question that has continued to puzzle us, as we struggle with the inquiry of this massacre Brigadier, is that your government had such a preponderance of seconded officers of questionable repute, of questionable backgrounds.  As Commissioner of your police you had a former founder of Vlakplaas General Viktor.  As head of your Military Intelligence you had a person who is said to have a CCB background, your Chris Nel.  As Chief of your Ciskei Defence Force you had an Ulshig(?) former of the Military Intelligence.  You had a Basie Oosthuizen, Anton Nieuwoudt. The list is endless.  My question is, perhaps if you could comment on how you managed to get into your military structures people of such background?  Were they carefully chosen by you?  What was the reason behind it?  Shouldn't we link the massacre that happened to the calibre of people that you have put around you?  What happened to the Ciskeians whom you so dearly loved, why were they not occupying these positions?

UNKNOWN: Thank you Mr Chair.  Mr Chairman I will try to answer them as we go.  The procedure in terms of bilateral agreements which were signed prior to my taking over, which I could not get out of, which I tried to, but they were cast in stone, was that there was a body that was called the Combined Management Board.  A meeting which took place monthly between the South African Defence Force top officials and the Ciskei Defence Force top officials which would have - their aim was to discuss matters of common interest viz a viz training courses, financial problems, military threats and so on and to exchange intelligence.  Now any request for any training or for any in-service training or any secondment should be lodged through that body.  There was also later a military attache office.  That attache would be called in, a problem would be discussed and he would take it further to his government, and also these would be discussed in the CMB meetings.  That's where Pretoria would then suggest so-called highly qualified people who had a measure of having worked in circumstances almost akin to the ones in Ciskei, viz a viz they worked once in a Black military base or whatever, or they have been deployed in other areas of South Africa, in the Homelands and so on, so that's where actually the supply of professional personnel or expert personnel came from.
 We had a veto power, we could say we don't like this one, we don't like that one, based on limited information that we could have of those people.  What was appearing on their CV's could put us at a very bad advantage if we want to argue against any one of them because of our personal knowledge or whatever we knew about him, but in many cases you only knew that this person has got an agenda different from what he has been sent here for after he has made a lot of blunders.  And I must say that any time as soon as I realised that there was such a need to distrust a person I sent him back immediately.  
 And the fact that these people had taken over positions that could have been done by Ciskeians was merely because the military is a highly specialised area. To become a colonel you've got to go through the mill in many cases.  No crash courses can actually enable you to perform the duties and responsibilities and have the background to be able to run a battalion or whatever in the manner that would you know fruitfully improve or develop your department.  So that was - although we wanted to be self-sufficient that was overridden by the fact that we needed to have somebody who could control the troops at that level, who could be respected because of what he knows and who could impart the knowledge that was necessary for troops to reach that standard and we didn't have.  Due to the history of the Ciskei Defence Force senior officers were never trained until 1988 when I was a military attache there and I started making inroads into getting senior officers to be trained as staff officers at the army officer schools and battle schools.  But in the past that was taboo to Blacks, and there was no attempts to do that.  People were just promoted up to general without having that training and they made no impact into improving the standard of the army.  So by the time we took over the ideal situation could have been to have officers, also men, certain departments, perhaps overseer directors generals, but we had standards of education and of self-development in terms of military courses so low that that didn't happen, hence we had civilian ministers in them most.

BONGANI FINCA: Chairperson I will not pursue that question.  I will just comment to what Brigadier Gqozo has said that Mr Ngcobo appeared before the Commission here yesterday and gave us an impression, very strong, that those who within the Ciskei who qualified for these positions were sidelined and people with these backgrounds were brought in.  Viktor who was on retirement, founder of Vlakplaas, specially called in to head the Ciskei Police, knowing the background of the person that in fact he was the founder of Vlakplaas.

UNKNOWN: I must say Vlakplaas at that stage had  not had the stigma that it had now.  To us it was just another base.  It was long before it was really put in its proper perspective that people realised it, and I called him  in and he told me that he was in no way involved in any of those bad things.