Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

MARITZ: Mr Chair I would like to have a break now. Would you please consider I think on a high level, the level of concentration is very high, as you can see he's not that young any more. And in all fairness to him we don't want to have this develop into and inquisition. I think we've got to be fair to the man and even if he says to you that he's alright. He's lying. Let's adjourn and let's conduct the matter in a way so that it will be fair to him in all respects. Thank you.

MR LYSTER: Thank you Mr Maritz. Mr van Zyl do you have?

MR VAN ZYL: I'm very happy to take a break now for lunch and we can perhaps resume later.

MR LYSTER: How much longer are you going to be?

MR VAN ZYL: I'm concluded with my questioning.

MR LYSTER: Alright we'll have a break and we'll resume afterwards with Mr McAdam and I have asked Mr McAdam to be as brief as possible.

MR MCADAM: Mr Chair how long are the proceedings going to go on today? Because I know my learned friend does have an air ticket for three 'o clock and I've discovered from other persons that it's impossible to shift flights today. Everything is full. In this short adjournment I'd like to somehow look at how I can condense it into the time frame that would be available and if I have an indication of how long we're going it will assist me in knowing how much to actually put to the witness.

MR LYSTER: Okay let's break for half an hour then.
HEARING ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

MR LYSTER: Whilst we would obviously like to finish this afternoon in time for everyone to get their respective aeroplanes, in the nature of things these hearings take a lot of organisation and particularly money. And we are very mindful of that and it would be very, very difficult to reconvene this hearing. So while we will make every effort to get through the work in a time allocated there is the outside possibility that we would have to go on. So I'd like to without restricting the questions that you're going to ask, to ask you to try and put them, to (...indistinct) them and crisply as possible. And by the same token to ask General Malan to give the answers in a shorter manner as possible, which hasn't always been the case. So Mr McAdam if we could ask you then to continue?

MR MCADAM: Thank you General. Very briefly, in your submission you, after referring to a number of examples of ANC excesses came to a conclusion that the ANC was a terrorist and not a guerrilla movement in the period under consideration?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Correct.

MR MCADAM: Just three crisp examples. Were on the day when the new batch of national servicemen to report at the centre to register before they would then be taken to the military camps where their two year training would commence. Members of umkhonto weSizwe wearing South African Defence Force uniforms would approach these youngsters and under the pretext that they were then going to be taken to their army camps loaded into a vehicle, taken to a spots, drugged and blown up. Would you regard that as a military action by umkhonto weSizwe or is it terrorist action?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: When I refer to them as a terrorist or guerrilla activity I defined it. It's written here in my submission. Or rather I gave Natanaus a quote on it. So you can see what I'm saying there. Now we're talking about activities.

MR MCADAM: No, just this specific act, how would you classify that?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Well it depends. If they're in uniform and they fighting against us, then they're becoming guerrillas. If they go for soft targets they terrorists and avoid fighting the armed forces.

MR MCADAM: Would you regard conscripts who had not received military training and who weren't wearing arms as being soft targets?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Well I gave you the soft target indication here. Eighty percent from '86 onwards. Twelve percent can be hard targets. Yours might be in the hard target.

MR MCADAM: A hard target?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Well if it's military people, and they're fighting military people it will be a hard target.

MR MCADAM: But it's conscripts, people who haven't received any formal military training and are not bearing arms? And if they fail their medical examinations they might not actually be fit for an military service at all?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: It's very difficult to say what their intentions are, I'm talking about the conscripts. Are they intended to become part of a military force, well then they can be a hard target.

MR MCADAM: They'd be a hard target? Fine. Now there were various civilians who gave moral support, especially to national service men, providing them with accommodation in their own homes when the service men had a short pass and could not get back from the base to their own homes. If members of Umkhonto weSizwe had to attack those civilians who provided that support in their homes and shoot them dead, would that be a soft or a hard target?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Well it depends, are they attacking a house of a civilian?

MR MCADAM: That's correct.

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Or are they attacking military?

MR MCADAM: No, they're civilians that accommodated these national service men in their own homes?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Well I'll say it's a soft target. My definition of hard and soft is; is it a civilian attack, I mean on civilians or is it attack on military forces, military forces being security forces? That's the definition that I'm using now.

MR MCADAM: And where the ANC had a leader one of their own leaders who had become an embarrassment to the party, their supporters were now moving to the opposition groups. The ANC decided the best way to deal with the situation is, kill that person and make it look like the security forces were responsible. Would that be a soft or a hard target?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: I wonder whether it's not murder.

MR MCADAM: I'm happy with that answer.

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: If it's in South Africa?

MR MCADAM: In South Africa.

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Well if you do things like that in South Africa you have a law, a legal system. There is a legal system and the legal system will not allow that people are murdered. One must act within the law.

MR MCADAM: I take it as Minister of Defence you would have had detailed briefings from the chief of the Defence Force and his staff as to what plans and strategies the military was implementing to combat the revolutionary onslaught in so far as it related to action by the military?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: I doubt whether that would be a submission to me. I would more or less be involved in a discussion in the State Security Council and if it is necessary that the Minister must know and give orders regarding defensive operations, not internally necessarily because the head of the Defence Force is the operational expert and has certain competencies. The question is whether it is delegated powers or now.

MR MCADAM: (...indistinct) a major switch of strategy?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: If the complete switching over of strategy is involved the State Security Council would have to take the decision because it was stipulating policies and the department acted in accordance with that. Especially internally the JMS systems would be involved. If you come into a JMS system the military will be involved in the area and would be part of a whole package acting in a co-ordinate way in that area.

MR MCADAM: Special forces would you agree with me that they are highly trained specialists, they were a scare commodity and a very valuable force and a level control on the use of those persons was very high?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: I want to point your attention before I answer the question to the South African Defence Force's submission given on the 8th of October in which a specific submission was made regarding the special forces, with which I agree it's in chapter 2, 6. If we look at special forces, yes they were very well trained.