Amnesty Hearings — Mmabatho — 1998-09-23

MR VAN DER BERG: Yes, indeed you are correct.  That must be the case.  I apologise, that is correct, that is the way it should read.  I thank you for that.
	To return to paragraph 14, the last bit of it, once again it is said that initially he said he was fighting for the Mangope government and his evidence was that he was against Mangope and that he was dancing together with the ANC supporters.
	In paragraph 16 the applicant also said in cross-questioning of Mr Mpshe and he said that he acted on behalf of the ANC and then Mr Mpshe asked him, on behalf of which political organisation did you shoot these people and his answer was I acted on behalf of the ANC.
	With all due respect, where the applicant gets this information from, I really do not know, but that was his answer, but of course it does not correspond to his evidence which is evident from the document.

ADV SIGODI: Mr Van der Berg, I just want you to clarify this for me you know.  This incident took place on the 11th of March 1984 and if we look at the history of our country, elections were due the following month, April 1994.
	And at that time, there were negotiations and the ANC was back in the country.  In fact all the organisations had been unbanned.  Can you really say that it was so improbable that you could have people working for the Bophuthatswana Police Force, but who had sympathy or could see the way forward that look, this is the way things are going?  You know, it is highly likely that the ANC is going to take over the government and people want to be reincorporated into the main stream South Africa.  Is it that impossible to find people as individuals, having sympathy for the ANC and yet at the same time, still being in the employ of the Bophuthatswana government?
	It is something that could happen and people saying, a person saying to himself rather than having our country, okay what is perceived to be our country, this Homeland, taken over by the AWB, rather I would resist the AWB and then we see what happens at the elections and in those circumstances, finding yourself having sympathy with people who wanted to be reincorporated into the new South Africa?
	I think we can accept that people could see the way the wind was blowing at the time.  This contradiction that he was a Bophuthatswana police officer, therefore he could not be an ANC sympathiser, therefore when you are saying that he shot because he had aligned himself with the ANC sympathizers is a contradiction in terms, but I mean, if we look at the whole background of the country, is it something really that impossible because the elections were going to take place the following month?  Can you just explain why you would say it is such an unlikely situation to occur?

MR VAN DER BERG: Chairperson, yes, firstly one has to go and look and see if the applicant was so strongly politically motivated or if he felt so strongly about the political situation, then we would have found that much more prominently in his documents, but we don't.
	It is possible that somebody, we can find someone who might, who was for the ANC even though he worked for the Mangope government, who wanted to take part in the South African elections.  Definitely yes, you could find people like that, but the question is if the applicant did give us that case, did make an issue out of that, that is what we have to look at, not the possibility that it might, we might have find other people who is in a similar situation, but we have to look at this applicant.
	One must also look Chairperson, if the applicant was unhappy or was angry at the Mangope government if I can put it that way, is that a sufficient reason to shoot the AWB people?  Surely that is not sufficient reason if he is angry at the Mangope to then shoot the three AWB members?
	They did not prevent that he takes part in the elections, and also the AWB at that stage, the convoy was moving out.  Mr Menyatsoe, yesterday he answered my question, he said yes, he did see the convoy, so he did see it.  The convoy couldn't have gone anywhere else except leaving Mmabatho and as Mr Terreblanche has already said, some of them were already on their way out.
	So in that context, one has to look at it whether there was real danger for him or not, and whether it was political or not.  Then we must also, I made a note here Chairperson ...

ADV MOTATA: If I may just follow up on what my colleague has just asked you Mr Van der Berg, what I want to know is there dispute or denial that the AWB people or rather let's put it this way, that the khaki clad white members were shooting at people in Bophuthatswana and in particular at black people?  Is there denial of that nature?

MR VAN DER BERG: Chairperson, the applicant, when he shot the AWB people, he did not know about any other shooting incidents which took place.  It is the first incident that he was dealing with.  It was on that day.  I would like to refer you to the statement he made and specifically ...

ADV MOTATA: Just to assist you, the applicant said if I can remember, one person was shot on his thigh and another one in his belly and her belly, it is a woman, and he said this enraged me because my people were massacred by these people, so I say let's just take those two incidents.
	Is there denial that the AWB ever did it because if I follow your argument to say they were retreating, they were going out of Bophuthatswana and I want to understand, if you say so, it means that war situation that prevailed, had stopped and if that war situation which is ascribed to, had stopped, then there was no reason for them to shoot, because they were retreating?

MR VAN DER BERG: Mr Chairperson, let me just answer the first question which was put to me.  If we look at page 27 of the bundle and about line 20 onwards, on 21 more specifically, he, that is his neighbour, he informed me about the presence of the armed AWB members at the Bophuthatswana Air Force Base.  He said they had virtually taken over from the regular Bophuthatswana Army.  He informed me that the mere presence of the AWB was not acceptable to the black Bophuthatswana Defence Force members.
	The point is this, at this given point in time, this is Thursday night ten o'clock, he knew nothing.  He was informed, it is all hearsay and that is what I am trying to convey.  It was all hearsay.  It was information which he did not know about, which his neighbour gave to him, which was not acceptable to his neighbour and his neighbour said this is not acceptable to the black Bophuthatswana Defence Force members.
	Never pertinently did he express his opinion, it is all hearsay and he reacted to that.  So then again, what I asked him yesterday, this is on page 30, round about line 15, about the 40 people who were killed or shot.  With respect, that evidence was not within his field of knowledge when he shot the AWB people.

CHAIRPERSON: It does say on page 29 with regard to the blue Mercedes in particular, that the people in that blue Mercedes started firing shots at him and then he goes, it doesn't say it here, but he goes on in his evidence to say that those shots resulted in at least two people that he saw, being injured.