Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-07-08

MR KNOBEL: Not that I'm aware of, no.  The only company that was bought, as you say, by Government, was Protechnic that had been taken over by Armscor.

MR VALLY: I think we heard evidence to the effect that something similar happened with RRL.

MR KNOBEL: Oh, I beg you pardon, sorry, Mr Vally, you're quite right, the - I wasn't thinking - I was thinking in terms of Defence Force taking control over a company again.  You're quite right, RRL, - the, is it agricultural services, I believe so, and of course the breeding farm was taken over by ...(indistinct) service, the breeding component.

MR VALLY: So there may have been situations where ...(intervention)

MR KNOBEL: But you're saying at a profit, I honestly don't know, I don't know about those transactions.

MR VALLY: Okay.  The final set of documents I want to go through with you are set out in annexure G.  This is headed "The chronological development in relation to the Croatian transactions".  There are a number of issues that are of concern here, and let me just take you through some of the aspects.  If you look at paragraph 3, you are saying in paragraph - sorry, I'm looking at - do you have the document.

MR KNOBEL: Yes, I have it in front of me.

MR VALLY: Alright.  Paragraph 3 says originally products and weapons were developed which included all three classes, and you name them as those which were irritants, those which were incapacitants and those which were toxic - lethal would be a better word.

MR KNOBEL: Yes, that's right.

MR VALLY: Now, can you explain to us what was meant by this, that there were products or weapons which were being developed in terms of Project Coast which were potentially lethal.

MR KNOBEL: If you will give me just one minute, Mr Vally.  I did say at the beginning of the hearing that I wanted to refer to the TRC briefing that I gave in January '97, do you have that document, I'm not sure of the ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: We do have it, please go ahead.

MR KNOBEL: Yes.  In that document this situation is exactly explained where details are given about the initial so-called implementation phase - I'm just getting the exact page and I'll tell you.  If you page to page 25 under "Chemicals Weapons Research" I say,
"The chemical research development and production facility, Delta G Scientific was commissioned in '85.  It operated as a private company, it was fully integrated in chemical community where it operated undercover successfully till the programme was stopped."
Paragraph 39,
"Chemical agents were categorised as lethal, incapacitating and irritating agents."
Under paragraph 40,
"Lethal agents, these agents were considered to be those that had been developed exclusively for use as lethal chemical agents in weapons of war.  It was apparent at a very early stage of our research, but there was no sense in trying to develop and study molecules that were more toxic that those already known in the field.  Those molecules were an adequate deterrent even though they had been around for many years.  What was important is that new delivery and penetration enhancement techniques have made protection against these agents vastly more difficult.  Following philosophy regarding these agents was developed and implemented.  All known molecules in this group would be synthesised on lab scale.  This was followed by confirmatory investigation of the chemical and toxicological properties of the molecules.  Further research would be done on the various penetration enhancement techniques applied to these molecules.  All substances in the above findings will be made available to the Defensive Equipment Research Programme and no weaponisation would be implemented for any of these."
I think I give you more details of that later on, let me just make sure.  Yes, ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: General Knobel, so what you are saying is that you did in fact work on lethal agents but you didn't develop them further.

MR KNOBEL: We didn't weaponise them.

MR VAN ZYL: You didn't weaponise them?

MR KNOBEL: No, we didn't.

MR VALLY: Fine, let's just go on.  Paragraph 8, the same document, where it was decided to accelerate the project,

MR KNOBEL: That's correct.

MR VALLY: And there's reference to a 6,6 million South African Rands in order to obtain items I believe from overseas?

MR KNOBEL: Yes.

MR VALLY: Now I'm trying to understand why this is happening because you're trying to do it before the end of 1992.  We know that in January '93, and I refer you to paragraph 38 where the Minister of Defence on the 2nd of January 1993 gave an instruction that all incapacitating agents, including "voorloperstowwe", I'm not sure what gasses those are,

MR KNOBEL: Ground substances.

MR VALLY: Ground substances, and this sort of weaponry must be destroyed?

MR KNOBEL: Yes.

MR VALLY: Was this acceleration of the project in anticipation of that instruction?

MR KNOBEL: No, it was in anticipation of the signing of the new Chemical Weapons Convention which was eminent, which was going to take place in January '93.

MR VALLY: So why would the be an acceleration of that project to acquire substances which you would have to destroy the very next month or the next year?

MR KNOBEL: The development of the incapacitating agents at that stage were considered as dual-use chemicals, I explained that earlier this morning, but it would also be utilised in an anti-riot capacity.  The use of an anti-riot agent certainly - the only exception being BZ is not addressed by the Chemical Weapons Convention.

MR VALLY: Well we know that Cr,  if you use it outside the country, you must notify the controlling body.

MR KNOBEL: Yes, but you don't have anti-riot situations outside the country.

MR VALLY: That's the point.  The point is you were allowed to use it within the country.  But you do have to declare it though.

MR VALLY: Well, we'll come back to that aspect again, but now ...(intervention)

MR KNOBEL: But you must also - Vally, you must remember we are anticipating here what is going to happen with regards to the Chemical Weapons Convention.  As I've said to you already, we initially thought that the Convention was going to be signed earlier possibly, but we also thought that it might take a lot sorter for the gratification to take place.  The Convention was signed in January '93.  We anticipated that we would have two years before it would be ratified and then enter into force.  So that gave us quite a bit of time - leeway.  And in our discussion with Minister at the meeting in January '93, that appears in the discussion.  If you go back to that document you'll see that we've discussed it detail.  In fact it took a lot longer for the Convention to be ratified and ultimately it entered into force in April '97 last year.  And please remember this, I've tried to explain it to you, we were in the process of moving South African troops out of Angola and out of Namibia.  Namibia was becoming independent, the Cubans were withdrawing, we were hoping that we would negotiate a settlement between Savimbi and Netha.  And the Defence Force said to Government, this means only one thing, that now we will have to work up towards a negotiated settlement in South Africa, which is what happened - which is exactly what happened.

MR VALLY: Which is why I'm asking with reference to paragraph 8, why was the project accelerated?

MR KNOBEL: To deal with mass-action in South Africa, that was the emphasis, where shifting from a retaliatory capability to dealing with riot situations, and we did have at that time the various emergencies being declared.

MR VALLY: Just - whilst you're talking about the Chemical Weapons Convention, South Africa had some time before that been declared to be a chemical weapons state by the United States I believe.  Are you aware of that?