Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-05-06

MR STEENKAMP: Mr Chairman, if you will allow me a few questions Mr Chairman if you don't mind.
	Mr Ismail can you tell me at the time when you were still the commanding officer, exactly how did you perceive the enemy?  If you can describe the term: "enemy", how would you - can you give us some sort of idea, description, how did you perceive it?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Well, firstly I would say it was all the elements of the apartheid State which included foremost members in uniform, that would be members of the defence force, the police, the security branch, security police, people that worked for Government, people who upheld the apartheid State, the Courts that upheld apartheid at the time.

MR STEENKAMP: I just want to quite you a section from The Sheshaba, March 1984.
	 Mr Chairman, I will make a copy available.
I'm just going to read it quickly for you and maybe you can just respond on that.  It says the following, and this is an interview by the then President Oliver Tambo, the following:
"You are aware that the apartheid regime maintains an extensive administrative system through which it directs our lives.  This system includes organs of central and provincial Government, the army and the police, the judiciary, the bantu ...[indistinct] administrations, the community councils, local management and local affairs.  It is these institutions of apartheid that we must attack and demolish as part of the struggle to an end to racist minority in our country"
So what you're saying is it's the whole administrative system as well?  Is this correct?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR STEENKAMP: And then the question of collaborators, people like informers, people who testify in Court cases, people who - let's say the common term, the people who turned against, or MK members then who turned to become informers, were they also seen then as targets?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes, they were.

MR STEENKAMP: And at any stage this war as you described it, did it at any stage progress to a level where basically everyone who was supported by this system was basically attacked, people like - say for instance in previous dimensions, the white areas, taking cognisance now of the policy of the ANC, because I see here in the armed struggle a memo by Oliver Tambo, sorry, Mr Modise, he says the following: "The moment has come for the African National Congress to take the war into the white areas".  How does that link up with the military target you explained to us?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: What the ANC intended was to make white people aware that the war that was being waged inside our country would not only be waged in the black areas.  Up to then what had happened is that the security forces had created cauldrons around all of the black areas, a lot of the fighting was going on inside of the black areas, there were attacks against police stations in the black areas and the ANC wanted that the white areas also be affected by it.
	What it meant was that the whites should come out of their comfort zone, they should no longer be able to enjoy the fruits of apartheid and that they should also feel the pain of what was going on, to have an understanding of the pain and suffering of the black people as well.

MR STEENKAMP: I think the crux of the question is basically, clearly they we innocent civilians - as you said civilians were attacked by the army in Botswana and Mozambique and Maputo, these people on this side of the border, as you put it, are clearly not military targets so how did your - what was the difference then between your "war" and the "war" that the army or the defence forces fought against the ANC,  how did that then
differ?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Because we did not deliberately attack white civilians, it was never the objective of the ANC to simply sow terror amongst the people.  It did not take the easy way out, it waged a just war at all times.  The struggle was aimed at convincing people, showing people and in the words of President Mandela when he had said during his Court proceedings: "We would hope to bring the whites to their senses but we did not think that we should do so simply by hitting at any target willy nilly.
	 What was intended always was to ensure that we waged it in a proper way".  And that was not the same when it came to the apartheid forces.  They mowed down school children, they attacked innocent civilians, they went into other countries without declaring wars.

MR STEENKAMP: I think the impression that I got from the information is that the MK or the struggle, the just war, actually did the same thing, they attacked people or innocent people and obviously, according to this statement - I'll make a copy available to you, there was at one stage - and this document has been published in 1985, maybe I misunderstood you.  In 1986, exactly the 5th of October 1986, was there then a change in ANC policy from your side?

CHAIRPERSON: I think on that one Mr Steenkamp, my recollection from reading that, and I've read that, is that what was being said there was prior to that most of the violence etc., in the country had been taking place within the so-called black areas and it was said that it's time now to try to move that away from there, to make the whole country aware of it.
	And I don't think by saying that it must go into the white areas means necessarily - it's certainly my interpretation of reading that, didn't mean that we must now go and indiscriminately kill white people.  By moving it into the white areas it doesn't necessarily mean that, it can mean: blow up their TV masts so that they can't watch TV tonight, blow up their hot water supply so that they can't have water baths that night, take out targets that are in white areas, but I don't read that - are you suggesting that meant attacking white people for the sake of them being white?

MR STEENKAMP: No, obviously not Mr Chairman, thanks.
	Mr Ismail, can you maybe elaborate, how much control did you have over the MK cadres who actually infiltrated South Africa, the country, coming from across the border?  What was your control structure, how did the process work of controlling people, or arming them and then sending them in to identify targets?  How much control did you actually really have over them?