Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-09

CHAIRPERSON: I just have a couple of short questions.  The first is page 861, but then turning the page to the top of page 9 and you told us earlier that security forces successes such as arrests, cross-border raids, covert killings, sabotage of the enemy produces praise, pride and relief from pressure.  Where did the praise come from?

UNKNOWN: The praise came from our superiors and from the politicians.  I think that, if I can give you an example, was it '83, the Pretoria car bomb, '83?  Certain of these incidents caused huge pressure on the security forces because they were seen to be failures.  It was not the ANC success it was our failure.  And there was I would say for example that and also attacks like on Koeberg and the Voortrekker incident caused great anger, especially right at the top, I am talking now about the Prime Minister, later the President, and it was based on failure.
 On the other hand if the revolutionary enemy were unsuccessful in terms of - and I, you know I don't have any - I wasn't specifically involved, but it's an incident we talked, or was being discussed this morning, the one about the handgrenades, is that type of incident would, and I remember at the time, caused praise and happiness because it was seen as a great setback for the revolutionary enemy, and a victory, something clever that had been done by the security forces.  So that's the - I am just trying to sketch somehow the psychological pressure that there was.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't want to pursue this unduly but when you say praise from your superiors, also from politicians, who exactly do you have in mind?  Was this just a general feeling that the government of the day was pleased?

UNKNOWN: Yes and reflected in the media Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.  Thank you.  The other question, page 10, the second paragraph under Section 9, you talk about that
"The liberation movements and their members were never seen as fellow citizens of our society.  We regarded them as an alien enemy which threatened our society, our job was to eliminate that threat".
Did you use that word before you got our material or is that coincidental or is it just part of the language that was used?

UNKNOWN: Parts of the language.

CHAIRPERSON: And the last question.  The last paragraph, it's a pretty angry paragraph in some ways if I may say so, very understandably so, if it is angry, we have been accused, and of course there are many accusations against the TRC, but one of the things that people have become impatient with us about is that we have said repeatedly that involvement in the conflict of the past, and responsibility and accountability for that involvement should never ever be limited to the security forces, whether it be the foot soldiers or the generals, but that the whole of society really needs to deal with its past.  So you are really echoing, I think, and not deliberately so, something that we feel very strongly about.  And certainly some of the people who have come before us, some in camera and some in public have expressed a feeling of being victimised or being blamed or being separated out, and that a whole lot of people within the common society have simply stood back and looked in horror and rubbed their hands and said this is terrible, how could they do these things?  It seems to me you're saying something very different and I wonder if you wanted to elaborate on that?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman all I am trying to say is that what the security forces did in general was not something that they dreamed up.  They, the security forces, are parts of the general society, and that society is made up of various elements.  And that that, our society, I am using that word to maybe denote the then National Party dominated state, was under attack, saw itself under attack not only by international forces but also by domestic forces who they believed had only one interest and that is that they were part of the international onslaught against the South African state.  And I, like many of my former colleagues, do feel that certain people and certain elements of society have attempted to suddenly distance themselves from something which they were an integral part of, and that really is the only point I am trying to make, that this wasn't a war between the armed wing of the National Party, which - the Security Branch was the armed wing of the National Party, let's not mince words, and the armed wing of the ANC and the Communist Party.  This was something which encompassed a lot more than that.

CHAIRPERSON: Just one - one of the hearings that we have planned for the future is that of the role of business and labour because it is our view that the whole of society was involved in this one way or another, and you talk here about
"Our finances and banking were done..."
and I am quoting,
"....were done by bankers who even gave us covert credit cards for covert operations".
now is this a general statement or is this something which either now or later you could furnish us with specifics?

UNKNOWN: I can furnish you with specifics with pleasure.

CHAIRPERSON: I'd be grateful if you would, thank you.  Mr Lyster.

MR LYSTER: Mr Williamson in a couple of amnesty applications which I won't go into now in any detail people have said that the revolutionary climate in 1985, and particularly '86 were such that the traditional distinction between the ANC abroad, the ANC in Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, and the enemy forces within that that traditional distinction started disappearing and that it was perceived of as proper and the right thing to do to attack hangers-on, followers, supporters of the ANC internally as well as externally.  I think up until '86 action had been taken externally, raids into neighbouring states.  And in these amnesty applications senior people have said that 1986 was a watershed year in that supporters of the ANC internally, surrogates, the UDF, became fair game as it were and actions were then - people were then identified as targets and they were killed and amnesty is being applied for in those specific cases.  Would that accord with your understanding of the counter-revolutionary strategy at the time, that that traditional distinction between the ANC abroad and the UDF internally as having fallen away?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman I was really never involved in internal operations, but it is correct that in external operations it was regarded as standard procedure much earlier than internally to target and eliminate the enemy.  And from '86, during my involvement then with Military Intelligence and then later in politics, it did become clear to me that - in fact what happened, and we used to talk about it specifically, if you remember also in '87 when the whole possibility, the whole breakdown of the Soviet empire, and the possibility of the Soviets withdrawing their forces from Angola specifically started being discussed, that there was a feeling generally amongst the, I would say the upper echelons politically and militarily in South Africa that the war was going to move from the South West African/Namibian and Angolan border into South Africa.  And that there was that perception and it happened.  And therefore the reaction by members of the security forces to start using the type of counter measures that they'd used outside the country inside the country against what was seen as the same enemy didn't surprise me.  And I really can't understand why it surprises some of the politicians.
 I will just add, one quick thing I can throw in is that the whole Vlakplaas operation was something that was transplanted from outside and brought inside.  That was Koevoet that was brought into South Africa and it had a role and a function outside which was naturally just continued internally.

CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry to keep you but it seems that you have prompted another question and that is from Mr Lax and I think that's the final one.