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

UNKNOWN: Yes Sir.  I'd like to start with a quote from Klausewitz on war, and that is
"The state of circumstances from which an event proceeded can never be placed before the eye of the critic exactly as it lay before the eye of the person acting because above all it is almost impossible that the knowledge of the result should not have an effect on the judgement passed on events which preceded it".
 Mr Chairman my evidence herein is not presented as expert testimony but is rather a summary of my understanding of the topic gained during my personal involvement in the conflicts of the past particularly from 1971 to 1991.  
 During these years I served firstly in the South African Police, Security Branch, then in the South African Defence Force, Directorate of Covert Collection and finally on the National Party Parliamentary caucus defence study group as a member of the President's Council.
 An understanding of the motives and perspectives of those officers entrusted with the practical execution of the State's counter-revolutionary strategy must start with some examination of the theoretical tenets underpinning the strategy and the consequent tactics employed.
 During the period in question I, along with many other security force members underwent various forms of training in the theory and practice of counter-revolutionary warfare.  To my personal knowledge numerous courses and seminars were held by the SAP and SADF some of which I attended and others at which I lectured.  In addition the Universities of Pretoria, South Africa and the Rand Afrikaans University all offered postgraduate degrees in strategic studies.
 Now perhaps the most important writer philosopher on war was Karl von Klausewitz whose master work "Vonkrieg", On War, is regarded by many students of warfare as one of the most profound studies of the subject.  Klausewitz infers that war, and I quote him -
"...is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will",
He said further that -
"War belongs to the province of social life, it is a conflict of great interests which is settled by bloodshed and only in that is different from others".
 In addition Klausewitz's most famous and outstanding contribution to the theory of war is his definition of the relationship between war, that is violence, and policy.  And he said -
"War is to be regarded not as an independent thing but as a political instrument".
 So from Klausewitz we were taught and we learned that the violent acts of war were not merely the acts of the security forces but were an expression of the social and political conflict of ideas between our society and the representatives of some other society who I can call the enemy.  
 I and others learned that we, as the security forces, were charged with the use of violence and bloodshed as a political instrument of the State, our society, in order to compel our opponents to fulfil our society's will.   The theories and practice of Soviet revolutionary warfare as well as those of Marx, Engels and especially Lenin were also studied and taught.  The central tenet of all we learned and taught was that the Soviet Union was central to our security problems as stated by Stalin in his book The Problems of Leninism, and I quote him.  He said:
"We are living not merely in a state but in a system of states and the existence of the Soviet Republic side-by-side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable.  One or other must triumph in the end, and before that end comes a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable".
 Mr Chairman we learnt and were taught that Communism was a religion and a faith and that it was messianic.  It would use a series of revolutionary civil wars, that is internal as opposed to international wars, as a means to advance, in camouflage, the marxist ideal of world revolution.  
 As a result of the perceived importance of revolutionary warfare we in South Africa, as well as most security forces in the Western world studied the insurgencies in French Indo-China and Algeria as well as the British experience in Kenya and Malaya.  From these insurgencies, as well as from the United States experience in Vietnam a host of expert theories on counter-revolutionary warfare emerged.  
 Without going into the detail of the theories of modern revolutionary warfare suffice it to say that it was assumed that the whole spectrum of human activity, that is political, social, cultural, economic, military security etc, would be involved.  
 It was also assumed, by most experts that the development of any revolutionary or internal war in South Africa would be in four phases.  Firstly, organisation; secondly, terrorism; thirdly, guerilla warfare and finally mobile warfare.
 Now Mr Chairman the State Security Council and especially the National Security Management System structures which developed and evolved during the time in question were implemented as a counter-insurgency strategy in an effort to mobilise the total resources of the State in its counter-insurgency campaign.  This idea has often been expressed as the so-called total strategy in answer to total war.
 Now as far as the theoretical aspects of the State's counter-revolutionary war are concerned I would like to refer the following documentation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  I have submitted the documentation, some of it from Unisa; the chapter on Insurgency and Counter-insurgency from an MA degree dissertation; articles by Lt General Dutton on Military aspects of National Security; by an American Colonel Philip P Katz on Psychological Aspects of Military Action; Security Branch lecture notes on the South African Communist Party, the ANC and PAC by Colonel Baker; and Security Branch lecture notes on Terrorism, Subversion and the KGB compiled by myself, and these will go, Mr Chairman, to support what I have said.
 Now further to the academic aspects covered in the section above I would like to refer to another source from where South African counter-insurgency experts drew information on the enemy threat, and that is foreign and mainly Western intelligence agencies, military security  organisations, government officials and politicians.  During the time in question the West was deeply concerned about the Soviet Union and its surrogates.  While most Western representatives, which I met in the above category, were not supportive of the South African government's racial policy of apartheid, they were all more concerned about the Soviet Union's increasing influence in the region. 
 In many instances their objection to so-called apartheid policies was based on the fact that the Soviets were using the issues of racism and apartheid as a justification of their role in supporting the liberation movements and to politically attack the West for so-called supporting apartheid.
 Mr Chairman, with the benefit of hindsight I can only say that the sum result of all the abovementioned was that the South African security forces gave very little cognisance to the political motivation of the South African liberation movements beyond regarding them as part and parcel of the Soviet onslaught against the so-called civilised or free or democratic Western world. And this fact, I believe, made it easier for the most violent action to be taken against the liberation movements and their supporters because such violence was not aimed at our own people but at quote, "foreign enemy".
 During the period in question the ANC and the South African Communist Party did in fact work very closely with the Soviet Union and the East bloc.  Soviet assistance to the Communist Party and the ANC was political, financial and military in nature.  This fact made any other view of the liberation movements by the security forces very unlikely.  
 In an illustration of the above I append numerous documentation from Western intelligence agencies; minutes of meetings between South African and British security delegations; samples of Western intelligence reports liaised with us; seminar papers; statements to the South African Police and extracts from the South African Communist Party journal, African Communist; as well as a National Security Council "inligtings waardering" about Mozambique.
 Now Mr Chairman a particular aspect of the State's counter-revolutionary strategy, which I would like to address, is that of covert or secret operations. 
 As will be seen from some of the documentation that I have submitted dealing with the theory of insurgency and counter-insurgency a democratic state is often limited by its laws, values and norms in the methods it can use to defeat an insurgent movement.  
 For example the insurgent will often deliberately provoke repressive over-reaction from State forces.  
 The insurgent may also operate secretly and conspiratorially, often within the society he aims to destroy.  
 The insurgent may also operate from a foreign state under its protection.  
 The insurgent may attack the political legitimacy of the target government in a way which is legal or even constitutionally protected.
 In many of these cases the security forces concerned resort to secret or covert actions against the enemy.  One of the most well-regarded experts on counter-insurgency, J L McKewan who wrote the Art of Counter-revolutionary War, the Strategy of Counter-insurgency, says in his book that -
"The insurgents may be defeated by using their 'own weapons' on their own battlefields."
This tactic requires the security forces to reply, and I quote, "in reverse revolutionary methodology."  McKewan says that such a tactic is a big problem to a democratic state because its laws, values and norms do not allow it to use all the methods employed by the enemy, for example murder, intimidation, sabotage etc.
 Now the well-known British expert, Wilkinson, author of Terrorism versus Liberal Democracy, the problem of response, said that security forces cannot be allowed to break the law in order to defend legality.  The solution to this problem in many states has been to allow security force units to carry out extra-legal counter-revolutionary acts as long as they are done secretly.
 In the South African context during the 1980's there was also an emphasis, specifically in early '80-'81 on attempting to legislate more effective powers for the State.  I can mention the Rabie Commission in this regard.  Despite new legislation the intensity of the revolutionary war intensified rapidly up to the mid-eighties when the states of emergency were used to give the security forces more powers.
 Along with special legislation and even emergency powers covert operations directed against the perceived revolutionary enemy increased.  The former Director General of the National Intelligence Service, Dr Barnard, in the 16th CR Swart lecture, which I append, defines covert actions as -
"Die Klandestiene magsaanwending van militere vermoens van een staat om die soeverenieteit van ander state ondermyn".
Dr Barnard here only refers to state versus state action, but covert action would also include actions aimed at the surrogates of another state, for example the ANC and Communist Party which were seen as surrogates of the Soviet Union or other enemies of the State.
 Paramilitary action in support of the state while ensuring that the state sponsorship thereof was kept secret was a strategic instrument of policy which could be used rapidly, quietly and non-attributably.  Such actions required only modest expenditure in relative terms on resource and manpower but could play an important role in terms of results when used as part of an overall coordinated counter-insurgency plan being implemented not only by the security forces but the government as a whole.
 Now by their very nature covert actions were rarely, to my knowledge, discussed or written about.  However, I append hereto as document 21, the, and I quote "Report about the intelligence symposium" held at the National Intelligence Service head office in Pretoria on the 25th of June 1982.  In this report of this symposium I am quoted on page 30 as having said that, and I quote:
"When survival is important it is often necessary for a service to resort to secret actions which does not comply with the laws, morality, norms or values which controls the public actions of the State.  Secrecy, both defensive and offensive is important.  Coverage is used to allow the operatives to execute secret instructions".
 When I was instructed to present a paper at the symposium on the Use of cover in secret operations, as well as on 'The recruitment of long term deep cover agents or moles' I discussed the contents of my paper with my colleagues and found no disagreements with the views expressed.  At the symposium I was not challenged on my views.  The report was also circulated to the highest level as the distribution list shows.  And I may add Mr Chairman the fact that it quotes that part out of a long presentation that I made also says something.
 In the light of the above and in terms of the knowledge which I had of standard secret and/or special force procedures in the then South Africa, as well as in many other states, I had no doubt that secret, violent and other actions against the revolutionary enemy were an accepted and approved procedure in our overall arsenal of counter-insurgency weapons.
 In further illustration of the so-called mission of secret or covert special force units, security force units I append hereto as document 22, and I quote,
"The role of intelligence as part of the South African Police Security Branch's counter-revolutionary strategy".
which was presented to the 1985 annual RS Handlers Conference held at Daisy Farm.  Our RS agents were fulltime officers in deep penetration roles.  I was RS167 during my undercover years 1971 to 1980.
 I also append, as document 23, an intelligence report on South African involvement and the activities of MNR 19 June 1983.  This report was prepared for the ANC by Roland Hunter and gives a good overview of the Directorate Special Tasks, DST, of the SADF Chief of Staff Intelligence support for the MNR, Renamo, which support role was consistently denied.
 During the past conflict in South Africa differences of approach to the various revolutionary problems existed within the various organs of the State security system.  The broad difference was that on one hand some officials, especially from the Police, Justice and Foreign Affairs departments wanted the State's counter-insurgency programme to be conducted strictly in terms of the law and, if possible, for those laws to accord with the acceptable Western norms.  
 One example which I can give in illustration of this point was the increased use from the mid-1980's of common law charges, such as treason, against liberation movement members.  This was because of the lack of legitimacy of the special anti-terrorist legislation of the time.
 On the other extreme we had some officials, especially from the counter-insurgency element of the Police and the Military, who felt that a democratic state using democratic methods could never withstand a concerted Soviet-backed revolutionary effort.  Their solution was to suspend democratic freedoms and to militarise the South African society.  For example, proposals were even discussed whereby the SABC would be placed under military control and that political offenders would face military or state security courts.   Now the upshot of this debate was, as it so often was, a mish-mash compromise.  On one hand we had common law treason trials and on the other we had emergency powers given to the security forces.  Nevertheless the drift in the eighties was more and more towards a militarily dominated state.  The State Security Council and the National Security Management System structures were refined and expanded until they appeared in all sectors of public life.  
 Formal written strategies and orders of the type before the Commission were produced and the SADF even demanded a mechanism whereby the State President by executive order could indemnify them from civil and criminal liability for so-called bona fide actions taken in the struggle against terrorism.
 Alongside all of the above the State and its security forces maintained and expanded their secret ability to attack their enemies without necessarily having to accept responsibility for what was done.  The basis of such operations in the grey zone was deniability.  It is for this reason that specific so-called chains of responsibility will in many instances be impossible to determine.  The operational procedures were designed by people who knew the law in order to circumvent proof of legal responsibility for the deed by the upper echelon. 
 Such covert action leading to mysterious explosions, deaths etc cannot be said to be unusual in South African political life since 1961.  A long list of incidents could be compiled starting with the explosion aboard the aircraft sent to Botswana in the early sixties to uplift Goldrich and Wolpe to safety.  
 With the benefit of hindsight it appears that the upper echelons, especially the politicians, were so keen to be at, what I call legal arms length from covert action that they abdicated their responsibility to exercise close operational supervision of such actions and so lost significant operational control.  Nevertheless they can never deny responsibility for the budgets used to fund covert actions.
 As a result of the ever increasing revolutionary climate in the Republic during the eighties, and especially after the so-called 1979 Simonstad Beraad at which the security forces were told to take the gloves off in the fight against the revolutionary enemy, the security forces came under increasing pressure to perform.  The South African Police and its Security Branch in particular were under special pressure.  There was the increasing revolutionary pressure on one hand, political pressure to resolve the problems on the other and various other elements in the security forces, especially the defence force and military intelligence structures which wanted to play an ever-increasing role in the conflict and in society.
 As a result there was pressure on us all to perform.  I would say that the pressure was probably most intense on the Security Branch divisional commanders, especially in hot spots such as the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Johannesburg.  In this context results became far more important than legality.  
 The eleventh commandment was well known, especially to those in the covert or the special force elements of the security forces, this was thou shalt not be found out.
 The psychological effect of fighting such a counter-revolutionary war should also not be underestimated especially when this entailed long periods of covert operations either within or outside the Republic.  The members of the security forces, especially those in covert units used against the revolutionary enemy, saw themselves as the elite frontline troops in a critically important secret theatre of the overall war.  
 Enemy successes, such as killing of security force members, attacks on economic targets like Sasol or Koeberg and civilian bombings produced recriminations, guilt, frustration and anger.  Security force successes such as arrests with convictions, cross-border raids, covert killings or sabotage of the enemy produced praise, pride and relief from pressure.
 Some of the main purposes of attacks on the enemy outside the Republic were, as I understood them, the following:
 Firstly, the revolutionary onslaught was being directed from outside the Republic and the main perpetrators and/or resources of the enemy were to be found there.
 Secondly, if the security forces attacked the enemy would have to defend.  This meant that time, resources and manpower would be wasted on defence rather than utilised on attacking the Republic and its people.
 Thirdly, the psychological effect of what we call terrorising the terrorists was important, both in the negative sense for them and in the positive sense for the security forces and the target civilian population of the Republic.
 Fourthly, killing or injuring key enemy personnel was of strategic and tactical advantage.
 Mr Chairman I have never before seen any of the State Security Council or defence force documentation given to me for comment along with my notice to attend these proceedings.  I've carefully read the documents and can only comment that they accurately reflect the attitudes and mindset which existed in the then security forces and its political command structure as I understood them.
 During the years I spent in a management role in the SAP Security head office from 1980 to 1985 I became increasingly sceptical of some of the basic tenets of the security forces counter-insurgency strategy of the time, and I was critical of many of the tactical approaches employed.  As a result I published an article, "Wet, order and Staatsveiligheid, die uitdaging vir die Suid Afrikaanse Polisie in die wet en order gemeenskap" in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology in 1984 which I append hereto.
 Mr Chairman I had come to the conclusion, firstly, that the security forces and their political masters were, like Klausewitz, seeking victory in a war rather than a peace.  I had come to the conclusion that a military dominated political process aimed only at military victory over the revolutionary enemy was underway.  I believed that the ANC's Communist bark was worse than its bite and that political action in cooperation with the West could possibly decrease Soviet and Communist Party influence over the ANC which would possibly in turn lead to firstly, the elimination of Soviet and Communist rhetoric from the ANC, and secondly, the downscaling and eventual stoppage of the ANC's armed struggle.
 I believed that security force victories could not bring peace but could rather buy time which could be used to find a political solution which would ensure peace.  And this is why I became a politician, during which time, while always taking a hard anti-Communist Party and ANC line, I always emphasised that negotiations would bring about political solutions. 
 I deeply regret that my previous high profile role in the security forces has prevented me from playing any constructive political role in the years since 1991.  I hope that in some small way my cooperation with and testimony to the Commission in its various investigations has been and can be a positive contribution to peace in our land.
 Mr Chairman I wish to end my submission by going back to Klausewitz.  We learn from him that warfare belongs to the province of social life. In my role in the security forces I was never motivated by anything other than serving my society, if need be by shedding blood, be it my own or the blood of others, as a political act aimed at the settling of a political dispute to the advantage of my society.  
 My security force colleagues and I did not see the liberation movements and their members as fellow citizens of our society.  We regarded them as an alien enemy which threatened our society.  Our job was to eliminate that threat.  
 It is therefore not only the task of the members of the security forces to examine themselves and their deeds, it is for every member of the society which we served to do so.  
 Our weapons, ammunition, uniforms, vehicles, radios and other equipment were all developed and provided by industry.  
 Our finances and banking were done by bankers who even gave us covert credit cards for covert operations.
 Our chaplains prayed for our victory, and our universities educated us in war.
 Our propaganda was carried by the media, and our political masters were voted back into power time after time with ever increasing majorities.
 And I would like to answer any questions Mr Chairman.