Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

JAN LOURENS: Well, Dr Basson was the Project Leader of the then Project Coast, and he was absolutely instrumental in the establishment of these two companies, he was the driving force, he was the man that created the - in conjunction with people such as Dr Willie Basson and so forth created the concept, the design everything was Dr Basson's.  It was Dr Basson's brainchild to a very large extent.

MR VALLY: If he was not the Director of either of these companies, how did he exercise any control over these two companies?

JAN LOURENS: Well, on a project basis in the sense that there was a holding company, a company that basically acted as the channel of funds from the South African Medical Services into the project, being Project Coast, and this was a company called Infladel Pty Ltd and they were based in Hatfield.

MR VALLY: And who were the Directors of Infladel?

JAN LOURENS: It was a Mr Ben van den Berg and initially Dr Philip Mijburgh, but Dr Basson was not a Director.  As a matter of fact, I don't think Dr Basson was a Director formally in terms of the South African requirements of any of the companies at any stage.

MR VALLY: You stated that Infladel was the means by which these companies were - had funds channelled to them.

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: Who channelled the funds through to the companies?  Where did the funds come from?

JAN LOURENS: The funds came from South African Medical Services, as far as I know, there may have been other sources as well.  It may have, you know, there may have been a source from the Army, or whatever the case may be, but as far I know it was funded by SAMS.

MR VALLY: Can you indicate to us how much was spent in establishing these facilities, Delta G as well as ...(intervention)

JAN LOURENS: I have absolutely no idea.

MR VALLY: Now, were you still member of the Permanent Force at the time?

JAN LOURENS: No.  What happened is, I retained my conditions of employment in terms of salary, etc, etc, but I was paid by the front company.

MR VALLY: Were the two companies, as far as you are aware, still reporting to structures in the then South African Defence Force?

JAN LOURENS: Absolutely, absolutely.  No, the interface between both Dr Mijburgh and Dr Swanepoel with Dr Basson and the research in general and so forth were regular.  Yes, there was a formal reporting channel.

MR VALLY: Was this both the situation under General Nieuwoudt as well as General Knobel?

JAN LOURENS: I cannot comment on the General Nieuwoudt era because I didn't know General Nieuwoudt, I met him once, I never interfaced.  That was the early days of the project and my exposure was very limited to the running of the project at that stage.

MR VALLY: And General Knobel?

JAN LOURENS: Undoubtedly, undoubtedly, that there was a strong interface with General Knobel.

MR VALLY: What was General Knobel's role visa vis these two companies?

JAN LOURENS: Well, General Knobel was again responsible from the South African Defence Force's side for the project, the Project Coast, as such, although I have to admit that there had been in my discussions with General Knobel, grey areas in terms of what he knew about - what he bore knowledge of, and what he didn't.  I had at one stage, right at the end of my involvement in this project, I had a discussion with General Knobel about the aspects of the project that I thought was going very wrong, and he denied having any knowledge of the offensive part of the project, and he made it quite clear to me that Dr Basson had more that one reporting channel and that that part may in actual fact exist elsewhere, but he denied knowing anything about the programme.  So that leaves us ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Can you indicate to us when this conversation took place, the period?

JAN LOURENS: Early '93.

MR VALLY: We'll come back to that shortly.  What was your understanding of what Project Coast was about?

JAN LOURENS: My understanding of Project Coast was in essence three components.  The one component was a offensive chemical ability, and if I have to define that, and the first part thereof would have been the manufacture of CS and CR, that's two types of teargas.
 The second part would have been a large research ability in terms - research facility being able to research chemical substances and the ability to manufacture these on small scale.  Now, in terms of the - there's a grey area between chemical warfare and biological warfare, and it would include areas such as biochemistry, etc, etc, and that would have been part of the chemical project.  
 As far as the biological project is concerned, the research was directed towards biological warfare substances.  My involvement and exposure to the biological side had been minimal, so I am not able to give you accurate examples, I mean I can speculate about the type of projects as a function of the type of equipment that I supplied them, but I cannot tell you accurately or specific projects that they were working on.

MR VALLY: If I was to use a lay person's definition, and if I was to say that,
"Biological warfare should be distinguished from chemical warfare which uses agents such as chlorine, mustard gas, nerve gases, hallucinogenic drugs, etc, the essence of biological warfare is the use of living organisms to produce pandemics of disease spread by national means throughout whole populations."
Would - I'm reading from A lay person's guide to family health, would that be accurate?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, I think so, although I think that the subject field is much more complex that - but in essence, yes, it's true, but it's truly a complex subject field.

MR VALLY: So the one - the biological facility dealt with living organisms, anthrax, botulism, bubonic plague, those kinds of issues - those kinds of organisms as opposed to chemical substances?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, but the biological facility did a great deal of work on, for example physiological studies such as virility and fertility and so forth as well, which is difficult to classify in the subject field of purely biological warfare.

MR VALLY: Let's touch upon that issue for a while.

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: This research into fertility and virility, can you tell us more about this?

JAN LOURENS: I can't tell you a great deal.  What I can tell you is that the work that was done, was done by a scientist by the name of Dr Borman, Dr Riana Borman, and she was working on primates, baboons, I don't know if the work ever moved onto the chimpanzee level, into ways in which she could influence the virility and fertility of the animal.  Speculation has it that a part of this work was directed an ethnic issue in terms of to be able possibly manipulate ethnic virility or fertility rather, but I know no more that that as far as that specific project is concerned.

MR VALLY: Referring to the speculation, you're referring to - and to be more direct, was the speculation that this work was aimed at reducing the birth-rate amongst black people?

JAN LOURENS: Well, Mr Vally, I assume so, and again it's one of those situations that we never ever discussed a project in detail.  You know, I would for example, in this particular case I was responsible for the manufacture of a stimulator that is used to stimulate and draw sperm from the male animal and in this discussion with some of the junior scientists, you know, you discuss it vaguely, but I was never briefed formally and said this is the project, this is the extent, this is the scope, this is the objectives, etc, so please accept it as speculation.

MR VALLY: In you informal discussions, and I accept that you were not formally briefed and you were not party to it, were any - were you aware of any research into specific delivery mechanisms regarding the inhibition of fertility amongst black people?

JAN LOURENS: No, no, Mr Vally, not at all.

MR VALLY: Nothing about introducing it to water systems, etc?