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

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: No Mr Chairman that is not what I said.  It was not possible to contain this whole situation through security legislation and to handle this situation I did not say that because of that we used other methods.  On groundroots level the people became aware of this situation and they decided that against this background and where these words also played a role and other factors to be able to contain the situation other methods and actions had to be used and that's why we used harsher actions.

MR NTSEBEZA: Lastly on this aspect.  Now since we are dealing with perceptions, I think the question that we seek to get an answer from you on is, if it was generally accepted, and I think you say it was generally accepted, that the legally available methods of dealing with perceived enemies of the State were not effective.  And I think we are seeking to say is, would it therefore not be reasonable against that acceptance for a person who is an operative, a foot soldier, when he gets an order that enemy leaders must be eliminated or neutralised that it was a test, if not an explicit authority for them to deal with those leaders other than in accordance with the law?

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: Mr Chairman I want to emphasise strongly that you must keep in mind that those documents in which those words appear would not be provided to members on the lower levels.  It would have been channelled through the management systems and it would differ from the one committee to the other committee, and from the one incident to the other incident regarding which interpretation should be given to this document, and if and whether these people came to that conclusion.
 I want to agree with Mr Ntsebeza that people on the lower levels were in such a poor situation and that the message was conveyed that harsher actions should be taken and people should be killed.  I do not have those facts in my possession.  I am interpreting certain circumstances and necessarily it must be evaluated at the hands of each incident and determined during which circumstances those words were used.

MR NTSEBEZA: Do you then accept that it is one of the possible meanings of those words to say that people must be killed?

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: Yes definitely Mr Chairman.  If you tell a soldier eliminate your enemy, depending on the circumstances he will understand that means killing.  It is not the only meaning but it is specifically one meaning.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Lyster.

MR LYSTER: Thank you Chair.  General I just want to try to just succinctly bring this discussion to a close because I think Mr Goosen has largely finished his line of questioning.
 Just from a study of the documents, the sorts of documents that have been referred to, and these are State Security Council documents and minutes of DST projects and other military Intelligence and police documents, the sort of ambiguous words that we have been talking about are, or some of them are as follows, "uithawetekens", "elimineer", "neutraliseer", "uitrooi", "uittewis", "uit die gemeenskap verwyder", "maak 'n plan", those are the sorts of words that are used in documents.  Now do I understand your evidence really to be that these were synonyms for arrest and charge, or detain and they were not in fact synonyms for kill, is that your evidence?

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: Mr Chairman my evidence is that the people who handled that document in the State Security Council could understand it like that.  That document was not presented in the sense that those people deliberately had to be killed.  If you study the contents of the document and the scope of that, provision is made for arrest, for detention and for removing from society.  You can just evaluate the words as they stand.  But if you want to take this further, like I've said repeatedly, the circumstances surrounding this document and how the document was evaluated that should be judged.
 If you look at the document it gives, or some of the document gives the impression that the meaning was that people should be detained or arrested.  It was unfortunate choice of words.  It could have been put more clearly.  But you have to ask the specific people involved why those words were used.  I can just look at the words on face value and I did not have the impression that the people had to be killed deliberately.  Operatives on the lower levels regarded it differently perhaps.

MR LYSTER: You see if the words were meant to convey arrest, detain I mean those really were the only legally available methods to deal with people, arrest them, detain them, place them under house arrest, ban them,  then why didn't the documents simply say that?  Why use words like "uittewis", "uitrooi", "vernietig", "neutraliseer", "elimineer"?  Really to describe those as an unfortunate choice of words, General, we'd like you to come up with something more direct.

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: That is what it is.  If you look at the document and at the contents you cannot infer another meaning.  If you look at that clinically I can't say that based on facts, I can't say anything more than I have already stated.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: General would you agree that the unfortunate use of that language resulted in people being killed?

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: No Mr Chairman it happened afterwards, Mr Biko died long before that time.  Those documents were written in 1985, Mr Biko took place beforehand.

MR GOOSEN: I didn't mention Mr Biko.  I am saying would you agree that that unfortunate use of that language, "vernietig", "uitrooi", "uittewis", "elimineer" and so on, you describe it as an unfortunate use of language that that unfortunate use of language resulted in deaths, would you agree with that?

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR GOOSEN: General there is just one further aspect that I would wish to deal with and you alluded to it when indicating that in interpreting instructions that would come down as the, perhaps the document might not necessarily be given to a particular operative, but that the sense of that would be conveyed and in certain circumstances when the general instruction would be conveyed and words like "elimineer" would be used, a guess in those circumstances people might interpret them to mean kill.  Would you agree that there developed a culture amongst security force operatives, given the use of language of that nature and given the exhortation to even firmer action, and given the realisation that legal means were not sufficient to combat the revolution, that there developed a culture in which illegal activities became fairly generally accepted?

JOHANNES FELDE VAN DER MERWE: Mr Chairman to describe that as a culture and to generalise is not correct.  You have, once again, to look at the circumstances under which these operatives worked to decide how they understood those words and reacted to them.  Many operatives countrywide would have worked in a more secure position where they were not exposed to this type of violence which would necessitate that those words should be interpreted in an extremist way, in an extreme way.
 You can't generalise and describe it as a culture, but it did have an influence on the actions of operatives, but you have to analyse those circumstances to determine what the extent was.  You can't generalise.  That would be wrong.