Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — UNKNOWN

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman, I recall that his evidence was that there was a separate office of the security branch there.

ADV MEMANI: His evidence was that they did not work at the police station. He said security branch worked at GOS.

MR DU PLESSIS: No, Mr Chairman, that is what my learned friend would have wanted him to say obviously, from his cross-examination.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: What do your notes say, read us your note then?

MR DU PLESSIS: Well, Mr Chairman, perhaps my learned friend can tell us what his notes say.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I am reading from my note, and he doesn't have a note.

ADV MEMANI: It appears that this is when he was being - ag, cross-examined by Mr Van der Walt.  Ernie Stander, M'Lord.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, Mr Stander did not cross-examine him about Mamelodi.

ADV MEMANI: If it would help, according to my notes it comes after he had told us about the sister who took his money.  Then thereafter he says (indistinct) in 1986, I was with the reaction unit for plus/minus four months. Then Loots took me to Mamelodi, Unit 19 was in Rosslyn. At Mamelodi I was still with Unit 19 and there were offices of security branch.  Riot unit deals with violence directly. I was told that I was released from the unit and worked with security. He goes on and then he starts telling us Bokaba and I worked with soldiers. We worked at Rosslyn for five to six months. Henry Bokaba. I worked at Rosslyn for five to six months. Henry Bokaba took me to Mamelodi, he showed me where he slept.  We used to stay at offices. They gave us reports about their patrols. They would report about activists. GOS is in the police station. I worked with Bokaba and Selahla. If I had a problem I reported to Capt Loots at COMPOL. The person who was in charge was Warrant-Officer Holt. He was overseeing the SADF and security branch.

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, that was during my cross-examination Mr Chairman, and I want to say here for purposes of the record, my learned friend's only note pertaining to this says that they worked at an office of the security branch at Mamelodi.

ADV MEMANI: It doesn't say that, it says Warrant-Officer Holt was in charge.

ADV DE JAGER: I have got a note, after - from about the middle of 1987 till arrest, he worked at Mamelodi, soldiers reported to us about activities, and then a question - at the station there were no officers, and the answer was the office in the same yard, in the same building as the police station, but it could refer to GOS' office. I haven't got a note whether it is the office of the security police, but there was an office in the same yard as the police station.

CHAIRPERSON: He said they used to go to that office to get information, because Bezuidenhout was the person in charge of that office and they went there to exchange information.  So I don't think that he said that they occupied any offices themselves in GOS, in Bezuidenhout's offices.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, we can look at the record. I am hundred per cent certain that the effect of his testimony was that that there was this specific office of the security branch, that the three of them used, where they went every day. That was his evidence first, and then later on he gave evidence about Bezuidenhout and the connection about Bezuidenhout.  And because I did the cross-examination, Mr Chairman, I am hundred per cent sure, because it was very important for my clients. So I am 95% sure if not hundred per cent.

ADV MEMANI: I think, Mr Chair, towards the end you asked the question whether he was conveying that Mamelodi security branch was under the charge of three constables.  And he gave an explanation which I haven't got a note of, but I think it will help if anybody has got a note of what the reaction was to your question.

CHAIRPERSON: It is quite clear, I think, from his evidence that he did not occupy offices in the same place as Bezuidenhout. He said that they did not have to report to them. They went to him, when they wanted information, sometimes not for three or four days.  He controlled the soldiers. I was not told to report to him, just wanted information, where he just went to his office to get information.

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman, there was a clear distinction between the SADF offices or the GOS offices and an office occupied by the security branch separately.

CHAIRPERSON: I have no note of the separate security branch office.  His evidence was to the effect that they went there and reported in the morning and then went out to see their informers.

ADV MEMANI: I think we can come  ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: They made entries in their pocket books, apparently as a report to duty.

ADV MEMANI: I think it best if we can say, Mr Chairman, that it is not clear. He never actually said they had a separate office, but he did mention that they worked from JOC.

CHAIRPERSON: He didn't mention they worked from GOS at all.  He said they went there to exchange information from time to time.  He said they were not subject to Bezuidenhout.  When they reported they reported back to Capt Loots.

ADV MEMANI: You will recall that it was asked from him whether the office, they had an office at Mamelodi police station. He said no, they operated from JOC and JOC is, although in the same yard is in different premises from the police station. Now as to whether within the complex occupied by JOC, they had a separate office is not clear.

CHAIRPERSON: He did say, I do have a note of him saying Mamelodi police station had a section GOS. The South African Defence Force occupied this as did the security police, we went there.

ADV MEMANI: That is my point.  That it is not clear then that within that complex they had a separate and distinct office.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on.

ADV MEMANI: As the Chair pleases.  Now Mr Bokaba, this GOS office was mainly, was concerned mainly with security matters.

CAPT BOKABA: Will you explain to me what is JOC, what does it stand for?

ADV MEMANI: Do you know JOC?

CAPT BOKABA: Okay.  Talk to me and refer me to GOS and not JOC, because if you say JOC, do you mean GOS?

ADV MEMANI: Yes.

CAPT BOKABA: Okay, I thank you.

ADV MEMANI: GOS was concerned mainly with security matters, didn't it?

CAPT BOKABA: Do you mean security matters, those people who worked there, what were they doing there?

ADV MEMANI: The centre was to deal with security matters around Mamelodi.

CAPT BOKABA: I have already explained, they used that as an office, this was an office.  There was a radio, they had patrol vehicles of soldiers and the police.  This GOS office, the radios were there, radio monitors were there in that office.

ADV MEMANI: Mr Bokaba, I repeat, this GOS was concerned in the main with security matters around Mamelodi.

CAPT BOKABA: I will say that is the case.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I just for the record say that it stands for "Gesamentlike Operasie Sentrum", GOS.  So when we talk of GOS it is actually not right, it should be GOS - Gesamentlike Operasie Sentrum. GOS is the Afrikaans word for GOS, Mr Chairman, not JOC.  If you are speaking English it is JOC. I just want to make that clear.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that where GOS comes from? It is GOS.

ADV MEMANI: And this office would have been used by members of the security branch, the Army and the reaction unit?

CAPT BOKABA: No security branch members had offices on that premises.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: That is not the question.  The question is, did security branch members also use those offices.

CAPT BOKABA: Do you mean the police security branch?

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Yes.

CAPT BOKABA: No, they didn't.

ADV MEMANI: Where did you give the report to Capt Boshoff?

CAPT BOKABA: We would go there and hand in the report and leave, we didn't have an office there.