Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-10-01

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: You worked within a context of a devolution of authority and one rank reported to the next rank and higher up in the whole hierarchy of power. So after I had spoken to Van Rensburg I had no doubt that he had authority, authorization. I wouldn't have gone behind the back of Genl Basie Smit and asked whether Van Rensburg had cleared the matter.

ADV POTGIETER: What was Van Rensburg's rank at that time?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: He was, if I remember correctly, he was a brigadier or perhaps a general or he was in the process of becoming a general.

ADV POTGIETER: And compared to Gilbert?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: No, I don't know, because I didn't know Mr Gilbert well. I only met him on two or three occasions.

MR FORD: So what you are saying then, if I understand you, Mr De Kock, is that you placed reliance on Mr Van Rensburg to ensure that proper authority had been granted for the operation.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR FORD: He was the one who gave you instructions to assist and to assist in the carrying out of this operation?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: And if I understand you, you would have expected him to have gone to the head of security, the head of the "veiligheid", you called it.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes.

MR FORD: In order to ensure that proper authority had been given?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, correct.

MR FORD: Now in the context of your application, Mr De Kock, there appears to be more than one suggestion by you, that as far as you were concerned, the politicians, certain of the politicians of the time must have been aware of what was taking place. Is that correct or not correct?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: And what gave you that impression, Mr De Kock?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: On two or three, I can remember two or three occasions on which Minister Vlok went to Vlakplaas. On one occasion specifically, he went there with members of Soweto, members of the security branch, Johannesburg, to thank members of C1, the technical division to congratulate them and thank them in regard to a certain number of operations, for instance Khotso House incident. And I will never forget when he said that we, in other words the police and the Afrikaner would never surrender, not in the next thousand years. I think in 1944 somebody said something similar in Germany.
	Furthermore, to put it in the broader context, I want to say that no member of the National Party, including the previous President who has now run away, could at any time have gone to bed at night, and believed that they were in control of this country, because they were the popular majority, politically speaking.  They were kept in control directly by the South African Police, the Defence Force and the Intelligence structures.  There should be no doubt about that.

MR FORD: Now Mr De Kock, we have heard it suggested in certain of the questions which have been asked, and in certain of the evidence which has been given, that a junior officer or even just a normal policeman, could not and would not refuse to obey an order from a more senior officer.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: He couldn't do so lightly or easily, not lightly or easily.

MR FORD: You were not a junior officer in any sense of the word, you were a respected and trusted senior officer in the security police. Is that right?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: I had worked my way up through the junior ranks, but yes, the most sensitive of information and operations were entrusted to me.

MR FORD: Yes, I am talking round about the time when this operation took place.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, that's correct.

MR FORD: Now returning again to the judgment of Judge Van Rensburg, at page 538 of the record. In the middle of the page Judge Van Rensburg found
"De Kock was a highly intelligent individual."
Without wanting to appear patronising in any way, I would suggest that that is the impression created by your evidence here today.
	As such a person, Mr De Kock - oh, and also if I may refer to your application itself. At page 16 of the record, in the middle of the page, do you have it? You refer to -
"Genl Adendorf whose troops had killed about 90 000 men and women and children between June 1941 and June 1942."

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: You are referring to the Second World War and the millions of people who were killed in that war.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct, yes.

MR FORD: Presumably then you have some appreciation for, and presumably you also have heard of the Nuremberg Trials which followed that war?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, Chairperson, I predicted my own during the Harmse Commission.

MR FORD: And you must have realised, Mr De Kock, as an intelligent individual, that there comes a time when a soldier, a policeman must say this far and no further?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes.

MR FORD: "I cannot follow that order".

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, such a time does arrive.

MR FORD: You have said, you have told this Committee, Mr De Kock, that in so far as the other two ex-colleagues or colleagues who you were required to eliminate at a later stage, you declined to follow that order or those orders, because your assessment was that it was not required. Is that right?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is right, Chairperson. I just want to clarify something.  Many of those who gave these orders, had never had experience of actually pulling the trigger. It is very easy to say to somebody to pull the trigger, but to actually do it yourself, is a very different matter, and then to go home and live a normal life and in a normal social set-up, that is very difficult. It is a battle.

MR FORD: Now in retrospect, Mr De Kock, and we know it didn't happen because we know in fact what did happen, was this not one of those, a similar matter where you should have investigated, you should have considered the validity of the order which you were given?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Chairperson, the later information relating to Goniwe and the others, and that is why I considered it to be in the national interest.  We can always ask ourselves whether we shouldn't have turned left or whether we should have gone right or the other way round, but given that information which I had, I had no problem with this instruction.  With retrospect, yes, I should have queried it.

MR FORD: Specifically, Mr De Kock, what I am asking you, is you were with Mr Nieuwoudt for some time.  You did not know him personally, you did not know his abilities personally. Is that correct?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: We have heard his evidence.  We heard his evidence yesterday as to the basis upon which he came to the conclusions which he did.  Couldn't you have asked him, couldn't you have discussed with him what precisely, what steps had been taken to ensure that