Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-29

MR HUGO: General, a few other aspects I wish to address shortly.  The fraud aspect to which I have referred, was this discussed between you and Mr Nieuwoudt during this conversation which took place at six o'clock the morning at your home?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Not as far as I can remember.

MR HUGO: I am putting it to you that Mr De Kock says that this was the only aspect which was conveyed to him at that stage during the discussion where you and Mr Nieuwoudt were present.

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I can't deny it that while Mr Nieuwoudt and Mr De Kock, Mr Nieuwoudt perhaps mentioned it to Mr De Kock.  I can't recollect this in detail, but it was not the reason, the motivation why these people had to be murdered.

MR HUGO: I want to put it that Mr De Kock will say that the fraud aspect was mainly mentioned to him and that it was such a problem for him, that other policemen had to be murdered only because they were involved in fraud.
	And he said after this meeting, he went back to your office and told you that this was not fair according to him, and he asked you precisely what was going on.

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, that is not correct.  That specific day you are mentioning, I was not in my office at all.

MR HUGO: Mr De Kock will also state that after he posed these questions to you that you indicated that it was not only because of the fraud that has been mentioned, but also that these people who had to be murdered, were involved in the Goniwe incident?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Mr Nieuwoudt mentioned that in my home.  He mentioned that to me and Mr De Kock.

MR HUGO: And I am putting it to you that Mr De Kock, based on what you have said regarding the Goniwe incident, that it was related to these four deceased people, and he was absolutely convinced that it was in the interest of the country that these people had to be eliminated.  Do you have any knowledge of this?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I don't know what Mr De Kock thought at that stage and if he was under the opinion that it was enough to eliminate these people, but from my point of view, it had to do with the way these people would be disclosing security information or Intelligence.

MR HUGO: Mr Van Rensburg, you were instructed or rather requested by Brigadier Gilbert to arrange for the elimination of the four deceased and he says this had been cleared at head office?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.

MR HUGO: Did you not deem it necessary to go to your Security Head and tell him here is an operation which will be launched, which will have tremendous implications, is it correct to become involved in it?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: At that stage, as you have mentioned correctly, Gilbert told me that he has already cleared this matter and I did not regard it as my duty to motivate these actions.  It had been done according to Mr Gilbert.
	A request was addressed to me through Mr Gilbert, just to provide the means to do this.

MR HUGO: I am putting it to you that your office was directly next to the Head of the Security Commander.  Should you have wished to find out whether there was clearance, it was very easy to just go to the office next door and to say we are in the midst of the Harms Commission, this is an operation which will have very important implications, is it correct, should it be executed?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: First of all I want to put something right.  I was not situated next to the Security Branch office, the Head of the Security Branch's office, I was on a different floor.  Secondly as far as I could determine, clandestine operations had to be done on a need to know basis.
	And if the Head, I don't know if I during the clearing of the situation, whether it was ever mentioned that I should be involved.  Should it have been mentioned, I believed that if the Head of the Security did not clear this matter, if he deemed it necessary that I should know, he would have informed me himself.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Van Rensburg, you are in the same building with the head office, your men are going to be used by somebody else, several kilometres away.  What do you do to protect your men?  Shouldn't you have cleared with the head office to make sure that your men are adequately protected to make sure that this has been cleared with head office as Mr Gilbert tells you?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Mr Chairman, I had no reason to doubt what Mr Gilbert had told me and while I was part of the Security Police and especially during that period we are referring to now, it was evident that we were operating in various compartment and we operated on a need to know basis.  This is how I interpreted this situation.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, wasn't there such a basis for you before you could send or authorise your men to leave all the work from Pretoria to go to the Eastern Cape, wasn't there such a necessity for you, I am not talking about your juniors, for you, to know by way of confirming with head office?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, I did not see it in that way.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Hugo?

ADV POTGIETER: Just a moment.  Mr Van Rensburg, not even the fact that it was for the first time conveyed to you to kill some of your colleagues, it was the first time you received such a request, even under such circumstances you deem it not correct to liaise with the Head of Security which was near you to obtain a degree of protection for your men?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, I did not.

ADV POTGIETER: The Security Head, you are referring to need to know basis, the Head of Security was obviously a person who would have access to that kind of Intelligence and operations, isn't that true?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I don't understand specifically what you are saying, what do you mean by enjoy?

ADV POTGIETER: If you knew about it, he, the person in charge, should also have known about it, there is no reason why you wouldn't have approached him, because he did not know?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, this was not how I experienced this whole situation.

ADV POTGIETER: Did you consider talking to the Head of Security?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Not at all.

ADV POTGIETER: Did you think he should not know?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I accepted that he had knowledge.

ADV POTGIETER: So why are you not confirming this, especially under these special conditions, referring to the elimination of your colleagues.  This is happening for the first time in your career?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: As I saw it at that time, I believed that if he wanted to discuss this with me, it had to come from him.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you.

MR HUGO: Mr Van Rensburg, the fact that a colleague of yours phoned you from Port Elizabeth and asked you to assist him with such an operation, and then saying that they do not have the capacity to do this, did you not question this?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, I did not.

MR HUGO: Let me put it to you like this, during the same period, there were various operations executed in the Eastern Cape which the Eastern Cape handled on its own and they had the capacity to do these type of operations on their own.

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I don't know to which operations you are specifically referring to, but that was what Mr Gilbert told me.  He said they did not have the means or the capacity to do this.  What he specifically meant by that, I could not determine during our telephone conversation.

MR HUGO: But before you used your men for such a serious operation, why did you not ask him why didn't he do it with his men?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I accepted what he said.