Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-09-11

MARIUS OELSCHIG: I do not wish to make that judgement, Mr Chairman but what I can tell you is that I was asked for my advice and I confirmed that the circumstances being conveyed to me were such.  I did not pick up the radio and say shoot at will.   That is why you have a chain of command.  People from the ground report the situation to you as you have heard from the commanders on the ground and they said what must we do?  I confirmed, Mr Chairman, are you under attack, are you being fired at, and when the response was positive then I said but then you may fire because in our operational circumstances, if people fire at you, you fire back.
 We are soldiers, if people fire at you, you fire back and if it is reported to me that we are being fired at what do we do, obviously my advice was then you may fire back but again I repeat, not the entire force, not every single man with a firearm.  That is absolutely against the concept of minimum force.

UNKNOWN: Chairperson, my last, just follow up on that.  Do you accept because you're not answering the question in it's entirety.  Do you accept now, I'm not asking you about the situation when you were sitting in your office on that day, I'm asking you now because we need to make a finding on the facts.  Do you accept now that there was no basis for that allegation?  There was no shooting.  So in other words there was no need to use these lethal weapons against those people, that is the question.

MARIUS OELSCHIG: Mr Chairman, I do not wish to use hindsight to make a judgement.  It is your body, it will probably be the courts of justice, it will probably be elsewhere that that judgement is made but I pronounced myself clearly in my submission.  I believe absolutely, I am absolutely convinced that if there had not been a charge on the soldiers, not a single shot would have been fired.  That is what I believe.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Bongani Finca?

BONGANI FINCA: Chairperson, I have received very good co-operation from General Oelschig in responding promptly to my invitation to this hearing and for that I am grateful.  I found his attitude throughout our discussions up to this hearing, very useful.  I confirm what he says in his submission but I must say that I found the submission of the general to be the most disturbing of all the four submissions.  There seems to be absolutely no spirit of remorse shown anywhere in the submission and I regret that very profoundly.  
 Chairperson, I am linking up exactly with the response that has been given by the general to questions raised by my colleague Denzil Potgieter and I refer him to page 33 of his submission where he says I'm absolutely convinced that had the charge through the stadium around the right flank of the Ciskei police not occurred, not a single shot would have been fired by members of the CDF.  I would like the general to please reconcile that with the submission on his, on the appendix B page 88 where the general is saying in that submission that on the 4th September, instruction to take action was given...

MARIUS OELSCHIG: That is the 4th August Reverend Finca.

BONGANI FINCA: 4th August sorry, that instruction to take action was given.  Before that instruction, I assume that it was given by yourself sir, but it was given, but before that instruction was executed, Brigadier Gqozo actually intervened to reverse it.  So on the 4th August there could have been shooting and am I to understand that there was on the 4th August a charge through the stadium around the right-hand flank of the Ciskei Police?  I happen to think that there was none, but an order was given to shoot.
 Now how do you reconcile that with the statement on page 33 where you say that the motive for the shooting was that charge.  Full story.

MARIUS OELSCHIG: Mr Chairperson, the report that I submitted was for the march of the 4th August, the previous month.  The instruction that was given was given to the police to take action to get the people away.  I gave no instructions.  I did not issue a single instruction.  The police were then apparently told, get the people away.  But before the instruction could be carried out Brigadier Gqozo himself reversed that and said, wait I have spoken to Minister Botha and we will allow the people in.
 The soldiers, Chairperson, were almost in a hand to hand situation with the crowd.  They were face to face touching each other.  They were provoked, they were cursed, they were insulted and the soldiers did nothing.  
 I am giving you now the benefit of our debriefing which we held after the march of 4th August.  The soldiers did nothing.  They themselves, through their commanders, requested if something like this happens to us again, please remove us as far as you can from the crowds.  We cannot stand being in a situation like that, which is why we made the deployments we did on the 7th September, why we made an effort to remove them from the possible areas of direct contact and confrontation.

BONGANI FINCA: Chairperson, I would not follow up that, I would have loved if you were giving us three questions, to follow up and say that was the general there or was that reported to him?

CHAIRPERSON: No I am not letting you.

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you.  I am asking the second question sir on number 15 of the general submission where the general declares that he is a soldier of 35 years of professional service, that he has discharged his duties and responsibilities with zeal and intelligence, that he has set an example for all those who were placed under his control.  Chairperson, I want to find out, with that very illustrious record, while the general is indeed able to say to us what kind of weapons were issued to the soldiers on that day and whether those weapons were in line with the ensuring of minimal force was used.  Whether the general ensured that warning shots were fired.  Whether you made sure that the soldiers were deployed for the purpose of crowd control, were thoroughly trained and suited for that particular task and why the fact that they all, in the evidence of your colleague, fired without instructions whereas indeed emulating an example which you had set up for them, which you referred to on page 11 number 15, where you say that you have set an example to all those who are placed under your control.

MARIUS OELSCHIG: Chairman, the troops of the Ciskei Defence Force were not deployed in a crowd control situation, not at all.  That was the task and the responsibility of the Ciskei police.  Our role, as has been indicated by the operational commanders on the ground, was to lend support to the Ciskei police should a situation develop which they themselves could not deal with.  They, the Ciskei police, would have applied all the levels of minimum force and they were equipped to do so.  The Ciskei Defence Force is not or was not equipped for crowd control.

BONGANI FINCA: Did they?

MARIUS OELSCHIG: I believe, yes the Ciskei police had a riot unit which was deployed for the purpose and they were responsible for this task.

BONGANI FINCA: Not all my questions have been answered sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

BONGANI FINCA: Not all my questions have been answered.  Not all my questions have been answered.

MARIUS OELSCHIG: Yes, regarding the weaponry, the soldiers were equipped with their normal weapons and equipment which they would use as soldiers.

BONGANI FINCA: Excuse me Chairperson, not all my questions have been answered.

MARIUS OELSCHIG: Would you just repeat the one that has not been answered though.

BONGANI FINCA: Whether the weapons that were issued were in keeping with the work that they were doing.  I'm referring to hand grenades, I mean, to the grenade launchers that were found, that have been reported here.