Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-25

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I did speak to Mr Erasmus regarding the matter at the time of the submission of my application, I had contact with him.

MR PHOSA: That then was the first time that you had personal confirmation of firstly his involvement, knowledge about this involvement and his approval of your action?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, Mr Chairperson, the day during the event before elimination took place when I was involved in this covert action, I was approached by du Plessis or van Rensburg who - I'm not sure who exactly told me that they had obtained approval from Mr Erasmus, that was the first opportunity that I knew about him.

ADV DE JAGER: But the question is, when did you discuss it with him for the first time?

CHAIRPERSON: This is direct personal contact with Mr Erasmus.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I'm sorry that I misunderstood the question.  It was when I submitted my application Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: I'm not interested in he whole story but was his attitude then: "Look I authorised this, I confirm that I authorised it and I say it was necessary for you to do it"?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: Right, let's just get to the background - to a few things about the background in the matter of this case - of your actions, I'll just deal with it briefly.  On the question of the difficulty that you say you as a police had or experienced I doing your duties - let's just talk about informers, you would agree with me that there were several informers, your own informers - I don't mean yours alone, you as a security police in the township, at all times?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so.

MR PHOSA: And most of your informers had not been detected by the public, in other words they were not known because some of them occupied fairly high positions?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That was so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: If for instance Mr Mthimkhulu had been given house arrest - had been ordered to remain in his house and he breached that, there was any number of informers who would have informed you about that without being detected - themselves being detected?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so Mr Chairperson, but I would like to explain in this regard.  I've already explained where I'd gained practical experience in the case of Doctor Barney Pityana who had also been placed under house arrest.  There were several informers who watched his premises and all that they could do was to tell us that he had received visitors.  And we never used them because at that stage where two or more had consulted with him he was committing an offence, so the informers weren't physically present in the house and that was a factor that one had to keep in mind in order to prove one's case.
	And then he would just go into the next room and in this way he would shield this type of meeting in terms of which he would have been accused then.  So that was the practical sort of problem in terms of informers.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Nieuwoudt, I understood - correct me if I'm wrong, the evidence that the reason - one of the main reasons why you were alarmed was that after Mr Mthimkhulu returned from Cape Town as an invalid, he became a martyr and he addressed public gatherings from his wheelchair and stirred up the public at these public gatherings and violence took place afterwards.
	Now that is a very different matter from a private meeting of two people inside a house, surely your informers could have given information that he was going to present at a meeting so you could have had a plain clothes policeman who could give evidence?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes, it was so Mr Chairperson, but I was just replying with regard to the house arrest matter, the practical problems on ground level concerning house arrest.  But as far as the public gatherings were concerned, there were informers who reported regarding these matters to us.

MR PHOSA: No, I think you are either misunderstanding the churn of the question or just avoiding it or evading it.  The question is - let me put it that way and I understood it to be the emphasis, with your highly positioned informers -  informers who were highly positioned in the other camp, you could surely have had some of them attending the meetings that he would have in his room because - this is hypothetical now, he could have attended meetings and they would have been present at the meetings in his room or house.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so Mr Chairperson, but once again, then I would have had to use that informer to give physical evidence and that informer's life would have been at stake.

MR PHOSA: You know there's something that you and your colleagues have been keeping away from this Committee, the fact that a number of informers did in fact use evidence as Mr or Miss X, isn't that so?

CHAIRPERSON: But surely Mr Phosa, that doesn't stop the accused from telling his friends: "The people who gave evidence against me were a, b and c".  If it someone that he knows so well that they attend private meetings, when they give evidence he will identify them.

MR PHOSA: What I'm trying to say Mr Chairperson, is that the fact of the matter is the police were never deterred by the question only of the threat to informers, several informers gave evidence as Mr X, many got to be known and they were taken elsewhere for protection or removed altogether - some others never got to be known.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you have to go so far in this case, Mthimkhulu as I gather - they weren't worried about private meetings in his room, they were worried about public meetings where they could have put policemen in not informers, to give evidence.

MR PHOSA: I take your point, I agree indeed.
	Now, another aspect which concerned you - I'm just skimming through, you mentioned with concern the activities preceding the ANC anniversary, do you remember that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: Yes, but you see that is clearly an isolated incident, that would be an occasion which anybody else expects will create a lot of activity.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: By the way I mentioned this thing about burning - banishing, let's just go past it, there was also a method in terms whereof troublesome people could be banished lawfully to other areas even - mostly that they were taken to extreme rural areas, isn't it - do you know that process?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes, I am aware of the process.

MR PHOSA: And I would say to you that would be a way of isolating or eliminating them from the area?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That would have been so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: The other incident you mentioned - ...[inaudible] significance, it is important to you I see, that the ANC allegedly  - that is led by Tambo, went to Vietnam.  I think you're now talking about hearsay, this is not something that you personally know.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It was so Mr Chairperson.

MR PHOSA: To talk just quickly about your attitude to your work as a policeman.  You mentioned - if I understood you well, that you did assault some people you were interrogating.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is so.

MR PHOSA: Now, and you said you assaulted them so as to get information?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is so.

MR PHOSA: That of course is one of the accepted methods amongst the security police or extracting information from those who are reluctant to give it? Unless you are going to suggest that you are queer - you are strange.