Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: Are you saying that this is an example of disinformation from me?

MR JORDI: Your press release, yes.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I can only state Chairperson that I can tell the truth only as I know it Sir and I am not involved in disinformation I am totally objective as I sit here today and I have tried to be objective right through this process.

MR JORDI: I put it to you further that in the Weekly Mail article of the 21st of November 1997 it said that you have become friendly with Winnie Mandela and that during Winnie Mandela's divorce action you were in fact called as a witness for her but that the Judge declined to hear your evidence after the President said, who we know is a man of great integrity, that he would, to quote, "reveal facts which might damage her image and bring a great deal of pain to my children and grandchildren", what do you have to say about that?  No further question.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I have met Mrs Madikizela-Mandela on, I believe about five or six occasions.  I am aware that earlier this week an allegation or somebody alleged that I have had some sort of relationship with her which is absolute rubbish and which is in itself a Stratcom attempt, I believe, to discredit me.  Mrs Madikizela-Mandela has been in contact with me and my family on at least two of the five or six occasions and at other times I have been in contact with her in the presence of her lawyers and bodyguards and other people.  I can't think of a time when I have been alone with Mrs Madikizela-Mandela.

DR BORAINE: Thank you.  No, wait a minute, no, no, no ...(intervention)

MR JORDI: I never suggested you were involved in a relationship with her.  Thank you very much.

DR BORAINE: Thank you.  It's very late and people are very tired.  I have suggested to members of the panel that they restrict their questions, that they be as precise as possible.  I would invite the witness to be as short and as precise as well because you two have been under questions now, so the remaining questions will be posed by the panel, but we will try and be as brief as we can.  Dr Randera.

DR RANDERA: Mr Erasmus I just want to come back to your statement and particularly paragraph 3.  You state there that in October 1990
"I attended a formal Stratcom training course in Johannesburg and part of that was again the entire issue of destabilising the ANC, the SACP alliance, PAC, rightwing organisations".
now it's related to the question that the Archbishop asked earlier on to your colleague.  We are talking about October 1990, Mr Mandela has been released already, am I to understand that this was done with the full understanding of the structures in operation including government, because I think earlier both you and your colleague made the point that there was an annual audit to Cabinet, or is this part of what we have come to understand of third force activity?  Were you acting outside at that particular time, the ambit of established government structures or was this part of third force activities?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: It will be hard to distinguish.  What I can say is that Stratcom training, as I was aware of it, increased after the release of the President.  We were informed on Stratcom course and in various forums that we had four years, the accent was laid on this statement, we have four years to reduce the ANC to just another political party.  A lot of our training was that we had literally laissez faire to carry on activities and nothing should be turned aside which would hinder us in achieving these aims.  The last Stratcom operation that I know of that was implemented was as late as I believe about April 1991 which was an operation aimed at SADTU which used terms like sabotage of the organisation and which in documents which I have given to the TRC which are in Cape Town, bore the authorisation of the then Minister of Law and Order.

DR BORAINE: Mrs Mkhize.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you Chairperson.  In one of your responses you indicated that information about the death of Stompie will be very useful for your propaganda.  My concern is if your informant understood what you stood for there is very little positive propaganda that they will give it to you because they will feed to what they think you are looking for, so I just put it to you to test that, because I doubt whether you will ever get any positive information.  People will give you what they thought you were looking for.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I basically my knowledge of the Stompie issue at the time was based on press reports and on verbal information received from other security branch members in various formal forums or informal forums.

DR BORAINE: Mr Ntsebeza.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chair.  Mr Erasmus I sat through the Media Hearings and now I listen to you and I get the blurring picture of shifting eras the more I listen to people who did the sort of work that you did.  Now there is just one question that I want you to assist us with in order for us to be able to make a fair assessment of your evidence.  When Mr Semenya asked you whether the alleged rumour of a romantic link between the Archbishop and Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was a typical Stratcom operation you said yes, that was it.  Now in your own admission you confess to the knowledge of a rumour that links you romantically with Mrs Madikizela-Mandela and you say that is also a typical Stratcom operation.  Now the question I want to know from you is would there be any reason why there should be that sort of Stratcom operation?  Why would those who you left be keen to perpetuate disinformation about you because you say that is total rubbish, absolutely unfounded?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I can't speculate why people would make allegations like that against me apart from the fact that I find it shocking.

MR NTSEBEZA: In the way it was shocking for you to talk about Mrs Mandela being a nymphomaniac, Zinzi being a nymphomaniac and all those sort of things ...(intervention)

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I have come to realise the horror of what I have participated in.

MR NTSEBEZA: You see what I am trying to get at Mr Erasmus you had a reason to spread all those rumours and I just don't know, first it is 70:30 in terms of ratio then it is 100%, I mean it's shifting, it's shifting sand, now but whatever it is you had the reason, you were serving the Nationalist Party, you were serving the government of that day.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: That's correct.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now you want us to accept and believe that a rumour that links you romantically with Mrs Madikizela-Mandela is a typical Stratcom operation, two things, are you saying Stratcom still exists and that is what it is doing?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: No most definitely not.  I merely mention that  it's - I cannot but help see the irony in a situation where I spent many years of my life trying to destroy people like Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, the Archbishop and many, many other people that were perceived enemies of the State and now having to (...indistinct) in front of a truth commission, in a forum like the Truth Commission being accused of something like that I find very ironical.  I am not saying at all that Stratcom still exists.

MR NTSEBEZA: And you say it's an attempt to discredit you?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I believe that it's an attempt to discredit me or throw some bad light on the relationship which I have enjoyed with Mrs Mandela which has been on a friendly, reconciliatory basis of forgiveness and decency.

MR NTSEBEZA: Have you ever gone to her and apologised for all the harm that you had done to her?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I have apologised to her and many other former adversaries of mine in the time of the struggle.

DR BORAINE: Archbishop Tutu?