Amnesty Hearings — Klerksdorp — 1999-05-10

MR RUDOLPH: May I proceed please.  Thank you.
	On the 5th of September 1991, the Town Clerk, Mr Herman, wrote a letter to the Commander of the North Western Commander Military Base, Potchefstroom.  That was four days before the battle of Ventersdorp.  He wrote that the council knows that the Defence Force is supposed to react but expresses his great concern and disappointment about the way in which they are involved in a political connotation.  They must realise that the inhabitants and parents of officers in the army are inclined to doubt the bona fides of the Defence Force.  Here, the Executive Officer of a Town Council is appealing to the officials so that the situation which was going to arise at Ventersdorp could be solved and this is all about the military forces and the presence of the police force there.
	Mr de Klerk came to say, if there are people who today have to stand here, then it was not the people or the members of the AWB or other people, the people who should have stood here today are the Security Forces.  Mr de Klerk should have been here today.  The people who were responsible for the shooting of people in Ventersdorp streets just because they wore Khaki clothes not even because they belonged to the AWB.  These are the Security Forces.  The damage which was done, was done, and it is my contention - and I mentioned this at the court case in Ventersdorp, that this was done by the Security Forces.  If you look at those photos which were submitted in the court case and you see how those vehicles were painted and messed up, then you can only come to the one conclusion that it was one person who did that and we had to take responsibility for that.
	Mr de Klerk must give us an explanation of the police's planning and their actions which came out fully in the court.  The magistrate thought well to denigrate it as being worth nothing, but in the same breath he found - and this will be, I think, Exhibit 4, if I am correct.

CHAIRPERSON: I think Exhibit C will be the letter of 5th September, and which is this?

MR RUDOLPH: This is a piece from the court case in Ventersdorp in which the magistrate came to the following conclusion - I was accused number 2 and Mr Terre'blanche number 13, if they were part of a conspiracy who planned this extent, then a long term jail sentence would have been the most suitable punishment.  After consideration the court could not find this way.  This is then Exhibit D.
	The situation is simply that what happened at Ventersdorp was aroused by His Honour President de Klerk who was the leader of the National Party at that stage.  He did not come to Ventersdorp in his capacity of State President, he went there as the leader of a political party to gain political points and he arrived there with a helicopter and fell out of the air like manna and after the battle had passed, he disappeared in a Casspir with his tail between his legs.
   There is evidence that the police exerted pressure on witnesses to testify.  The magistrate praised the police for their credibility and now I say today that we know that the police and Security Forces on numerous occasions, misled magistrates and judges with their testimony.  That is what Mr de Klerk must come and tell us.  He must come and tell us why it was necessary to use policemen and security men to act there in khaki clothes as if they were part of the AWB, people who swore at other people.  And testimony was given to this and this resulted in confrontation.  Mr de Klerk must come and tell us that, by means of Mr Amie Venter and Barend du Plessis, that he invited the AWB to have a discussion with him that evening before the meeting and that they, the police, then went and formed a cordon between the hotel and the post office of seven men in depth.  While we were on our way from the town hall to the roadblock, there were policemen and organisations which told us to follow this way and when we reached the scene where a policeman told Mr Terre'blanche "go the other way".
   At Ventersdorp we were led into a trap.  Mr de Klerk and his cronies set a trap for us which would lead to our death and we would have been destroyed that evening had it not been for guidance from above.  Mr de Klerk, then is the man who has to come and say what he came to do at Ventersdorp on that specific evening, why it was essential for him to have the meeting as he did and for him to come and say, when we wanted to summons him to testify at Ventersdorp, why he went to the Supreme Court or to the High Court and therefore to prevent him his testimony.
   For him a wonderful example has been set by a grey beard, Mr Nelson Mandela, the present President of South Africa.  In the Sarfu matter, he testified as to the execution of his duty as State President and one of the reasons which was given was that he did not apply his mind.  I think that, Mr de Klerk, as leader of the National Party, and not in his capacity as State President, should also come to these proceedings and explain to us how he applied his mind to the Ventersdorp matter.
   Therefore I want to ask you Mr Chairperson, that in order to enable us to put our case effectively, I want to apply that you be of assistance and enable me to get Mr de Klerk here so that we can have all the real facts which would help you to make a decision.  For another reason, I want to appeal for an extension.  The idea for amnesty is that a person should give a political instruction or mandate and therefore these people were not given amnesty because they were supposed to not have this instruction.  I am not sitting here because I want to say that I had been given instructions.  At that stage I was a member of the AWB, I was the Secretary General of the AWB and I was involved with some of the arrangements that evening.  I was at the side of the leader of the AWB and it was my duty as his Chief Executive Officer, but my conscience took me to Ventersdorp.  And had I not been a member of the AWB I would have gone to Ventersdorp that evening to state the demands of what I feel are those of the Boer people to Mr de Klerk.  There is just such a wonderful example, Your Honour, which drives me and has driven the person who is much older than I am.
   I want to quote from a hearing which took place on 22 October 1962, and in this the accused says:
"Government violence can only do one thing and that is to bring counter-violence.  If there is no dawning of sanity on the part of the government, the dispute between the government and my people will finish up being settled in violence and by force."
   That man is the State President, the Honourable Mr Nelson Mandela, and he said that, Your Honour, and I said the same thing in Ventersdorp that the Chairperson: "Whatever sentence Your Worship sees fit to impose upon me for the crime of which I have been convicted before this Court, may he rest assured that when my sentence has been completed, I will still be moved as men, as men are always moved by their conscience."
    I would also like to give that to you as an exhibit, Your Honour.

CHAIRPERSON: That would be Exhibit E then.