Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

DR VAN RENSBURG: Yes, indeed I was informed it was started as a front company and we would have these contracts supposedly with the Army, rather the Surgeon General.  I did have reservations in the beginning and as a family we talked about it.
 It is acceptable for any model Army, in fact it is expected to have a good technology base of covert warfare.  If you don't know the dirty tricks you can't counter them or you don't detect them or your outwitted.
Then again I thought, I'm a pretty known liberal, blacklisted by the Broederbond, Anglican, lifelong Anglican, I've written it on my application form, there surely can't be anything very sinister if they ask a chap like myself.  
 I also had experienced previous work, contract work with the Army in the late '60's soon after I joined the, what ultimately became the Medical Research Council.  I was in a team that was to develop a safe cabin for mine-proof vehicles.   At those times the V had not been invented, there were no mine-proof vehicles and the police were being blown up on the border in their bakkies.  
 So I joined the team together with the CSIR people and we developed a cabin which was safe and which we were sure that people would survive in and I did the medical assessments in various ways.  To do that work we went through very strict screening, security checks and there wasn't a problem for that purpose.  
 To join this company there was no security check until only after I joined.  The security was at such a level that there wasn't even, they weren't even very studious about: "Die eed van geheimhouding", your secrecy oath.  This document I was given in 1984 to sign so I thought why should I sign a thing like this, I don't mind industrial secrecy but this sounds a little bit sinister.  I didn't sign it, I think we were asked for it once and I made an excuse and I never have signed an oath of secrecy.

MR CHASKALSON: Doctor van Rensburg, just for the record, would it be possible for us to get a copy of that document at some later stage?

DR VAN RENSBURG: You may have it all, I don't require it.

MR CHASKALSON: Thank you.  Doctor van Rensburg, can you indicate to us some of the other people who were working at the facility at the beginning?

DR VAN RENSBURG: At the beginning when I got there, there were the Directors that I mentioned and a couple of technicians.  There was Jaap Visser and there was already a chemist, Claus Psotta but we were a small group.  We started in the old house, as we heard yesterday, the old farmhouse and worked very hard.  Daan Goosen was very advanced for the big permanent institute and the building started shortly after I got there.
 This was not a secret institute, it was an advertised institute.  We did contract research and we had brochures and we had people from all over the world there.  These are the brochures, it's for commercial work, all the details, this is the tests we can do for the pharmaceutical industry and so forth.  So it was not secret, the existence was not secret, that was advertised.
 What was meant to be a secret was the fact that it was a covert military operation ...[indistinct] and that some of the, a front company and that we were doing covert work for the military, that of course was secret.

MR CHASKALSON: When was the new facility completed?

DR VAN RENSBURG: I should think about early in, round about mid 1985.  We had in the meantime built a small laboratory which was erected very quickly, three or four rooms near the farmhouse, which became part of our large animal laboratory facility later and in that there was very active work going already.  From the beginning of 1985 there was active laboratory work being conducted.

MR CHASKALSON: When you say active work, are you talking about commercial projects or are you talking about other projects?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Both.  Commercial projects never really were more than 10%.  The guidelines we were given as to how much commercial work to do, they would tell us at some stage only 5%, at other stages 20%.  In the early stages it was maybe at that level.  At the late stages, after 1990, probably 30% of the effort was expended on commercial work but we never really earned more than 10% of the budget.

MR CHASKALSON: So the commercial work was simply a public facade to the company?

DR VAN RENSBURG: It was known as: "Dekmantelwerk", cover work, that's the reason it was done.

MR CHASKALSON: How is it that if you were recruited to do commercial work you came to know of the other work?

DR VAN RENSBURG: I wasn't specifically recruited to do commercial work but the laboratories I created or helped create because it was all a team effort, and equip and the technology that I helped to establish there, this was necessary for both commercial work and for the military work.  It's the same type of laboratory facilities, a lot of the techniques are the same.  There was a very good overlap.  So I myself did not do projects except for two small projects which I'll touch on.  I just helped keeping the machine oiled once it had been established.

MR CHASKALSON: We'll return to this at a later stage.  Once the facility had grown a little bit I presume that more staff were drawn into the facility and that almost certain divisions were set up, would that be correct to say?

DR VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.  We had ultimately had a staff of round about 70.  I do have a breakdown here of the structure, I must just put my finger on it, there were departments of Toxicology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and - just let me try and find where I've got them, sorry I can't put my finger on it now.  There were a whole lot of groups of scientists, only about 12 scientists in all ultimately by the time I left in 1991 and about 16 technologists.
 We had these various scientific disciplines, biochemistry, Organic Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Physiology, Microbiology, the Animal Unit and so forth. And then this was supported by a lot of service systems, the State Department, the Finances, the Administration, the Directorate and so forth.

MR CHASKALSON: Did you have any specific dealings with one or more of these units?

DR VAN RENSBURG: The specific dealing I had with them, I assume you mean research activities?

MR CHASKALSON: Correct.