Amnesty Hearings — Welkom — 1998-11-19

MR LOUBSCHER: Please continue
"I know nothing of any people who were injured during the committing of these offences.  The charge sheet's annexures contain several names of people who would have been the legitimate owners of the property which was deliberately damaged and people who we allegedly tried to kill.
	I read in the paper that two people were injured because of the placing of explosive device in a street in Wesselbron's black township during the night, as described in charge number 3.  It must be two of the people which was mentioned under column 4 on page 80 of the documents which serves in front of the Amnesty Committee.
	Our actions were only aimed at that obtaining of political goals and that is the recognition of the Volkstaat's ideal and in strengthening the Volksfront's leader's hands during the negotiations, by making it quite clear that the whites would not accept it if they were not considered and treated reasonably within the negotiations.  No other motive ever came into the picture.  We also did not gain financially or in any other way from these acts."

MR LOUBSCHER: Mr Labuschagne, can you tell the Committee, did you ever foresee the possibility that people might be injured or even killed because of the placing of explosive devices?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: Yes, Chairperson, I did.  And because I was aware of that fact ,before we executed any operation we always had a prayer and we asked that no-one should be killed or injured.

MR LOUBSCHER: Was it ever you or your groups, that's Botes and van der Watt's intention to kill anyone?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: No, Chairperson, right from the start it was not the case.

MR LOUBSCHER: And despite the fact - except for the fact that you prayed, did you take any other steps in order to minimise the chance that someone else might be killed or injured?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: Yes, there were several things we did.
The first of that would be to have the explosions take place late at night, usually after 10 o'clock and in certain cases even later.  There was a great possibility that most of the people would have slept at that time.  The time of detonation, if we wanted to kill someone,  would have taken place during the daytime but we did it in the night or late at night.  
	The explosives were never sealed in a sealed container, and I'm not an explosive expert but most of the power left this thing from the top, which would have caused greater damage and also maybe possible loss of life if we did it otherwise.  
	Also, we placed the bombs in the townships in such places that if it was at night there could have been a possibility that someone might have been able to see them and maybe cause alarm, if they did in fact see it.

MR LOUBSCHER: Mr Labuschagne, then to conclude, any of these acts for which you're asking amnesty, were they ever committed because of your personal malice or anger at any of the owners of the property that was damaged or directed at any of the people who might have been injured?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: No, Chairperson, not in one of the cases.  Especially in the case of the black townships we did not know who were the people in whose vicinity we placed the bombs.  It was not aimed at individuals at all.

MR LOUBSCHER: Then one further aspect.  In the bundle which serves in front of the Committee - Mr Chairman, I refer to page 22 of the bundle of the Committee, it would seem that it's the second amnesty application which is an affidavit or sworn to about six months after your first application.

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: Yes, Chairperson.

MR LOUBSCHER: Was it at any time your intention that this application should replace your first one?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: No.  If I'm correct, I made a call to General Viljoen at one point in that he tried to move the cutoff date of amnesty applications and then they invited us to come and thank them personally for that as a sign of appreciation.  If I remember correctly he wanted to submit an overhead application to the Amnesty Committee.  If I remember correctly he was willing to act on behalf of certain people.  And there we signed documents at one point which was filled in by the Volksfront.

MR LOUBSCHER: They typed part of this document, was that all completed by the Volksfront officials?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: That is correct.

MR LOUBSCHER: And it was handed over to you and all you did was sign it and fill in the written part?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: That is correct.

MR LOUBSCHER: Mr Labuschagne, your original application appears on page 8, that's 8 to 21 in the bundle, do you confirm the correctness of the content thereof?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: Yes, I do, Chairperson.

MR LOUBSCHER: Thank you, Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LOUBSCHER

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Loubscher.  Mr Taka, do you have any questions to put to the witness?

MR TAKA: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
	Mr Labuschagne, your activities were apparently aimed at the Nationalist Party Government and supporters of the African National Congress, is that correct?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: That is correct, Chairperson.

MR TAKA: Now let us take the incident at Wesselsbron, the township in Wesselsbron.  The place where you placed the bomb, was it an area occupied by supporters of the African National Congress?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: No, Chairperson, I cannot say because like I've said before we did not know who was living in the immediate vicinity of where we placed the bombs.

MR TAKA: In other words it didn't matter whether or not they belonged to the ANC?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: Chairperson, why we did that was because at that stage every black township would have had an ANC office, maybe I'm wrong but I believe it's true, and the explosions were directed at, it would have created a psychosis of fear in the people and these people probably would have went to the ANC offices the next day.  I don't know if it actually happened, but it would have reached the leaders, and that was the sort of pressure we wanted to place on them with regard to the negotiations because I'm sure questions would have been asked by the people in the townships: "Who's doing this and why are they doing this"?

MR TAKA: You see I have a problem here because your main target was the ANC.  Now in the black communities there are members of the IFP, there are members of AZAPO, there are members of other political parties.  Now how do you determine who are members of the ANC, supporters of the ANC who are your main targets?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: Chairperson, yes, we couldn't do it in another way at that stage because the governing party of day - most of the explosions were directed at the government of the day and at that stage the ANC had nothing which we could directly attack.  In other words they were not in control of the country and we had to do something to involve the ANC so that they could then talk to the National Party and in order for us to obtain the Volkstaat but it was not directly at the individuals in that society as such.

MR TAKA: Will I be correct therefore to say you assumed that every black person in the black townships is necessarily a member or supporter of the ANC?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: No, Chairperson, but we wanted propaganda at that stage in order to give power of negotiation to our leaders and that is why we did it as such.

MR TAKA: Did you in your operations at any stage place any explosive devices in the residential areas of the supporters of the National Party Government?

JAN CORNELIUS LABUSCHAGNE: Yes, Chairperson, it was done.  If you look at the ANC head offices in Bothaville, I cannot give you the exact distance but a few metres away from that office you would finds flats where white people resided and they were actually there when the bomb exploded.  So the white areas were involved.