Amnesty Hearings — Pietersburg — 1997-07-01

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Messina and I said Pienaars River. Along the Limpopo, Pienaars River, which would include the game reserve and then where the Olifants River actually enters the game reserve and crosses it to Mozambique, that was our southern border.

ADV VISSER: And the Olifants River enters the Game Reserve just north of Hoedspruit, is that correct?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes Chairperson.

ADV VISSER: Could you give us names of towns?  On the borders of this area you spoke Northam.

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes and then Thabazimbi, Messina..

ADV VISSER: Nylstroom?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes I actually concentrated on the border area where we had branches but we had one in Nylstroom yes. Thabazimbi, Ellis Ras, Louis Trichardt, Messina, Tzaneen, Phalaborwa..

ADV VISSER: Giyani?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes Giyani which was then in the National State of Gazankulu.

ADV VISSER: And the area which you just mentioned, does that include certain national border posts?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes it includes border posts.  Should I mention the names of the border posts?

ADV VISSER: May I lead him on this Chairperson, it could save some time. Buffelspoort, Stockpoort, Groblersdrif, Zanzibaar, Saambou Bridge, Platjan and then also Beit Bridge.

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes.

ADV VISSER: Now why this could be relevant as a background I would like to ask you to sketch to the Committee what the particular problems were that you had to deal with and that the Security Branch in this area had to deal with. What were you all about?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: I hear what you say.  The Far Northern Security Branch concentrated specifically on organisations which had been banned and which had as the objective to resist the government of the day and perhaps ultimately to overthrow it, particularly the ANC, the PAC and Youth organisations and allies.  We dealt with school unrest that took up a lot of our time unfortunately, schools which were burned down, school boycotts, marches etc.

ADV VISSER: And you also had the University of the North here?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes I'm getting to that now.  In this context the University of the North was the flash-point in the sense that a large group of students were concentrated there and it housed a large number of students, more than  it was destined for and there was a lot of political activity taking place there and more specifically undermining political activities, and this was aimed against the state.
	Now this also meant that the surrounding areas such as Mankweng etc, that that became an affected area in this particular regard.  I mustn't fail to mention that there were also some Black towns in the area which did not fall under the independent states and that was at Warm Baths, Nylstroom, Naboomspruit and at Messina. 
	Obviously councils were established to administer these areas and we experienced problems there as a result of intimidation and purposeful rejection of the system and we experienced major problems in maintaining the councillors and these councils and forums.

ADV VISSER: Did you experience unrest in your area?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: We were fortunate in this respect. Now I'm specifically referring to the time that I was there, that we didn't have the same degree of unrest but we did have our share of it which resulted in school unrest and also unrest at the University campus, which then spread further.

ADV VISSER: And violence, Mr van der Merwe?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: We didn't have major incidences of violence.

ADV VISSER: The fact that your area included an international border, how did that affect your priorities in the area?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: It was very high priority for us.  There were many terrorist attacks, there were ANC and PAC cadres which committed acts of sabotage.  Others had missions to be politically active, to influence the masses, to encourage them to resist the government and for that reason it was our task to determine the particulars of people leaving the country with the intention to obtain further training abroad or elsewhere and then to return to the country as trained cadres to continue with the struggle, and then obviously the already trained people.  We had to try to combat the infiltration of these trained people across the border and to try to arrest them and as far as possible to try to keep the area as free of infiltration as possible.

ADV VISSER: So to summarise you said that the Far Northern Region was relatively unscathed as far as the general unrest and violence in the country is concerned and your highest priority here was in fact on a continuing basis, was to patrol the border and everything that that meant.  Would that be correct.

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes I would just like however, to make one small qualification. We had the usual man-power shortage.  Our big task was to operate internally and we had to also gather information.  That was a major issue.

ADV VISSER: Yes we will get to that.  If I may interrupt you, we will no come to the information gathering, but the issue of the border and the patrolling of the border and everything that that entailed, that was very important?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Correct.

ADV VISSER: Now I've actually interrupted myself, could I perhaps mention Chairperson that you referred to the situation which existed at the time. From '85-'86 onwards we had quite a few incidents of land mine cases which took place mainly to the west of Messina as far as Stockpoort.

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Yes.

ADV VISSER: And what I forgot to ask you, as far as the intensity or the importance from a security point of view is concerned of the Limpopo border, we know that certain areas were proclaimed in that period as operational areas and affected areas which meant different things, which were defined in various ways, but for purposes of this application, this indicated as certain intensity of activity in that area or areas.

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Correct.

ADV VISSER: Now were there areas alongside the Limpopo in your time of service which were declared to be affected or operational areas?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: No to the best of my knowledge, the area adjoining the border was not an operational area but it was regarded as an affected area for whatever that might have meant.

ADV VISSER: Now in order to perform your duties you had to gather information and you've already referred to that briefly.  I'd like you to explain to the Committee how important or unimportant information gathering and intelligence gathering was for you in your job?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Chairperson what it amounted to is that a security policeman's work entails mainly the gathering of intelligence to be able to determine the threat and once the threat has been identified, to also then identify the people posing the threat and the roles played by those people.  Here we are referring to the organisations I've already mentioned that had established domestic or internal structures to defy and resist the government. We're talking about intelligence which was necessary to determine who was leaving the country with the intention of furthering the military training and also we needed intelligence, sometimes from across our borders, sometime internally, regarding the infiltration of MK cadres and others entering the country to commit acts of aggression on the one hand and also those who entered with a political mission to encourage and strengthen the structures in the country.

ADV VISSER: Mr van der Merwe it wasn't the task only of the security police to secure the border, the defence force also maintained a presence in that area?

WILLEM JOHANNES VAN DER MERWE: Correct.

ADV VISSER: Where was the defence force stationed?