Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-14

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, what I'm going to suggest to you is this, that you put that in because you did not know what else might come out in other applications for amnesty and you wanted to leave it open to yourself to come back if more was revealed than had already been revealed in relation to your activities.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Mr Chairperson, if there was time left to do an application, then it might have been wrong.  I could have done this within the boundaries of the law, but I say again that there are many people from the other side at the moment and from the current Government, who did not apply at all.  If there was time, I could have applied and it would not have been a contravention.

GEORGE BIZOS: Let's leave out those who didn't make applications for amnesty.  We're dealing with your matter.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I want to say this.

GEORGE BIZOS: You can say whatever you like, but what do you say to the suggestion that you only made applications for amnesty where you knew that there would be evidence of what you had done and you were leaving the door open for yourself for if other people made an application for amnesty, you would have left the door open in order to make further applications.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No this is not the case and it is still just an opinion on your behalf.  There were many regions.  This was just one region and every part of detail over many years, I cannot remember now and I say again it is not wrong to have written it and I did it like this.

GEORGE BIZOS: But Region 6 was the only one for internal things and you had already decided that you were not going to speak about things that happened outside the country.  What was it that made you add this last paragraph, other than to leave the door open for yourself?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I've already answered the question and I did not write it down to leave the door open, I meant it in all honesty.

GEORGE BIZOS: How many cells were there in Region 6?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: It is for the Regional Manager to answer that, I do not have specific cells.  You can make the deduction, it is for the people who worked in Region 6, let's say that there were four members and then they would have four cells, but there might have been others, I do not know.  You will have to ask that of the Regional Manager.

GEORGE BIZOS: Those four people would have been one cell.  The question was, how many cells were there in Region 6?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: It is something that you are deducing from that, it is not one cell, it is one structure and within that one structure, everyone had his supporting system that he handled as a cell.

GEORGE BIZOS: How many people were working inside the country for the CCB in order to do the main work of the CCB?

CHAIRPERSON: You're talking about so-called aware members?

GEORGE BIZOS: Aware members.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: It was these people who are applying at the moment and it is approximately four and then from all the regions, their people also functioned from within the country and it is a total group of about 100/150 and they did not have a primary function of executing projects in South Africa.

GEORGE BIZOS: Are you saying that there were only about six knowing members, what is the word?

CHAIRPERSON: Aware, I think they were referred to.

GEORGE BIZOS: Pardon - attached to Region 6?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct.  The supporting structure of those people I did not know.

GEORGE BIZOS: Were there - let's put it this way, did the six employ many other people to do the work of the CCB?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: According to specific prescriptions, persons who were unaware of their attachment to the State, according to that principle they could recruit people and if anyone was an aware member, then they had to clear it with me, but sources and agents on ground level who were not aware of what their connection with the State was exactly, they did not have to do it, except for where it was in financial cases.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, if I could just ask a question just on this point, Mr Verster.  Let's take the Early Learning Centre incident.  Now, the operative approaches an unaware person.  The front was a bus company or something like that, wasn't it?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is not so, Chairperson.  The bus company was not a front, the bus company was a connection to the private sector through which the finances could be dealt with.

CHAIRPERSON: Alright so the operative approaches the person who's going to be asked to place the bomb.  Now that person is an unaware member in the sense that he's unaware that he's working for the State or he's doing something on behalf of the State.  Now would he think that he's now been approached by an anarchist or somebody who just wants to place a bomb for personal reasons?  I'm just wondering how it works, how you could get somebody to do a job of that nature and that person is still unaware that he's acting for the State?  I don't know if you can answer that or maybe the operative would be in a position to be able to answer a question like that.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson I do not think that there is a clear answer to that but what I may say is that for example unaware persons are approached on the basis that a group of business persons who are dissatisfied with the situation in the country and that that is the reason why they initially recruit the person and from there, the following operations will emanate, whether these persons believed it or not, that is debatable.  It could also happen that, or did not happen, it is also a fact that the chief instruction for my side was that we should not acknowledge our connection to the State and if I may place it into context, with us it sometimes happened that a police officer would do something and then he would say it was a member of Special Forces, but in our ethical code amongst ourselves and in our agreement with higher hierarchies, we for example, did not pretend to be another Government department and on that basis we recruited people under the pretence or pretext or for whatever reason it was, so that we did not have to give acknowledgement that we were from the State.  I beg your pardon - that is also the reason why we did not have people at State premises and at police stations and at our own - we could not go to our own Special Forces structures.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) to the Harms commission?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I think so.

GEORGE BIZOS: You didn't deliberately lie there?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, it was a rather traumatic period because then we saw clearly and it was put forward that we would accept responsibility for all the State's activities at that stage and that the CCB should shoulder the blame for whatever, for example, the police had done.  I have said this in many statements.  There were, for example, up to 13 folios of incidents which were shown and when I saw these incidents, I knew that this was not our doing, these were police  incidents and because of that we were very cautious and we, in our manner in which we handled the Harms Commission and during the day, when we sat at the Commission and then in the evening direct lies were told on television, so we saw that we were becoming the enemy of the previous government, but in general.

GEORGE BIZOS: The question was.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I have answered it in general.  I spoke the truth.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, the question was whether you told any untruths to the Commission or not.

CHAIRPERSON: Knowingly.  Willingly.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) truth at all times?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Correct, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Nobody forced you to make any false statement?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: There was much pressure.

GEORGE BIZOS: But you withstood that pressure and told the truth?