Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-24

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Correct.

MR PHOSA: Obviously skipped to ANC - to the ANC, isn't it?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR PHOSA: Then it's logical that if indeed and you believed correctly, they were ANC people?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR PHOSA: The ANC would sooner or later discovered that they were not there.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR PHOSA: Then it makes it ridiculous to say that you would successfully give the impression they were away?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I did not say how successful it would be, I just said that is the impression we attempted to create.  We might as well argue that if the ANC says they are not there, then the perception has to be that the ANC had killed them there, then that has to be the perception.

MR PHOSA: The impression I get right now is that you did not get into that aspect, you're just saying it as you sit there now.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I replied to a question that you asked me.

MR PHOSA: And  ...[inaudible] I raised the point.  You see Mr - I've forgotten your name for a while - Mr van Rensburg, if you genuinely were worried about what the reaction would be from the crowd or from the community and obviously the ANC if they thought that you had killed these people, then surely you would have noticed that that reaction would be reached anyway in the manner I've indicated.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I honestly don't understand what you are asking, I'm sorry I don't understand your question.  I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be funny or anything, I cannot understand what you are trying to ask me.

MR PHOSA: No, no, I'm not accusing you, what I'm really saying is this, you are trying to make the Committee appreciate that you killed this gentleman  - let's just talk about him only for the moment, for a reason namely because you were trying to avoid his influences here - there's so much pressure from his conduct that he had to disappear.
	Again you could not afford to let it be known that you had killed him for the very fear - for fear of the very reaction of the community, in other words you want it understood that you were concerned about the pressure coming from the community in relation to him - Mr Mthimkhulu.  Now I say to you and I think you've agreed, you can't say that the ANC would not have discovered that he was not with it.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, that's correct.

MR PHOSA: And therefore this big action of yours of eliminating his life does not seem to be explained purely by the fact that you were scared of the reaction of the crowd, you killed him because he was just a problem to you the police.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, that is not correct.  Our view was that what are you are saying is correct, the ANC wouldn't find him in Lesotho, our counter-reaction would be then: "Ask the ANC because they might have removed this person" - they must have done something to these people for some reason, perhaps they suspect they're traitors or whatever but then we would pass the buck to them.

MR PHOSA: I think you've forgotten the purpose of the whole attempt, you were not doing -  trying to please as I understand, the White people - community, you were trying to please the Black community in this country or rather to mislead the Black community, weren't you?  All this was meant to mislead the community from which he came, isn't it?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, and in my evidence in chief I had already stated why we had done this, I said why we made this decision.

MR PHOSA: I'm deliberately drawing your attention to what I understand.  I thought without you saying in so many words you were endeavouring to mislead his community, you're not trying to deal with your - the politicos or the Government - the police or even the White people generally, you were concerned how the P.E. community in particular would react, isn't it?

MR BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, I think perhaps if my learned friend could just say to the witness - indicate to him, that the misleading part was obviously by the fact of making him vanish and parking the car at the Lesotho border I think because that's really what I understand my learned friend wants to know - that that was the misleading part of it.

MR PHOSA: I assume you understood but that is the point, that's what I'm referring to.

CHAIRPERSON: As I understood the evidence and please correct me if I'm wrong, Mr Phosa is trying to direct it all to the Black community but as I understood the evidence of Mr Erasmus and yourself, that there were enormous pressures on the police in Port Elizabeth arising from the Steve Biko incident which had raised condemnation throughout the world and you very conscious and that you couldn't - when I say you, the Port Elizabeth police could not afford another scandal, is that not the position?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: That it was the world as a whole that you were trying to deceive, so you decided it would be better to kill a man that to detain a sick man because the world might complain again.  Is that the position?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, Mr Chairman, that was not the position.

CHAIRPERSON: Or, that you couldn't afford to have a man die in detention?  I think we were told that by Mr Erasmus that that was one of the factors.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, although I was not aware that he would die in captivity, I didn't have any indications to this effect.

CHAIRPERSON: Didn't you know that he had been in hospital for months and had come back an invalid in a wheelchair?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I'm aware of that but I'm also aware that according to my information, he was recovering.

CHAIRPERSON: And receiving regular hospital treatment?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR PHOSA: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.
	But let's just take it now from the point of view of the ANC - I understood your reply ...[inaudible] I even thought.  If the ANC knew the person was not with them, you could fool the ANC by suggesting that they killed him, could you?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No.

MR PHOSA: What would the ANC then do in this area once they discover that the person disappeared - you add insult to injury by saying that they killed him, what would it do - do you expect?  How would it react?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, I never thought of it - how they would react.

MR PHOSA: Because it will be nonsensical to expect the ANC to sit and go to court and argue the point with you that they didn't kill him, it wouldn't just sit and laugh at that, isn't it?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, but what I'm referring to was in Lesotho, not in South Africa - that the impression had to be created that he was in Lesotho and had been killed there, not in South Africa.

MR PHOSA: Please don't skip this simple point.  If the ANC discovered that the man was not with them and they know that he'd been claiming that you had poisoned him - the police, the next thing his car is found there and prior to that Mxenge had died in ...[inaudible] and found elsewhere - there's a modus operandi.  Now if the ANC found that this person had been killed, do you think your accusing it of killing him would make it sit and say: "Oh well, what can we do"?  Do you really think it wouldn't move faster against you?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I cannot reply to this, I never thought of that myself, it was not a consideration on my part at that stage.  The only thing that I can state is that that was the way in which we planned at that stage, if we had committed an error in the planning then that was it but that is the way in which we did it.