Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-30

ADV FORD: Yes, but the question I am asking you Mr Nieuwoudt, 
is simply this, if Mr Van Rensburg wasn't already either involved 
himself or already aware that the Security Forces or the Security 
Police had been directly involved in that killing, he would have 
asked you but what about the Goniwe, we had nothing to do with 
that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I don't know, he did not ask me that.  I don't 
know whether he was involved.  I don't know which role he played, I 
was not involved in that.  So I cannot draw that inference.

ADV FORD: Do you know if his son-in-law, Mr Lotz, was directly 
involved in that murder?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No.

ADV FORD: You still don't know?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Now I know.

ADV FORD: Well, what do you know now?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That they applied.

ADV FORD: Who is they?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: General Van Rensburg and Lotz.

ADV FORD: And if as you say Brigadier Gilbert conveyed to you 
that three of the persons involved had also been involved in the 
Goniwe murders, if they did go over to the ANC, if they did convey 
the information to the ANC, they would have blown the whole story 
in so far as the Goniwe murders were concerned?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV FORD: And that, it appears, would have implicated Mr Van 
Rensburg and his son-in-law?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is what I know now, yes.

ADV FORD: When you spoke firstly to Mr Van Rensburg, were 
you under the impression that he was fully aware of the whole 
operation, what was intended or did you have to brief him 
specifically as to what was required, what the problems were and 
what the intention was in so far as the elimination of these persons 
were concerned?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I don't think that I gave him the operational 
details.  What I did tell him was what the members' involvement 
would be and what they would be responsible for and the 
information at our disposal at that stage.

ADV FORD: Did you tell him about the fraud?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Maybe I mentioned it to him, and maybe 
Gilbert also mentioned it to him.  I don't know, but I did mention 
that two of them were involved in fraud.  I may have mentioned that.

ADV FORD: Just getting for a moment to the involvement of all 
four these persons.  Up to now, if I read your amnesty application 
and the evidence you have given Mr  Nieuwoudt, you have been very 
specific about your information regarding Mr Mgoduka and Mr 
Sehati.  That is also known as Mr Jack, is that right?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV FORD: Up to now, the only information you have given in so 
far as the other two, Mr Faku and Mr Mapipa is concerned, is the 
initial conversation in the tea room, or am I wrong?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, they were also present during the 
operation where my source was eliminated and the other one was 
detained in Quatro.  The four of us.

ADV FORD: Well, you didn't need for of them to tell the ANC 
about that, one of them could have done it just as well?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Yes, that is correct, but you asked me what the 
activities were and they also took some of my informers to the safe 
houses.  And they were also recruited for the ANC and Mgoduka 
was the principle.

ADV FORD: Did you have specific information that they too had 
been recruited?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is the information which I got from the 
source.

ADV FORD: Mr Mapipa had only been involved since 1986?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV FORD: But if I understand your evidence in so far as the safe 
houses are concerned, and the like, his knowledge would have been 
as good as the others?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV FORD: Now, when  Colonel De Kock arrived, Mr Van 
Rensburg was still present?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct, yes.

ADV FORD: Did you go through the whole explanation from start 
to finish again or did you just deal with certain aspects?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: No, I only explained to De Kock in what these 
people were involved and their roles in the operation and that they 
were involved in the Goniwe matter.  As I said I can't remember 
exactly whether I at that stage when De Kock was there, whether I 
mentioned the fraud matter, that they were involved in the fraud or 
whether I mentioned that before De Kock arrived.  I can't remember 
that.

ADV FORD: You see, as it was put to you by the Commissioner 
Potgieter earlier, the suggestion certainly seems to be that there was 
a potential for Mgoduka, Faku and the others, to be prosecuted on 
charges of fraud and the reaction to that was to threaten to convey 
information to the ANC.  Did you understand that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Not all four of them, only two of them.

ADV FORD: Just two, Mgoduka and Sehati?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV FORD: But if they had conveyed the information in regard to 
the Goniwe killings and in regard to the fraud itself, the taking of 
money intended for the ANC, nothing else was required.  Both 
operations would have been blown?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV FORD: And it was then vitally important that they be silenced 
for those aspects, would you agree?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It wasn't a primary factor to eliminate them 
regarding the fraud.

ADV FORD: Well, that is what  you say Mr Nieuwoudt.  I am 
suggesting to you that your evidence regarding the giving of 
information concerning safe houses, the identifying of informants 
and the like, is something which came afterwards.  The primary 
consideration was that the information relating to the Goniwe 
killings, should not be made public and the information regarding the 
taking of money from the ANC should not be made public?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: The fraud was not a factor with me.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Nieuwoudt, we accept that the fraud was not 
a factor, but if they were charged, they could have exposed the 
whole network?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV DE JAGER: And what the Advocate is putting to you is that 
they were threatening to do just that.  If I understand it correctly, 
they virtually blackmailed you and said to you just you dare to 
prosecute me and I will expose everything, they were using that to 
stop you from prosecuting them for fraud.  If I may use an example, 
it is exactly what Nofamela did later on?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: Correct.

ADV DE JAGER: When he wasn't saved from the gallows, he 
revealed everything?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV DE JAGER: Is that not what you feared?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: I did not see it like that at that stage, but it is 
so that Gilbert could have considered that when he made his 
decision, I don't know.

ADV FORD: Mr Nieuwoudt, after the bombing you if one has 
regard to your evidence in the so-called Goniwe inquest, and other 
statements which you have made, and what you have told the 
Commission today, were present.  You were present on the scene 
together with Ras and Snyman.  And you planted the detonator as it 
were.  The detonator which you had previously prepared.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.

ADV FORD: What was the purpose of that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: To throw the other operatives off the scent.

ADV FORD: I don't know if you will agree with this Mr 
Nieuwoudt, but on a perusal of your cross-examination in the 
Goniwe inquest, would you agree that that detonator which you 
planted, could never have set off the explosives which were in fact 
set off?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: It may.

ADV FORD: So you believe it could still have been used?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEUWOUDT: That is correct.