Amnesty Hearings — Benoni — 1997-06-23

UNKNOWN: Thank you Mr Chairman.  General I will do the cross-examination in Afrikaans.
	What I wanted to read to you first of all, before we continue with the cross-examination, I want to read to you a passage from the opening statement made at the beginning of testimony just with regard to Brigadier Cronje, Captain Hechter, W/O van Vuuren, Colonel Venter and Captain Mentz, to sketch for you the background from where Brigadier Cronje and them find themselves with regard to the applications, what their approach is to their applications and what their views are.  I will read to you from the record from page 9.
This is now in English.
"We will give evidence about our actions during the time of the conflict and will show that all our actions were purely and simply associated with the political objective, namely, to uphold the National Party government and apartheid, to fight communism and to resist liberation of South Africa and democracy for all in South Africa.  We are not criminals.  We have never committed any criminal deed outside the sphere of the conflicts of the past, and we have not accepted any extra financial or patrimonial incentives for anything we have done.  We believed that we acted bona fide in the interests of our country and our people.  We will show that we at all times believed that we were acting in the course and scope of our duties and within the scope of our authority".
	Page 11, and I would ask you to listen very carefully please General.
"We, as proud Afrikaners, are part of this country and shall be part of this country in the future.  We are prepared to forgive those who have sinned against us in the past.  We have forgiven the concentration camps of the Boer War where innocent women and children have died.  We are prepared to forgive those who have waged war during the struggle, also on innocent women and children.
		We similarly ask forgiveness for those who lost their lives and those who were injured and we share the grief of those family members of victims who have suffered during the era of conflict.  
		We have sincere regret that people have suffered on both sides and we wish to express the sincere hope that the time for truth and reconciliation in South Africa has now arrived.
		We call upon our superiors, and the previous government, not to deny responsibility but to stand by the people and to admit responsibility for what was done by us in our endeavours to keep them in power.
		We all supported the National Party until 1994.  What we had done was always in the interests of the National Party and its objectives.  We believed in the policies of the National Party and believed that we had to carry out our duties in support of our party.  
		We state emphatically that we have been deserted by the National Party and that we have so-to-speak been thrown away in the gutter where we now have to take the responsibility on our shoulders to deal with our past, to motivate our actions and to present our view, as Afrikaners, of the conflict.
		We call upon the previous government and our superiors to explain certain orders given to us about which we shall testify and to admit to authorising actions outside the normal processes of the law such as are demonstrated by the facts of our deeds and the authorisation thereof".
	Now General this is the gist of the opening statement prior to Brigadier Cronje's initial testimony, do you take note of this?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Yes this is in writing so I take note of it.

UNKNOWN: Good.  I want to cross-examine you, ask you a few very friendly questions, just against the background of that which I have read to you.  You have given testimony that you worked at the Counter-Insurgency Unit, is that the fact?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: That is on record.

UNKNOWN: General could you give us a little more information with regard to the actual activities of the Counter-Insurgency Unit, just give us some more information about what you actually did as a Counter-Insurgency Unit?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Chair I have already given testimony that the Counter-Insurgency Unit during that time was involved in the protection of our borders to ensure that unwelcome persons would not be able to penetrate the country or infiltrate the country.

UNKNOWN: What then did the Counter-Insurgency Unit have to do with regard to this?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: The borders were patrolled in an effort to track down such persons attempting to infiltrate the country.  Should there have been some fighting or a skirmish then from the side of the Police there would of course have been action.

UNKNOWN: Good.  With regard to unrest or rioting you mentioned that this was a Counter-Insurgency and Riot Unit, what was the responsibilities of the Unit with regard to rioting or unrest?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Unrest control, the persons who took part in such unrest control, were all persons trained, specially trained to control unrest. Unrest is what the word implies, it is unrest.

UNKNOWN: What exactly should these persons then have done?  In what manner did they have to control unrest?  Could you give us some detail?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: To control unrest you had to suppress this with force or violence if necessary.

UNKNOWN: Could you perhaps be a little more concrete, if you say "suppress unrest with violence" in what manner?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: You could probably not detain persons or treat people who are responsible for chaos, to just treat them with kid gloves, in a manner that's careful, one had to act with force.  The culture of the Police is that of course of minimum violence, but to control the unrest situation would depend on the unrest situation as such.

UNKNOWN: You are saying that it would be countered, possibly with violence, if the circumstances require that if I understand you correctly, would you personally have been involved in the handling of unrest at any stage?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Yes I had been sent down to the Eastern Cape personally.

UNKNOWN: And these persons involved in unrest and who acted in that situation I suppose that some of these persons were arrested, would that not be the case?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: That is correct Chair.

UNKNOWN: Apart from arresting people in what other ways would you have acted against such persons?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: As I have already mentioned an unrest situation is a situation of chaos and your training would be to make use of teargas, to make use of rubber bullets, to make us of shotgun bullets, depending on the particular situation.

UNKNOWN: General we could then assume that the use of this kind of means, and the use for instance of shotgun shot that people could be injured, is that correct?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: To return to the management or handling of the counter-insurgency function, did this at any point involve actions across our borders or beyond our borders?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Not with regard to the Police as far as I bear knowledge.  Or at least not from the Riot Unit as far as I know.

UNKNOWN: So this entailed internal actions, actions within the borders of the country?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Are you referring to Counter-Insurgency or Riot Control, because Riot Control could only be internal?

UNKNOWN: General had there been armed terrorists who infiltrated the country during that time?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: That is the case Chair.

UNKNOWN: Well then can you recall instances where armed terrorists had been arrested?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: I would not be able to provide statistics at this point with regard to this.

UNKNOWN: Could you recall any particular instances, an instance of an armed terrorist having been arrested?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Are you referring to 1986?

UNKNOWN: Let's speak of the period from 1984 to 1987, particularly the period of time when you served in the Counter-Insurgency Unit.