Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Chairperson I would merely want to add by drawing to the attention of the Commission the question how should we have perceived the farmers in the border areas? They had been encouraged to remain, to become part of the defence force line. Their farms in terms of the Promotion of Density of Population in Designated Areas Act no.87 of 1979 these farms were managed according to SADF directives, all White farmers in the areas had to undergo military training. They had to be members of the regional and area commandos. They had to make themselves available to the SADF and the Department of National Security to carry out reconnaissance and intelligence tasks whenever called to do so. They were all linked to the commando system of part time SADF forces and the military radio network known as Marnet. Many of the farm buildings were even constructed in such a way as to constitute a chain of defence, strongholds along the borders already used by the SADF. We debated this question many times in the ANC, agonised over it, and we came to the conclusion that they were members of the security forces, on the basis of the facts. Of course, as my comrade Modise says, when we saw that the bulk of them were civilian casualties we had to examine the problem. But I want to emphasise MK never used a single anti-personnel mine. An anti-personnel mine can be triggered, as we all know by ordinary human weight. We used anti-tank landmines. They could only be triggered by a minimum weight of 300 kilograms. But what we found was the cause of the casualties is that often the farmers transported many of their labourers on these vehicles. The result was that the vehicle had the request weight and the casualties were ordinary people. So these were the problems that we had to confront. And the moment clear recognition came around that we were facing a problem we brought it to a stop.
But I wanted to emphasise that the farming population along these border areas had been subsidised in terms of the Act that I've referred to by a minimum of R100 million to stay in these areas and encouraged to stay and to become part of this network. And they were part of the military forces as far as we were concerned and this is another problem when you look at the Geneva Convention, because we had to ask what is the real fact. It doesn't matter whether the farmer was wearing a khaki pants and a veldskoon.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Hanif?

MR VALLY: I am through with the issue of bombings and landmines if the Commission wants to ask any questions.

CHAIRPERSON: But we are still with the military operations. What about 3C are you coming to that?

MR VALLY: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR VALLY: What we'd like to know is who exactly did the ANC consider legitimate targets for killing, for example off-duty policemen, policemen's families, girlfriends of policemen, families of councillors, families of vigilantes, political leaders, part of the government, were these regarded as legitimate military targets?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Maharaj.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Chairperson this is a matter that the Commission had put a specific question to us and in our submission it is dealt with on pages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 up to page 12. So I hope I can refer the Commission to that presentation there, unless there are specific questions arising from that presentation.

MR VALLY: Just to follow up, I think the pages Mr Maharaj refers to justifies the attacks on policemen and councillors, but what I am asking him about is their families and their homes and the girlfriends, etc, were they also as a result all legitimate targets?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: No they would not fall within our definition of legitimate targets, although the context in which we have explained how some attacks took place in the country spontaneously, how we saw those matters, and clearly when you begin to carry out operations without adequate military training, without a clear understanding of the explosive devices that you are using, explosives by their nature are indiscriminate but in the hands of an untrained person become even more indiscriminate.

MR VALLY: I am now ready to move on Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. I just wanted to find out from my colleagues here whether under that particular category - Dr Mgojo.

UNKNOWN: In the context of our situation and the context of the old South Africa, what criteria was used when you were using policemen as targets? Because just to put it blank it confuses in some instances because there were many policemen and in the context of our country you couldn't just dress those policemen under the same garment, so what was the criteria, what did you look for when you were using the policemen as the targets?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Chairperson I think that the starting, the premise from which we must start is the political premise that the ANC put forward and adhered to in all its political work. It made repeated appeals and sought all sorts of means to mobilise those in the security forces, in particular the police to cross over and join the forces of liberation. At certain moments we used terms such as "turn your guns on those who order you", so that was the political basis of the appeal.
Number two, we even made this appeal to the White policemen, and we have always sought to bring them in, both in overt forms and in clandestine forms. If it had not been for the success of our clandestine forms our intelligence services would have been far slower on the ball than we have been so far. Policemen stood out in the community when they acted harshly and brutally. Before the community those who brutalised the community were well-known. And all of us, the thousands of us that went through detention all had our own stories to tell about individual policemen. So that's the context. We were not indiscriminate about policemen. We were politically guided that we needed to win them over because we knew that even at the level of warfare whilst you can kill one you could win 100 over by propaganda and organisation and we wanted to win the 100. But I'll let my colleague Joe Modise continue with that.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Modise.

MR MODISE: Thank you Mr Chairperson. I think we need to understand exactly how the police were used in this country. They were actually serving in the front line of oppressive forces. Amongst them you found the most brutal, in fact they were leading insofar as torture and brutality was concerned. This brutality was not only confined to those who were opposing them with arms in hand, but even the ordinary Black public was terrorised by these policemen. In fact they were the main agents of the oppressive regime. Soldiers fought against us. Sometimes soldiers were also made to brutalise the population in the townships, but key amongst these forces of repression were the police. It is true an attempt was made to try and win some of them over. We directed propaganda against them to try with the hope of winning them over, but we have not been very successful. Neither were we able to try and get them to change their ways against the population. It is for that reason that they were targeted.

CHAIRPERSON: Wynand Malan.

UNKNOWN: This last statement, does that apply across the board for all policemen or are you referring to specific policemen?