Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-15

MR WESSELS: Chairperson, may I just then ask, I don't know if Mr du Plessis can locate the official version but I would also ask that the statements that were used during that Commission be obtained if at all possible and perhaps the Commission, Ms Coleridge can help us in that regard?

MS COLERIDGE: Chairperson, I have made some enquiries in relation to this Harms Commission, the transcripts and the statements.  According to my record we don't have a copy of and I will once again go and attempt to find out but that's from our researches and our documentations officer.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(inaudible) the archives and when a senior attorney with the facilities of a general might - retired general, has to get hold of one of the - they are in the libraries, they are in the archives and a couple of telephone calls, can have photostatted copies of these matters within a day.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Du Plessis, besides this aspect do you have any other questions for the applicant?

UNKNOWN: I do have other questions, Chairperson, the only problem is if we continue now then I do not have time to go and try and find that part of the record and that means that I can only later and I can then only search for them tomorrow, so if you want me to continue I'm prepared to do so.

CHAIRPERSON: It's half past two.

GEORGE BIZOS: Chairperson, may I suggest that if the next witness is going to be Mr - we are anxious to get on with this.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes we don't want to lose time either.

GEORGE BIZOS: If Mr van Zyl is going to be the next witness, I don't know to what extent Mr du Plessis's presence is absolutely necessary, perhaps he can appoint one of his colleagues with whom there's no conflict to keep a record of what Mr Van Zyl's evidence is but we would be reluctant, Mr Chairperson, to lose an hour and a half ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I've been requested to stop at quarter to four again and apparently it's important with regard to the correctional service people.

GEORGE BIZOS: We'll use more than an hour and a half.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  I'm just wondering is that possible to send somebody to try to find it, Mr Du Plessis?

UNKNOWN: I can only try Chairperson.  I will try my best.

CHAIRPERSON: Then perhaps it will be better to just stand down your cross-examination of Mr Verster and reserve it and then we'll carry on with Mr Verster, there's re-examination and I'm going to ask my Panel members if they have any questions to put to Mr Verster and then questions to ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: May I make a suggestion, a short adjournment of ten to 15 minutes so that Mr du Plessis can give his office, make a request for his office and I am sure he is surrounded by competent people to start the process of enquiry?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes maybe that would be the best way to go and then carry on from there and then we'll do that, we'll take a short ten minute adjournment for Mr du Plessis to see if he can get the wheels rolling to get a copy of this part of the Harms record and when we come back then, then we'll reserve Mr du Plessis' questioning of Mr Verster but I'll ask Mr Wessels if he has any re-examination on what has been done and then members of the Panel will put questions and any questions arising thereafter.  Can we do it that way?  We'll take a short ten minutes adjournment to allow Mr du Plessis to make enquiries.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: We've been advised that there is indeed a copy of the transcript of the evidence led before the Harms Commission which is in the archives in Roeland Street.  A member of the staff of the TRC is presently making arrangements to get this, she says that it's not just a question of going up there and getting it, you've got to phone and make prior arrangements etc, but that's being done at the moment and it's just started to be done now.  I don't expect that it would be available today so on that aspect of Mr Verster's evidence, if we can stand that down.
	Mr Wessels, I don't know what you want, you can either start re-examining now on what you've heard or perhaps the members of the Panel, if you can put any questions then you can re-examine and then I'll allow any questions arising out of questions put by members of the Panel only, if people want to respond to that.

MR WESSELS: Yes that's suitable, Chairperson.  If the Panel could ask their questions now that would be in order.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Sibanyoni, do you have any questions you would like to put to the applicant?

MR SIBANYONI: Thank you Mr Chairperson.
	Mr Verster, the CCB was sort of assisting the previous government because in many portions of your evidence I see that you were saying you were fighting people who were undermining the sovereignty of the State.  The question is did the State do anything in either recognising the CCB or recognising members of the CCB?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Yes Chairperson, yes that was the case.  The State was a system that approved everything that we did in other words our infrastructure was approved by the State.  Finances, logistics and as we said, information and from that point of view the State, that was what they did regarding the CCB.

MR SIBANYONI: Now this assistance, was it only up to the level of the Defence Force, was it even above the Defence Force, Ministers of the Government?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I do not know how the structure worked higher up, I only had one channel and that was through the Chairperson and the Chairperson and that would be the commanding general of special forces.  He then had contact with the Chief of the Defence Force and I assume the Chief of the Defence Force could talk inside the political structure with the Minister but that was the only channel that we worked through and there were incidents that operations were presented to the Chairperson and I assume that he also discussed it higher up, higher than for instance the immediate General, it could be like that but I can't say it with surety.

MR SIBANYONI: Would you say what the CCB was doing can be compared with what the members of Vlakplaas were doing, fighting or combating what they regarded as enemies of the State?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Yes that is the case but we had our own mission and role and function, we executed Special Forces operations and this was a Police system, I don't know exactly how they worked, we did not only catch or chase or arrest certain enemies, we did not do that at all.  What we did is we received instructions, we identified targets, it could have been bases, it could be cross-border operations and also we gave support to the rest of the Defence Force with certain operations.

MR SIBANYONI: Correct me if I'm wrong the impression I get that immediately the activities of the CCB were known the Government acted against you people, some of your members were detained in terms of Section 29 of the Internal Security Act, there were some investigations conducted against their members.  Is my understanding incorrect?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Yes it makes it sound as if they acted against, one can put it in another way and that is that when it came to the light that such a structure existed in the South African Defence Force which was connected to the South African Defence Force, a plan was formulated to arrest people so that it could appear as if it was disclosed and it was opposed.

MR SIBANYONI: At what stage did you take a decision not to talk about external activities of the CCB?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That was in terms of the Act.  When we realised that the Act could not grant us amnesty for cross-border operations.

MR SIBANYONI: The attitude that you are taking is that even activities which were planned within the country but took place outside the country, you are not even prepared to talk about what took place within South Africa?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct, Mr Chairperson.