Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-09

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much. I just want to refer you to page 6 of your submission, it's paragraph 5.6.  I am not going to go through the paragraph.  You indicate there that a report was prepared following a symposium where you are quoted and you've - I am not going to read through the quotation, but you indicate that that was distributed.  You provided that document.  The distribution list, according to the bundle of documents that you've provided for the record, was, at that stage it went to the Prime Minister, Chief of the South African Defence Force, Director General, the Commissioner of ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: Foreign Affairs and Information.

MR GOOSEN: Ja, Director General Foreign Affairs, Commissioner of the Police, Commissioner ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: The Railways Police.

MR GOOSEN: Railway Police, to General Coetzee of ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: Security Branch.

MR GOOSEN: And Major General Groenewald.  And then a number of other people in the Department of Military Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Police and so on, a very substantial list of people, some 26 senior members in the security forces as well as politicians.  Did any one of these people ever revert to you or to your knowledge raise any objection with the principal that you set out or that is set out in the portion that was quoted by you, to your knowledge?

UNKNOWN: No Sir.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.  Thank you very much.  I want to move onto a slightly different aspect, that's in fact also on page 6, paragraph 5.5 of your submission.  You indicate there,
"Paramilitary action in support of the State while ensuring that the State sponsorship thereof was kept secret was a strategic instrument of policy which could be used rapidly, quietly and non attributably".
Do I take it there that you are referring to, inter alia, to counter-contra-mobilisation efforts as an element of counter-revolutionary strategy?

UNKNOWN: It could refer to that Mr Chairman.  What I am - why I used the word paramilitary there is because you could in fact use the word military but that implies for example the raid against ANC houses and other bases in Gaberone or Maputo where Air Force jets were used to actually bomb installations.  So that's a flat out attributable military action.  A paramilitary action is one which may be carried out by military elements but which is covert and secret and then could also include the utilisation of surrogate forces of non directly in the command structure of whichever organisation was carrying it out, ja.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much.

MR NTSEBEZA: Just ask there, would the elements which are non military or non conventional elements be for instance the so-called askaris?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman I am speaking here not from personal experience I am speaking now more theoretically and from my experience about general counter-insurgency strategy.  And that was that there was another element or like I used the phrase, terrorise the terrorists, there was one which went along the lines that our enemy's enemy is our friend, and if our enemy is arming our, his friends, their enemies we will arm our enemies' enemies and this is where surrogate forces and askaris and other paramilitary, I would term them, elements could then be used as part of an overall strategy of counter-insurgency.

MR NTSEBEZA: Would that have included, for instance, assisting in covert terms, elements like Renamo in Mozambique?

UNKNOWN: Yes.  There's a famous video which was used in the Security Branch during my time in training courses of a speech made by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Pik Botha, in which he warned neighbouring states of South Africa, that they should not support the liberation movements, specifically the ANC, because if they did so they would find out that South Africa could do the same except much more efficiently.  And the arming, financing, supporting of opposition groups in neighbouring states I would say in every neighbouring state except Swaziland and Botswana was standard procedure.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now what would your view be if there was evidence that seems to suggest, in the context for instance of Renamo or Mozambique, that after the signing of the Nkomati Accord none of the terms thereof were violated in any sense by the South African Defence Force?  I see you smile Mr Williamson, but...

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman it was a sore point that at the time of the Nkomati Accord official backing for Renamo had to be cut, and I think it's one of the clearest cases where the covert and secret capabilities of the State took over a role which before then, while secret in terms of policy was official policy, do you get what I mean, support for Renamo up until that time had been kept secret as an operational secret, but everybody new politically we were supporting Renamo.  We even admitted we were supporting Renamo before 1984.  But after the Nkomati Accord interference in the sovereignty and the affairs of Mozambique had to be disguised and had to be carried out in a classic covert action operation, and was.

MR NTSEBEZA: And you would say that the SADF was involved in those secret and covert operations to undermine the spirit and tone of the Nkomati Accord?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman I have to say they were, and I can tell you why I say they were, because it happens that in those years from - the Nkomati Accord was '84, then '85, end of '85 I joined the Military Intelligence Directorate of Covert Collection and the next year '86 when I left and then became a politician I in fact spent several years as a liaison between the South African government and the Mozambican government, and I was playing a very difficult role where I was an official political emissary who went and had the highest level meetings in Mozambique while having to play a game at the same time knowing that we were supporting Renamo.

MR NTSEBEZA: Well I would say that it was not a game you were not unused to given your ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: No absolutely ...(intervention)

MR NTSEBEZA: ...career.

UNKNOWN: No that's why I say if you employ people with certain skills you must accept that that's why you employ them and it's what you expect them, they do the job you expect them to do and you've trained them to do.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you.

MR GOOSEN: Could I just follow up on that aspect briefly?

CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead Mr Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.  Major Williamson from what you are saying then, the support for Renamo in fact never stopped, from prior to Nkomati to after Nkomati, it in fact continued?