Special Hearings — Helderberg Flight Special Hearing — 1998-06-01

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: It is, it is a sworn statement.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Then I must accept what it says.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Are you aware that the same information has come to this commission from a number of different sources?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.   Except from what I've read here.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Correct.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Okay.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Those are a number of sources, they are three sources... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Okay.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...independent and independently gathered, and furthermore wrung from the witnesses at great cost, this was not something that they were wishing to tell, they told it at great personal anguish and pain.   Is there any reason why we should disbelieve them?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Not if it's a sworn statement, and I mean... (intervention).

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Even if it's a statement of what happened, unsworn, is there a reason to disbelieve what I tell you... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...and only to believe it when I swear to it?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No, why should I?

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: So there's no reason to disbelieve them?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I don't think so.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: If that is true, would you accept that that points towards Margo wanting to cover certain information?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I cannot make any deductions, all I'm saying, it's very, is the word incomprehensible?

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Would you accept, Mr Van der Veer, that if that happened, a reasonable and probable explanation is that Margo did not wish that information to come before his tribunal?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: That's one of the deductions one could make.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Give me another one?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Gosh, you're jumping this on me right now.  I don't know.   If that's the deduction you want to make, I think it's fair.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: I'm happy, Mr Van der Veer, for you to mull over that for as long as you like, and to give me a better explanation.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I cannot, I cannot explain, you understand, if this is true, then I cannot explain what Judge Margo's attitude was, and again then I would suggest that one, you mentioned the name of certain individuals, that you get them before the commission, because I'm not aware of it, I'm sorry.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Mr Van der Veer, they are terrified to the point of patheticness.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Why?   Sorry, I mean... (intervention).

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: I would like to ask you.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I don't know.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Because I can't think of a reason other than that they've been intimidated.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Right.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: And each and every one of them... (inter-vention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: By whom?

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...has told me that they've been intimidated.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: By whom?

CHAIRPERSON: Let's put it in another fashion.   Here is a judge of the supreme court (indistinct), and I'm assuming for the moment, I am not in a, this is an investigative inquiry, let us assume that it happened as they say it did happen, I mean they are saying it almost 12 years after the event, and the judge says to you, "The security of your work and your family is at risk", and I want you to contextualise this in the period that we are talking about, we are talking about 1988, and we now know, even if we didn't know then, from all the things that the De Kocks and everybody else have said, that we lived in a time and period when people did die, when people did disappear, when people did get killed, and if a judge could have said that, wouldn't it have been enough reason for anyone to be afraid?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I guess so, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And if we again assume that this took place as is indicated by these people, and I'm asking just your own opinion, don't you find that this was very discomforting?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: And inexplicable, and I'm very sorry it wasn't brought to my attention.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well we can now explain some of the things that we couldn't explain in that era.   I mean the work that we've been doing over the last 2 1/2  years, exhuming bodies, being led to those bodies by senior police persons, colonels, say "This is where we buried so and so", I mean those are things that ordinarily were inexplicable.   So I think what I'm trying to get at is really to get your own sense of what you, whether you now are able to say those were really bad times, "If this is true, then it explains a lot of things that I have in my own mind been refusing to accept because they were totally incomprehensible and inexplicable in what I regarded as a normal and decent, civilised society".

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Then totally inexplicable, I mean if this is true, then it's inexplicable, okay, and that's the last thing you would expect from any board or any inquiry.   I mean I have had myself 25 years of experience in the Railways, of accidents, and I've headed boards, and the last thing I would have done, as chairman or whatever of the board, or member of the board, to point people away and ignore any evidence that they might give.   Okay?

CHAIRPERSON: Let me give you another example.   We lived through a period where allegations were made about hit squads and hit squad activities, there was even a commission of inquiry that was instituted, presided over by a judge, Judge Harms, evidence placed before it by an advocate of the supreme court, Tim McNally, and that went through the course, evidence was led, cross-examination took place and all that, and a finding was made by that judge, that there's no evidence of these hit squad activities, but that same judge has now had to say, in the light and in the wake of revelations, that "Had I just but known", that is more, it's in a sense that's what he says, "Had I just but known that these things were actually taking place, because now I'm able to accept", I mean it's not only Dirk Coetzee and Mfumelele(?), it's a whole legion of security police persons.   So I'm just trying to get you to appreciate that this is not just an idle inquiry, even judges then were misled, that's supposing (indistinct), but then when there is evidence that says he himself took an active role in saying things about national security, things about the security of your family, things about the security of your job, and as it turns out, there were many people whose jobs, and I think that will be put to you, whose jobs took a better turn in the wake of this inquiry, but then that's something else that Mr Klatzow - but I think what I was trying to get you to understand is that if the allegations are true, and it's not just a question of it being inexplicable, it's totally reprehensible, and I would like to know that if we qualified it by saying let's imagine that these are true, would you take the view that this was the most reprehensible thing any judge, any person, let alone a judge, could have done?   Are you able to say that?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes, but I don't know about the facts of it, but the answer is yes, I mean, okay.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Predicated totally on if it was true, we're reaching the end of our session and I don't want to delay you more than I have to, but there are some important things I have to ask you.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: By all means.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: And please bear with me, Mr Van der Veer... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I've got no problem.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...how much was a Boeing in those days, ballpark figure, give or take a few shillings here or there?