Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-07-08

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera?

DR RANDERA: General, just one last question, and this, it relates to this issue of the only person who had knowledge of what was going on within the front companies was Dr Basson.  Now during this hearing we've had very eminent scientists coming and speaking, the very people who were actually - Dr Basson was not a Microbiologist at the end of the day.  Was there every any thought given to the posing the question that, let's go to the actual people who were the heads of the various departments, the Dr van Rensburgs, the Dr Immelmans, to ask them - even Dr Steyn, I mean yes, he's the project co-ordinator now, Dr Basson was a project co-ordinator.  But was there ever any thought given to that idea, to bring a team of people, I'm talking about at the time, because they were really the individuals who knew.  When Dr - it's a question I'm going to come back to later on in terms of the fertility programme - you know, Dr Basson knew nothing about that, let's be honest about it.  Yes he's a chemist, but he knew nothing about what the lady doctor was doing within that programme.  Now that would have been the sort of cross-checking I suppose that we would have expected, and that's what our concern is about at the moment.  Now was there any thought at that time, besides giving it to Dr Bothma and Dr Steyn and Dr Basson, to bring these very eminent individuals in.  Let's leave Professor Falck out, he wasn't even part of your thinking at the time.

MR KNOBEL: Dr Randera, I'm trying to answer you question.  The project started in 1981.  The system and the way it was co-ordinated and controlled was established from then onwards.  By 1988 that system was working and was running with good security and it was handed over to me as a successful way of conducting the project.  In other words, for 8 years it had run that fashion.  I was briefed and I asked the question, have we achieved out objectives and I was satisfied that we had.  I immediately said, in that case we can now begin the following process, namely the process of privatising, commercialising, normalising and looking after these scientists.  We had a large number of very eminent scientists, as you correctly say, that we had to look after.  I explained - I think you heard what I said yesterday, that I was initially opposed and I was told that we cannot terminate it at that stage.  I was in favour of the fact that it could be not terminated, but scaled-down to the level where the maintenance of the capability could be maintained.  That only took place about two years later when it was agreed that now the process of privatisation and commercialisation could take place.
 So within three years of me taking over as Surgeon-General, this is where we are now.  I'm saying again, with the wisdom of hindsight it might have been a good idea to do what you are suggesting.  But let me just say something else to you, within those years, the eight years and the three years, a number of our staff that were associated with the project became knowledgeable.  One of them was Dr Brian Davie.  Dr Brian Davie fulfilled the role as the technical advisor to myself for a while, but because of the important role that he was beginning to play in support of foreign affairs and in support of the development of a Non-proliferation Council, the beginnings of the new act, Non-proliferation Act.  He was very quickly scooped up as it were by the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, where he is today, working as a director.  He was one of the persons who could have been a great help.  The minute he was scooped up by the OPCW, Colonel Steyn was the next one that stepped into that position.  And today I am sitting with exactly the same situation, or rather the present Surgeon-General is sitting with the same situation.  At the very moment Colonel Steyn is in Geneva attending the conference of the Biological Weapons Convention in support of foreign affairs and giving advice to them as to the working papers, as to the friend of the chair meetings, as to the resolutions that South Africa is submitting.  We have only two people that really would be in the position to help us, all the others as has been pointed out here by Mr Vally, has resigned from the Defence Force, has been embroiled in other companies or has left the country, and as he correctly says, some of them have gone to Canada.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Vally?

MR VALLY: General Knobel, in your submission, and I've brought it to your attention a few times, but let me just state again, page 9 you say, and I quote,

MR KNOBEL: Are you now talking about ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Your personal submission to us.

MR KNOBEL: The affidavit?

MR VALLY: Your statement, yes.

MR KNOBEL: Yes.

MR VALLY: "During February 1994 it was a abundantly clear to both the Minister and myself that there were definite indications that Dr Basson had acted outside the mandate of the project and had probably abused capabilities that had been researched and developed in the project.  This impression was further strengthened by the detailed document of the US and UK governments, dated 11th of April 1994."
Now, that's February 1994, and you're very concerned about Dr Basson's credibility.  You know that your knowledge of what was or was not put on the discs came from Dr Basson.  But if you look at J5, which is the minutes of the Co-ordinating Committee of the 9th of January 1995, under the paragraph 3 where it says "Datavaslegging" with reference, I assume, to the optical discs that you talked about.  It says "afgehandel", concluded.  My question is, because you became aware and were concerned about the role played by Dr Basson, didn't you think it was necessary to re-visit the issue of what he had told you he had put onto the discs?