Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-06

WITNESS:   I think it was declared by the then State President, P W Botha, that one of the key essences of the total strategy concept at the time was to ensure the broadening of the State, the basis of support and once again this corresponds to the principle of counter revolutionary warfare, the establishment of strategic bases and that was done very much via a system such as the Tri Cameral System, attempts to woo and win over sectors of the black working class, to recognition of trade unions, granting of permanent domicile in urban areas and to a certain extent also trying to institute those principles of counter revolutionary warfare within, particularly after 1984, particularly after Sebokeng and the Vaal uprising in 1984 within the affected black areas itself and you find the classic principles of counter revolutionary warfare being applied there;  counter mobilisation, mobilisation of the masses, establishment of political organisations, that was seen to be stabilising or alternatively as a counter balancing force to the influence of the liberation movement and at that time the mass democratic movement.  Arming to a certain extent of local groupings.  In some senses quite a literal application of the principles of McKeon and that's reflected in the documentation that comes out at - at the time.

MR MACADAM: And if we can deal with certain aspects.  If we look at - and there again I think this will become as accepted as now common cause, we would say that the ANC was based or had military bases in Mozambique.  We had a government FRELIMO, which was supportive of the ANC and supplied

MR MACADAM: /those

MR MACADAM: 2A those bases and gave moral and other support.  Do you know of any military response taken to counter that?

WITNESS:   Well, there were ranges(?), I mean the type of responses one would use against that and, I mean, that's also possibly for historical record, there were a range of responses.  They were political and political and diplomatic pressure, it was economic pressure as well, the blockade of Lesotho being a case in point;  the slowing down of freight trains to Zimbabwe being a case in point, but militarily yes, there were a number of raids launched by special forces, SADF special forces personnel, sometimes specialist units into what was known as the front line states, Maputho, Harare, Gaberones, Luanda were all on the receiving end of this for virtually a whole decade in the 1980s.

MR MACADAM: And there was also a political organisation, RENAMO, which was opposed to the FRELIMO government and had commenced a struggle, an armed struggle to overthrow FRELIMO.  Specifically in regard to that organisation, can you comment?

WITNESS:   Well, support was provided by a number of different conduits to RENAMO.  RENAMO also organised to a certain extent within Mozambique as well, so it had its own support base there, but it's documented what type of support was provided to RENAMO.  It was once again logistical material, financial support, a certain amount of political support in the sense that their contact with sympathetic organisations were facilitated at the time by certain government departments.  The principle was precisely the same as Angola.  The installation of - the possible installation of a government that would be more sympathetically predisposed towards the concept of a

MR MACADAM: /constellation

MR MACADAM: 2A constellation of states in Southern Africa at the time and one that would thwart the type of support that FRELIMO was, at least prior to the Nkomati Accord in 1993 - 1983/84, providing to the ANC and to a lesser extent other liberation movements.

MR MACADAM: Was there armed - I mean military support in the form of either arms or training?

WITNESS:   Well, there were extensive arms provided.  There were a number of documents that had to conform, the Gorrin(?) Gosere(?) revealed the Vaz(?) diaries;  the trial of former Roland Hunter and the - not former, I mean he's still with us - the trial of Roland Hunter revealed that.  It's been documented in a number of places;  the air drops that they had, that were organised for RENAMO;  the type of South African Defence Force support that was provided ranging from small and heavy calibre weapons and finances, provision of logistical facilities within South Africa itself;  utilisation of Chief of Staff Intelligence and Special Forces infrastructure to assist RENAMO.

MR MACADAM: And which component of the SADF supplied that assistance?

WITNESS:   Well, the tasking for this was - well, the co-ordination of this was actually done, was co-ordinated by Chief of Staff Intelligence.  As I said earlier, this was done by the Director to Special Tasks which co-ordinated these types of endeavours in Angola, in Zimbabwe, in Lesotho and in Mozambique and presumably further afield within Africa, so the co-ordination was done by Chief of Staff Intelligence, indeed had to be done by Chief of Staff Intelligence because the nature of this type of support is both covert and clandestine.  The actual tasking of particular individuals depended on the

MR MACADAM: /nature

MR MACADAM: 2A nature of the operation.  Special Forces would be tasked for the training and the deployment of people if the nature of the task at hand was a Special Force type of operation.  The Air Force should be tasked if it was required to drop men and material and equipment into Mozambique, so the tasking depended on the nature of the task in hand, but basically ran across the entire Defence Force.

MR MACADAM: And you used - this support was done, you said, in a covert and/or clandestine manner.  Would you first of all just explain to the Commission what "covert" in military terms means?

WITNESS:   My reading of "covert" would be the concealment of the source of a particular operation or a particular initiative, whereas "clandestine" would refer more to maintaining secrecy around a particular operation.  "Covert", you wish to actually disguise the origins of the support.  "Clandestine" is simply making sure that your operations are conducted in secret.

MR MACADAM: And the - one of the major issues which this Commission is focused with is the situation in the mid eighties in KwaZulu-Natal.  Now in a nutshell, this - I'm drawing now from what emerged in a very lengthy trial in the Durban High Court last year, but it appeared there that the Inkatha Freedom Party indicated that it was coming under attack from the UDF which at that stage was perceived to be an alliance or ally of the African National Congress, attacks taking place on political leaders in the Inkatha Freedom Party, destruction of property, disruption of their political rallies.  That resulted in the South African Defence Force supplying training to 200 Inkatha supporters who would then serve as

MR MACADAM: /a paramilitary

MR MACADAM: 2A a paramilitary force and that training was given in the Caprivi, also under the Special Forces component of the SADF.  Can you make any general comments at all in that scenario, bearing in mind what you've outlined to us already?

WITNESS:   General comments with regard to the strategy pursued or to the nature of the training?

MR MACADAM: To specifically that scenario, the fact that here the SADF would train 200 Inkatha supporters once the conflict had arisen between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the United Democratic Front in KwaZulu-Natal.