Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

DR VAN RENSBURG: I spoke to him once.  I said "what do you think is going to happen", you know, I said "the newspapers are already on to you, there's going to be a problem".  He was flippant and flamboyant about it and the newspapers had made a slight confusion and called him Willy Basson instead of Wouter Basson and he said no he'll keep them confused and he wasn't concerned about the newspapers.  That's the only conversation we had.

MR CHASKALSON: What about the Surgeon-General who presumably would have had ultimate responsibility for the programme, did you discuss any of your concerns with him?

DR VAN RENSBURG: At the time, the first time I met General Knobel was when I was on the way out anyway.   The actual work done at the place I did not discuss with him, it was mainly the financial abuses and our staff problems that we discussed at that meeting.  He was not a person that had credibility in my own personal assessment.  I had the meeting with him on condition there was nobody there connected with the CCB.  So when we sat down he looked at me in the face and said "there's nobody here who has connections with the CCB".  Sitting opposite was Dr Wouter Basson and also Dr Swanepoel.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you say why you believe that those two individuals have any connections with the CCB?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Well Wouter Basson already was in the newspapers, he was co-ordinator of the CCB and we all know that he really fed General Verster's unit with a lot of materials.
 Wynand Swanepoel to ...(intervention)

MR CHASKALSON: Doctor maybe if we can just carry on with this point I just want to clarify something here.  There is another Wouter Basson who is a member of the CCB.  It may be possible that your press reports that you are referring to are referring to that one, can you comment on that?  Was there any interaction with people that you believed to be CCB agents at RRL or in your presence?

DR VAN RENSBURG: No.  There were no CCB agents at RRL.  Dr Andre Immelman used to meet with their agents, regularly, and provide them with materials.

MR CHASKALSON: And how do you know that?

DR VAN RENSBURG: He told me so.

MR CHASKALSON: And did he say that ...(intervention)

DR VAN RENSBURG: He told me about one incident.  I actually tricked him a little bit, when I read about the poisoning about Frank Chikane in the newspapers I said to him, I said "Andre what the hell are you doing to Frank Chikane?".  So he told me, "hell it's a real mess".  And he told me exactly what had happened, the mistakes they'd made, and he told me that General Verster was furious that the attempt to kill Frank Chikane had failed, and that he wouldn't - he'd ensure that it wouldn't fail next time.
 Dr Immelman was meant to train the operatives on how to use the substances.  This practice was started after failures like the attempt on Frank Chikane's life.  They made a lot of mistakes there.  They did simple silly things like instead of spreading the toxin which should be absorbed through the skin over a fairly large area to promote absorption the operative put it on a tiny little spot, then he laced five pairs of underpants instead of only one so Frank Chikane got sick repeatedly, it immediately showed it was poisoning.  The intelligence said he was going to Namibia and he went to America.  They were counting on very little forensic capability in Namibia.  These are the things he told me, so I know that he has contact with them.
 But to get back to your other question, yes, if they talked about a Wouter Basson and there's another one in the CCB that could be him.

MR CHASKALSON: I would like to return to the Surgeon-General.  You said that you only had contact with him and by this I am referring to Lt Gen Knobel when you were on your way out and you did not believe he was credible, what did you mean by that statement?

DR VAN RENSBURG: He's a real gentleman.  He receives you very well, but he never implements, this is my personal opinion, he doesn't implement necessary management procedures to solve the problem at hand.  He did nothing to solve my problem.  He did nothing to solve Goosen's problem.  Koekemoer is in trouble with the police, he's got huge costs now because of his involvement, he's not prepared to help him.  This happens repeatedly.
 Then he disclaims full responsibility for what private companies are doing.  The people in the front companies consider themselves full-time military personnel.  You are paid by them, you get your instructions from them, you are responsible to them, you report to them, they are your employer.  He would turn around if there's any problem and tend to say "oh that company we did a bit of business with them once, I've got nothing to do with the staff and I am not prepared to solve the problem further".
 Jan Lourens' problem he could have solved with a very simple bit of clever thinking.  There were several solutions to that problem he could have implemented which would have deprived us of the session yesterday.

MR CHASKALSON: Let me just butt in here.  This is a person that we heard yesterday had ultimate responsibility for this programme.  Is that your understanding?

DR VAN RENSBURG: No I didn't think that - he was the chief administrator and supervisor of the programme.  Ultimate responsibility, no, there's no doubt about it that's at a higher level.

MR CHASKALSON: Okay.

DR VAN RENSBURG: There's no doubt that, in my mind the Prime Minister P W Botha, rather President, knew about the project, and that the generals all the way down from the officer commanding were aware of it.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you tell me what General Knobel's response after the meeting about financial irregularities was?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Nothing, there was no response.

MR CHASKALSON: Was he aware of the work which was being conducted at RRL, to your mind?

DR VAN RENSBURG: He must have administered - RRL costs ultimately the taxpayer somewhere between 70 and R100 million altogether.  He administered those funds.  There is no way you can allocate and approve such money for expenditure if you don't know what's going on.  It would be grossly neglectful of your duty.
 Lists of products that were supplied as far as I know were given to him to justify the existence of Roodeplaat.  There are lists of these products here, they are mostly lethal weapons, lethal toxins as we know, lethal micro-organisms.  He's a doctor, he knew exactly, there is no doubt about that.

MR CHASKALSON: Was he aware of the experimentation that was done at RRL?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Absolutely.  He would approve the appointment of all senior scientists himself and he'd have to have the motivation of why they were there and what they were for.

MR CHASKALSON: Do you have any idea if he would have known, this is Gen Knobel, about the fact that essentially murder weapons were being produced on the facility?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Sorry, are you asking me if he knew about it?  Yes absolutely, that's what the facility was all about.  It was the main function.

MR CHASKALSON: Sorry Mr Chair if I could just have one moment again please.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you have an idea Mr Chaskalson how long you are going to be with this witness?

MR CHASKALSON: I think that I am actually finished and I just wanted to confer and see if there were any other questions that any of my colleagues over here would like me to address.
 Sorry Doctor, are you aware of any of the substances that we have discussed being used on specific targets aside from Reverend Chikane which you outlined earlier?