Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-12-01

IAN MUNRO PHILLIPS: Mr Radebe has referred to the first consignment of weapons which came into the province through a vehicle.
	I was not involved in that particular consignment if you like, because that was taking place right at the very beginning of the particular process, establishing the linkages here within Southern Natal.  However, as soon as that had been up and running, I was given the task as I indicated, to establish the communication links.  Essentially I think there are two principles that need to be kept in mind, the conditions of the time, although formally legal, the ANC and MK and the prevailing atmosphere in kwaZulu Natal forced us to still adapt to underground forms of work, in other words, you couldn't communicate publicly or by adverts in the press or something like that.
	It was done with the principles of military combat work in mind, secrecy.  Those were operated on the basis of the need to know principle, ie in terms of information, it doesn't really matter how high up in the organisation you are, you will only be allowed to know information and should know information, that is pertinent to your particular role in a particular position.
	The other is that you had to establish structures that preserve that secrecy.  Those structures mean that I as a member of an REC, given a particular task or function by Chris, comrade Chris Hani, means that I would know who my immediate superior was in the line of function, and I would also know who my immediate whatever it is, (indistinct) further down the line would be.
	However, I would not necessarily know and I ought not to know in fact, the identities of people further down the chain so that if in the circumstances of somebody being caught somewhere, that individual doesn't actually, or is not prejudiced by information that you don't know, because the experience and these methods of work, are not there by choice or desires for conspiracy and this type of nonsense.  They are there for the very real reason that, and they arose in the ANC in particular I understand, during the course of the 1960's, when the South African regime at that stage, employed vicious forms of torture against people and got information out of people through those means.
	You can only get information out of people, if they had it.  So it is much better in actual fact to keep levels of information as limited as possible.  In a practical sense, the principles would operate if there was to be a consignment of weapons or we were to be informed that there was going to be weapons available from a DLB for distribution to SDU's in Southern Natal, I would either have a personal communication through phone or whatever, from MHQ which would say something along the line, I cannot remember precisely these things of course, something along the lines of hallo comrade, tell you friend that the presents have arrived, or something like that.
	I would then be able to communicate to Mandla that good news, the presents have arrived.

MR WILLS: Just for the record, Mandla being Mr Sithole?

IAN MUNRO PHILLIPS: Mr - sorry Mr Sithole.  These formalities are a bit beyond me at times and this isn't a court, so I feel a little bit more ...

CHAIRPERSON: This is not a court and we have tried to be a lot less formal than a court.

IAN MUNRO PHILLIPS: Thank you.  Essentially what would happen was it is one thing to be told that the presents have arrived, you've got to find out where they are.
	In that situation, because I was at the University, you had free access to telephones, faxes, goodness knows what else, and I would be told, well, expect a fax, and I would toddle along to the fax room, and sure enough there would be a fax and on that fax would most probably be a diagram of some sort.
	That diagram prepared in a particular way, would have the form of a map.  I wouldn't necessarily know or understand what that map said, but it would be because of the particular way in which it had been drawn.
	That map would then be handed on to Mandla, who as a military person, trained in those particular interpretative ways, would understand what that map meant.  What he did with it, would actually be his particular business.  Most of the time, communication would take place on that basis.
	I would understand that this was a consignment of arms or ammunition or whatever it was that was in the particular DLB or Dead Drop, and that is how it would be done.
	Comrade Jeff has indicated earlier the circumstances of how vehicles could be used as DLB's.  Again information would come through, but I think the other thing to indicate is that (a) no written records of transactions of this nature were made or kept, because it was unnecessary.  Most of the communication was verbal between myself and MHQ and occasionally comrade Chris would pass through the region, and we would chat and he would indicate a few things of progress, but similarly the simple fact was that given the structure of the ANC, we would have, well we had a Regional Headquarters based in Durban and in that Headquarters would be offices for the Women's League, the Youth League and obviously for Umkhonto weSizwe  because MK as we know, was the League of an up and coming and legitimate force during that period.

CHAIRPERSON: Just one point Dr Phillips, you said that you didn't keep written records of transactions.  Mr Radebe when he gave evidence, said that at the end of the day when weapons were retrieved, about 90% of the weapons that were issued, they got back again to hand over to the military, the new Defence Force, National Defence Force.
	I don't know whether you would know, but would there be a record kept somewhere, not necessarily in Southern Natal region, but somewhere, as to how many weapons, what there nature, the type of weapons, etc that were delivered to Southern Natal and if three AK47's went to Umkababa and two went to Inanda or whatever, would there be that sort of record somewhere in the MK offices, either at Headquarters or in Natal?

IAN MUNRO PHILLIPS: Okay, first of all my comment about no written records, referred specifically to the nature of the communication, ie I don't have any copies of the maps left, that type of thing.
	Secondly, from my recollection of comrade Jeff's testimony, he sort of estimated that 85% or thereabouts as a rough estimate of what may have gone back.  Inside that DLB there may have been an indication of what was there, but of course people can count how ever many, whether records were kept of that nature from military Headquarters, I don't know.
	I wouldn't know to what extent there was an audit done within military structures here, in terms again of keeping a record of this is going to that place, because again part of the problem I suspect, is that we are dealing with the situation of great mobility.
	You've got a random process and the other problem of course is the least or fewer pieces of paper you have floating around with that type of information, the better.

CHAIRPERSON: One would imagine probably the Ordinance Section at Headquarters knew how many left?

IAN MUNRO PHILLIPS: Yes, I would imagine so and I am also aware that for example, when the final audits were done for the retrieval of weaponry and the hand over to the SANDF formally, after the election process, that was all coordinated by military Headquarters.
	We didn't have an audit role to play in that as Southern Natal.

MR WILLS: Mr Radebe in his evidence indicated the method of conveyance of these weapons was by vehicles, but you got involved on a more frequent basis after that and it wasn't only the usage of these vehicles.
	Can you just explain in as much detail as you can recall, the methods through which the weapons were delivered to various places?