Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1998-03-30

ADV BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, really are we not moving into argument now at this stage?  These questions are really argumentative I think, isn't this a matter for argument?

CHAIRPERSON: From the one view point it may be so, but I think it is only fair to give the applicant a chance to deal with the matter.
	If he chooses not to or can't, then that is the end of the matter.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  You see, I am going to put to you that assaulting a detainee, assaulting a detainee or committing any delict against a detainee, cannot possibly be an act which brings about any political objective.  What do you say to that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Mr Chairperson, in my interpretation that is the case.  I can produce a political motive, I believe that because I was interrogating him in the context of the conflict of the past.
	He was under our control and in detention, we were interrogating him and we used those methods to generate information which would lead to the neutralising of the unrest and also would serve to protect my government which was facing the threat of a violent overthrow at the time.
	That is what I believed at the time.

GEORGE BIZOS: Let me try and explain to you ...

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Bizos, could I just enquire.  The Act requires that the act should be, or the offence should be associated with a political objective.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.

ADV DE JAGER: It doesn't say that the offence itself should have a political objective.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, I was using the shorthand, I accept that, but what I want to make clear, and I don't want to take my learned friend by surprise in argument, and I am going to put to the witness as a concrete example, I can understand that if you have information that a bomb is going to go out at twelve o'clock at a shopping centre and that you loose your temper and you assault a person in your custody in order to avoid the bomb - getting information in order that the bomb should be identified, or found, I can understand that that may be associated with the achieving of the immediate political objective of saving lives in the shopping centre.
	This is what I mean, could you tell us once you had him in your custody for 18 days, you didn't ask him a single question, you bring him in and he finds himself being injured in a manner which leads to his death, what political objective did you hope to gain under these circumstances by the acts of assault that you committed?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Mr Chairman, he was interrogated.  It is not as Mr Bizos put it that no questions were put to him.  Questions were indeed put to him, he was confronted for instance with the inflammatory pamphlets.
	The pamphlet doesn't say how people were killed, but reference were made to people being killed, and that was all part of the conflict of the past.  So, you can't argue in the way that Mr Bizos is, to say that just because there was a bomb, there was no conflict in the past.  No, what about acts of sabotage?
	The people had not yet left the country at that stage, they hadn't yet had the opportunity to complete their training and come back and plant bombs.  What could they use, they had to manufacture petrol bombs, and they used stones and sticks and kieries.  People were killed, it doesn't matter what the method was.
	I don't think the Act requires of me to have or to prove that I followed a certain method before it can be said to have had a political objective.  I was there to suppress and neutralise that which Mr Biko's organisation was responsible for propagating in the country at that stage.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  What was the BPC propagating, not the police propaganda or the statements made by politicians at the time.  In fact what was the BPC doing at the time of which Mr Biko was a leading office bearer?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Chairperson, everything which happened was connected to Black Power, it was shouted in the streets.  I was there, I heard it.
	Everything was done under the auspices and under the banner of the BPC, that is what it was about, Black Power.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did they claim the right of all the people of South Africa, to vote?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Repeat the question please.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did it claim the right for all black people in South Africa, to vote?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: It didn't?  Let's see how much of your propaganda you believe.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I did not preach propaganda, that is what actually happened.

GEORGE BIZOS: But you didn't know that the BPC wanted the franchise for everybody in the country?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is why I am saying, I am not a politician.  You must look at the conflict of the past and the conflict was caused by the fact that they had no rights.

GEORGE BIZOS: Let's deal with the facts.  Did you consider that the BPC calling for democratic rights of the people, was an act of subversion or Black Power that you want to talk about?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Why didn't they negotiate Mr Chairman, there were other methods.  It wasn't necessary to burn down the schools, and it wasn't necessary to use violence.
	They could have negotiated with the politicians.

CHAIRPERSON: A simple answer to the question would be better.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I am sorry Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Can you repeat the question Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you consider the call by the BPC for democratic rights of all the people in South Africa, a subversion?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: When you wanted to call Mr Biko a terrorist, it was because he was in the forefront of calling for the right to vote by all the people in South Africa in a unitary State?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes, that is so.

GEORGE BIZOS: And you considered that equivalent to terrorism?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes, because it had a military wing as well.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did the BPC have a military wing?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: When was that formed?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: In 1974, when Harry Gwenkoeloe en Bokwe Mafoena went to Botswana and founded the Black Consciousness Movement with a military objective.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was Black Consciousness the same as the organisation BPC in your view?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It is the same, there was no difference.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you ever hear anybody describing that Black Consciousness was merely an expression of a philosophical concept and an awareness of black people of their worth, did you ever hear about that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is correct, that is from the days of SASO, that is why they broke away from NUSAS.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  And you knew that much which we appreciate, but you did not distinguish between the organisations that had adopted violence as a means to bring about change and an organisation like BPC that was running community programmes in the Eastern Cape and which was trying to consultise people, rather than recruiting them to commit acts of violence, did you know that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes, but it was a front organisation.

GEORGE BIZOS: And this idea of Black Power was a Security Police description of all organisational efforts by black organisations and Black Power was equated to terrorism?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No, that was a concept which reached us from America which was accepted there, that is not our propaganda.  Every scene where violence was committed, Black Consciousness and Black Power were the order of the day.

ADV DE JAGER: How did the government of the day see the Black Consciousness Movement, did it see it as an enemy, a friend or a neutral body?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It was an enemy, because it was only a year afterwards in October, they were banned, all these Black Power organisations were banned.

GEORGE BIZOS: So was the Christian institute?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes, they had input on all social fields and terrains.