Human Rights Violation Hearings — Moutse — 1996-12-04

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Wynand.  Wynand has been playing this primary role simply because he is our legal man on the bench.  He understands when we could be encroaching into matters that are purely of amnesty committee and those of the HRV.  Thank you, Wynand.

COMMISSIONER: Brigadier, I am a bit confused about the
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politics that you have referred to.  You say that security
police was the political arm of the National Party.  That is what you alleged.  What I am finding difficult, however, to understand is the following.  If Piet Ntuli was for independence and that was the policy of the National Party and he would then have been eliminated who was left to carry forward this policy of independence?  
MR ?: My apology for saying that, it is an unfair question.  I will put questions with regard to policy.  He was just a commander, a security commander you are asking questions in relation to the political policy with regard to Piet Ntuli and how he has perceived it.  He cannot now give comments on what you have asked him because he would not be able to give first hand information.  That will go on hearsay information.  You are talking about a political power base that carried out the implementational policy of a certain government.  It doesn't reflect on who gave the command to kill Piet Ntuli.  I think we will have to wait for that at a later stage.

COMMISSIONER: Look, with respect, as security police you did make recommendations and in your opening comments you actually spoke about your understanding of the political situation.  Now I mean the question is really to help us to try and understand what was happening politically.  It is not a question that has got any legal implications at all.  It is a question simply to try and get some perspective because that is what we are trying to get in this event here and to understand perspective and motive and context.  Now if the recommendation was that Piet Ntuli was - that there was political destabilisation, the he was actually doing the work of the ANC with him removed how was the Nationalist
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Party going to pursue this issue of independence.  If the
brigadier can't answer that question that is fine.  But I don't think that it is in any way an unfair question.

BRIG CRONJE: No, I cannot quite explain how they were going to do that.  I cannot answer that.

COMMISSIONER: Just to pursue another matter.  You mentioned Kendal.  Chris Kendal who was responsible for the security police in Bronkhorstspruit.  Now are you aware of the fact that Chris Kendal actually at one point conducted his own survey in the area in which he found that people in Kwandebele were not supportive of independence and that Chris Kendal was actually making recommendations that this whole issue of independence should be dropped?

BRIG CRONJE: I am aware of such allegations.

COMMISSIONER: It is so much more confusing, the political situation, to understand what you are saying about the political situation, that the policy was independence, yet here is a security policeman saying that we must abandon independence because the people don't support it.  Now again if you can't answer that question that is fine but I think that it is important for us to try and understand these conflicting signals at the time.

MR: Mr Chairman if I may try and help you there because it is not that I am giving evidence, it is what I have heard in front of the - and what testimony has been given in front of the amnesty committee was specifically that to enable the government to proceed with the independence of Kwandebele at the time stabilisation must have been achieved but the problem was that because there was no stabilisation all the people, and that was the theory and the whole ideology behind it, because there was destabilisation people or a
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person like Piet Ntuli and the Mbokoto busy in the area destabilising and actually working against what the security police and the government at that stage wanted because it was easier for them to turn the population's minds to independence if there was stabilisation.  So if a report from Kendal was coming forward it was maybe in respect of the mindset of the people at the time and it was important then maybe after that report because my clients can't remember, then the decision was maybe taken to eliminate Piet Ntuli.  We are not specific on that because they can't remember that so when he came back and said well there was no way, and that is what their testimony was in front of the amnesty committee, there was no way or means that they were going to turn the people and the population of Kwandebele towards independence without stabilisation and peace in the process and maybe it was after this report from Kendal that the decision was made upstairs to eliminate Piet Ntuli.  Sorry, again I say I am not giving evidence but I would like to clarify it because I have heard a lot of the evidence in front of the amnesty committee.

COMMISSIONER: That is helpful and just again as I say this is just to assist us because the issue is very confusing as you can appreciate.  Because then what seems to happen, just to go through the sequence of events then, Piet Ntuli is assassinated, eliminated on the 29th July 1986.  What then seems to happen is that as you say instead of Mbokoto being utilised that Mbokoto is given a new lease of life in the form of the kitskonstabels because what seems to happen then is that the people at the time like the then commissioner of the police Chris van Niekerk, also the commissioner general, Gerrie van der Merwe, they were then removed - and these
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were the people who were actually saying that this issue of independence is the issue that is causing all the unrest.  They are then removed and people like Hertzog Lerm and others come in and the whole issue of independence and the whole issue of destabilisation again recurs.  Now I am not necessarily asking you to comment on it if you can't but you can understand the confusion then that where are these orders and these instructions coming from?  You say that this is going to the State Security Councils, it is going to government, and yet there is conflicting signals that the State Security Council says eliminate Piet Ntuli but then it seems as if the very same people with a position of influence able to put other people again, who you say are second Piet Ntuli's.  So that is really to indicate to you some of the confusion that we have about the situation. 
MR ?: Again Mr Chairman I think Brig Cronje testified to that that Hertzog Lerm was predominantly sent here to try and destabilise the whole area but in the end it again, in Brig Cronje's words, he turned out to be a second Piet Ntuli.  And what happened after that we are not certain.  That was the time when they retired from the police force.

MS SEROKE: I am a bit confused here, Mr Chairman, that since we have been here listening to all the statements we have heard witness after witness say that Mbokoto was set up in this region to fight against the forces who were not in favour of independence.  And which independence the government also wanted here in this region.  Now if Mbokoto now is seen now as a destabilising unit like ANC was considered were there no other ways of encouraging them to stop destabilising instead of eliminating the leader of Mbokoto?
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BRIG CRONJE: I did say that if we eliminate Piet Ntuli and chop off the head of the snake then the rest of the body would not function.  That is in fact what happened until another stage, until Lerm came here.