Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-10-01

MR FORD: Of critical importance then, Mr De Kock, is that at the meeting which you attended in the house of Mr Van Rensburg, together with Nieuwoudt, is the fact that what was the primary focus of that meeting, if I understand your evidence, is the question of the fraud.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: And the consequences which could result if that, if the fraud aspect was pursued.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: There was at no stage any suggestion that the members who were to be killed, were considering going over to the ANC, were considering passing information to the ANC because of a change in their political convictions or anything of that nature.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: No.

MR FORD: And subsequently and as the Chairman put it, clearly you reflected on the order which had been given to you by Mr Van Rensburg and you returned to his office.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, Chairperson.

MR FORD: And then for the first time, if I understand it, the Goniwe matter, if I can call it that, was raised?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, correct.

MR FORD: Were you aware of the - or you obviously were aware of the murders which had taken place, but were you aware of the involvement of the security police in those murders?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, Chairman.

MR FORD: Were you aware that Mr Van Rensburg was in a senior position in the security police in Port Elizabeth at the time?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: I wasn't so aware at that stage but two of my friends, my Koevoet friends, were involved.

MR FORD: So you were not aware of any personal involvement by Mr Van Rensburg in the Goniwe murders?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: No, Chairperson.

MR FORD: Were you aware of any personal involvement of Gerhardus Lotz in those murders?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct, that was one of the ex-Koevoet members.

MR FORD: Were you aware of the relationship between Mr Van Rensburg and Mr Lotz?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Correct, yes.

MR FORD: Now having been - sorry, one aspect which I haven't dealt with, Mr De Kock. Your application makes quite clear that mention was made, and I am referring to page 576 of the record, it is your application.  576, typed page 902. I'm sorry, it is 57(b), my mistake.

ADV DE JAGER: (Indistinct ... - microphone not switched on.

MR FORD: Well, that would have been a nice change, Mr Commissioner. I am referring to approximately halfway down that page, Mr De Kock, where you say
"I then asked Nieuwoudt to tell me or to explain to me what the purpose of his visit there was and he explained that there was a problem in Port Elizabeth regarding two members of the security police and a former ANC member who worked for them."
There is no question with effect to this, but that only three persons were mentioned. Is that a correct assumption?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, Chairperson, mention was made of three people only; two members of the Force and one former ANC member, an Askari as was known in the vernacular.  When I heard the news that there was a fourth person involved, I was surprised. I wouldn't say that I was distressed or disturbed but that wasn't part of the initial planning and I didn't know who it was.

MR FORD: Well, can I ask you then, Mr De Kock, if that was your reaction afterwards, is the possibility, as you see it, that one of the persons killed was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: I cannot speculate.  In retrospect it would seem as if I wasn't aware of all the details of the operation.  But it is possible.  But I don't want to speculate. I don't have a crystal-ball.

MR FORD: Did I understand your evidence correctly, this was the first occasion where you were asked to participate in the killing of your colleagues?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: No, later during the nineties, 1991/1992, on two separate occasions, I was once again requested to take action against a former colleague and a currently serving member, and in both cases I refused, because the members weren't planning to defect to the ANC.

MR FORD: No, you haven't answered my question.  Was this the first occasion?  The Makarov bombing?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: As far as I can recall, yes.

MR FORD: And you say on the other occasions you conducted some investigation, and were not prepared to carry out the order?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: Now you have made it quite clear, and it is apparent from your application, that any number of illegal, you considered them legitimate for your own reasons, but they were illegal operations, were carried out from Vlakplaas. Is that right?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR FORD: Did you have some sort of a carte blanche to carry out these operations or did you require a specific authority in each case?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Generally speaking, we required authority or had to obtain authority. We had no carte blanche because then thousands of people could have been killed, but I just want to clarify something. It did happen on occasion that an operative on the ground would suddenly find himself in a situation where he has to make a decision whether he was an officer or not, and in that situation there would not necessarily be the time to phone head office and to find a senior officer, and that operative would then take an operational decision on the ground, and then he would have to carry the responsibility for that.  My answer is a bit long-winded but I just want there to be no misunderstanding.

MR FORD: This discretion or for the purposes of this, one accepts a discretion of the operative on the ground.  I am talking about a pre-planned operation which was an illegal operation, you would seek authority for that?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes.   Yes, that is the case.

MR FORD: From whom would you seek that authority?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: From some higher authority. In other words the commanding officer of the section and if he wasn't there, well, the advantage of head office, was that if the group or section leader wasn't there, you could go directly to the chief of security.

MR FORD: And Mr Van Rensburg was your senior, if I understood?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes, he was by far the most senior.

MR FORD: In so far as the operation of Vlakplaas was concerned?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Yes.

MR FORD: And if you required authority for an operation, would you go to him?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: That is correct.

MR FORD: What was your impression or do you know, was he allowed to give authority through his own decision or did he himself have to go to higher authority?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: It will be difficult to say, because the orders were mostly given on a one-to-one basis to ensure greater secrecy, but he could perhaps have made decisions on his own, and that could be an operational decision on the ground, but it would take place within the context of the hierarchy of rank within the security police, and within that context he would certainly have had to enquire whether Mr Gilbert had cleared the matter and been given authority.  Because your divisional head office was subordinate to head office and in my view and I think I am correct in this, that Gilbert couldn't phone Van Rensburg and say look, come and kill people, without it having been cleared with higher authority and the natural reaction to that would have been from the side of Genl Van Rensburg, in any event, to ensure that this was not a private enterprise.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr De Kock, in the same context, why did you not make sure that Van Rensburg had the authority to give you the order that he did?