Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-17

MR BRACHER: You see you tried to give the impression yesterday that you were just cut off from the world and you couldn't get any instruction, but that's not true is it.  You could have easily got instructions?

MR LE ROUX: Yes I could have received instructions.

MR BRACHER: You also say in your application that you heard things over the radio.  You had access to a radio, you could have found out what was happening as a result of the bombs?

MR LE ROUX: That is correct Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: The other thing is that there was no support from anyone else because you said that you expected cars to be stolen but no stolen car was ever provided by anybody above you was it?

MR LE ROUX: At the end the airport bomb was a stolen car.

MR BRACHER: Well let me talk about Bree Street, nothing had happened up until then.  I'm talking about when you killed my clients' families?

MR LE ROUX: This was a run up to a revolution and we were under the impression, like I said yesterday repeatedly that afterwards it would continue until we obtained what we wanted.

MR BRACHER: What kind of revolution is this where you are stuck on a farm, you've got no toilets, you are seventy people trying to take over the Western Transvaal, you scratch around in the grass to find a road roller to build a bomb, you search in the bushes to find bits of metal, I mean that's not an organised revolution, that's just you and a group of madmen.

MR LE ROUX: Chairperson there were not only seventy, there was much broader planning done.  The "Boere Krisis Aksie" would have grasped the whole situation in a military fashion and the army also would have come to our side and that was the revolution for us, it was something quite big.  It wasn't only seventy people.

MR BRACHER: But none of that happened?

MR LE ROUX: No it did not happen.

MR BRACHER: In fact of the seventy people some of them threw a few pipe bombs and went home and that was the end of them and they were never ever seen again for months.  Is that right?

MR LE ROUX: That's correct Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: And I'm correct in saying that you had no provisions to make a bomb, you scratched around on the farm and found whatever you could, besides the explosives?

MR LE ROUX: No Chairperson you use whatever you can find in the vicinity.

MR BRACHER: I'm talking about the metal that you used.

MR LE ROUX: If you make war and you're hiding behind a rock then you look for a rock.  But the explosives were issued to us and we made provision for that.

MR BRACHER: I've just got a couple of things left.  You said yesterday when you were asked about your leader Mr Terreblanche and you said he's a good speaker.  Can we imply from that that you don't think he's a good leader.  Is that the limit of his qualities, is a good speaker?

MR LE ROUX: I realised afterwards that he was not a good organiser Chairperson because these things didn't work out, whatever he said the revolution was to be.

MR BRACHER: Now tell us exactly, as far as you can remember, exactly what his words to you were in jail when he came to visit you and told you that he supported you.

MR LE ROUX: I cannot remember exactly.

MR BRACHER: Well tell me the best you can what he said to you.

MR LE ROUX: The principle there was that they regarded us as people who have done our bit for the revolution which was reigning at that time.  That's the basis of that.

MR BRACHER: Thank you Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR BRACHER

MR PRIOR: Thank you Chairperson. Mr Le Roux I have a few points that I have to cover and can I just inform the committee I also represent two families, the Matsepane family as well as the family of Nokwazi Gumbi of the Bree Street bombing.  Mr Le Roux is it your evidence that Mr Terreblanche as the leader of the AWB, this march that you planned from Koosterfontein Game Farm, did he approve this, was this how you understood it?

MR LE ROUX: Yes Mr Chairperson.

MR PRIOR: In other words this bomb, the pattern of bomb attacks was with Mr Terreblanche's approval as well as the approval of the Staff Generals.

MR LE ROUX: That is correct yes.

MR PRIOR: And I am going to go a little further, as well as the approval and support, whether directly or indirectly, of General Constand Viljoen?

MR LE ROUX: I do not know that, but I know it had the approval of the AWB.

MR PRIOR: Yesterday you mentioned a meeting where General Constand Viljoen and other members addressed you?

MR LE ROUX: That is correct yes.

MR PRIOR: Now if I remember correctly, General Constand Viljoen established the Volksfront Party.  Is that correct?

MR LE ROUX: That is correct - it wasn't yet ...(intervention)

MR PRIOR: I beg your pardon, the Freedom Front?

MR LE ROUX: At that stage it did begin yes.

MR PRIOR: And the Freedom Front did take part in the elections.  Is that correct?

MR LE ROUX: Yes.

MR PRIOR: As well as Mr Hartzenberg's Conservative Party?

MR LE ROUX: No it did not.

MR PRIOR: I apologise, did they not take part?

MR LE ROUX: No.

MR PRIOR: Were you worried about the fact that General Constand Viljoen's new party would take part in the elections while you were busy organising a revolution?

MR LE ROUX: No I was not worried about that.

MR PRIOR: He was the person who would provide all the military support to the revolution?

MR LE ROUX: Yes that is true.

MR PRIOR: Did you do any reconnaissance of the targets beforehand?

MR LE ROUX: Directly before that, no.

MR PRIOR: As we understood you yesterday, you could have planted the bomb at one hundred other places in Johannesburg or in the greater area of Johannesburg.

MR LE ROUX: Yes that is correct.

MR PRIOR: Part of your training in the Ystergarde as well as in other sections of the AWB, did you receive any military training as we understand it, conventional training.  Lectures, warfare lectures etc?

MR LE ROUX: Yes.

MR PRIOR: Did you receive any political training?

MR LE ROUX: No.  The people who joined were political for that purpose.

MR PRIOR: For example the Geneva Convention regarding warfare, did you have any knowledge of that?

MR LE ROUX: Yes, I have knowledge of that personally.

MR PRIOR: And do you know that the Geneva Convention protects innocent civilians?

MR LE ROUX: It does also make provision for inner war situations and the fact that innocent people can die.

MR PRIOR: But that is actually a prohibition not so?

CHAIRPERSON: But that isn't approval?

MR LE ROUX: No it is not approval Chairperson.

MR PRIOR: There's actually a prohibition that innocent civilians cannot be seen as the enemy.  Is that true?

MR LE ROUX: Yes that is true, that as few as possible civilians must be killed.

ADV GCABASHE: I'm sorry Mr Prior, I missed the answer to the military training.  I hope I'm not taking you back too far.

MR PRIOR: Yes we did receive military training in the Ystergarde.

ADV GCABASHE: Thank you.

MR PRIOR: Now that knowledge that you had about civilians in a war situation, did that form part of any planning of the end result of the act?

MR LE ROUX: As Barnard put it to me, people must be killed in these explosions in order to demonstrate the seriousness and to convey the message and it's the same what he said when resistance movements all over the world planted bombs and it has the same effect.  The more people you kill the greater the message is, but this was not to kill the maximum amount of people.

MR PRIOR: So in other words it was not enough to for example blow up a government building to make some sort of declaration to the world.

MR LE ROUX: I do not know Mr Chairperson regarding this aspect.  If he wanted to choose a government building and asked me where, I would have taken him to that building.

MR PRIOR: So if I understand you correctly then you actually acted under the command of Mr Barnard?

MR LE ROUX: Yes, I followed his instructions and the Staff Generals.