Amnesty Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — 1997-02-10

SISI KHAMPEPE: On page 9 of your statement that you have just handed up to the Committee, you indicate that you saw yourself sitting with this enemy who was a communist and that your indoctrination just took the better part of you and you saw an opportunity which you did not want to leave unused.   What I want to know is whether that was the first time for you to have been able to apprehend an ANC supporter?

ANSWER: No I had apprehended several of them in my vehicle on previous occasions.

SISI KHAMPEPE: What made you choose or decide to kill this one and see him as an enemy of such great importance that warranted to be killed?

ANSWER: You know it's as I stipulated.   Since my childhood days I strove for the border fighter role, fighting against communism and that is how I was trained in
1.2	police /...
MEMBER OF COMMITTEE	34	W B HARRINGTON
police, that the ANC was the enemy, they were the communists and they were the anti-Christ and after several assaults on ANC people I reached breaking point.   Something inside me just cracked, it snapped, all the feelings which I had harboured against the ANC just reached breaking point which led to us executing this action.

JUDGE WILSON: Can I go back a minute after what you have just been asked?   You had an enormous hatred against the members of the ANC didn't you?

ANSWER: Is it in the light of what I have just said?

JUDGE WILSON: Yes and in the light of your statements, you'd make them undress if they were male and female and have intercourse before your jeering Inkatha constables wouldn't you?   Do you remember putting that in your statements?

ANSWER: I would just like to emphasise that I did not have intercourse with them, but the sense which...

JUDGE WILSON: In front of you and in front of your special constables who jeered at them, is that not so?

ANSWER: Yes that is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: Is it also not correct Constable that on various occasions you threw ANC supporters into the Duzi River or the river between Ashdown and (indistinct) after they had been assaulted?

ANSWER: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: And you never looked back to see if the man or the woman could get out of the water?

ANSWER: That is correct.   I would just like to add something, what I mean about the ANC people which we apprehended and the assaults on them, I would just like to emphasise that as far as Mr Jama is concerned I would like
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to confirm that as far as his death is concerned I cannot say that whether the others were dead or alive but that they were, we would drop them in an Inkatha area which would consequently endanger their lives and we'd leave them there for dead.

JUDGE WILSON: So you were intending that they should be killed too, other people you had questioned you would then abandon in an Inkatha area where you expected them to be killed, is that what you are telling us?

ANSWER: I cannot speak for the Inkatha people but the feeling at the time was that they would be terrified if they were left there, be it to be assaulted or to be killed or to escape death.    That was after we had obtained or whether we had not obtained any information from them.

CHAIRPERSON: We will take the customary adjournment at this stage and resume at 2 o'clock.
COMMISSION ADJOURNS - ON RESUMPTION
WILLIAM BASIL HARRINGTON (suo)

CHAIRPERSON: Is the position that because a man is a member of a political organisation such as the ANC and if you come to hear about him being a member of the ANC, then you would be entitled to do anything you like with him, torture him, assault him, let him go and if need be, kill him?

ANSWER: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that all part of the training?

ANSWER: Well that was the impression which I got.

UNKNOWN: Could you please repeat your answer?

ANSWER: That was the impression which was conveyed to me and that is the way I accepted it.

UNKNOWN: I think what the Honourable
1.2	Chairperson /...
MEMBER OF COMMITTEE	36	W B HARRINGTON
Chairperson wants to know from you is you say in your submission you were trained, you were indoctrinated to regard ANC members as your enemy, is that correct?

ANSWER: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: Would you then regard any ANC member which you came across as your enemy?

ANSWER: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: What would you then have done to him?

ANSWER: I would have assaulted him.

UNKNOWN: Can you explain why you would not have arrested or have prosecuted one if you came across him?

ANSWER: It would have taken up too much time and that was, it was not sufficient to do that, it was a waste of time to do that.

UNKNOWN: What was your rank at that stage?

ANSWER: I was a constable.

UNKNOWN: Could you decide on your own what was futile or what was not or did your commanding officer have a say in that?

ANSWER: When I came to the Unit I was 18 years old and at the time of Mr Jama's murder I was 21 years old and I was already a senior member at the Riot Squad.

UNKNOWN: Were your commanding officers and senior police officers under whose authority you served aware of your actions?

ANSWER: It is difficult to say, it is not that I hid my doings it was done in the open and the feeling which I got was that it was justified in their eyes.

UNKNOWN: Did they ever speak to you about it or say to you that if you were to come across any man assault him or don't waste our time by arresting him?
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ANSWER: /...
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ANSWER: Indirectly, not in the words which you used but that was the impression which I got from them.   That was the general procedure which we followed.

UNKNOWN: Certainly you could have gained that impression by yourself that they knew, because if they didn't know they couldn't have conveyed that feeling to you.

ANSWER: At that stage in the war we were waging against the ANC it was so intense and we proceeded as usual and that't the only way that I can express it if you understand what I mean...(end of 2a)...that is correct sir.

CHAIRPERSON: It didn't occur to you that you should open fire because they were all ANC people?

ANSWER: No it didn't occur to me at the time.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Are you saying that you received instructions to treat ANC members the way that you went about doing that?

ANSWER: Yes those were my thoughts that they had to be treated that way.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ...are you saying that you got instructions from somebody or are you saying that you just decided so yourself?

ANSWER: I decided by myself.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ...the way that you say you went about doing it?

ANSWER: No there was no verbal agreement to that effect.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I wanted to find out whether possibly you got instructions from your superiors, you didn't get such instructions from your superiors?

ANSWER: From the commanding officers at the Unit I would say no.

UNKNOWN: (No microphone, inaudible).
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ANSWER: /...
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ANSWER: It is difficult to explain to you, you know let me put it this way, as I said I joined the Unit and I was raised, to put it in a manner of speaking, along that line of thought.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ...you were supposed to do, to go about harassing them?

ANSWER: It was clear that I was to fight against the ANC that they were the communists.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: In your evidence you repeatedly said that you accepted that it was practice to harass members of the ANC, but in this case did you not, by killing the deceased, did you not in fact go beyond even what you understood to be the practice, mere harassment?

ANSWER: Probably not in the context of war but I went further in the context of humanity.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: ...the killing of the deceased in terms of your evidence would not fall within the framework of your usual operation which consisted of merely harassing them, arresting them, assaulting them and letting them go?