Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-23

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: As I already said, it was not a splinter group and I identified myself with the goals those people strived for and I went along with it.

MR BRACHER: Why did you think then that they would lock you in by taking you as a passenger on the first run?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: The reason therefore I do not know.

MR BRACHER: Well there's only one reason because that was the way to get your commitment to that group?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: It might be the case, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Did they know that you came with De Wet?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Chairperson, I do not know if they knew it.
Maybe Cliff Barnard and Nico Prinsloo had a meeting, I do not know.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did you go with De Wet?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Because Nico Prinsloo told me that I must go with De Wet, I must drive with him and go on a mission.

MR BRACHER: Mr Du Plessis, you gave in your evidence what I thought was a terrible answer, an awful answer.  You said "I heard that people died" when you were talking about the Germiston bomb.  Now you helped take the bomb there, you parked it - you actually armed the bomb, didn't you?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: No, Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: Well you knew it was going to go off in a crowded place?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I did drive through with Etienne le Roux, I saw that there were a lot of taxis so I knew about it.

MR BRACHER: Not taxis - people.  Real people.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: If I might say, a lot of the taxis were empty.

MR BRACHER: There were people around there, you killed lots of people in a busy time.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: There were people, I agree.

MR BRACHER: "I heard people were dead" - you knew you were going to kill people.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: There was a possibility that people might not have died, Chairperson, a lot of the taxis were empty and the people who were commuted by the taxis early that morning was no longer in the taxis.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but Mr Du Plessis, your instruction was to take the lives of people.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: That was not - I was not told that pertinently but I assumed that people would lose their lives -that was the tactics, Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: If you had looked into the shop you would have seen the Ontong's son working there.  There were people working in the shops neighbouring, weren't there?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I couldn't see into the shops but I assume that there must have been people working there.

MR BRACHER: You'd seen on the T.V. the night before what a bomb can do in a public place - dead and injured all over the place is that not so?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I did see that, Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: Mr Du Plessis, what worries me, you're still a member of the AWB, you want amnesty, what's to say that you're not going to do the same for the next election?  Nothing has changed in your mind - you still subscribe to these aims and objects - you're still a member of the AWB, you're still a person who doesn't care about human life apparently.  Why shouldn't you do it at the next election?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I can only tell you that I would definitely not do it again.  In those specific circumstances which reigned at that time and the instructions we were given and the promises which were made - because of that we thought we would get away with it.  What happened in this specific cases we did not get away with it and the law took it's course against us and I definitely will not do it again.

MR BRACHER: You say definitely not?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Yes, definitely not.

MR BRACHER: Under the same circumstances you would do it again.  If some leader arises now between now and the next election, that you've got faith in, you would do the same again?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: No, I will not do it again?

MR BRACHER: Why not, what has changed?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: If I can put it this way, in the Defence Force we were indoctrinated to follow orders and to fight against the communist, physically.  I mean to fight physically against them and now after these events I realise we were only used as pawns, that we had to do the dirty work for some or other political organisation and to spread propaganda for them and we got into trouble.  I definitely won't do it again.

MR BRACHER: But if you found an organisation which you had confidence in that wasn't going to drop you, you would do it again.  The Communist Party is going to be in the next election isn't it?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I do not know.

MR BRACHER: Yes, I'm telling you it is.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Then I accept it as such.

MR BRACHER: Will you still treat them as an enemy?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I still regard them as an enemy of the Boere people but I would not make war against them in the next election, Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: Who chose the target in Germiston?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I do not know who gave the general instruction for that bomb.

MR BRACHER: Who chose that spot to blow up people?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: That place if I remember correctly was indicated by Etienne le Roux, Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: What is his rank?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: At that time I think his rank was that of Lieutenant, Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: You were senior to him?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I was his senior yes.

MR BRACHER: You could have overridden that instruction?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Not on that mission.

MR BRACHER: Yes, exactly, exactly.  Not in that mission because if you were doing it for the AWB you could override it, if you were in a splinter group that you had just joined, you can't override it, can you?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I'd say maybe that was another grouping of the AWB.

MR BRACHER: Yes another grouping, not of the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Yes of the AWB.

MR BRACHER: They were all members of the AWB but the ranks had all changed, different people were giving orders to different people.  It was all upside down, it had nothing to do with the AWB structure.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Seniority on those missions depended not on rank so much but on what they did before.  I was a novice in that milieu.

MR BRACHER: Who told you that?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Chairperson, that's how I understood it.

MR BRACHER: You were not a novice, you were the Commandant of Operations.  There wasn't anybody more senior than you there.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: From before, I never planted any bombs.

MR BRACHER: That had nothing to do with it.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I think it's got a lot to do with it.

MR BRACHER: You were a senior officer, if you're on an AWB mission - you don't deny that?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I agree with that yes.

MR BRACHER: Now tell me what was the purpose of the Jan Smuts bomb?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: The reason which I was given by Nicolas Barnard with regards to the Jan Smuts bomb was that foreign tourists must be prevented from coming into the country.  That was the reason I was given.

MR BRACHER: To prevent tourists from entering the country?  Then why did you put it in the parking garage?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: It would have been difficult to drive the bomb into the airport itself.

MR BRACHER: You could park it outside the front entrance of International Arrivals?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: In what parking area are you now talking about?

MR BRACHER: There's a thing called a drop off area, you drop people right outside the door when they want to get on an international flight?

CHAIRPERSON: He wasn't going to drop people, he was going to drop a bomb.

MR BRACHER: You know when you go to an airport, you go to the front door and the people get out of your car and walk in - your car's parked there all day every day.  You could have put your bomb there.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Is that not where we put the bomb?