Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1999-02-19

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Carry on.

MR RICHARD: (Cont)
	Thank you Chairperson.  Mr Zwane, from where did you produce this document which is now identified by the letter D?

PULENG ZWANE: When I was called here to testify, the letter which called me specified that I must bring all the documents in my possession, in as far as this case is concerned.  I had a copy of the report which I gave to the TRC, which is now classified as D.

MR RICHARD: Very well, where would any other copies of D be?

PULENG ZWANE: Pardon me?

MR RICHARD: This was not the only copy of this document, in whose file would another copy of this document be?

PULENG ZWANE: The TRC, my head in particular, Mr Wilson Magadla, should be having this copy.  He is in possession of this copy and the copy which was attached to it.  Wilson and I have these copies.

MR RICHARD: Where is Wilson now?

PULENG ZWANE: He was the Head of the TRC Investigation Unit.  I don't know where is he now.  The TRC should know that.

MR RICHARD: Is he still with the TRC?

PULENG ZWANE: I am saying the TRC should know that.

MR RICHARD: Would you know that he is now a very senior person within the National Intelligence Agency?

PULENG ZWANE: Not to my knowledge.

MR RICHARD: When exactly did you leave the TRC?

PULENG ZWANE: I left the TRC in April 1997.  If you are interested in the reasons why I left, I can tell you why.

MR RICHARD: I hadn't asked.

CHAIRPERSON: April 1997, did you say?

PULENG ZWANE: April 1997.

MR RICHARD: The detail that you have given in evidence today, is not set out in this document.

PULENG ZWANE: Sure.

MR RICHARD: Why not?

PULENG ZWANE: Look, each and every Unit, each and every organisation has got some ethics.  It is not ethical to put down the names of people in a report which you have not established the true effects surrounding their involvement, in a particular case.
	It would have been a hearsay document to write the names of other people which I have not established their real effects and involvement in their case.
	But other than that, we used to have meetings every week, where we would give verbal report to Wilson Magadla, so Wilson might be having a copy of our verbal report to him maybe in a document form.

MR RICHARD: In an inquiry such as this, who has the right to decide what information and evidence is placed before it, you as an Investigator or the Commission itself?

PULENG ZWANE: When I joined the TRC, I took an oath of confidentiality that any information I have, I won't disclose to anyone, except the TRC, so it follows that the TRC might have that information.

MR RICHARD: I am not yet saying that this is the case, but you have now admitted that this written report, omits what I submit is highly relevant information, because you have decided it should not be documented?  Is that what you are saying?

PULENG ZWANE: What I am saying is that any information without evidence, is a propaganda.   Anything which I could have put here without any evidence, it would have been a propaganda and I don't think this forum is interested in a propaganda.

MR RICHARD: Now that means that you on your own are now deciding what evidence is going to be before the Commission?

PULENG ZWANE: What I am saying is that the evidence which is relevant to the Commission now, is that evidence which could be used to find out the circumstances surrounding the death of Sicelo Dhlomo.

MR RICHARD: And what you are saying is that this written document, Exhibit D, is what you think the Committee should rely on?

PULENG ZWANE: I am not here to dictate what the Committee should take as a factual data, but I am here to help where possible.  If I am not of help to the Committee, the Committee is free to kick me out.

MR RICHARD: Well, I am going to ask a very straightforward question.  Two Security Police gave you information about Mr Dube, I want their full names, ranks and where they are stationed now.

PULENG ZWANE: I am not prepared to tell you that.

MR RICHARD: Well, I am insisting that you tell me that, you have no right to withhold that.

PULENG ZWANE: I can't tell you that.

MR RICHARD: I am insisting.

PULENG ZWANE: Look, I am not prepared to put my sources at risk here.

MR RICHARD: I don't think your opinion is relevant in the matter sir.  I insist that you answer the question.

PULENG ZWANE: Here it is a matter of principle.  My principle and the principle of the TRC which I join, does not allow me to go and expose my sources.

MR RICHARD: Please quote me some authority for your right in this regard, because I submit there is none.

CHAIRPERSON: What is the relevance of this Mr Richard?

MR RICHARD: The relevance is that this witness by his statements has indicated that he, on his own volition chose what evidence should come to the Committee.

CHAIRPERSON: It is not.  The question - we have heard from Mr Dube himself that he infiltrated the Security Police, haven't we?

MR RICHARD: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: The names of the Security Police who told him, are of no importance, are they?  The fact is not in issue that he did so.

MR RICHARD: What is in issue, is from where he had contract Mr Dube with the Security Police.  We have his ipse dixit as indicated by this witness, there is no corroboration on any hard evidential line of when Mr Dube first became ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Dube said 1991, this witness has said 1990/1991.

MR RICHARD: But are we required to accept that evidence without testing it?

CHAIRPERSON: Have you any reason to doubt it?

MR RICHARD: I have instructions of rumours going back to 1987, that Mr Dube was an informer.

ADV SANDI: If I recall the evidence correctly, I don't think the question was put to Mr Dube as to who were his handlers, who was he dealing with in the Security Police.  Did you put that question to him?

MR RICHARD: No.  However, when it comes down to what you say Mr Zwane, to proceed, what we now know is that 1990/1991 the police had knowledge that it was Mr Dube and his cell that killed the deceased?

CHAIRPERSON: Why do you say that?  They told him in 1997?

MR RICHARD: About what was happening in 1990.

PULENG ZWANE: Your question?

MR RICHARD: My question is ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, they told him, but they told him in 1997.  That does not mean that they knew it in 1991.  By 1997 they had learnt it, don't you see the difference?  They didn't tell him in 1991.
	The police, when they told him, knew about what had happened in the past.  I know what happened in 1652 in this country, but I wasn't there, I didn't know it at the time.

MR RICHARD: As the Chairperson pleases, but I maintain that if cross-examined, ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: You were putting something incorrect, you were saying the police knew.  They didn't know then, they knew when they told him what had happened in the past.

MR RICHARD: I will proceed onwards.  The Chairperson of the Committee referred you to page 10 of a document headed Statement Sworn Under Oath.  Who wrote that document?

PULENG ZWANE: I gave Dube an opportunity to put all our conversation in writing, and in addition, I told myself and I told him that I will also put our conversation in writing, and then we arranged a meeting where we compare our information and the product of that conversation, became that document, which I finally wrote and then showed him and then he agreed.

MR RICHARD: So that means that prior to the finalisation of this document, Mr Dube saw your notes of what your discussions were?

PULENG ZWANE: Sure.

MR RICHARD: Now where are those notes?

PULENG ZWANE: Those notes were in handwriting, and then I showed him and then he gave me his own notes.  Then we put the two notes together in that document.  I might have lost my original manuscript.