Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-23

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct - microphone not on)

MR VISSER: Oh, I'm not sure I know which one you're talking about Mr Chairman.  But however that may be, soon after their arrival there or on their way there, Botha is informed by Ndaba that he has a prior arrangement to meet Mr Shabalala and he tells them where this meeting was to take place, near the Greyville racecourse.  Ndaba and Botha then consider whether Ndaba should attend the meeting or not and the decision is taken that he should.  Ndaba then, sorry, Botha then assures Ndaba that the members of the Security Branch will be in close attendance in case there may be any danger to Ndaba because of the fact that he had been arrested that morning and they agree on a special signal which Ndaba would give if he felt threatened.  A long story cut short, Mr Chairman, they arrived at the appointed place.  du Preez, Wasserman were in a car with which they went there and they observed a blue Toyota Corolla with which Mr Shabalala had arrived and into which Mr Ndaba had gotten with Botha and van der Westhuizen on foot somewhere in the vicinity.  At some stage Ndaba gives the signal and immediately they approach the vehicle and Shabalala is "arrested".  They are then both transferred back to Verulam, Mr Chairman, where they are held in separate rooms and now the following facts appear to emerge.
	Ndaba is now very uncertain about his position.  The Security Branch now has Shabalala in their custody where they had no intention of arresting him in the first place.  During the course of the weekend, Mr Shabalala makes it clear to the members that he suspects Mr Ndaba of being a police informer.  The immediate result of that is that Mr Shabalala can now not be released because the intention is that Mr Ndaba should be released, where he could continue with his work in Operation Vula and give feedback to Mr Botha.
	Mr Chairman, during this weekend there is a debriefing of Mr Ndaba by Botha and according to Botha's evidence, for the first time that weekend he realised the complexity and the importance of the Operation Vula operation, so much so Mr Chairman, that he reports to Gen Steyn and on that Monday the 10th Botha and Steyn go up to Pretoria to Headquarters to inform Headquarters of how they now see Operation Vula.  They stay there and it's not clear whether they stay till the Tuesday or to the Wednesday the 11th or the 12th, but now much turns on that Mr Chairman, but what is clear is that instructions go out from Gen van der Merwe that all the intelligence agencies in the country be informed as well as overseas embassies, because, at the time as you will recall Mr Chairman, there were serious negotiations about negotiations going on and there was serious talk about the cessation of the arms struggle and people were talking about getting together to solve the conflict of the country by negotiation.  It was foreseen that if arrests took place of such high officials as the ones that we have mentioned to you earlier, it would have a dramatic effect on the negotiation process.
	They came back Mr Chairman and then what happens is, on Wednesday the 12th, while Wasserman and du Preez are keeping observation, Mr Siphiwe Nyanda realises that an observation is being kept on him and he attempts to escape.  He then becomes arrested.  Mr Chairman this arrest now triggers a number of arrests so that between 12 and 15 to the best of the recollection of Botha, people of Operation Vula are arrested during the course of the day, apparently according to the cross-examination until late that night on the 12th of July.	
	Botha and Steyn go back to Pretoria on the Thursday the 13th, I'm sorry, Thursday the 12th to report, or it might have been the 13th Mr Chairman, I'm not sure but they go back to Pretoria to report the new development and to await orders.  In the meantime what has happened, according to Botha, is this.  He, that is Botha, reported back to Ndaba what was transpiring and when Ndaba heard that arrests had been made, he became very anxious.  What apparently happened on Friday the 13th Mr Chairman or Thursday the 12th, I'm not certain, was that it was decided in Pretoria that a National Investigation Unit be set up to investigate the whole issue around Operation Vula and during the course of their visit to Pretoria which took a day or two, they were told, Mr Chairman, there will be no prosecutions of any of the people who had become arrested.
Botha says that when he came back to Durban he went and he told Ndaba that there won't be arrests and this apparently upset Ndaba terribly.

CHAIRPERSON: There wouldn't be arrests, or there wouldn't be prosecutions.