Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — 1997-02-25

UNKNOWN: the Republic of South Africa, its people, my religion and religious convictions.
		Today I am uncertain as to where I stand and how I ended up in the position I currently 
find myself in.  I am very unhappy and I am sorry about the loss which the family 
members of victims suffered and also the loss of life. 
		I hope that this revelation of mine will lead to greater understanding and reconciliation".
...(intervention)

JUDGE WILSON: This is word for word what the previous witness said, can't he just confirm it?  
What is your purpose of getting it on the record twice?

ADV DU PLESSIS: As it pleases you.  Will you confirm it please?

UNKNOWN: I will confirm that.
NO FURTHER

<UNKNOWN>: S BY

ADV DU PLESSIS: .

HASSAN MALL: Would you rather Mr Currin put his questions first?

UNKNOWN: I will prefer to do it that way, thank you Mr Chairman.

HASSAN MALL: There you are, Mr Currin.

MR CURRIN: Thank you Mr Chairman.  You stated something which has 
been said before, namely that detentions at that time were an exception, that one normally did not 
prosecute, arrest and prosecute and one did not normally detain, that was an absolute exception?

UNKNOWN: Not really, what I meant by it, there was a lot of detentions, but it had such little 
impact on the general anarchism that was at that stage rampant in the Black townships, that in certain cases 
and a lot of the 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

MR CURRIN: 161

UNKNOWN: people working with us, still did arrest some of these people and kept them under the Security regulations, 
but me, as a person, in our department or in our section, we felt in certain circumstances, we could by 
intimidation, we could get a better reaction out of the people, because when those people were left out of 
jail after a while, they came back.
They were the real "rammetjies" around there, so we battled with them.  My department, the Black Power 
Department.

MR CURRIN: What you are saying relates generally to what you refer to as the Black activists?

UNKNOWN: The Black activists, that is correct.

MR CURRIN: So there wasn't a tendency to detain, as far as you were concerned and in your division, the 
activists?

UNKNOWN: There were many, if we just could have kept records, you would have seen that 
many of them were detained, but in certain instances the decision was taken by me as the Officer that a 
certain person should not be
arrested, but be picked up, interrogated, intimidated and then released.

MR CURRIN: But the reality Captain Hechter is that the vast, vast, vast majority of people were in fact 
detained, of the activists.

UNKNOWN: You say so I do not know, that may be so, I cannot argue with you.

MR CURRIN: I put to you that also, we will lead evidence on behalf of the victims that the tendency 
was in fact to detain and not to eliminate which is  ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: We are not talking about elimination, we are talking about intimidation.

MR CURRIN: You heard also what the previous witness said with regard to elimination, as to when a 
person would 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

MR CURRIN: 162

UNKNOWN: qualify for elimination, do you agree with his answer?

UNKNOWN: Could you please tell me ...(intervention)

MR CURRIN: He said a prominent activist who was involved in an act which would result in the death of 
a person and he changed that to say for example, if there was a petrol bombing and a prominent activist 
was involved, then that person would then qualify for elimination.

UNKNOWN: The English have a saying that "there is no rule if there is no exception", those 
decisions were taken by us on the basis of information obtained from sources and the decision was taken by 
me quite often and in many instances by Head Office, when one should be eliminated and when not.
	There was no set rule that if this was the third house that person would be eliminated, it went 
according to the circumstances at the time, the amount of violent acts which the person had committed and 
how you, as a leadership figure, had blossomed in the community.  If you remember correctly we tried to 
eliminate Father Mkatshwa which was a good example. 	Look at the leadership figure that he 
turned out to be.  He was a prominent leader.

MR CURRIN: If I understand you correctly there were no fixed criteria, it was an ad hoc decision taken 
depending on the circumstances at the time?

UNKNOWN: That is correct, that is correct.

MR CURRIN: That is very different from what the previous witness said.

UNKNOWN: He was a Sergeant at the time and he worked under my command, so it could 
have been his perception.

MR CURRIN: I have no further questions to this witness.
NO FURTHER

<UNKNOWN>: S BY

MR CURRIN: .

HASSAN MALL: Mr Mpshe.
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

UNKNOWN: 163

JUDGE MGOEPE: Go ahead, maybe you will cover the point which I wanted to cover.

UNKNOWN: Captain, in your application page 127 thereof, you're asking for amnesty on "opsetlike 
saakbeskadiging asook brandstigting", but you haven't told this Committee anything about those two 
incidents.

UNKNOWN: I think it was rectified.  I think Adv du Plessis submitted a rectified schedule in 
which those errors had been rectified.  The rectification had been made, there was no damage to property, I 
hope it is contained in that schedule.  Thank you.

JUDGE MGOEPE: I just want to clear this because earlier on, by reason of the fact that the name of 
Captain van Jaarsveld was mentioned, immediately after a sentence which made reference to the South 
African Defence Force, I was under the impression that he was attached to the South African Defence 
Force.  He was in fact in the Security Branch?

UNKNOWN: He was my second in command, Captain van Jaarsveld was our acting 
Commander, yes, acting Commander.

JUDGE MGOEPE: But is he not the person who asked you to 
come and trace the victim?

UNKNOWN: According to what I can deduce from Warrant Officer van Vuuren, I think that was 
the case.  I can't remember this specific incident, but if he says so, it is so because he was in control.  Then 
he would have addressed the request to me and I would have sent out the people to go and pick up the 
person.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Yes in fact I think this is what Mr van Vuuren says, that you were asked by, he 
was not at Vlakplaas?
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

UNKNOWN: 164

UNKNOWN: No, no, we were never.  Captain van Jaarsveld, Warrant Officer van Vuuren 
and myself were never stationed at Vlakplaas, we were just in the Security Branch of Pretoria or the 
Northern Transvaal, we had no ties with Vlakplaas, we never liaised with them.

JUDGE MGOEPE: If in fact the instruction to, or the request to trace the victim did come from 
Captain van Jaarsveld, it would have meant that it was a request that came from the Security Branch 
anyway?

UNKNOWN: It is possible.  You see in the mornings, and we touched on that last year, we 
had the joint management centre which consisted of the various sections or departments including Civil 
Defence, the Defence Force, National Intelligence and ourselves, we met and problem cases were 
discussed with reference not only to problem persons, but also to problem cases where for example there 
was bad sewerage systems, these were all discussed at these meetings and I suspect that it was on this 
occasion that the request was addressed to Captain van Jaarsveld, whether we couldn't trace this man for 
them, because they were unable
to trace him.	They were situated on top of the hill in Mamelodi and they also had their problems 
finding people.

ADV DE JAGER: Could we just have clarity in this regard,  did you ever operate under the orders of 
Brigadier Cronje?

UNKNOWN: Yes, but at that stage he was the Head of the Security Branch, not at Vlakplaas.

ADV DE JAGER: So when he was at Vlakplaas, you were not under his command?

UNKNOWN: No, I only got to know him when he took over as Commanding Officer of the 
Security Branch.