Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-07

WITNESS:   I was only deployed with four others.  We were four in number.  Two of them are alive, but one has since died.

MR MARITZ: And I gained the impression, when Mr Visser was

MR MARITZ: /asking you

MR MARITZ: 3A asking you questions, that you referred to the fact that the Caprivians were deployed all over the KwaZulu.  Was that impression correct?

WITNESS:   I think that's a right picture you have, or impression, because it has been explained to this Commission that the offices were put or were structured all over KwaZulu/Natal, so people were sent to those various offices throughout KwaZulu/Natal.

MR MARITZ: I'm just taking it a bit further and it's this.  Can you say, even if it's hearsay, from knowledge that you gained in the years or the months or for ever how long you did this work that the other fellow-trainees in the contra-mobilization who were deployed were deployed precisely to do contra-mobilization as you had been instructed to do?

WITNESS:   From 1986, when we returned from Caprivi up till 1988 where I was moved from contra-mobilization duties to infiltrate the SAP.  You will remember that I had explained that I was train in Cape Town.  The order was over of working according to the skills of contra-mobilization.  From Cape Town I was deployed in Pietermaritzburg and I was functioning under different orders from the contra-mobilization, up till the time when I was trained as a police and then I was working according to standing orders of the SAP, of the police, and I was deployed in Esikhaweni under the police order, up till 1991, when I was given another order, the second one now, which did not need the skills of the contra-mobilization, but the skills that I gained when I was receiving the intensive training.

MR MARITZ: Please understand, I'm not quarrelling with you.  I heard the evidence.  I'm not quarrelling with it.  What I want to know is in the few months before you went for your

MR MARITZ: /training at

MR MARITZ: 3A training at Koeberg, when you were deployed to do contra-mobilization, all I'm asking you is whether you know or whether you suspect or whether you heard from other people, then or now or later, it really doesn't matter, whether all your fellow trainees, who were trained in contra-mobilization, were deployed in KwaZulu, as you were.  That's all I am asking you, nothing else.

WITNESS:   You mean deployed at what time or when?

MR MARITZ: When you were deployed.  Look, you were in the region of 100 people that were trained in contra-mobilization.  You've already explained that when you returned you were deployed precisely for that purpose, to do contra-mobilization.  All I want to know is do you have any knowledge at all - whether it's acquired knowledge or personal knowledge - that the other members of the contra-mobilization group were similarly deployed in KwaZulu for the same purpose?

WITNESS:   Your Honour, you were not quite clear, but I just said that offices were structured in different areas of KwaZulu/Natal and those members of contra-mobilization were deployed to those respective offices.  That's the question I thought I had already explained to you.

MR MARITZ: I'm just taking it a bit further and that is this.  Were they then deployed, as far as you know, for the same purpose that you were deployed, namely to go and do contra-mobilization?  Not some other job.  Not murdering people, but to go and do contra-mobilization?

WITNESS:   That is true.

MR MARITZ: Now, can you assist this panel at all in regard to the offensive group ... (intervention)

WITNESS:   May you please repeat that question?

MR MARITZ: /The question is

MR MARITZ: 3A The question is this, can you assist the panel at all in the initial deployment and I am still in this same period, that's before you went to Koeberg but after you came back from the Caprivi, can you assist this panel as to what happened to the offensive group and the defensive group, whether they were deployed - in which manner they were deployed?  Do you have any knowledge about that?

WITNESS:   I don't have any knowledge as far as other groups are concerned or were concerned.

MR MARITZ: Now, I think it's also no secret and I just wish to know whether you know this or not, is that very shortly or immediately after the return of the Caprivians to KwaZulu, the VIP protection group were immediately employed for that purpose.  Do you know about that?

WITNESS:   That much I don't know.

MR MARITZ: Mr Chairman, bear with me one moment, please.  Yes, maybe there's just one question.  In 1991 when you were recruited, if I can put it that way, to join - and which for practical terms I'll call the war that was raging at Esikhaweni, I gain the impression that you and your colleagues and officers, or whatever you wish to call them, were very careful to avoid the armed forces of the then Government.  Then I'm talking specifically of the South African Defence Force and the police.  Is that impression correct?

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR MARITZ: Mr Chairman, thank you very much

MR MARITZ: NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MARITZ

MR VAN ZYL: Mr Chairperson, it's Mr van Zyl for the record.  Mr Mkhize, the training which you received in the Caprivi was that the only military training which you ever received?

WITNESS:   I have explained already with regard to

MR VAN ZYL: /the training

MR VAN ZYL: 3A the training that I received from other groups, like basic training.  There is intensive training as well and specialised training.  The other military training, I received it when I joined the Police Force.

MR VAN ZYL: What I actually meant, Mr Mkhize, was this.  Earlier in your evidence you distinguished between police training and military or Defence Force training, similar to the training which you received in the Caprivi.  Is that correct?

WITNESS:   No, I think you are being confused here.  I have never said to this Commission - said about anything about Army training, because I don't know - have no idea as far as that is concerned.  Only the doctor who was giving evidence here who explained thus far.  I only distinguished between the training that I received in Caprivi for six months and the training I received from Police College for six months.  I have never, therefore, addressed anything in so far as soldiers - military training - is concerned.

MR VAN ZYL: Let me put it to you, the training which you received in the Caprivi, the whole of the training which you received there - in other words the basic training, the advanced and then also the specialist training - that consisted of ordinary prescribed Defence Force training, which any other member of the Defence Force at that stage and even today - and here I specifically refer to infantry training - would have received.  The training which you received there in no way differed from any training which other members of the South African Defence Force received at that stage.  Would you like to comment on that?

MR LAX: Sorry, before the witness comments, Mr van Zyl,  Dr Williams made it clear yesterday that by and large the
 /training was
3A training was more or less the same, but there were certain special force elements in that training that were slightly different to what an ordinary infantry person would undergo.  He made that quite clear.  He felt some of it went beyond the normal infantry training, to sort of special course training, so the way you are putting the question is a bit misleading to that extent.

MR VAN ZYL: With respect, Mr Lax, Mr Chairman, Dr Williams did, in fact, testify that.  He has not been challenged.  He has not been cross-examined on that.  That might also be put to him.  I put that to the witness on the basis of what my instructions are.