Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-14

CHAIRPERSON: We only seem to have 64.  Is this February 1988
"Navrae Van den Berg.  Van ASE aan Head of the Army.  Samespreking met die Hoofminister Buthelezi op 21 Januarie."
That's the February letter.

MR DE VOS: May I just approach you please and ascertain whether you have the correct document?  (Pause)  You don't have it.
/
CHAIRMAN

CHAIRPERSON: If we could just have a quick copy of that it will help us.  Perhaps you can proceed in the meantime.

MR DE VOS: Now, the point is this.  The topics that were discussed were set out in this document that will be handed to you now.  The discussions proved to be fruitless.  Now, this can be ascertained from the handwritten notes that you'll find on the last page, page 66, Exhibit E2, page 66.  Now, may I just - oh, before - can I just clarify this before I am going to go to the next issue?  You will see if you look at that handwritten notes on that document there are - it's obvious that there was a meeting by people who are described by their posts that they were in.  No names were given, but post descriptions were given.  Now, if one compares that post descriptions, and one compares it with the post descriptions in the letter contained the 28th of January '88, one will see - there was a big allegation at some stage that General Liebenberg was present at this meeting,  but if one looks at the post descriptions one will see that he wasn't present at the meeting, but in fact that some other people attended these meetings and the reference to H Leer and ASE is only by reference generally.  If you go and visit, say, somebody at Chief of the Army you will say, "I am going to H leer."  You're not going to see the Chief of the Army, but you're going to visit somebody.  Now, that's in that sense that it's been used in the documentation.
Then you will also see on the left-hand corner of that document at the bottom there's a note dated the 21st March '88, where Minister Malan - there's an instruction from Minister Malan that General van der Merwe should be
 /instructed.
instructed.  My learned colleague, Ms Kruger, referred you to that aspect yesterday.  Now, that's actually the outcome of the discussions that took place.  No agreement was reached, nothing transpired.  Natal Command couldn't give any person to be used as a permanent officer down in Ulundi to assist Buthelezi.  And then there's a note, "Go on as before," and that's the end of the discussions.  But it ties in then with the next meeting.  
The next meeting is the meeting of the 21st of March '88, that Minister Malan held with Chief Minister Buthelezi, and you will see that the dates are exactly the same, but I think the meeting - the note on the letter, the handwritten note, says the 21st of March, and the meeting with Chief Minister Buthelezi took place on the 21st of March, so that's where the whole story comes from.  But nothing - there's nothing flowing out of this whole thing.
Then there's one other aspect that I must mention.  You will see that on the document the 28th of February - let me make sure, I don't want to lie.  (Pause)  Mr Chairman, may I also refer - you see, I've already referred to the fact there's a note on the top of the letter dated the 28th of January '88 in the handwriting of General Geldenhuys,
"Saam met Minister bespreek en HSE ... (onhoorbaar)... vergadering hou."
Now, that was actually the purpose of this meeting that was set up with Brigadier Pretorius in Natal, and the meeting by Minister Malan, in order to sort out the communication problems that they had down in Natal at that stage.  Because you will remember all the evidence are
 /that the
that the intention of the Defence Force was - and what they thought is that these people would be put in a proper structure, and now it was almost two years gone and they were still not being put in a proper structure.  According to the Defence Force they were not applied, except a couple of them, like the VIP protection group, and they had to sort out this problem, and it was again budget time.  You will see it's January/February/March.  They had to sort out these problems.  Now, then ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr de Vos, what was the nature of the problems?  You know, no one's been able to tell us that exactly.  We've heard a whole range of different ... (incomplete)