Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1997-03-27

MR DE RU: You will see on page 215 that it was compiled by then Major Oosthuizen who was the District Commanding Officer of Uitenhage.  If you could please just grant me a few seconds, there is another document that goes with that one, if I could just try and find it within my document.  It might make it a bit easier.  Your Honour, in order to save time I am going to request that I submit this document to you in due course, but I would like to just read it to you so that you have insight into it.  It is with regards to the document I just referred to on page 214, it was written
by the Station Commanding Officer at Sasolburg in the district of Sasolburg.  He has my force number and the incident report received from investigating officer in Uitenhage, the members actions with regard to this situation and the consequent court case of -  I would just like to confirm, for the sake of completeness, that those documents are correct.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Why was this report prepared, 214 to 215, what was the aim?

MR DE RU: It was an action which took place there in the unrest during 1995 at Kwanabuhle and Despatch and Uitenhage.

JUDGE MGOEPE: But was it routine to set up, to compile such a report or was it requested for a specific purpose?

MR DE RU: No, it was after an action where people were shot dead.  If you refer to page 214 and 215, the last paragraph, during this action some of the most prominent people in Despatch were killed and were taken into custody and it had resulted, it had a good effect on the unrest there because there was a decline in the unrest at the time.  I will also testify about the culture within which we operated and hence this presentation before you which I will confirm.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Thank you.

MR DE RU: As it pleases you.

MR MADASA: Sorry to interrupt you Mr de Ru.  For the sake of convenience and clarity, I would like you to begin giving evidence and refer to documents as you give your evidence.  We should start, you should start giving evidence, talk about the facts which relate to the first killing on which you were convicted on, that is Rampalile's case, I am referring to Rampalile's case.  Tell the Committee the background and all the relevant facts which relate to that
killing and continue from there.

JUDGE WILSON: Before you do so, do I understand that you prepared the whole of this document, all the 16 pages of it?

MR DE RU: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: And do you confirm, confirm the correctness of the whole of it?

MR DE RU: That is correct.  Your Worship, then we proceed to page 15, the last paragraph.
	During the years 1990 and 1991 on several occasions I investigated attacks on elderly people.  Also the murders on police officers and aged people on farms in Ellington, Steynsrus, Edenville districts and that would mean that it was the whole district 23, Kroonstad police district.  Colonel Voigt ...

MR MADASA: Sorry, what page is that?  What page is that?

MR DE RU: 15, 1-5.  Your Worship, Colonel Voigt would ask me to investigate these matters each time and warn me that these suspects had to be found at all costs.  He also said that the youth and the Blacks under the leadership of Peter Mokaba were exercising the slogan "kill the farmer, kill the boer" and were later using the slogan "one settler, one bullet".  Hence Colonel Voigt coined the phrase "one killer, one bullet" and, I apologise for the use of the word in the following phrase, "kill a farmer, kill a kaffir".
	It was accepted that the actions of people like Peter Mokaba were the cause of the attacks on farmers and elderly people and the murders of such people.  I hence believed that each of these criminals were members of the ANC, PAC and APLA, they had to pay for the murders. 
	 And one morning, the date being the 15th of June 1990, I was called up by Colonel Voigt to a scene where Mr Shorty Bezuidenhout was killed on a farm on the road between Edenville and another place.  The farm was Vrisgewacht and it was plot number 88.  He had been chopped dead with an axe and his aged wife had been cruelly assaulted.  Colonel Voigt informed me that the suspect, the suspects, a Black male and a Black female had been arrested and that I was to take the Black man out for further questioning and so that he could also identify certain exhibits with regard to the murder.

MR MADASA: Sorry to interrupt you.  What was your relationship between, how was your relationship between yourself and Colonel Voigt?

MR DE RU: Your Honour, I was his greatest confidant.  It was well known and even in court procedure it, reference was made to that several times, about the relation, the trust relationship between Colonel Voigt and I.  I have got the greatest respect for Colonel Voigt.  It was often said that I was his shadow.  Wherever he was, I would be in the vicinity.  I believed in Colonel Voigt.  I also accepted his operational methods and his way of thinking as my own.
	I also knew that Colonel Voigt was held in very high esteem and was of most senior officers in the police force and that he was always referred to as one of the best detectives in South Africa.  He was my inspiration to do my best at all times and I believed in everything he prescribed to me.  In discussions between Colonel Voigt and I it was quite clear, your Honours, that he could issue instructions, that serious action be taken against persons who were murdering farmers and attacking them and also the aged.  
	It was through his conveyance to me and also my own 
knowledge that I knew that the situation at that stage in the country was of such a nature that farmers and aged were attacked and murdered in most cruel manners thinkable in order to send shockwaves through everyone and hence overthrow the stability of the country and, in doing so, also bring the Government of the day into disrepute and discredit it and in order to create, to send shockwaves through the farming community and also through the aged community.  
	It was a method which was used to attempt to drive them off their properties and it is well known to all of us, your Honours, that especially in the Free State, the agricultural community forms a very strong support pillar to the country's economy and also to the country itself and the apartheid policy was strictly adhered to, and I was a police officer who understood their way of thinking and their beliefs in the exact way as they experienced them.

MR MADASA: Sorry, sorry to interrupt you.  Did you, yourself, belong to any political organisation at that stage before you got engaged with Colonel Voigt?

MR DE RU: We, I was in contact with the right wing politics in the early 80's.  I was even a member of the Afrikaner Weerstand Beweeging, the AWB, and, as a result of my affiliation to the police force, I could not expose that.  I was a personal friend of Mr Eugene Terreblanche.  I had many friends who were high ranking officials in the AWB.  Many of my farmer friends were high ranking in rightwing politics.
	On the contrary, the Conservative Party assisted me to a great extent in the initial stages after my arrest and my expulsion to such an extent that they attempted to get the police department to pay for my legal costs since there was a dispute about the payment of my legal costs.  What I am thus saying is that I had great sympathy with the farmers.  I had great sympathy with the method and the effect of these, that these murders had on them and I understood the instruction given to me by Colonel Voigt and resolved to execute them to the best of my ability.

MR MADASA: Sorry, to interrupt you.  What was Colonel Voigt's instruction to you?  What was his instruction to you in regard to the alleged assailants of the farmers?

MR DE RU: Your Honours, Colonel Voigt said to me that these people were fighting to escape and their type should not be left to live.

ADV DE JAGER: Are you back on page 16, paragraph two?

MR DE RU: That is correct.