Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-10

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: I think the Magoo's Bar has again been dealt with extensively by us, and what we showed was that in the operational situation we were living in an environment where the overwhelming majority of our actions were correct, well targeted, achieved what they set out to achieve.  Then we come to a number operations that begin to move into the grey, faulty intelligence, false flagging, enemy forces penetrating and misleading our forces on the ground directing them towards a target not in keeping with our policy, it's in that situation that as command we have to take the correct
actions.
 Firstly, again in our representation, we show how when we noticed this phenomena manifesting itself that civilians were becoming the people who were suffering, President Tambo called a special meeting of military headquarters to raise the problem, give a directive, and arising out of that meeting senior commanders, including the overall commander Joe Modise, were sent out to the forward areas to brief the command structures. 
 Furthermore, as happened with the landmine cases, we saw that the consequences we desired were not being realised.  We put a stop to the action.  
 Similarly, we even reached a point where Sipiwe Nyanda and myself were sent in the country as part of an operation to begin to provide on the ground leadership because decisions we could see had to be taken there and then.
 You make the point about the Magoo's Bar.  Even the change of target, that decision was made by the comrades on the spot.  No matter all the rules that you lay out the only way to handle that is to keep, to ensure that more and more senior leaders more steeped in the politics of our struggle would be present on the ground.  But even with our presence it did not mean that we would be able to give that leadership.  Two, throughout this country, was totally inadequate. 
  But even in that experience problems arose and we had to act always bringing the politics first, so you say what action?  The first line of action of the ANC is given that the cadre has acted in good faith and made a mistake to start by repeating the politics of the struggle, to show that the consequences are counter productive to our political goals of mobilisation, and to show that therefore we need to be even more careful in the way we act. That was the approach that we took and that was the only one that we could take in that situation.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR GOOSEN: Can I just follow up on that one in particular because yes, in 1988 senior leadership was sent to articulate the position of MK command that attacks on civilians, and in particular the landmine campaign should be halted, but following that there were a range of attacks on restaurants, Wimpy Bars in particular and we have received amnesty applications in respect of those from persons claiming that they were MK members attacking those targets.  How do we deal with that situation?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Sir we have indicated our position in all, consistently, each time we have appeared.  We say we want to be as helpful as we can.  We accepted by virtue of those statements that I am referring to you can see that when we saw evidence that Wimpy Bars were being bombed we accepted that it may be some of our
people.  We also began to suspect over time that hey, wait a minute, it may be the enemy.  The last time we appeared here we began to put that a little more strongly, we said, there seems to be accumulating evidence that the enemy was doing it and making it appear as if we had done it.  So the two factors are present in this situation.  How do we handle it then?
 We are saying to you that if you have an application for amnesty on this matter from a person purporting to be ANC, and purporting to have interpreted, rightly or wrongly our guidance and carried out such an act and now wants amnesty, we say in our submission, here is our structures over time, those who were in command, and if that operation can be stated in its time and detail that what the applicant is giving, we would do a quick check to verify whether that person was a member of the ANC and operated under a legitimate command of the ANC, and then give that information to you because we believe that even if that person acted wrongly, but in good faith, you should apply your minds to his amnesty application in the context of whether the person is not misleading you and saying I was acting politically or whether the person was genuinely was part of a political formation.  We would help you in that regard.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.  From a period slightly earlier to that,
prior to 1988, there were also, there were in fact a number of other attacks directed at National Party offices, attacks on businesses, Anglo-American offices, Temple Israel Hillbrow at that point, that type of target was the specific motivation, military or tactical consideration in launching attacks of that nature at that period?

CHAIRPERSON: General Ismail

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairperson I will deal with the questions of the offices of the National Party, Temple Israel.  Chairperson the Nationalist Party was the government of this country.  It was the Nationalist Party which was the architect of apartheid and for them to think that they would not be legitimate targets, or for anybody to think that those who were the perpetrators of apartheid would get away with it, we had targeted them, just like we would have targeted people who collaborated with apartheid.  Yes, there may be civilians but civilians who were giving the orders to others to carry out attacks against our people.  And that is where it comes from.
 The Temple Israel attack, the operatives there had information that the next day a senior leader of the Nationalist Party was to appear at Temple Israel, made the connection and it was to prevent that person from appearing at the temple.  It was not an attack on the temple.  It was preemptive, it was done at night so that nobody would be injured in that, but it was also to send a message, do not collaborate with apartheid.  And one wants to say 
unequivocally we had no bone of contention with the Jewish people of this country, we apologise that it was a temple, but we would have taken the regime on wherever we could draw them out, we would attack them.  Because it was the only way in which to bring that regime to its knees.  Once again I say we apologise to the Jewish population, we do not want, and do not want to be seen to have been carrying out attacks against any religious grouping.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mac Maharaj.