Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

MR MCADAM: Now General we also have the evidence of Craig Williamson at the same hearing. And Mr Williamson is firstly a distinguished service man the security branch of the South African police. Thereafter as a member of the military intelligence and directorate covert connections. Culminating of becoming not only a member of the National Party itself but part of the defence caucus. Now what he told us is briefly the following.
 Firstly within the arsenal of combating counter revolutionary onslaught, not exclusively but within the framework were violent and unlawful remedies. Which for obvious reasons were not openly discussed. He said the politicians of the day deliberately kept themselves at arms length from those remedies. And when asked when the politicians knew or did not know, he then said that Cabinet Ministers, deputy Cabinet Ministers were on a daily basis furnished with intelligence reports. Had they read these reports they would have noticed this weaponry at work and they would have queried it and they never did.

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Question?

MR MCADAM: Do you accept that opinion expressed by him or not?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Mr Chairman I want to refer to Mr Williamson. He was not part of the defence caucus. He was part of the defence study group. This study group was a group of individuals and politicians interested in various fields. And they are informed by the Minister. Any communication he had came from me. He never posed this question to me. He never made these comments to me. This is Greek to me. I don't understand it at all. That he's saying this and he's saying this in regard to defence, if he said that in regard to defence. I don't know what he knows about politicians or the Cabinet. I've never seen him in the Cabinet. I've never seen him at State Security Councils. I don't where he's developed the expertise to pass judgements in absentia regarding their activities.
 If I refer to these information reports, yes there were many reports. There were so many you can't even go through every one. And I told my secretary: "just mark the essential aspects." Because I couldn't keep up with all this reading matter. But it's not what he said or that's not what one department did, all these things dovetailed. Perhaps it's just like CIC, all the information was gathered. It was all compiled and then report was compiled. I can't comment on that but I'm just telling you what I know about it from my point of view. He never spoke to me about this weaponry at work. I don't know anything about that.

MR MCADAM: (...indistinct) he gained his material on which to express that opinion is all years of being involved with firstly the security branch and secondly the military. And he went on to say that these views were being aired and there would be never any sense to that. He himself expressed these views and he said that there was a very senior group of persons who listened to his views and none of them ever condemned them or (...indistinct) military and security (...indistinct)by the security branch (...indistinct)

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Mr Chairman I don't know what this is about.

MR MCADAM: (...indistinct)

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Mr Chairman I can't comment, I'm sorry. I've never been involved. I've never been exposed to this. I don't know anything about this. This is the first time I hear this information. I'm not trying to say that you are wrong I'm not trying to be funny. What I'm saying is the Minister does not function on that level. If I functioned on that level and I was exposed on that level to those things I would have never been able to do my work. I'm sorry I can't help you any further.

MR MCADAM: Now (...indistinct) a situation where South Africa was (...indistinct) the Western world (...indistinct)
(The speakers microphone is not on.)

MR MCADAM: (...indistinct) to carry support of foreign countries for it's policies that would have been more and more, Western countries were implementing more and more stringent sanctions. There's more and more lobbying by the ANC for Western countries to join the Soviet block in supplying military training and bases. Would you agree with that?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Generally speaking, yes.

MR MCADAM: Now in the context of a rapidly declining security situation horrific atrocities being committed against defenceless civilians, people who have done no wrong but suffer all these horrific outrages of necklacing, of peoples' courts and of houses being burnt down and clearly that state of affairs could not existed if the existing legal means of dealing with the situation were not failing or being ineffective. Do you agree with that?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Just the last? Not being effective?

MR MCADAM: The legal methods of trying to contain that violent situation weren't working?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Was not effective?

MR MCADAM: Or not effective?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: It was effective as far as I'm concerned.

MR MCADAM: Well General I don't want to give evidence myself but for many years in this period I was a member of the attorney general's office in KwaZulu Natal as well as a serving member of a civilian Defence Force unit which was employed to try and bring the violence in that region to an end. And from a prosecutor's point of view we came across literally hundreds of thousands of murders where nobody would submit a statement. One had the futility in the army of simply arriving and seeing these people burning alive in the streets and nobody being able to come forward and point people out that we could have arrested and hand over to the police. And more and more people fleeing out of their homes and having to set up horrific living conditions in squatter areas getting worse and worse. Would you agree with that?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: With that experience yes, that you had. I agree with you. I'll accept it.

MR LYSTER: The question was were the legal lawful means open to the government that prosecution and imprisonment of people, was it effective at the time? And you said it was effective. I think the point Mr McAdam was making; if it was effective why did these things continue to happen?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Well we had the state of emergency. In the end there were many powers because of the state of emergency. Powers to detain people and one of the, in one of the minutes of the State Security Council instructions were given to the Minister of justice and police to investigate new methods of detention or new legislation. So there was a question of certain problems and to see how that could be contained.

MR MCADAM: (...indistinct) that was causing very strong backlash from the Western countries who were continuing to support South Africa?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Ja, you're right.

MR MCADAM: And the state of emergency also had it's problems because more and more the people who were being detained challenged the validity of that legislation and the security police had to spend all day at court justifying why X should be detained without trial and not in the field doing their job?

ANDRE MARANDOM MALAN: Mr Chairman I'll accept that. I had nothing to do with the police but I would accept that. That those were the circumstances. That sounds quite logical.

MR MCADAM: (...indistinct) any possible way out of this impossible situation would be for that state itself to give these terrorists a dose of their own medicine? Because I think you had the situation that these people could do everything with impunity and very little or nothing was done against them.