Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — 1997-10-14

MR R F BOTHA: That is not only correct, but may I actually thank Mr Goosen for raising this, that kind of thing upset my department and myself very much.  We had special seals to seal our diplomatic bags.  The practice, Mr Chairperson, was that once a week, depending on the aircraft flying to which capitals you would send a diplomatic pouch containing communications from my department to the staff and head of mission there, there was very strict control on what may go into that bag because in terms of international diplomatic practice if the government where your ambassador is, or you embassy is, ever find out that you have put in such a bag prohibited articles, these things are arranged in terms of international conventions, then that, in diplomatic practice, is one of the most serious violations that you can think of.  And what is obvious to me here is that they even copied our seal, whoever did this, which is in my opinion a gross - a crime of gross proportions, of gross proportions because that means then that a diplomatic bag of South Africa can be used to put a bomb in it, and that bomb can explode in the aircraft.  So they copied the leaden seal.  It was a special seal with marks on it, they copied that, they stole it at the airport to do what they did, then they smuggled it into the embassy.   And then, not on this occasion but a similar one, or maybe this one, when the British Government now finds out that one of your security people you always had in your embassy is either a military man or some funny ghost and when they find out that these people did something wrong there against diplomatic practice and etiquette that chap was not kicked out, they take the diplomatic list and they take one of my people and kick him out.  And then I am forced again this side to kick a Brit out, tit-for-tat.
 I can assure the Commission here today, I can assure the Commission here today that I would personally like to know who did those things.  Who stole our bags and what did they send in those bags.  And how did they copy that secret diplomatic seal.

MR GOOSEN: I am sure that during the course of the amnesty process some of those answers may be forthcoming, perhaps you can attend and put some of those questions.
 In respect of the murder of Dulcie September in Paris, it's not a question that you knew beforehand, what steps in the aftermath of that did you take to establish whether there was any South African involvement in relation to that matter or not?

MR R F BOTHA: As in most other cases of a similar nature it came to us in Foreign Affairs as a severe shock, because an event of that nature can't happen, whether you liked Dulcie September or not doesn't matter, it is bad stuff, it is bad for South Africa, just bad, and it carries on for months.  In a case like this all that we could do, we had no spying service of our own, is you enquire, I would on occasions like this perhaps call in the French Ambassador which I had the power to do and said look have you information, can you tell me what happened?  Can you on your side make available to me perhaps sensitive information which I can't get from other sources?  And for the rest you are dependent on those organisations that you have around us.
 The only thing that I duplicated was when this suspicion grew that they were stealing our diplomatic bags and listening into our conversations I then created my own telephone technical division and sent them abroad so that they could check out telephones and not National Intelligence and also my ministerial phones and departmental phones were checked by my departmental technicians.  That's as far as I could go.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much.  I want to move Mr Botha now to the latter portion of your submission, just a few questions.
 You at page 41, you indicate that words and phrases such as elimineer, neutraliseer, verwyder- wipe out, and words to that effect used in the State Security Council documents and that you've indicated also used at other fora, National Party congresses and so on, that it was reasonable that members of the security forces would have interpreted phrases like that to include killing people.  If it was, do I take it then, that if it was reasonable for security force members to interpret phrases like that at the time to mean that they should kill, then those who formulated and used those words at the level of State Security Council, Cabinet and so on, would bear responsibility for that language use and would bear responsibility for the killing that in fact did ensure in consequence of the use of those phrases?

MR R F BOTHA: ...earlier that each Minister was assigned a task must surely after the Cabinet meeting, not the State Security Council meeting, the Cabinet meeting, the Security Council decisions were useless, of no validity until the Cabinet subscribed to them, then that Minister must call in his head of department or senior officers and say here we have a decision, can we implement it in terms of our law.  If they can't then they must go back as they have done and said we now urgently require an amendment of the Public Safety Act.  That's indicative of how you now deal with it in the implementation stage.  I was just trying to say much more than and you quoted, if you read in the papers of those days that even the Sunday Times carry an editorial saying that these people have got to be stopped, eliminated, destroyed, and you read it, if a member of Parliament stands up and he says to say if at a conference the same is said, then the question arises surely throughout, yes that is an emotional reaction, that's how people feel, but when it comes to the implementation now we were all under the law and then in my opinion technically, technically, legally speaking that department of those who implement must ensure that they act within the law.  You cannot take every Cabinet decision and say that if we are to build a school they can't go and steal the money to build it, that's illegal.  They must build it because - it must have a budget, the money must have been approved and it must be legal.
 What I did say in the end then was that I could see, I could see that we did not do enough to ensure, we did not follow up, because you've read in the paper that a man like Mr Webster is killed, or you read about somebody who jumped from a police headquarters or somewhere to his death and committed suicide, of course I enquired then.  And I was then told look can't you wait for the post mortem.  If you want to go and attend the post mortem, go and attend it, and very often with post mortems overseas observers asked my department could they come, and we supported it.  But in the end a suspicion lingers in your mind, it lingers in your mind, there's a post mortem now, the report comes out Mr Chairperson, and in medical terms they say to us no the man died of this and this and this, then there's a magistrate with a finding, all legal, saying the death cannot be ascribed to any unnatural causes something, which means that nobody can be prosecuted as a result of his finding.  Now where do you take it from there.  
 Now I said, I asked myself, I can't ask my colleagues, everyone must speak for himself, I said to myself, not for the sake of this meeting, but here, this man, should I not have done more?  Should I not have done more?  Should I not have resigned from the Cabinet?  I struggled with this thought.  I wanted to on occasion but then supporters would say hang in there man, if you are out there you can do nothing.  If you are in there at least you can still change things, but I struggled with a moral, mental idea and which I admitted here today, I think I could have done more.  I don't know about my colleagues, they must be - I can only speak for myself, and I regret that I didn't do more.