Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — 1996-07-01

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: No, sorry, this was Mr Du Plessis. It was an error when I said Mr Van Wyk.
	Just to give the background. At that stage I had left the AWB.  The leadership had been discredited.  I personally and in our discussions with Jean du Plessis, we agreed that there wasn't any hope of realising our political aspirations through the AWB.  This was to offer resistance to the Communist onslaught and the Black take-over of our country.  We discussed new methods of achieving a liberation organisation to liberate us from this Communist take-over.  We had several discussions.  We talked about the fact that it should be an underground movement, that we should function in cells, that we would begin small, that our aim should be to amass weapons. We foresaw that we were involved in a war, on account of the acts of terror that had already taken place. Incidents such as the Pretoria bomb, the McBride bomb and many others.
	We saw that in fact we were involved in a war.  On  numerous occasions I stated this clearly in public and in the international medial. I appeared on television in America and England and I conveyed the view that we were involved in a war and that it related to a retention of what was one's own in the establishment of a self-governing volkstaat.
	We could predict that violence would have to be combated with violence.  We could see that we would have to obtain arms and ammunition and we would have to have money to achieve our aims.
	We made plans to gain access to Defence Force arsenals or magazines.  I took the initiative of acquiring keys from individuals of magazines.  We also discussed the principle of the fact that if somebody did not need to have information on an operation, or needed to know who was involved, that he only had to know what was necessary for him to know.  We discussed the principle of the blood oath, and I personally felt very strong that if anybody betrayed our cause, that he would have to be killed. I said that I felt that this was a necessity that people joining our organisation should know that we were serious and that we were committed to our cause and would not allow ourselves to be undermined by treachery.
	The point was also that if anybody from the security forces should try to infiltrate us, and betray our cause, we would have to act drastically.

UNKNOWN: In what period did these discussions take place?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: They took place over a couple of months.  Before December 1990, on the 16th of December 1990, Jean Kruger du Plessis and I and the other applicant, Mr Van Wyk and two other persons who were only known to me as White and I think the other person's name was Graham.  This was at a holiday resort in the Northern Transvaal.  That's where we met to discuss further the establishment of this underground organisation.  We discussed various elements. I recall specifically that Mr Van Wyk, the other applicant at that stage wasn't strongly in favour or very enthusiastic. I don't know, I don't know if he didn't trust me. I wasn't acquainted with him, but we discussed these things very earnestly.  We talked about the question of unconventional methods and specifically we talked of robbery from financial institutions to obtain funds, because we knew that we would never be able to obtain adequate or sufficient funds simply by relying on donations and so on.
	And so we discussed the use of other conventional methods of acquiring funds in order to achieve our aims and objectives ideologically.

UNKNOWN: Excuse me, Mr Alberts. Were you a member or a supporter of any political organisation or group at that stage?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: My membership of the AWB, that I had terminated. In fact, I terminated it after a difference of opinion I had had with Eugene Terre'Blanche.  I didn't feel that I ought to join another political organisation at that stage, because I would then be able to act as an unidentified person. I worked very closely with Johan Schabot of the BBB. I was very closely involved in the Boerestaat Party with Robert van Tonder. I had strong links with some of the leading figures in the AWB, and also with the BWB, which was established by Prof Alchemar Swart and Jan Groenewald. But I didn't become a member of any political grouping or party at that stage. Precisely because I wanted to operate independently.  I had found in my years of involvement with the AWB that if I did anything in public then it was Dries Alberts of the AWB, and I didn't want to implicate a political organisation or be linked to that. I wanted to operate on my own.

UNKNOWN: Did you associate yourself, identify yourself with a specific political philosophy?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: Indeed, yes. I was a proponent of the right-wing ideology of an independent self-governing volkstaat. That was the ultimate aspiration. I think that was reconcilable with the BBB, with the Boerestaat Party, with the AWB, with the BWB, with the political objectives of those groupings.
	I saw myself as a political activist with a view to realising these aims in my fatherland.

UNKNOWN: Were you well enough known and respected in political circles to be listened to by these political organisations?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: I think I enjoyed a degree of respect and integrity in right-wing circles. I think everybody trusted my bona fides and knew that I was very honest and sincere in my political aspirations.

UNKNOWN: What is your opinion of these four young men that you met at that stage?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: I thought ...

UNKNOWN: Did you think they could get such an organisation going?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: I had the highest regard for Jean Pierre du Plessis.  In the period preceding my discussions with him and even during those discussions I had worked together with other young people on campus. I had even written a play with the idea of having the Afrikaner Student Front perform it on the Pretoria campus, because it is on the theme of Slagtersnek.  It was precisely intended to deal, to awaken political emotions about subjugation to foreign authority. I had great trust in these young people. Particularly these young people that I met on that day. On the 16th of December at the holiday resort.
	I had great regard for them. In fact, I was proud to be involved with four such dedicated young men. And particularly, Jean du Plessis I saw as a man who had the qualities of leadership, and could bring those aims of ours to fruition.

UNKNOWN: At that stage did you think there was room for such an organisation in right-wing politics?  An organisation of the kind which was envisaged by these four young men?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: Mr Chairperson, I would prefer to put it more strongly. I don't think that there was a place for them, I think there was a necessity.  There wasn't really a momentum in right-wing ranks at that time. It was as if the spirits had flagged and the AWB had truly degenerated. To me it was as if Jan Schabot either couldn't or didn't want to get going with the BBB again. There wasn't really anything dramatic happening in right-wing circles. There was a need for something to happen, and even if it had to begin in a small way, it was really vital that such a thing should happen in right-wing circles.

UNKNOWN: Your view of the organisation, the underground organisation?  Did you envisage the underground organisation, would you have regarded it as a politically based organisation or a military activist group?

ANDRIES HENDRIK ALBERTS: No, definitely a political activist group, there was no way in which I could see it as isolated.  These people were obsessed with the political ideal, purely.  There is no other motive involved.

UNKNOWN: What were the plans when you spoke to them for the last time on the 16th of December?  Did you arrange to contact them again?