Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-11-23

RE MR MBANDAZAYO: If I may concede Madam Chair and Honourable Members of the Committee, also myself I think that that's the way he puts it because what I understood and also what my consultation with Letslape and him was that he has a discretion in as much as he was in the unit then, he has a discretion, unlike when they were in Umtata, where if there is money they were given money that "you go and do this operation" so whatever they get they come and declare it, the whole amount of money.  But here before that they had a problem because they had to sustain themselves and also to sustain other units because they come inside because there is already a unit that you'll meet Maseko when they infiltrated to do other operations other than repossession unit.  So they have to finance that, so he had a discretion but what he has to do is to report that "we did this operation and we had so much money, we did this with the money."  Sometimes they have to get approval before they use the money but sometimes there are pressing needs where they have to use the money before they report it.  So what I'm trying to say is that some of us are not good in presenting their cases, they seem to - it was a problem because when I consulted with him, that was the impression I have that it was a question of discretion in as much as it was a unit which was sent there to repossess and they have to come back and declare the money to Msiki but he had a discretion because he was senior inside the country because there are pressing needs, some cadres are sent inside the country, they say "look, you have to meet so and so, Lebo, such a place", so he has to finance them.  So that was the purpose of the unit, so whenever there's something left they have large sum of money, they have then to go and send it to Botswana, so that also when they are sending other cadres inside the country they have money of transporting, go to certain areas, so that's how I understood it myself and that's what I was told by Letslape that he had a discretion himself there.  Then when everything was sent inside the country then they have some resources so they will send the money and the unit will be sent to certain areas, though they have in other areas, it was a close unit which will be sent for that operation and come back with the whole amount of money and declare it because it was kept, it will be declared to the administrator who will finance all the cadres when they go to certain operations.  So the money was used for all the cadres and to transport arms and buy arms so it was not longer at his discretion now to buy arms after Letslape came in and stationed in Umtata every - some sort of a sub-head office was there other than the one in Dar-es-Salaam.

CHAIRPERSON: Well I'm sure that should conclude your argument?

RE MR MBANDAZAYO: That's it Madam Chair unless there is another point you want me to address?
NO FURTHER ARGUMENT BY MR MBANDAZAYO

CHAIRPERSON: think insofar as my areas of concerns are related you have already addressed them and that applies to the Members of my Committee.   Mr Prior, do you have anything to say?

UNKNOWN: Thank you Madam Chair, there are just a few areas of concern.  I think one principally has no difficulty with the notion of the repossession unit as espoused in the APLA submissions to the H.R.V. Committee, that was in October of 1997.  Obviously there has to be some evidence of accountability in order to give credibility to that principle and that strategy and I think this - my understanding of the difficulties facing the Committee are precisely those.
	It is incumbent on the applicant who was - who is described as the head of the repossession unit codenamed Beauty Salon.  That is mentioned in Exhibit B and he was a member of the APLA high command.  It's incumbent on him to satisfy the Committee that where he says "I carried out appropriation of funds and where people were killed, these monies were to be utilised for the furtherance of the struggle" and that was our understanding yet he, with respect, is unable to satisfactorily explain what happened to these large amounts of money and that one simply applies simple arithmetic to his amnesty application in 1990 on his own account, I have totalled some forty thousand and in 1991 and excess of half a million yet he has great difficulty in saying how much actually went to Msiki in Botswana.

CHAIRPERSON: You say in excess of half a million in 1990?

ADV PRIOR: In 1991 there was on my count about 535 000 and in 1990 was about 40 500 on his own version.  Yet what we've heard is that there seemed to be a criteria where anything over R500 should have gone to Botswana and everything under R500 could be kept by the unit to sustain them and one can understand that but in the present case we have a complete dichotomy of principle, where R6000 is obtained which on his own version should have gone to Botswana yet it's all absorbed within the unit.  So with respect, Madam Chair, one really doesn't know and how reliable is the information before the Committee that in fact these operations were carried out to further the political objectives of the PAC in those circumstances and although there's no direct evidence to contradict that notion, there's no evidence supporting that notion on the other hand so that is my dilemma really and I simply highlight that for the Committee.

CHAIRPERSON: By the same token Mr Prior, if the applicant wanted to lie to this Committee, he simply would have said the R6000 was handed over to Msiki?

ADV PRIOR: Yes, that was open to him, I mean that obviously would then reflect on his credibility.

CHAIRPERSON: Well I mean, wouldn't have been able to gainsay that because we don't have Msiki do we?

ADV PRIOR: No we don't have Msiki but yet if one is looking for motive and I don't specifically want to get into that debate.  He's been convicted of those offences of the R6000 and the murder and he is serving a sentence of 25 years so it may be he can't deny that.  It strengthens his case in the application for amnesty to say what he said but I don't go any further with that, I think I'll leave it at that.
	The only other difficulty Madam Chair is I don't seem to quite follow the information in his affidavit marked A at paragraph 12, it seems to be contradictory to his evidence he gave.  He said as commander of the unit he was to report to Comrade Junior in Botswana, I think he did say that could be mistake, well that was a mistake and hand over whatever has been repossessed by the unit to him with the exception of arms and ammunition and then he went on to say:
	"I was to report to him by going to Botswana or by using 	the courier who was Comrade General."
Now that doesn't seem to be borne out by his evidence today because he doesn't discuss in his affidavit the discretion that was allowed to him as commander of that particular unit and he certainly gave me the impression that on that very evening he phoned Botswana so there seems to be a deviation from what the principle was.
	And just lastly, if I may be allowed to comment on this, I don't know if the applicant quite understands the concept of enrichment because he seems to say "I did not use my position to enrich myself or my poverty stricken family" but if he was providing himself with accommodation and food and transport and whatever, that would be enrichment in the strict sense and I think what he was trying to say here was that he never became rich in his own right out of the proceeds.  Thank you Madam Chair, I have no further submissions.
NO FURTHER ARGUMENT BY ADV PRIOR