Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-05-06

MR VISSER: Now I am still on the point Mr Ismail of taking you up on your denial of callous action on the part of the ANC and particularly on your part.  I want to suggest to you that a reference to the type of targets that were attacked during the conflict of the past is a clear indication that the ANC had very - had scant consideration for the safety of civilians and indeed it appears as if sometimes civilians were particularly targeted.  Let me give you an example or more.
	The so-called Burger War, the Wimpy Bar attacks.  Shops that were attacked during the consumer boycotts.  We know of the Amanzimtoti shopping centre bomb.  The Witbank bomb.  The Ellis Park bomb.  I am suggesting to you Mr Ismail that when you considered the target for your Church Street bomb you had no consideration whatever for the fact that civilians will necessarily be casualties, and that was callous.  
	And I am sorry, if I may add, and I am going to suggest to this Committee when the time comes that there could have been no political objective of any kind.

MR TRENGOVE: ...(indistinct)

MR VISSER: Could my learned friend just allow me to finish my question before he objects Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Let him finish his question Mr Trengove.

MR VISSER: There could be no political objective attainable by attacking civilians for the sake of attacking civilians.

MR TRENGOVE: My learned friend has rolled into that rambling question about five or six propositions.  It's unfair to the witness.  I would suggest that he does them one by one.

CHAIRPERSON: Well perhaps we can then split it up and take it, suggest you had no consideration for civilians and that was callous.  I think that was the first leg of the question Mr Ismail.

MR VISSER: I may add that the rest was merely by way of explanation.  That is really the only question Mr Chairman.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson the target was a military target.  There were large numbers of military personnel at the target at the time.  We accepted that civilian casualties would result, but we felt that we had to strike at military personnel, and that is what we did.  It was not callous.  It was not a school like the apartheid forces attacked when they were attacking school children.  They were military people there.  That is what was hit.  It was the South African Air Force Headquarters.

MR VISSER: Have you finished.  Can we go on to this whole issue, and I suggested to you just now, that this was a terrorist attack, and let me explain myself.  I am going to suggest to you that if you can categorise an attack as a terrorist attack one can hardly speak of a political objective commensurate with such an attack.  Would you disagree with me?

CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps when you use the word terrorist attack perhaps you could explain the context in which you use it, because I know that the word has been used for many years now in a completely different context and with completely different meanings.  So perhaps if you could explain the word as you are using it now.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman I was going to refer you to an extract from Sishaba of January 1985 in which certain Sipo Jama, do you know that gentleman?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: No I don't.

MR VISSER: You don't.  Was the author, apparently, of an article which dealt with that very question, and I want to confine myself to what the ANC appears to accept as the definition of terrorism Mr Chairman.
	He starts off at page 14 of that Sishaba, and we will provide copies later on, with a heading saying -
"Killing of the innocent is wrong.  Most people would agree that it is always wrong intentionally to kill innocent people and that killing is bad".
I am not going to read the rest.  I go to the end of the end paragraph of that particular heading and he says -
"Where there was a choice and one chose to use more force than was strictly necessary..."
and I interrupt the quotation, "the more force" here refers to the injury and killing of civilians, that's what he is talking about.
"...to achieve one's ends the means used would be unjust, though the ends might be just".
So the means would be unjust.  At page 15 - if you want to make any comment as I go along please just stop me.  I think ...(intervention)

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Finish.

MR VISSER: This is what the man says.  Then at page 15 there's a heading - "Are the means justified?".  And round the third sentence of that it says
"The just war doctrine lays down to more conditions which help us to answer this question in a case of war.   They are tests to see whether the means we use to wage a war are themselves just".
and are as follows:  The first one is -
"The means used must be proportionate to the ends of our struggle.  There should be an attempt to cause the least damage possible without endangering the achievement of the just ends of war".
And the second one is -
"There must be no intentional killing of innocent people".
And the Chairman has asked me in what context am I talking about terrorism.  At page 18 of that same article, in the same Sishaba the question is posed by him "What is terrorism" and he says that -
"The Geneva Conventions condemn terrorism and the ANC is called terrorists by the apartheid regime.  It is therefore important to note what terrorism involves.  A terrorist act maliciously and intentionally injures innocent people".
That's his definition. "Vicious and intentional killing of innocent people".
	Then he gives an interesting example, he says -
"Parcel bombs, the sort which killed Ruth First are a terrorist weapon".
Would you subscribe to that, that last part of what I have just put to you?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR VISSER: Would you subscribe to the statement by the author that "terrorism is the intentional and malicious killing of innocent people in a war situation"?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: If that is not aimed at any military objective.

MR VISSER: Yes, yes.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: I will go back to the ANC statements on page 64 and 65 on ANC2, the green book.

MR VISSER: Yes that's the part which you read into the record. Yes.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.  And that tells you.  And there are other statements inside all of the ANC submissions which say quite clearly that if you are striking at military targets and military objectives then the loss of some civilian lives is acceptable.

MR VISSER: Yes.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Now in the case of that article what he is talking about is if one were to bomb a purely civilian target ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: A Wimpy Bar.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: For no other purpose.  In this case I wish to repeat for the umpteenth time that this target was a military target.  We were not callous.  It was very specifically targeted against South African Air Force personnel, and that is what we aimed to hit.  One regrets the loss of innocent lives of civilians, but one must state, we were striking at a military target.  We did not think it was terrorism.  In fact the ANC in all its statements lauded that operation.