Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-14

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I think I did because ...

GEORGE BIZOS: Very well.  Will you please turn to Bundle B, page 61, but look at the end please.  B for Benny, B, 61 and look at the end of it an page 81, 20 pages.  Just look at the bottom there whether that is your signature.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: This is my statement, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: And everything that you said there, that you signed, was the truth?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Correct, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now will you please turn to paragraph 11 of the statement?

CHAIRPERSON: That is on page 64.

GEORGE BIZOS: 64.  The question that was put to you was
"What were the objectives of the CCB?"
And you said:
"The purpose of the CCB was to gather specialist information within and outside the RSA with regard to the enemies of the RSA and more specifically the ANC, PAC, SWAPO, as well as the Communist Party, SACP.  With regard to the ANC, it was more specifically the military wing of the ANC.  The purpose was furthermore to give execution to actions against such enemies outside the country where no other Security Forces had access to."
Now, "in die buiteland" was underlined by you, or it was underlined at the time that you signed it.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Bizos, if we could just - this  "vraag antwoord", who asked the questions?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I am not certain.  The person there was Adv Willem Burger.

CHAIRPERSON: So is this a transcription of a conversation which was then signed by yourself to certify the correctness thereof?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: From the hierarchies where it came from, I am not certain where it came from, but at the time when I had to answer it, the questions were asked by Willem Burger, Adv Willem Burger, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos.

MR LAX: Sorry, Chair, if I ...  Mr Verster, you seem unsure about where this document was compiled and how it was compiled.  Did you have consultations with Burger?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct.  What happened here, Chairperson, is that, I cannot recall the advocate's name, he was a professor at ... University when the CCB contact him and when I saw that the current Government were turning against us, I went to this English speaking professor, this advocate, I went to him and coincidentally, by the way, I found out that he was on the same floor as Advocate Willem Burger and what happened then was when Adv Burger saw that I went for assistance to this professor, there was a dispute where eventually I was handed over to Adv Burger and I was told that if I did not do this I would lose my legal representation and that is how I became involved with Adv Willem Burger at that stage and at that stage in his rooms and we went to his house as well, and that is where this was drawn up.

MR LAX: What was the purpose of the question and answer?  Did you seek assistance?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I went looking for assistance but the purpose of these questions was as if it came from the Government of the day and the advocate who is Adv Willem Burger, it may have been from legal channels, questions were asked and I was told to answer them.

MR LAX: I'm trying to find out what the objective was.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I don't know.  That was the process.

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman, perhaps I can refresh the witness's memory as to how this occurred.  As far as I can remember, there was a police investigation and Col Mostert, or Brig Mostert, at some stage arrested Mr Verster and kept him under Section 29 but before that there were some questions asked by the police and perhaps the witness can give you details about that.  I wasn't present at that, but at some stage I'd seen something like that and these questions emanated from the police.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson if I look at the date now it was approximately two or three months before I was arrested and I think that the advocate was part of the police investigation but those investigations...

MR WESSELS: On page 61 it says there at paragraph 2
"Following on my visit to Brig Mostert on 29th of January and the questions which were supplied to me..."

GEORGE BIZOS: You see that was on the 28th of - on the 29th of January but you signed the statement on the 2nd of February and this was - you were given the questions but the answers were given by you and written down by Adv Erasmus, was it?

CHAIRPERSON: Burger, Willem Burger.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: This was handed in at the Harms Commission at which you gave evidence and you confirmed its correctness.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: ;   Correct, Sir.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now let us turn to the paragraph that we were dealing with on page 64, paragraph 11.  You see there that "in die buiteland" is underlined?  Isn't that "buiteland" underlined in order to clearly indicate to the Commission and the world at large that the CCB didn't have any operations internally?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: ;   Chairperson, the Government of the day, that was the attitude and I saw it as such.  When one looks at the first paragraph of that question, of that answer, it was indeed ... and it would seem as if - what is the word I'm looking for?  I required it.  They tried to make as if we did not act offensively against the enemy because there was pressure from Ministerial level and in the presence of an advocate I then said no, that my purpose was an operational one and that is why the last paragraph is written so softly, where I wanted to say that it was maximum disruption, where they said that they should put that and the dispute that I referred to yesterday with regard to external and internal authorisation and how the financial plan worked, that was all of the same process.

GEORGE BIZOS: You know I asked you whether you told any untruths deliberately, I asked you whether anyone exercised any pressure on you, you said yes, there was pressure but you were - and then I asked you were you influenced by it in order to subscribe to any untruths and your answer was no, you withheld the pressure and you told the truth.  Do you admit that paragraph 11 is not true because you deliberately left out the operations that you were responsible for internally?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, I do not admit to that because I think it is - the emphasis was, I can see it as a difference but the emphasis was upon it that the Government of the day wanted us to admit that we only gathered information and I opposed it by saying that I refused to do that because we were operational soldiers and then after all the pressure of the day and what had happened at that moment, that is how they dealt with it and I signed the document.  It was no purposeful dishonesty.

GEORGE BIZOS: But I specifically asked you whether you told any untruths as a result of pressure and you said no, you ...

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I think that I opposed that pressure, so I will stand by what I said.

GEORGE BIZOS: Can you remember any other untruths that you might have signed?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, I cannot.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well let's remind you.  Let's go to paragraph 29.

CHAIRPERSON: That is on page 72.

GEORGE BIZOS: The question is
"What was discussed by the members of the CCB with regard to the murder of Dr Webster?"
		Answer:  "By nature of the situation I cannot bear any knowledge whether any of the members had discussed the matter and if they did, what was discussed."
Was that the truth?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: At that stage it was the truth because only afterwards, nothing was discussed amongst members of the CCB.