Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-29

CHAIRPERSON: I don't think that is a very good argument you know.  I mean how would you expect them to try and use people that they work with, what if they survived the attack, and they would identify them and the like?  There may be so many factors.
	I don't think the fact that they didn't want to use their own people, I don't think it is terribly important.  I don't know what point you are trying to make?  Did you expect the members of the Security Branch in Port Elizabeth themselves to try and kill their own colleagues?
	Wouldn't you expect them to go and get people from outside, to import people as it were, from other areas?

MR HUGO: Mr Chairman, for the same argument, Mr Nieuwoudt was also involved with his own people, whom he was responsible for.

CHAIRPERSON: No well, to a certain extent somebody had to be involved, but I don't know what point you are trying to make.  It doesn't surprise me that, in order to eliminate their own colleagues in PE, they went to some other town to get some other people and it wouldn't even surprise me if they went to Vlakplaas, because Vlakplaas was reputed to be a very good machinery.

MR HUGO: Yes, that was the case, that Vlakplaas was notorious and my client is going to testify that they used Vlakplaas to be the hyena of the Security Police and to solve problems where problems occurred.

ADV DE JAGER: I think that is common knowledge and it was for example Vlakplaas was called to murder people in Durban and that they were called to murder people in other places.  Even, they went to Cape Town.

MR HUGO: What I am trying to say is from my client's position, is that that was the basis on which they operated and how they were instructed.

CHAIRPERSON: I think, Mr Hugo, that is what Adv De Jager put to you earlier on before tea time, he said put your client's version to this witness and you would be surprised to find that the witness does not dispute your client's version.
	You start first by cross-examining, spending a lot of time on concentrating on cross-examining the witness only to find that possibly in the end, after all, that is the common version.  Shouldn't you rather concentrate on putting to the witness your client's version, let's see where he disagrees with you before we spend a lot of time on cross-examination?

MR HUGO: Mr Chairman, there is one other aspect I would like to address and I wish to ask the applicant after this incident, did you contact Mr De Kock afterwards to determine how this operation went?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: As far as I can remember, I think it was the day or the evening of the explosion, I can't remember precisely when, Mr De Kock came to my office and told me whether I had heard on the news that morning that that operation was successfully completed.  He said something to this effect.

MR HUGO: And did you report back to your senior officers that this operation was successful?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I did not.

MR HUGO: I have no further questions.

MR HUGO: .

MR LAMEY: Thank you Mr Chairman, I will proceed with my questions in Afrikaans.  Mr Van Rensburg ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: You are Mr Rossouw, you appear for which applicant?

MR LAMEY: Mr Chairman, I am Mr Lamey.  I appear for Mr Lionel Snyman. Mr Rossouw is my assistant.

CHAIRPERSON: All right, thank you.

MR LAMEY: (Interpreters cannot hear the speaker properly - own translation)  Mr Van Rensburg, could I ask you this, when did you become the Commander of Vlakplaas?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Mr Chairman, I am under the impression that it must have been 1 November 1981.

ADV DE JAGER: I think you said that in your affidavit.

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, if somebody says it was a month earlier, I couldn't really be able to deny or dispute that, but that is how I remember it.

ADV DE JAGER: At the bottom of page 71 it says, I was promoted to the rank of Brigadier and in November 1989 the whole C Section was transferred to me.  I want to ask you if things are already on record, please let us elicit information that is not yet on record and which you differ with so that we don't just repeat what we have already heard and what we have on record.

MR LAMEY: (Own translation)  Mr Van Rensburg, that question was just introductory to the next question.  The question that I would like to know is before you became the Commander of Vlakplaas, you worked closely together with Mr Nieuwoudt for a considerable time?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Mr Nieuwoudt and I were in the Security Branch in Port Elizabeth.

MR LAMEY: And before you became the overall Commander, you were in Port Elizabeth, is that correct?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, that is not correct.

MR LAMEY: When did you leave Port Elizabeth?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: At the end of 1987.

MR LAMEY: By virtue of your position as the overall Commander at Vlakplaas and the Security Branch at that stage, you gave the instruction and you were also aware of the security situation in the PE surroundings?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, I took general cognisance of the situation.

MR LAMEY: Did you assume that Mr Gilbert as well as Mr Nieuwoudt, by virtue of their positions, were intimately familiar with the security situation in Port Elizabeth?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Most definitely yes.

MR LAMEY: By virtue of your position and the fact that you had previously worked with Mr Nieuwoudt in Port Elizabeth, and also with Brigadier Gilbert, did you in your knowledge of these people also pursue and accept that you would be able to trust the information that they gave you?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR LAMEY: I want to ask you a further question, you have spoken about the need to know principle.  Could you explain what that principle actually entails and whether it was a general principle in operation in the Security Police and also at Vlakplaas?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: As I understood it and interpreted it, this principle meant that in the case of any information or operations or actions which had to be launched, you only informed the necessary people or involved them in the planning for an operation.
	The information was only shared with the people who actually needed to know the relevant information.  And that nobody else was supposed to know about it.

MR LAMEY: Do I understand your evidence correctly that the motive, the complete motive for the operation was sketched to Colonel De Kock?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.  In the broad terms in any event.

MR LAMEY: But the motive would have comprised more than just the eliminating of Security Branch members for a reason other than criminality?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes, these reasons I have already referred to.

MR LAMEY: You would have foreseen that Colonel De Kock would have in turn given further orders to his Vlakplaas members in carrying out of this operation?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR LAMEY: Would it be normal practice for non-commissioned officer as a member of Vlakplaas, even for Colonel De Kock to, in respect of orders which as far as you were aware, came from Security head quarters, for these non-commissioner officers to question such orders from officers?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No, I didn't think that they would question these orders.

MR LAMEY: So that was not standard practice?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No.  Not as far as I was aware.

MR LAMEY: Especially not by non-commissioned officers?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR LAMEY: Would such junior non-commissioned officers receive orders, would they assume that the operation had been sanctioned by higher authority and that it would be an operation which had to be carried out in the national interest?

NICHOLAS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Correct.

MR LAMEY: Thank you Chairperson, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LAMEY