Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-08

CHAIRPERSON: Patrick?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: Yes, Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: What was the third case about?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: The third one was relating to the so-called intimidation of the choir.

CHAIRPERSON: And please tell me what happened to these cases?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: All three of them I was acquitted.

CHAIRPERSON: They were separate trials?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: Yes, separate trials.

CHAIRPERSON: In different courts?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: In different courts.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: Thank you, Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Any re-examination?  I'm sorry, Mr Mpshe, are there questions you want to put to him?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: No questions, Mr Chairman, thank you.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR MPSHE

CHAIRPERSON: Any re-examination?

MR NYOKA: None, your Worship.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MR NYOKA

MR NYOKA: That is our case.

CHAIRPERSON: Will you make a copy of that statement available to us before the close of day today?

MR NYOKA: Yes, Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: You have a copy, Mr Mpshe?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: I will make a copy for the Committee, Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you very much.  Yes, Mr Jack, you may stand down. Are you calling any other witnesses?

MR NYOKA: None, that is our case, your Worship.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Jack, thank you very much for having taken the trouble to come here and to give evidence before us.
WITNESS EXCUSED

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Van der Merwe, do you propose to address us?  Would you like to address us to highlight the relevant portions of the Act which have a bearing on your client's application?
MR VAN DER MERWE ADDRESSES COMMITTEE ON MERITS OF APPLICATION
	Mr Commissioner and Committee, I shortly - I don't intend to address the Commission at length.  As far as the evidence of Mr Nieuwoudt is concerned, I am of the opinion, and I submit to the Committee, that his actions do qualify as per the qualifications which is laid down by the Act. I don't know if there is any specific incident in which the Committee would like to hear me. It is quite clear that this assault had taken place in circumstances where he was trying to achieve a political goal, which would be the restoring of law and order and also bringing to an end the consumer boycott which was being practised in this area at that stage.

ADV POTGIETER: Is that in fact a political goal, political objective?

MR VAN DER MERWE: Yes, I think it is a political goal, because if you look at the surrounding circumstances this was part of - that will come clear from the rest of Mr Nieuwoudt's application which wasn't read out, that the consumer boycott was part of the bigger struggle and part of the bigger onslaught, if you can call it that, to use the rhetoric which was used by the organisations such as the ANC, PAC and UDF at that stage, to try and create the system in the townships which would make them ungovernable and which they then could substitute the unlawful government, as they would call it at that stage, with legitimate structures from the people in the townships.

ADV POTGIETER: Wasn't he doing his normal duties as a police officer?

MR VAN DER MERWE: I beg your pardon?

ADV POTGIETER: Was he not executing his normal duties as a police officer to restore law and order, as he had said in his testimony and in doing so, securing the State institutions? Isn't that the normal duties of a policeman?

MR VAN DER MERWE: Yes, I think we must not at this stage confuse the normal duties of a policeman and the normal duties of the security policeman, because somehow I don't think they were the same.  But I think what - to restore law and order for a normal policeman during the 1980s would have been something different than restoring law and order for a security policeman.  Because as we have already heard Mr Nieuwoudt say that he regarded the security police as above the law.  When there was conflict between the interests of the National Party Government and law and order, the National Party Government's interests would take precedence.
	As such it was of utmost importance for the National Party to retain their power base and their support amongst the White community, to clamp down on the consumer boycott, which was really hurting the White people in the area and not really doing anything in the non-White people.

ADV POTGIETER: Now assuming that to be the case, I won't debate that any further, but assuming that to be the case, by assaulting Mr Jack, is there any proximity between assaulting Mr Jack and bringing an end to the consumer boycott?

MR VAN DER MERWE: Very definitely. I think it is without a doubt, there is a proximity, Mr Jack was the chairman of the consumer boycott committee and if they, as the security police had to have any chance of getting the consumer boycott under control or convincing anyone to cease it or to work on it to normalise the situation, it would obviously be to work through Mr Jack.  And if Mr Jack at that stage, were unco-operative and as through his own evidence, were a person who didn't fear the security police or wouldn't stand back for them, then I think it is just normal that intimidation and an assault would be used in the subjective view of Mr Nieuwoudt, that through that he would be able to coerce and I say convince in inverted commas, "convince" him to stop this consumer boycott, and which consumer boycott was inter-linked with the current state of anarchy and unrest in the townships.

ADV POTGIETER: Just for my information. When was the consumer boycott eventually called off?

MR VAN DER MERWE: In December of that year. I think it was in Exhibit - if you just give me a while. It was on page 74 of the exhibits.

ADV POTGIETER: What was the date?

MR VAN DER MERWE: It says here, this is an excerpt I think it is Sishaba, I just want to make sure. Ja, Sishaba of April 1986, and the section reads
"The boycott in Port Elizabeth was finally suspended in early December at a rally, and it was only after the boycott leaders were released from detention in November."

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Yes, but Mr Van der Merwe, if you were listening to your client, the applicant this morning, when he detailed the circumstances in which he ended up assaulting Mr Jack, I think he comes very close to saying Mr Jack was a bit cheeky to him, and he had to give him a bit of a hiding.  Can you explain or what is political about that; assaulting someone who is rebellious and stubborn in the course of interrogation here?

MR VAN DER MERWE: It is actually very simple. I think what at that stage happened, is that we must understand that Mr Nieuwoudt was under severe pressure from the security establishment. All of them were under pressure to apply the measures, any measure which was necessary to stop the consume boycott and unrest.  And if you had to work with someone who you knew could be the link to be able to achieve those results, and this person would appear unco-operative and be cheeky for that matter, it is obvious that a person in those circumstances might get cross, but this is not a personal thing.
	This isn't something personal for his own personal gain.  This was, he was being frustrated at the fact that the person who would be able to provide the solution to the problem, was unco-operative, and in that way he described him as cheeky, but that is, I think - the Committee witnessed Mr Jack's attitude today, and I think he said he was cheeky at that stage with the security police. But that was the reason why Mr Nieuwoudt acted. 
	Mr Nieuwoudt had to act at that stage to be able to, let's call it through intimidation, to soften up Mr Jack in order to be able to achieve his end goal, which would be to break through to him, to be able to stop the consumer boycott.