Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

CHAIRPERSON: No we have been taking evidence from CCB operatives and there are indications from some of them, certainly one of them who we last heard, that a substantial amount of these chemical and biological warfare chemicals were used by them in the CCB, but you wouldn't be the person to have passed them on to them?

JAN LOURENS: No.  I never interfaced with the operators.  I interfaced with Trevor and that was a single, single incident, and other than that I never interfaced with any of them.

CHAIRPERSON: I see.  Since you left the project have you had any links or contact with Dr Wouter Basson?

JAN LOURENS: Yes he phoned me once about a year, eighteen months ago.  He phoned me on my cellphone.  He said to me - he was friendly, as he's always been, he said to me that he was told that I was applying for amnesty and he wanted to tell me that both him and General Knobel are most disappointed at my going this road.  At that stage I had not applied, I had not approached anybody and I denied it.  And since then the first time that I've seen him again was last night at the airport.

CHAIRPERSON: You see this brings me again to the question that was raised by Dr Wendy Orr, the whole question of the motives and perspectives.  You see what worries us, and especially in view of what continues to take place so many years in what should be a democracy, and what should be a democracy that should not be undermined by all the people who, as we understood, had reconciled themselves to the reality of a changed South Africa.
 You see the rallying cry was always this "rooi gevaar", the Communist threat.  If we are to take into serious consideration, for instance, the reasons given by former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pik Botha, as having been the basis for some of the operations that were carried out by the South African Defence Force, namely, that there was always this Communist threat.  Now by 1989, if my history serves me well the Berlin Wall had fallen.  
 Secondly in this country, from the 2nd of February there had been a major announcement made by De Klerk which we thought was heralding a new era, an era of negotiations and an era that sought to say now that Communism is away, now that there is no more terror on our borders, we should start to negotiate a way of life that is going to cause us to live side-by-side.  What worries me is that for well up to 1993 you, on your own evidence, were part of the process that was still manufacturing dangerous murder weapons, in what should be conceived against the backdrop of what was happening, to have been a complete undermining of the peace process, and a complete undermining of a democracy that was sought to be brought into being.  
 Now what again causes people who know that a new mood is being endeavoured to be brought into being, but continue to do things of the nature that we are talking about?
 And I would like you to also indicate, what do you think was going in the minds, it's a difficult question, in the mind of a Minister of State who was charged with maintaining law and order in his portfolio but notably one who was foremost in the negotiations process?  
 Now what sort of people are we dealing with here and what do you think is the future of this country, if on one hand we have people who talk peace and on the other manufacture weapons of mass destruction?

JAN LOURENS: As an individual that lived within the security community for a long period of time the only thing I can say to you is that I think that most of us were, and I left that system before the '94 elections, my perception of the experience or the perception of my old colleagues was one of being ready for the great war up to the '94 elections, and the great fear of the outcome.
 I mean we have to be quite honest about it, we didn't expect the President to be the kind-hearted man that he is or was at that time.  We didn't expect to be treated in a fair manner by the new black government.  We expected to be chased into all kinds of dark corners of South Africa.  So I don't think that anybody, from the security community, the white security community, moved into the elections feeling comfortable despite the overtures for peace etc, etc.
 Even today, this little interesting episode we've just gone through, I mean it shows you that even after the proof of 1994 we still have a lot of people, white people, that resent this change, that did absolutely resent the change and can't make peace with whatever we did in the past.  I cannot run from what I did in the past.  I can't run away from the fact that I was in the military and I do carry it with a certain amount of pride, but I have to say that I've done the wrong things as well.  So the change of heart is there, to some extent in some of the old securocrats, but not in all of us.

CHAIRPERSON: Now with the benefit of the background which you have indicated, there was this war that was expected to be taking place in 1994 it never came, do you think there's a war that is coming in 1999?  I am serious about these questions ...(intervention)

JAN LOURENS: Ja, I know that you are serious.

CHAIRPERSON: Because we have, on your own evidence, somebody who knew exactly what you all were about, on your evidence you say he says "I and General Knobel are very disappointed with you", what do you think they were disappointed with your what?  For applying for amnesty or for revealing the truth?

JAN LOURENS: Most probably especially revealing the truth.  Applying for amnesty at that stage was - it's an early days issue.  I don't believe that there's another war, and the reason for that is that I think a great deal of the white community have changed their minds and have seen that there is some simple concepts, such as living together, since 1994, so I think that the amount of people that today view this political dispensation with hatred and the drive to try and overthrow and live in this fool's paradise should just - it's a small community, it's a very small community.

CHAIRPERSON: Now lastly you said you heard - you people were travelling to Europe etc, etc, I am not particularly concerned with the lifestyle for the moment, but did you ever in your travels get an impression, apart from meeting that Syrian, that some of the people that you were meeting might well have been agents, foreign spy agents?  Did it ever occur to you that that might be so and that this was also you know a programme that involved other foreign states and therefore you dealt with foreign agents?

JAN LOURENS: Ja.  I never, never got the impression that I was interfacing with foreign agents.  But having made the statement you have to bear in mind that I was never trained to be able to detect, so I was in actual fact a sitting duck.  If they wanted to approach an individual I would have been the perfect target in the sense that you know - and none of us went through this sort-of surveillance, counter-surveillance, national intelligence programme.  That's not true.  Some of the people did in actual go through.  But I was not in the league of, for example, Dr Basson, in terms of skills to be able to identify, etc, etc.  So it may in actual fact have happened, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: You are saying you were not a Craig Williamson for instance?

JAN LOURENS: No, no, no absolutely not.

CHAIRPERSON: And it may well have been that Trevor, for instance, could have been a CA agent, a Mosad agent, a KGB agent?

JAN LOURENS: Yes I suppose so, although my introduction or the process was - of my setting up of this particular trip was done by my officer commanding, which was Dr Basson, so there was a trust component there.

CHAIRPERSON: Anymore questions.  Thank you Dr Lourens.  Oh Mr Vally.