Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-23

MS CAMBANIS: After conviction, one of the family members of the applicants sent a message via the court orderly to Mrs Keane to say we're sorry about your white child's death.  Mrs Keane rejected that and said she would only consider it if the apology was extended or the sympathy was extended to all the families of all the deceased regardless of colour and that never came back.  Do you have any knowledge of that incident?
	Of that specific incident I carry no knowledge.

MS CAMBANIS: What is your attitude to the apology to whites only?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I think that it is wrong, I agree that that apology must be extended to all the victims.

MS CAMBANIS: When did you decide that it should be extended to all the victims and their families?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: That is how I feel about it.

MS CAMBANIS: Is that how you felt during your trial?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: During the trial?  Yes.

MS CAMBANIS: Why such a long hesitation, what did you have to think about?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I wanted to think if I can at a specific time decided that - because it was part of a question you put to me.

MS CAMBANIS: Thank you.
NO FURTHER EXAMINATION BY MS CAMBANIS

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Mr Du Plessis, do you currently live in Ficksburg?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I live on the farm of my father in the Ficksburg district.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Do you farm there?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: No, I do not farm, I work in town.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: This form, the form that was completed, pages 101, 102, 103 - was that in your own handwriting?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: That is correct, part of it was not completed in my own handwriting.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: What part of it was not completed by yourself or in your own handwriting?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Questions 9a and b, 10a and b, c, 11a and b, 12a and b, c, d, e, and that is it.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: It was not completed by yourself?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: That is correct yes.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: 13 - did you complete that yourself?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Yes, it looks like it.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Tell us about the application that was pending, certain civil cases, pending on the grounds of people who were killed from some of these bombings and the amount that he's asking from you?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I'm not quite sure but it's a large amount.
Approximately I think they talk about R120 000 in one case and the other one is more than R200 000.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: I see that Judge Flemming - he refers to
R15 000 000's of damage - are you aware of that?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: The damage I am aware of but I do not know if all the people there wanted to make civil claims.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: When did you decide that you have to apologise to all the victims?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: When I heard after the bomb, after attacks or explosions, the Germiston bomb and some of the pipe bomb attacks and I heard that people were killed.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Approximately when did you hear about the Germiston Bomb?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: It is difficult, I cannot remember exactly when I heard about it, the bomb was the morning, if I can remember correctly, it could have been the television or the radio, I heard about the bomb itself.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: So, let me put it as follows, you were a member of the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Yes, that is correct.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: And you supported the idealogies and ideals of the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Yes, that is correct.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: And you still followed or agreed with it?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I identified myself with the Volkstaat, that the AWB wants but I did not identify myself with all their struggles and goals and objectives.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: So I can still accept that you're still a member of the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: At various opportunities they've approached me and asked me if I want to take part in marches etc and I refused.  In the last few years I also did not pay my membership fees, I did not resign but I will say but I'm not an active member of the AWB any more.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: You're not an active member but you're still a member?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: If you do not pay your membership fees, no.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: No, I do not understand your answer.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Yearly membership fees are asked and as far as I'm concerned, if I do not pay my membership fees of a specific organisation for three or four years then I'm not a member any more.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: But when you joined how many years did you pay in advance?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: No I've never paid in advance.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: But you still follow the ideals of the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Some of them, yes.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Please tell me about purity of race?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: It is a term that I would say was inspired by the German's in the second world war.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: And do you follow purity of race, the idealogy of it?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: No, I do not.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Was it one of the ideologies that you do not follow in the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I would say that the ideology of purity of race is not an ideology of the AWB.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Then why in Annexure B, paragraph 2, you would like to further and create in a Boerevolk an awareness of their nationalism, their heritage in the interest of promoting purity of race?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: As far as that point is concerned I do no longer identify with it.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you identify with it at one point in your life?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Chairperson, while I was a member of the AWB on several occasions I asked several people if there's a connection between the AWB and the Nazi's of the second world war and some of these people answered and said that there would never be any such connection.  The term of purity of race I consider this to be a term which came from that period in history and I do not identify with it at all.

CHAIRPERSON: Where you aware of the fact that it was a policy of the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: This is the policy of the purity of race?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, as it's written there.

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: No, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Were you not aware of it?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: No, Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: So what was your purpose in becoming a member of the AWB?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: Chairperson, the purpose, the reason why I became a member of the AWB was because I did not want that the ANC/SACP Alliance or government take over our country.  I did not want them to be in control of our country and that is completely on a political basis that I became a member of the AWB.  I am anti-communism.

CHAIRPERSON: Is the AWB the only party in this country that is anti-communistic?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: The National Party at that stage, Mr Chairperson, I considered that party to be one which would sell us out to the communists.  I was scared that the same would happen here as what happened in Angola and Mozambique.

CHAIRPERSON: Any other party you know of?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I also identified myself with the strives of the HNP but they were not militant enough for me, Chairperson.  They did not want to become physically involved, they did not want to take up the weapon.

CHAIRPERSON: So the only reason was that because there were Communist reasons, was that your biggest problem?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: I still believe that there are still communist opinions, that is my opinion.

CHAIRPERSON: What do you say about the PAC?

JOHAN WILHELM DU PLESSIS: The Truth and Reconciliation Committee?

CHAIRPERSON: The PAC - that they're not a communist party?