Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

ADRIAAN VLOK: If I have to look at it with the benefit of hindsight, then I have to say very honestly that that's not what we intended but if a policeman in Pofadder red that then he would have understood it to mean what it meant in the vernacular and I'm sorry that we didn't do our job properly to make sure that we didn't put those words in those documents.  So I can say that that was a mistake, the fact that we didn't see to it that those things were not correct and not seeing to it that there was no room for misinterpretation.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.  Do you understand then Mr Vlok that you would say that the point at which those policies and directives in which that language was used, that you did not at that point foresee the possibility that there was scope for misinterpretation?

ADRIAAN VLOK: No.

MR GOOSEN: Would you not regard it as something that should reasonably have been foreseen in the circumstances?

ADRIAAN VLOK: With hindsight I would have said yes, but at that stage when we were busy trying to deal with the situation, and the use of this terminology was commonly used and we didn't see the matter in that light.   But now with hindsight I would say yes, we should have seen to it.

MR GOOSEN: One last aspect on this.  General van der Merwe, dealing with the use of language along those lines stated in response to a question that was asked by one of the panellists, "If you tell a soldier, eliminate your enemy, depending on the circumstances, he will understand that means killing. It is not the only meaning but it is specifically one  meaning".

ADRIAAN VLOK: I agree with him.  It could be like that because it was military language used and perhaps they could have interpreted it in that way.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Dumisa Ntsebeza.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chair.  Mr Vlok if I recall some of the evidence well that was led last week.  And I think again it was from Craig Williamson.  He seems to say that some of these memorandums or memoranda were prepared by people in the security forces, that the memoranda that came to serve before the State Security Council and the minutes that were subsequently drawn and they are the people who would couch whatever the resolution of whatever the recommendation is in the language that expressed itself in words like elimeneer and neutraliseer, vernietig and all those words, and he seemed to say by inference, that it is very disingenuous for any politician in that period of time to claim that they didn't understand that those words were so ambiguous that an environment could be created where the only interpretation that could be given to those words could be that they meant that people should be killed, and he said for instance, if the ministers and all the other politicians who received such memorandums had thought to question them, if you as Minister Vlok received a memorandum which comes from the Eastern Cape Joint Management System which says the leaders of the UDF must be eliminated, he says surely it was your prerogative to say, if this means arrest, let it be couched in those terms, because we don't want a situation arising afterwards that people will eliminate people in the sense of killing them, when in fact what was meant was that they should be arrested or be detained. What is your comment on that?

ADRIAAN VLOK: May I say immediately that you are correct in saying that the submissions which we received and the documents which we received at the State Security Council and at Cabinet, were drafted by officials.  The ministers didn't actually write or draft them and the officials at the State Security Council came largely from the security fraternities, soldiers, policemen and people from National Intelligence.  So the language used there was not in the first instance the language used by the ministers, and secondly you are totally correct, that is what I tried to convey in my submission.  I should have queried this.  I sat there and I read it.  I should have queried it and said, look you can't use the word eliminate and then you give a list of the tasks to be performed by the policemen. In Upington he must perform certain grab operations, etc etc and turn operations and it doesn't mean eliminate in other language.  So you are entirely correct, we should have looked at that aspect and that is why I'm apologising that as a result of this misunderstanding, people actually died.

CHAIRPERSON: Glen Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.  Mr Vlok I think that the, I would accept your acceptance obviously of the responsibility that not sufficient action was taken at the time and that you should have queried it.  Would you agree though that the State Security Council and the process of policy formation formed part of a broader system, the National Security Management System, that there were a whole range of structures that supported that process and that the use of that language was across the board within all of those structures and that it was, in fact represented if you like, the discourse of the National Security Management System, in dealing with those particular matters.  Would you agree with that conception?

ADRIAAN VLOK: Yes.

MR GOOSEN: And would you agree that in those circumstances, particularly where instructions and policies then are being conveyed down through the command structures.  I think in your submission you concede that in conveying instructions down through the command structures, the possibility for misinterpretation grew as it were, and further down the command structure one gets the possibility for misinterpretation does grow.

ADRIAAN VLOK: Yes Mr Goosen is correct.

MR GOOSEN: In the circumstances would you not say that that discourse engaged in by the policy formulators engaged in at State Security Council level, that that created a culture in which unlawful actions could be justified down the command structure precisely because of the ambiguity of that language?

ADRIAAN VLOK: I have to say quite honestly I don't think it would have created a culture but it created the opportunity in certain instances and as far as I'm concerned, one instance is one instance too many where this kind of misinterpretation and misunderstanding happened and that is we today have a situation where people out there died as a result of this kind of thing and that policemen and their families and their families are in trouble because we didn't take a good look at this.  But I can't agree that it actually created a culture of illegal action.

MR GOOSEN: Perhaps just to emphasise the point further, General van der Merwe again, at the hearings last week said in regard to this matter, he said,
"If you look at the contents of this document or most documents it becomes clear that it means that certain activities had to follow on this. But if you keep in mind that those documents were put in to a system, the Joint Operations System, where members of from the Defence Force served on that, people from grass roots levels and many of those members were involved in a struggle for life and death every day, from that viewpoint you would regard it, and yes it could have meant to kill people".
So in those circumstances that the language created the opportunity for unlawful actions to be embarked upon by members of the security forces. You would agree with that?

ADRIAAN VLOK: Yes it's possible.

MR GOOSEN: You would agree that in the circumstances in which one's dealing with an intensified political struggle, where there is pressure being applied from the level of the politicians, that something needs to be done about the situation, and you've indicated that, that by so creating the opportunity they's also served the interests of the political authorities precisely because it created that opportunity for also unlawful actions to be embarked upon?