Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

<UNKNOWN>: Let me put it to you in this way.   Were many
4b other /...
MR DU PLESSIS 639 J H CRONJE
other person involved, not only from you but from the ANC, fromthe liberation movements etc., were involved in recruiting MKsoldiers?

ANSWER: Yes, there were many such persons.

<UNKNOWN>: What would you have considered if we assumethat the testimony is correct that these persons left voluntarilyto receive training, would you have considered it to be a likelihoodthat some other person, say from the liberation movements, wouldhave been able to recruit these young people for military training?

ANSWER: Yes it would have been highly likely.

JUDGE NGCOBE: How young some of the soldiers appear tobe north of us in Northern Africa...

ANSWER: I did note this Chair.   I can say to you thatfor two years I waged war in the previous Rhodesia and that forsix months I served in the previous South West Africa.   ThereI saw people of these very ages who were very able soldiers.

JUDGE NGCOBE: In Liberia I certainly saw some youngerthan that, isn't that so?

ANSWER: It would be the case Chair.
MR DU PLESSIS (contd)

<UNKNOWN>: Brigadier in your knowledge with regard tocomrades and activists involved in the unrest, would there havebeen of them, who at this very young age at 15, 16 or 17 years,would they...(end of side 2)...Brigadier I know you will not havepersonal knowledge of this question, but from history can youremember the age of some boys who fought in the Anglo-Boer War?

ANSWER: This was somewhat before my time, I wouldn'tknow.

<UNKNOWN>: Did you read anything about this.
5. ANSWER: /...
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MR ?:: If it might remind you my father was 13 years ofage.

MR DU PLESSIS: : That was the point I wanted to make, thankyou Chair.

SISI KHAMPEPE: : ...the youngsters in question were susceptibleto enticement if there was such an enticement by Mr Mamasela andthat is the problem.

MR DU PLESSIS: : Yes I realise that, I will argue thatpoint, that is why I asked the question about how many other witnessesbefore this Committee can give evidence about that, otherwisethe only evidence before this Committee will be Brigadier's evidence.
MR DU PLESSIS (contd)

<UNKNOWN>: Brigadier would there have been any possibility,you have seen these young people in the Kombi with Mamasela andfrom what you observed, was there any possibility or did it appearas if they were being forced by Mamasela to be in this Kombi withhim?

ANSWER: No, not at all.

<UNKNOWN>: If these young people were being taken outunder normal circumstances by the liberation movements for trainingabroad, how long would such training normally have lasted, doyou know?

ANSWER: It would last for anything from three monthsto a year, three months would have been a sort of a crash course.

<UNKNOWN>: So in that case Brigadier, would these activistshave left their homes voluntarily to leave abroad for three monthsor longer for training purposes?

ANSWER: This was the nature of the information availableto me.

<UNKNOWN>: When you arrived on the scene were they quite
5. inebriated /...
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inebriated?

ANSWER: Yes they were rather inebriated at that time.

<UNKNOWN>: So you would not have been able to have a conversationwith them to determine whether they were in fact voluntarily ontheir way or not?

ANSWER: No, but I had been driving behind them from Pretoriaand they were in a lively mood, they were laughing.

<UNKNOWN>: Could this be because of the beer they weredrinking?

ANSWER: Well, they only received their beer en routenot when I saw them at the very beginning.

<UNKNOWN>: Brigadier can you remember at that time, nowwe were all subject to military training, can you remember fromwhat age the youngest person was allowed to join the SAP or theSADF?

ANSWER: The age of 18.

<UNKNOWN>: Can you remember whether persons who left Std8 were taken into the army or  the police?

ANSWER: In the police yes, but I don't know about theSADF.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR DU PLESSIS

JUDGE WILSON: : We have heard a lot about Mamasela doingthis and Mamasela doing that, how long had he been working withyou?

ANSWER: Mamasela worked with me from the beginning in1983 until in 1987 when I left the police force.

JUDGE WILSON: : What was he before he joined you?

ANSWER: Do you mean before he came to Vlakplaas?

<UNKNOWN>: Yes.

ANSWER: He had initially been an informant, he was thentrained as a terrorist and then he returned to Vlakplaas to
5. come /...
COMMITTEE 642 J H CRONJE
come and work for the police.

JUDGE WILSON: : He was a double agent?

ANSWER: Well we had sent him out for training.

JUDGE WILSON: : He pretended to them that he was a supporterof theirs, he was a double agent.

ANSWER: That is the case.

JUDGE WILSON: : He must have realised that he would bewatched carefully by you?

ANSWER: Indeed that would have been the case.

JUDGE WILSON: : We've heard here what happened to someother agent whom you thought had turned against you?

ANSWER: Yes, although I can say to you that my experienceof Mamasela was that he was entirely loyal.
MR DE JAGER(?):: Do I understand you that Mamasela hadnever previously been a member of the ANC, that from the verybeginning he was a trained policeman who then infiltrated theANC?

ANSWER: This was a previous criminal who we turned aroundand then he went for training, he had been an informant.

SISI KHAMPEPE: : ...neutralised by the Security Force tobecome an askari(?), in your documents you've mentioned him asan askari.

ANSWER: He did work as an askari at Vlakplaas.

SISI KHAMPEPE: : Is it not common knowledge that askariswere previously members of the ANC?

ANSWER: Not necessarily Chair.

SISI KHAMPEPE: : Can you please explain to us what an askariis then?

ANSWER: An askari would normally be someone who had beenan ANC or PAC terrorist, who was then captured, taken captive,who might have given testimony in court or whom we
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were able to indoctrinate to such an extent that the person decidednow to rather work for the police than for the ANC.

SISI KHAMPEPE: : ...the difference to the proposition thatI've just put to you?

ANSWER: Mamasela was in a different category, we senthim out to receive training he didn't go out to receive trainingon his own.   He was never really a member of the ANC.

CHAIRPERSON: This word "askari" is it an Englishword, and Afrikaans word or one of the African languages?

ANSWER: I would imagine that the word comes from somewherein Africa.   It's a word used elsewhere in Africa for, I don'tknow if it was the British who used it, who gave them the name,but there were people known as askaris elsewhere in Africa.

MR DU PLESSIS: : Mr Chairman perhaps I can enlighten you.  There are people here who know about that, it's apparently aterm that was used in Nigeria in a military context.   I'm not100% sure, I can find out a bit more and perhaps enlighten youtomorrow.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you very much.   What I meant wasit an Afrikaans term or something like that?

MR DU PLESSIS: : No it's a term from a black language inNigeria apparently, that's what my information is.   Mr Chairmanmay I be afforded the opportunity to ask the witness one questionflowing from the questions of the Committee?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, certainly.
RE-EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS

<UNKNOWN>: Brigadier, the term "askari" wasit used in a broader sense at Vlakplaas, so what I'm implyingis if you said "askari", in which you also have includedsomeone like
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Mamasela who had never initially been an ANC terrorist but whorather was working with the other askaris?

ANSWER: Yes, we simply would have referred to them allas askaris, it was a broad term in that context.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR DU PLESSIS

MR CURRIN: : Mr Chairman, we are told that the word "askari"is the Swahili word for soldier.