Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — UNKNOWN

MR BOOYENS: If you refer to violent onslaught you refer to situations where people from the other side were killed?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Correct ...(intervention)

MR BOOYENS: Excuse me - yes you wanted to say something.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: In that regard I can refer to the wars in Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia.

MR BOOYENS: Those were outside the border.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: Also internally there were also problems.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That is also so.

MR BOOYENS: The language use, the feeling which came through was there really a difference in the struggle outside the borders and inside the country?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Not according to me, no.

MR BOOYENS: In your later years, in your later career you as a senior officer you retired as a general you were at Security headquarters.  While you were there did you get the impression there that the covert struggle internally where people lost their lives, that there was no authorisation for that?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No I never got the impression.

MR BOOYENS: What was your impression then?  Was it accepted as being essential?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That was my impression.

MR BOOYENS: And during those days, we refer to 1981, what was the rank of the commanding officer of the Security Branch at that time, as far as you can remember?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: 1981 it was a Brigadier.

MR BOOYENS: And the divisional commanding officer was one rank lower, a colonel, is that correct?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.

MR BOOYENS: In charge of your division was a very senior officer.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.

MR BOOYENS: Mr van Rensburg you have heard that Mr du Plessis testified that Mr Erasmus had told him that he had to put in writing what he had conveyed to him and the whole matter would be reconsidered, is that what you remember?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.

MR BOOYENS: At a later stage General Erasmus called you back again and finally gave his permission to go ahead with the elimination of Mr Kondile.

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.

MR BOOYENS: How and what, to whom was that left over to decide?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Mr du Plessis and I had to decide about it.

MR BOOYENS: What did you propose then?  How would you do that?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: If I can remember correctly Mr Erasmus asked how are you going to do it and I proposed that I could contact Mr Coetzee at Vlakplaas near Pretoria because I knew him and we were also involved in the same operation in Swaziland.  Those were during the earlier years.  And I think he would have the capability to assist us with this operation.  I would approach him to determine whether he would be able to assist us.

MR BOOYENS: I am sorry to interrupt you.  Did you meet Mr Coetzee in order to speak to him before this operation?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Ja.

MR BOOYENS: Were was that?

MR DE JAGER: Sorry Mr Booyens there is one or other disturbance on the system, can you do something about it?  Can you do anything about it?

MR BOOYENS: I have a problem with it, it seems to me it's outside.  It's outside that something is making a noise.  I have a problem to concentrate.  We can't do anything about that.

CHAIRPERSON: We will make enquiries about what is happening outside.  If we can stop it we will do so.

MR BOOYENS: I doubt whether you will succeed Mr Chairman.  I think it is a truck removing - rubbish removal truck downstairs.  It sounds like something hydraulic or something going on.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR BOOYENS: I think I've asked you, did you meet Dirk Coetzee after he had taken command of Vlakplaas, can you just expand on that?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I can remember that I visited him in Pretoria.  I went to Vlakplaas.  I asked him what their task was at Vlakplaas and he told me that their primary task was to identify trained terrorists and to arrest them or to eliminate them.

MR BOOYENS: When was that when you visited Vlakplaas?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Mr Chairman I am not sure but I suspect it might have been during the first half of 1981, but I can't remember precisely.

MR BOOYENS: What did you want to know?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Well I just asked him, I just asked him what their tasks were.

MR BOOYENS: If you can just give us a bit of background.  Before you went to the Eastern Cape you were the commanding officer of Security in the Easter Transvaal?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No of the branch at Ermelo.

MR BOOYENS: It was in the section Eastern Transvaal which fell under Brigadier van der Hoven, correct?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's right.

MR BOOYENS: And Dirk Coetzee was initially at Volksrust as a station commanding officer?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: Volksrust falls under section Eastern Transvaal?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: He then became the commanding officer of the border post Oshoek, am I correct?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's right.

MR BOOYENS: Under which security district did Oshoek fall?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Ermelo.

MR BOOYENS: Did you know Coetzee even in the days that he was at Volksrust?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No I didn't know him when he was at Volkrust.  I met him at Volksrust for the first time but I did not know him before that.

MR BOOYENS: So you got to know him at Volksrust?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: When he was a Security policeman?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes.

MR BOOYENS: In that process did you and Dirk Coetzee get to know one another well and see one another socially?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: Is that the reason why later you were in Pretoria and you knew that he was in Vlakplaas that you went to visit him?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: So the discussion that you had with him was that for a specific purpose or purely as two colleagues meeting one another, what was the position?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That is so.

MR BOOYENS: No, which one of the two now?  Did you go to Vlakplaas in an official capacity or was it just a matter of fact that you were in Pretoria on business and you just went to visit an old colleague?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: No I merely went to visit him as an ex-colleague.

MR BOOYENS: And did discussion take place as to what they were doing?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: You mentioned that regarding your previous discussion with Coetzee that they were doing such things and then did you contact Coetzee?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes I did.

MR BOOYENS: And did you sketch your problem to him?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I did.

MR BOOYENS: How much detail did you give him, can you remember?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: I cannot remember exactly, I just gave him sufficient detail so that he understood our problem.

MR BOOYENS: You spoke on an open telephone line?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: That's correct.

MR BOOYENS: Would you have been to the point and asked him to assist you in eliminating somebody or would you have been more subtle which the uniformed would not have known had he been listening in?

NICHOLAS JACOBUS JANSE VAN RENSBURG: Yes that is how we would have spoken, that the two of us would understand but the uninformed would not understand.

MR BOOYENS: What was Dirk's reaction?