Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-10-02

FERDINAND BARNARD: Sir, that was because I was treated in a unique way, I was employed for this type of work.  People recruited me right from the beginning to kill people.  The establishment of an information network was not the issue, they employed me to kill people and I accept that they used me as a hitman to do that kind of work.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: Whilst we are dealing with the DCC, how did your benefits differ from the benefits you were getting from the CCB?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I received a basic salary, I had hundred percent medical coverage.  I was not provided with a vehicle because I had a vehicle.  What happened was that the system that I built up snowballed so quickly that the operational costs grew a lot and when I was appointed as a chief agent I received an increase in salary and even my Colonel who handled me at that stage, it astonished him that I got so much money.  And this came from Witkop Badenhorst himself, because they increased my salary with approximately R3 000 a month, but that's how it went.

GEORGE BIZOS: What was Mr Badenhorst's position at the time?  Was he a General?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, he was a General, he was Head of the Military Intelligence and somebody in a very powerful position.  If he spoke people jumped.

GEORGE BIZOS: He didn't pay you his own money?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I beg your pardon?

GEORGE BIZOS: He didn't pay you his own money?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, it was Defence Force money.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did anyone ever ask you to return the car that you had bought with the R30 000 that was given to you by the CCB, whilst you were on DCC business?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, Sir.  At the end of the day I traded that vehicle in and bought a new one.  Nobody ever asked me for it back.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you have a credit card?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, Sir.

GEORGE BIZOS: Were there others that had a credit card?

FERDINAND BARNARD: At DCC they did work with credit cards left right and centre, but I myself did not work with it.  They received specific cards that were issued to people.  Some of them, I got the impression that they were limitless, the credit on them that is.

GEORGE BIZOS: Were you with people on DCC where cards were used?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes.  Mr Geoff Price, another Frans, Rieg Verster, they all used the cards.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  Did you know that the discovery of the DCC came about as a result of the use of the credit card by the Goldstone Commission's investigators in Pietermaritzburg?  Were you involved in any way in Pietermaritzburg?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Sir, Mr Eugene Riley, the former member of the Narcotics Unit in Johannesburg, I recruited him.  He was appointed on a trial basis and later he was appointed on a permanent basis as an agent.  He resorted under me but he had his own establishment, his own financial structure, etcetera, and from that there was certain information concerning weapons from a Mozambique citizen.  It was either the ANC or MK, I'm not quite sure, that they stored these weapons in Natal.  An excursion was arranged where Eugene Riley and his informant and also Frans, a senior member from DCC, and various other people then came to Pietermaritzburg to work on that information.

GEORGE BIZOS: Is that what led to the appointment of the Steyn Commission and the forced resignation of the 23 Generals?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I assume so, yes, because there was a raid on the ARAQ offices, which would then be the Head Office of the DCC, they found a document that I wrote and that whole document is a dirty tricks document concerning the framing of MK into criminal situations or circumstances, and you can dirty somebody's hands by planting something at a specific place or framing them, and because of that Judge Goldstone made a press release which enjoyed international coverage and I agreed to a press interview where I denied everything on behalf of the Defence Force.  I asked my Advocate concerning that document, because it would support my evidence here.  I attempted to get hold of that document where I gave the layout of the dirty tricks department, what plans we had, but I could not get hold of it.  It would have supported me in what I'm saying now.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did your activities cease after the resignation of the 23 Generals?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes approximately the same time, maybe a bit before that, but it's around that time.

GEORGE BIZOS: There's one other I want to ask you.  Were there askaris used in the DCC operations?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, Sir, there were askaris used.  There was close co-operation between DCC and Mr Eugene de Kock them at Vlakplaas.  Myself and Mr Eugene de Kock were personal friends, we interacted on a social basis and at a certain stage when Vlakplaas was down-scaling and they worked on the political aspects.   Mr de Kock knew things were changing and he came to me with his askaris and his top operators and he offered them to me and I then took them in.  Mr Henry van der Westhuizen who also used agents, he was the specialist in the ANC, the Anti-propaganda Unit, but we did not recruit askaris ourselves as Vlakplaas did it, we got them in other places but there were some who worked with us, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now were these askaris used in order to disrupt the election process?

FERDINAND BARNARD: The election process in '94?  I heard about it ...(intervention)

GEORGE BIZOS: Or the period leading up to it.

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes Sir, I was involved in it myself.

GEORGE BIZOS: Please tell us about that and on whose orders you did that.

FERDINAND BARNARD: What happened was that we took askaris and I recruit criminal elements, like from Soweto/Eldorado Park, Ennerdale, etcetera.  I recruited criminal elements to disrupt mass actions and marches, I recruited them to commit criminal offences.  If they participated in these marches, then the government or the Defence Force would then give it a lot of media coverage.  They would run down a street, damage vehicles, break shop windows.  I personally paid these criminal elements.
	Maybe you can recall that there were such allegations in the media and on television that the ANC held a march and people ran down the streets and people robbed shops and people were injured, and I paid those, half before and half afterwards.  I think in two of those incidents, as I just explained it to you, we decided to stage a false one and this was done to strengthen the Defence Force hand in terms of actions in the Coloured areas, concerning roadblocks, house to house searches, etcetera.  Then we entered false information into the system, it was given to the media, in that we received information that, for example members of the ANC who were involved in these marches will hijack white women, take them to black areas to rape them.  We'd already built up a background with regards to the criminal elements in these marches.  
	And then you'd recall that it was given a lot of media coverage, helicopters were used, an operational office was set up and manned by a General, they held roadblocks, the did block searches, house to house searches because of this, and it was all a campaign against the ANC.  It was just before the elections.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, when it's convenient, when you get to the end of a theme we'll take the short tea adjournment.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) the askaris.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now you and Mr de Kock had access to AK47s, did you not?

FERDINAND BARNARD: That's correct, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: And were these AK47s given to the various askaris that you had recruited?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, when I took over some of the askaris from Mr de Kock, specially two of them who had AK47s, I did not take it off them but I did not hand it out, but if they'd asked me I would have given one.