Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-06

MR LYSTER: 3B Officer Mbele complained that the investigation was interfered with.  He even went so far as to say that he was instructed by his superiors to release two suspects who had been found in possession of an unlicensed firearm and the one suspect, one Ephriam Buthelezi, was in fact the contact person in the township for the defensive group members who were surveying the Ntuli house.  Mbele was instructed in the presence of a senior Inkatha official to take the men to court and have the charges withdrawn and he further said that two members of his investigation team were detained under the emergency regulations without being charged, following the arrest of Ephriam Buthelezi.  I think that's a good example of how the Security Branch interfered with those investigations.  It was, incidentally, the Security Branch who carried out those detentions.  Under the heading, "Swing the conflict in the townships in his favour" and here we're jumping now to 1988 and I'm quoting from a document produced in January 1988 and it's evident from this document that Buthelezi wanted further clandestine training.  M Z Khumalo sketches problems in respect of discipline, command and control, which is not surprising since absolutely no provision was made for that.  They were in a civilian body as opposed to the police and the army and Khumalo requested two bases, one for the offensive action.  He wanted a base where he said where Marion members could plan and take such action and having a base up in the - a secret base up in the hills of Mkuze and up at Port Durnford is hardly the sort of place where you can react and protect, unless of course you're taking planned initiatives of a pre-emptive of retaliatory or retributive nature.  And according to a

MR LYSTER: /document

MR LYSTER: 3B document drawn up in February of that year, Buthelezi reportedly called for more Inkatha members to be trained in order to swing the conflict in the townships in his favour.  I move to the heading titled, "Temporarily disappearing" and here we're now jumping to August 1988 and according to a document sent from Malan's office to the Chief of Staff Intelligence and the Chief of the SADF, several matters were brought to Malan's attention by M Z Khumalo and the one I'm going to focus on deals with the need for an individual, one person, to temporarily disappear and I quote -

MR LYSTER: "Experiencing serious problems in respect of persons who must temporarily be withdrawn from communities, but liaison officers provide no assistance in this regard, and expect Khumalo on his own to formulate solutions in this regard.  Dr Buthelezi is extremely sensitive to the political embarrassment that may occur in the pre 26 October 1988 phase as a result of a person not temporarily disappearing".

MR LYSTER: Now this concern related to an Operation Marion member who was being sought by the law and who Inkatha and the Defence Force eventually took steps to conceal from the law to prevent any connection being made with such operations and their organisations.  Incidentally, the 26th of October 1988 was the date for the first nation-wide municipal elections.  Now a number of trainees have confirmed that they were concealed from police detection following the taking of offensive actions and again the

MR LYSTER: /question

MR LYSTER: 3B question to be asked is, why, if we are to believe that the project was lawful and protective, was there a need to cover up the crimes of its operatives?  The military were clearly worried and again they referred to putting into practice the aim of Marion to be self-sufficient and independent and to build in cut off points in the interests of security.  And again, this is an important point, Chairperson.  At this stage the military were beginning to get cold feet and this now a theme that runs from now on through to the rest - to the end of the story as evident in the documents, that at the end of the day they couldn't cover up and clean up every single action taken by the operatives on the ground.  Malan then requested a report dealing with the security problems to be put before him by the end of September 1988.  Buthelezi met with Chief of Staff Intelligence, Vice-Admiral Putter on the 14th of September 1988.  Again no documents were made available for this particular meeting, which is again surprising, because if one looks at the documents or the correspondence that has generated from such meetings, there are generally four, five or more memoranda that are prepared, sometimes before and after and it is likely that the security problems arising from the taking of offensive actions were discussed at this meeting and it is further likely that the idea of smaller offensive groups or cells to carry out the offensive actions was raised at this meeting and this will become evident as we look at the documents that flowed after this meeting.  Under the heading, "The disappearing:  Indemnity against prosecution:  small offensive groups", the report that Malan requested was in fact produced and it appeared in

MR LYSTER: /October

MR LYSTER: 3B October 1988 in the form of a memorandum.  In the report it confirmed that the man who had to disappear had indeed disappeared and in my view, those involved in it, who facilitated it, Malan and the military officers are implicated in the cover up of whatever crime was indeed covered up.  The carrying out of offensive actions in small offensive groups was raised as a possible solution to the security problems.  A further step was to give Inkatha the capacity to act on its own without SADF assistance and I quote a paragraph -

MR LYSTER: "Indemnity against Criminal Proceedings.  Offensive action is part of Marion's tasks.  An attempt is being made to build in cut off points to protect those involved and to train groups so that eventually they can act on their own without SADF assistance".

MR LYSTER: The document also raised the burning concern that because offensive actions were part of Marion's tasks, Chief of Staff Intelligence, a Vice Admiral and several other senior officers involved in the planning of Operation Marion may be implicated in offences carrying the death penalty.  They sought assurances behind the - behind the door assurances for protection in terms of Section 103 of the Defence Act, should they be charged with such offences.  So this document is in a sense the pinnacle of that theme that I spoke about, beginning with the realisation back in December 1985 that indemnity from prosecution was going to be required.  They were aware at that stage that unlawful actions would flow from the project and somehow those consequences would have to be

MR LYSTER: /dealt