Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-11-19

UNKNOWN: Thank you Mr Chair and Honourable Commissioners.  I have prepared myself to give whatever contribution I can make to the Commission by means of notes, and I thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I hope that what I say and in answering your questions can shed further light on the events of the day and can help people to understand and to process this event better as part of the healing process.
 I would like to start off by saying there's a number of things that I feel sorry about and I want to apologise and ask forgiveness and I would like the people to tolerate me although the terms Military intelligence is not always something that is very popular. 
 I want to say sorry because with hindsight and looking back at the incident from a distance and from the whole period in the Ciskei I can say yes, I understand and I agree that I was part of an illegitimate regime.  I feel that the knowledge that we gained in the integration process in the Defence Force and since the elections a lot of our perceptions and our perspectives about life and about other human beings changed. 
 I can never know exactly how those people who lost loved ones in the process and who are sitting here who were injured in the process of that 7th of September incident, how they feel, but I want to say to them I am sorry if I contributed in any way to that incident.  I am a parent myself and I can imagine how it must feel to lose a child.  It must be an emotional situation and it's easy to hate and therefore I ask if we want to reach reconciliation, forgive me.
 Although I don't regard myself as a role player directly involved on the day of the events I cannot distance myself from it.  I was a member of the Ciskei Defence Force at that stage.  I felt part of that specific grouping and therefore I can understand the horrible pain and suffering that was the direct cause of the Ciskei Defence Force action on those days, on that day specifically.
 I visited the scene a few times afterwards and that picture comes back to mind and it will take a long time for myself to process it, but even longer for those people who suffered on the receiving end.  And I believe that this incident can only be put behind us if effective measures are taken to look at the plight of the victims, because if the victims are reminded every day of their suffering and of that incident by their suffering they will never process this incident.  In one way or another, be it financial, emotional or other help the people must be assisted, the victims on that day must be assisted to process that incident.
 I would like to elaborate a little bit more on my own role as a member of the Ciskei Military Intelligence on that day, prior events to that, I was present on the 4th of August during the first march at the roadblock where the security forces were pushed back and I spoke to people like Chris Hani personally, he spoke to us.  I spoke to his bodyguard and there was a lot of interaction between the crowd and the people.  It was an interesting incident.  I personally felt that the crowd wasn't going to stop on the 4th of August.  If they wanted to continue to Bisho they could have.  But through shuttle diplomacy and negotiations from the National Peace Committee members and the people involved on the ground that situation was resolved.  
 When the march of 7th of September was announced I had that picture in my mind as a frame of reference to judge according to that what can be expected on the 7th of September.  There were a lot of other rumours, information coming from all quarters that on the 7th of September the people will not accept to go to the stadium only, they wanted to go to Bisho.  That was the aim of the march and that's how it was passed on from the Intelligence community by my head, Mr Swanepoel, to the State Security Council and whatever forums he attended during the planning sessions.  I am aware of a number of planning sessions that did take place and I can say no real information came to light, and the framework of the 4th of August was more-or-less used as a frame of reference for what can be expected on the 7th of September.
 On the day of the incident we have deployed our intelligence personnel all over Ciskei because of other information that incidents might occur at other places and not specifically concentrated at the march.  The march situation was under the control of so many security forces that we deployed our intelligence personnel in Mdantsane and up to the (...indistinct) district, all over Ciskei to give feedback of the situation out there.  Learning from the experience of the 4th of March when Brigadier Gqozo took over, in the event of an announcement that Bisho was taken over there could have been a possible spill over and people becoming so jubilant that they in fact break the law.
 On the day of the march I accompanied Mr Swanepoel.  We visited various places around the deployment of the forces.  I was present at the roadblock where the razor wire was erected at that stage.  It was on the recommendations that they should erect razor wire because of the 4th of August march there were no effective measures taken by the police to be able to tell this crowd you can come up to here and no further.  They couldn't exercise control.  
 When the crowd approached, when they came into the distance where we could see and hear them myself and Mr Swanepoel went to the Parliament buildings where we were earlier that day as well, where the operational room was situated, and there was a clear - from the roof of the Parliament buildings you could oversee the whole event.  I went up onto the roof of the Parliament buildings where Admiral Bekker and Brigadier "Mees" Muller and a number of other people were there, and we observed the situation as the march proceeded up to the place where it was stopped by the police and diverted into the stadium.  We could clearly see the extent of the crowd.  It was quite a large group.  It's the largest group of people, I wonder if one can fit them into Ellis Park or one of those big stadiums.  People have come up with figures of 18,000 and 25,000, I calculated much more, in the vicinity of 50,000 plus.  
 It was quite, from a soldier's point of view, an intimidating sight.  My impressions were the forces on the ground were totally inadequate, specifically the police who were deployed on the road and if that crowd became out of control and the crowd broke up into smaller groups there was no way that anybody was going to control that situation with the levels of forces available.  
 A group was clearly breaking away, we could see that from the top of the Parliament buildings, going through what is generally referred to now as the gap in the fence.  We could see that from the Parliament buildings.  Shortly after that chaos broke out in the control room downstairs, it was one level down from us, but we could hear people shouting.  I personally went down and people were shouting that they are shooting at us and a command to fire was given.  I was rushing up the stairs when the shooting started to see what's happening and when I got to the roof it was a terrible sight.  People were lying all over the place.  My immediate estimation was thousands of people dead.  It was shocking to say the least.  Then there was a lull in fire and then it started again.  I couldn't understand why, but the operational people were in charge of the situation and I had trust in them that they would take the right decisions.  
 Shortly afterwards, I don't know how long the shooting lasted, it was bursts of fire, my impression was it was one burst of fire and as if people changed magazines or received another command and they started firing again.  But it was like a domino effect.  It came from the side where the group broke away and then all around where troops were deployed the shooting started like a chain effect, and then it died down and the same thing started again, single shots and then a total volley of fire I think by everybody deployed.
 Afterwards I was relieved to see many of those lying down were in fact standing up and that the terrain shielded them from direct fire.  But many people were lying in various places, I presume injured or dead.  We went down and we got into the vehicle with Mr Swanepoel and we were shocked, we were surprised, we couldn't believe that this happened.  I can remember saying to him, this is history that our children will learn about one day.  
 Then we went down to where the roadblock was to see exactly what happened, how people were killed, there were rumours about shooting at own forces, were that in fact true,  the police from the South African Police side, and the Ciskei Police side there was quite a high level delegation at that stage.  There were people with high ranks.  There was a general from the South African Police, General Viktor was there, General Ulshig and others and they immediately started with the investigation.
 That is what I can say about the events of the day until I went home that evening.
 I want to say a few things about my impressions of the incident.  There were a number of mistakes made, with hindsight one can always criticise and say a lot of things, but I know that the inputs from the Intelligence community and from the Allied Intelligence Centre, the Allied Operational Centre that was in place at that stage to the politicians, to the Ciskei authorities was to find a political solution.  There is no way that we are going to be able to solve this problem with military means.  And then Ciskei Police take up your responsibility, this is internal situation, crowd control is a police responsibility, the defence force should not be employed in this role, it is not a defence task to use minimum force.
 The fact that a political settlement could not be reached and the fact that the defence force and the police had to wait until that morning to get clarification of what was agreed upon to finalise their planning asked for crisis management.  I was personally disappointed in the role played by the Ciskei Police in this whole affair, and not to divert any blame in that direction.  If I can remember correctly the only police people present were about, estimated, 50, 60, 70 policemen deployed on the road.  Now if anybody thought that 60 or 80, how many there were I don't know, policemen can control a crowd of that magnitude has surely underestimated the movement of the crowd on that day.  
 The use of minimum force weapons are normally there with the police and the riot unit, so even the gap in the fence, if protection of the perimeter of the gathering that was supposed to take place in the stadium was supposed to take place that should have been the police responsibility.  The military should always be far away to handle only extreme crisis situation where you need to take it one step further.  
 There was a situation of panic amongst the soldiers.  Until this day I cannot say whether there were in facts shots fired at the soldiers, or at a soldier, but I think panic created that situation from their side even if they were shot at or not shot at, to get themselves out of a situation where either they had to run away or maybe had to be disarmed and overrun by the crowd.   
 What I believe is the spark of these events with the crowd breaking out did create that panic from the soldiers.  We believed that the crowd would either push through on the main road, but according to the information that I had at that stage is that they would not divert through the stadium, and then definitely what went wrong on that day is orders that were given through either no in detail or were not correctly received on the bottom to fire, and when to stop fire.  The domino effect that I - the chain effect that I spoke about earlier I cannot say that that resulted directly from a command, but whether there was justification for everybody to shoot is a very serious question of doubt in my mind.
 Looking at the road ahead I feel there can be no reconciliation before the plight of the victims is not properly addressed.  Their suffering will always remind them of the day and if anything can be done to relieve the suffering then I can't expect anybody to forget but the forgiveness can be better.
 I ask for tolerance even if there are political differences and let us build a true democracy.  It's nice to be part of the National Defence Force where you feel legitimate and professional.  I think things happening at 
EAST LONDON HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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this stage is definitely moving in the absolute right direction.  Thank you Mr Chairman.