Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-19

MR H DU PLESSIS: Chairperson, with respect, it's unfair to this witness to ask him to answer these questions.  You must bear in mind that when he was appointed as Commanding General of Special Forces, those people had already been appointed, he didn't even know who they were.  He knew who the Regional Manager was, in other words Staal Burger, but he didn't know that Slang van Zyl, Kalla Botha, Chappie Maree etcetera, etcetera, had been appointed and to now expect him to comment on the whys and wherefores is simply unfair, he wasn't there when they were appointed.

GEORGE BIZOS: Despite the objection I will rephrase the question, Mr Chairman.
	We know what the main function of the CCB was on the evidence, and that was to destabilise or kill or both.  Now for what other purpose, whether it was van Zyl or whether it was Burger or whether it was Britz or it was Botha or whether it was Barnard, for what purpose would any of them be monitoring any high profile enemy of the State?

EDWARD WEBB: Ask the question of those people who said that they had the orders to do the monitoring.

CHAIRPERSON: I think, General, what Mr Bizos is getting at is, we've heard from evidence given before us here, that the CCB was to perform certain operations not undertaken by the Defence Force normally, right?  I think it was when Mr van Zyl was giving evidence he said that they weren't working together with the Police.  Now if the CCB - and you are aware that they did monitor people, I mean whether it - you might not know who the individuals were, but you knew that one of the activities of the CCB was to monitor people and you knew specifically of Mr Lubowski's monitoring and I'm sure you are aware that other people were monitored, because Verster had this power to order people to be monitored.  Now if you were going to monitor somebody and find out what his movements are and now he's breaking the law - we know that the CCB wasn't monitoring people to supply information to the Police so that that person could then be arrested and charged for whatever he was doing, that wasn't the function, the monitoring of any person by the CCB was for the CCB's own information or use.  Now the question is, for what purpose would somebody be monitored by the CCB, anybody, by the CCB other than to cause that person, other than to get information with the ultimate aim of causing that persons some harm?

EDWARD WEBB: Chairperson, to gather intelligence about that person and then the decision would have to be taken at a later stage whether he was to be harmed or not.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: That's doesn't accord with the evidence of Mr van Zyl, but let us leave that aside for one moment.  You say that Verster told you that Lubowski was being monitored, why was Lubowski being monitored?

EDWARD WEBB: To see who he made contact with in South Africa.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why was he being monitored, to what end?

EDWARD WEBB: To gather information regarding his contacts.

GEORGE BIZOS: But I thought that it was said quite clearly that the CCB was not an information-gathering organisation, there was the National Intelligence, there was the Military Intelligence, there were all sorts of other people monitoring, why would the CCB be monitoring Lubowski?

EDWARD WEBB: The CCB also had a duty to gather information and intelligence for us.

GEORGE BIZOS: Special Forces had its own intelligence unit, had it not?

EDWARD WEBB: Which didn't cooperate and work with the CCB on the ground, the CCB had their own systems.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, just answer the question.  Did the Special Forces have their own information-gathering operation?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why didn't you tell Verster, "What is the CCB following Lubowski for, why didn't the Special Forces Intelligence Service do it?"?  Were you the Head of that as well?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes.  Special Forces concentrated mostly outside of the country, not internally.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why didn't you say, "But it's not their business, you are poaching onto territory under my jurisdiction under another hat"?

EDWARD WEBB: But I just told you Special Forces, their intelligence gathering was directed at outside the borders of the country, the CCB operated within the borders of the country.

GEORGE BIZOS: Information gathering, for the sake of information and not for the purposes of following it up by dealing with the people that in the opinion of one or other in the hierarchy, needed to be dealt with.

EDWARD WEBB: After the gathering of information, then at a later stage a decision was taken as to what action would be taken.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you hear that the Reverend Chikane's, Frank Chikane's clothing had been interfered with in his baggage whilst he was on his way out of South Africa?

EDWARD WEBB: I read it in the newspaper.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  Now did the CCB have contacts with Wouter Basson's facility to manufacture deadly poisons?

EDWARD WEBB: Doctor Wouter Basson was not at Special Forces Headquarters while I was there.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, the question was, did the CCB have contact with Dr Basson's poisons set-up?

EDWARD WEBB: Not to my knowledge.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Bizos, while it's still in my mind.
	Did you work a 40-hour week?

EDWARD WEBB: Well possibly more than that, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: More than that.  And you spent an hour a week with Mr Verster, was that your only contact with the CCB, or did you do other - did you involve yourself with the CCB in any way directly other than through Mr Verster?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson, only by means of Mr Verster.

CHAIRPERSON: So in other words, your involvement with the CCB - if you worked a 40-hour week, you were spending one hour with Mr Verster, is that right?

EDWARD WEBB: That's about it.

CHAIRPERSON: And the rest was ...

EDWARD WEBB: With Special Forces.

MR LAX: Just before you go on, Mr Bizos.
	You've said to us before this was an average of one hour, were there times when you saw him more than once a week?

EDWARD WEBB: No, it was about once a week, maybe for longer than an hour, but on average about once a week for an hour.

MR LAX: So this was a standard meeting in your diary that you'd have?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, I tried to make it a standard thing in my diary.

MR LAX: Unless exceptional circumstances came up?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, Chairperson.

MR LAX: And - sorry, if you'd just allow me this.  Just that meeting, did you break it up into - was it a fairly structured meeting?  Did you have a business plan for how you conducted the meeting, well there are certain decisions that need approval, certain "voorleggings" would be presented to you and so on and then you had other matters that you needed to ... standard reporting?  I mean you're a General, you're not some halfwit running some cafe, you must have structured it in a way that you could make best use of that time.

EDWARD WEBB: There was an open discussion between him and him, if there was a submission to be made he would do that, if I had any queries I directed it at them.  It was structured in that sense, but there was no, for instance, no minutes taken, no record kept of the meeting.

MR LAX: Yes, but in your head you'd say well, we've got seven districts, seven regions operating, you'd probably want a breakdown of each of the seven, you'd have a sense of what the budget was and how that was going, surely you'd ask those questions?

EDWARD WEBB: No, the budget was presented after three months.  It was approved a year in advance and during my time, after three months the budget was presented again and again after three months.  So the budget was a point for discussion all by itself and if something cropped up in that week and we had to change something, then we could do that.

CHAIRPERSON: Some very intelligent people run cafes  as well.