Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

ADRIAAN VLOK: Chairperson, let me point out firstly that Mr Goosen has now said that I admitted that I was negligent and that I never had the intention to allow certain things.  I want to say that, as I have explained it in my submission yesterday, I didn't have the intention to say that I was negligent, I said I didn't know, and the words used there, those words, I did not think would cause problems later on.  I just want to rectify that so there will be no misunderstanding.
 Then as far as the surrogate forces are concerned, I want to say that if I read paragraph G and I look at what Mr Goosen has read from my submission to the Committee then in respect of the potential for friction between the ANC and other similar organisations such as the PAC, AZAPO and any form of factionalism and the battle for leadership to exploit this for own benefit and gain that doesn't mean that in respect of any of those factions, whether it was the PAC or the ANC or AZAPO that we would have supported them to do that.  
 And you know that there was a struggle, there was a battle in the Eastern Cape, there were great differences between members of the PAC and members of the ANC.  On one occasion I attended a meeting there where there was unrest and trouble between the supporters of the two different parties and we actually had to pull the two different groups apart.  They were very, very angry.  So by that I didn't mean to say that we were supporting one of these factions in this regard.
 And then as far as the further aspect is concerned, in respect of the establishment or development of black moderate groupings, parties and individuals which can act as a counterfoil to the ANC, now these are political groupings, these aren't surrogate forces which we tried to establish or promote to act as a counter to the ANC.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.  Can I refer you then to another document which was also sent to you.  I will try to identify it, I don't know which annexure it's turned out to be, the document is headed South African Defence Force input - guidelines for the revolutionary warfare.  It has attached to it in landscape format a number of different columns with summaries of various strategies.

MR VISSER: It appears to be G.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.  Can I refer you to the fourth page under Objectives 3.
"Mobilise, organise and motivate those masses who are well disposed towards us to counter the revolutionaries in their actions".
Do you have that?  You have that.  That's the main "objective" which is set out there.
"Organise, motivate to actively oppose sub-objective
(a) moderate blacks must be assisted to organise themselves politically in support of an evolutionary development in the active combatting of revolutionaries.
 (b) counter-revolutionary organisations must be developed on ethnic lines in order to prevent the political vacuum being exploited by the radicals to establish their own organisation.
 (c) the politicisation of the school-going youth, especially the black youth, must be countered and opposed, inter alia by supporting conservative youth organisations and establishing such organisations and to launch a youth development programme".
 And then (e) over the page -
"Black parents must be organised and supported to promote parental authority and to oppose, in a fearless manner, the radicals and revolutionaries and;
 (f) community organisations must, where necessary, be established for all sections of the community and population and the society must be encouraged to become involved in community activities".
 Could you comment, and given your previous answer on those policy proposals which were submitted through to the Security Council, considered by them as part of an input into the development of a strategy, counter-revolutionary strategy?

ADRIAAN VLOK: I would like to say immediately that if I look at some of these points read to me by Mr Goosen, such as for instance (e) where black parents must be organised and supported and that community organisations must, where necessary, be established for all population groups, that sounds to me as if it forms part of the plan of the current government to mobilise parents to help children.  But that is just in passing.
 Once again I want to emphasise that the emphasis in this guideline or objectives was once again the political organisation of these people and for that we used Stratcom actions to mobilise them, and to encourage them to, as a community and as parents, to become involved in the education of their children.  As far as I was concerned it did not relate to the establishment of any so-called surrogate forces.

MR GOOSEN: Mr Vlok can I ask you why it would be necessary in respect of some of these that they needed to be done covertly?  Secondly, why would it be necessary to mobilise on an ethnic basis, specifically?

ADRIAAN VLOK: Mobilisation on an ethnic basis you will remember was the policy of the day.  It was ethnically organised, schools were ethnically organised, the communities lived according to ethnic patterns and that was the policy of separate development or apartheid which applied during those days, and that's why it was done on this basis.
 Secondly, why it had to be done covertly is because if parents became aware that the authorities became actively involved in the organising of these organisations, of these organisations as we have now referred to, then it just would never actually take place.  It wouldn't be successful.  So to achieve success it was essential that it be done in a covert way.

MR GOOSEN: Is it not so that ...(intervention)

ADRIAAN VLOK: I said overt, I meant covert.

MR GOOSEN: Is it not so Mr Vlok that contra-mobilisation in all its components is a critical component of counter-revolutionary strategy and that that strategy was in fact employed by the State Security Council?

ADRIAAN VLOK: Mass mobilisation, counter-mobilisation that forms part of a counter-revolutionary strategy, but what does it actually mean.  It doesn't mean to establish certain forces, it means to organise the community politically speaking and that is what we are trying to do and to apply.  It had no other meaning.

MR GOOSEN: And is it not so that that political organisation based in communities, assisted covertly by State departments, State structures, that that was based primarily on tensions existing, either between organisations or within communities, is that not correct?

ADRIAAN VLOK: I am not following your question exactly where you referred to these political organisations which we established, whether they exploited it.  I am not quite sure what you have in mind.  Would you please clarify it.

MR GOOSEN: The capacity to organise and establish an organisation in any one particular community would depend, would you not agree, on the exploiting of existing tensions such as there may have been in that community, would that be correct?

ADRIAAN VLOK: Yes a political party uses the existing differences, differences between people and ideologies and views within a community, so that the political parties which we tried to establish they would have exploited the differences in policy, they would have used that.

MR GOOSEN: Would you just give me briefly before I move on to some specific instances what you would define as a political organisation in the circumstances that would then enjoy support as part of the strategy?

ADRIAAN VLOK: A political party in the normal acceptable sense of the term political party which has a certain policy and canvasses members and gains support for its political policy.

MR GOOSEN: Could you give a concrete example of that?

ADRIAAN VLOK: I can't think of any political party which we established and which was successful ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: But were there so many that you tried to establish?