Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-11

LOTHAR NEETHLING: The reason is because we're the only country in the world which has such good access to mandrax via our Indian connection, yes.

MR VALLY: I see.

LOTHAR NEETHLING: All the illegal laboratories in India are responsible for the wonderful provision of methaqualone in any form whatsoever to the Republic of South Africa.

MR VALLY: Yet you were prepared to release between    100 000 and 200 00 mandrax tablets put into the boot of Dr Basson's car, personally under your supervision ...(intervention)

LOTHAR NEETHLING: At three instances, not 200 000 at a time, at three various stages, just make sure of your facts, it's 70 000 per time approximately, 3 X 70 is about 200 000.  I was satisfied to put it in the boot of his car because I knew he's a responsible physician who would do with it what we expected, that is, put them in grenades and burn it, and also to make derivatives from that.  He had a team of scientists, I knew some of them ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Let me repeat my question, mandrax abuse is a massive social problem,

LOTHAR NEETHLING: That's right.

MR VALLY: You got to know Dr Basson better at the conference in Belgium in 1984, you didn't really know him that well, you are pseudo Policeman,

LOTHAR NEETHLING: Yes.

MR VALLY: The very fact that you were getting such large quantities of mandrax and the fact that you were providing certificates on a regular basis for people being charge or prosecuted and convicted in court, involving mandrax, you are probably aware of papers written on drug abuse in South Africa,

LOTHAR NEETHLING: Yes.

MR VALLY: You're aware of the extent of the drug abuse in South Africa?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: Yes.

MR VALLY: But as this pseudo Policeman, a Major-General,

LOTHAR NEETHLING: Yes.

MR VALLY: You put, or arranged for 200 000 mandrax on three different occasions, altogether 200 000 tablets, without concerning yourself about the security risk, about the fact that it may get onto the streets, that it may be abused, that it may be re-sold.

LOTHAR NEETHLING: That is absolutely correct.  I have no doubt that these things will be channelled in the correct channels, because there were other people who participated in this project, there were other people who isolated this methaqualone and tried to make derivatives of that and they tried to get it into the air with grenades.  What I saw myself, it didn't work.

MR VALLY: I will come back to that in a short while.  So, you simply did not concern yourself with that?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: General, did Dr Basson give you a receipt?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: No.  It was at three instances, at three occasions apart from the dagga, and I did not request a receipt, not for any of those three transactions, not for one of those.  I can't remember that I ever saw a receipt.  I never requested one.  What you have to understand, Mr Chairman, an instruction was given to me, your facility in the South African Police from the Minister to the responsible person, and he said we will try to exercise riot control or crowd control better, assist those people, we can't import that, it is too expensive, it is prohibited.  If you buy those chemicals red flags will be seen worldwide because they're monitoring this, and they know that somebody is doing something, that is how they obtain their information to combat the drug problem worldwide, and I didn't have the least doubt that this was a bona fide operation, and after, what I really have to say, it was, because you won't spend hundreds of thousands to establish a laboratory, and that just to sell a few mandrax tablets.

UNKNOWN: Wait, wait, what was the idea with the dagga?  Was the idea that they extract the oil to see whether it could be used and then to get more and more oil?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: No, to use that oil and put it in a grenade, like an ordinary grenade, instead of teargas, you could add teargas to the dagga oil.  We know the people all become hooked where people are smoking dagga.  When you can get this dagga into a person, you will take away his desire to fight, quickly, and then we would have clapped our hands.

UNKNOWN: Now you'll find out that this dagga is going to work.  What would they have done, planted dagga countrywide?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: Yes, they would reaped the dagga and they would put those in grenades all the time.

UNKNOWN: And all the mealie fields in the Free State would be converted into dagga fields?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: No, there's enough in KwaZulu Natal.

UNKNOWN: So Le Grange and his people would have planted dagga?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: There would have been enough because to know that there's another substance apart from teargas which could take his desire for riots out of his life, and dagga is one of the things we know which will work.  We know it works, a person is aggressive, he smokes dagga, then he goes and sits in a corner, and he has peace with himself.

UNKNOWN: You weren't shocked that these three drug depending substances ...(intervention)

LOTHAR NEETHLING: To use those  drug dependency substances means everyday people must use it, but if you throw a grenade in Church Street because there is a process march, and they want to break the shops down, and this person isn't going to smoke the dagga again tomorrow, it will only be the dagga bomb today.  If somebody cause problems, and if you can throw the dagga, this is a philosophy that we said is was like that, and if you give enough, you will force somebody to get to the water like a horse, and they wouldn't do anything else, and then we would have given them dagga and say smoke it, and then it never would have been necessary to use a weapon, and I would have shout Hallelujah.

CHAIRPERSON: Except only if the dagga was a means to an end, the end being to arrest people at the end of the day.  Mrs Sooka?

YASMINE SOOKA: General, I have a question, you talked about "hulle" and I assume the hulle was your opposition,

LOTHAR NEETHLING: The riot crowds, the crowds like in Uitenhage and they start protesting and we are frightened, what do I have to do, I don't want to shoot, I don't want to use my Casspir, I don't want to go in there and kill the people, what can I do?  I can try to use water canons like they did in Cape Town, it works wonderfully.  It works in Germany, one of the most civilised countries in the world, but also teargas, it works in America.  In America they use this, but they don't tell us that.  When there are problems, quickly the crowds are being controlled with teargas and they walk away like lambs.

YASMINE SOOKA: I'm quite ignorant about chemical matters, and surely if you were shooting this stuff off, it would create dependency in the population?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: No, no, not at all.  To be dependant on dagga or to be dependant on methaqualone, it costs you a reasonable time of constant consuming, you don't expect that any person like a professional riot person, there are no such persons.

YASMINE SOOKA: Can I ask you a question, did you ever check with Mr Basson on whether he ever produced this gas and that it actually ended up where it was supposed to, not on the streets?

LOTHAR NEETHLING: I myself saw those grenades, and they didn't work.  There was machinery being tested, special machinery being tested to ignite and combust those substances to determine the gas components,

YASMINE SOOKA: You see, I just find it very strange that in a country where we have such an incredible problem with mandrax that you were content to allow such a huge amount to go off into somebody's possession where you retained very little checking at all.