Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-07

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: No, I think on the question of repossession units or, code named beauty salon, I think somewhere it is indicated that the commander of the Repossession Unit was Comrade Thabla Maseko.  He is currently held at Johannesburg Prison.  So, I think, together with his colleagues, his immediate juniors, he can provide a lot of information regarding the statistics about the repossession missions, but, still, it boils down to the question of documents, because here we should not sidestep the issue of documents, because those documents were the property of the PAC, of Apla, and for the South African Police to take them and confiscate them, I think they did that with evil motives and, of course, it would go a long way in helping us, but a mechanism can be worked out whereby the Commander of the Repossession Unit can provide the whole list of repossession missions, not armed robberies.  Thank you.

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: I think to further explain this, maybe what we want is the context or the conceptual approach or understanding. We were supported by the international world, we were supported by the OAU and, in particular, we were supported by the Liberation Committee, the sub-organ of the Organisation of African Unity in terms of the material, in terms of the resources to conduct armed struggle against the then settler, colonial regime, but the resources were not always adequate, they were not always enough so we had to compensate and augment that by repossessing, as we referred there, that actually that is ours.  We considered the material wealth of this country as belonging to the indigenous African people.  I will make use of the language that we use to make use of earlier on so that I am not misunderstood.
 So, it is along such lines, with that understanding, that we had to order, we had to instruct the units that they conduct repossession mission.  Be it in terms of the weapons, be it in terms of the money, whatever, etcetera, as long as that will help the struggle.  That was the understanding and this is not a new phenomenon in the history of mankind.  If you take countries like China, for instance, if you look at the Chinese Liberation Army against the Komitang, they were so highly self reliant that they did not rely upon the outside world, because they repossessed, they actually expropriated from their enemies.  I can make examples on and on and on, but this was part of the revolutionary methods of enhancing our capacity to destroy the regime.  So, I think that is that.
 In terms of tabulating, I do not think it is possible, because they were throughout the country and, of course, they, it will be indicated by the applications and the applicants that are coming forward, because I must emphasise that, because if, for instance, you take an individual with a pistol or with a rifle from Dar-es-Salaam or from wherever, with two magazines, after three days or so the ammunition is exhausted so he must repossess it from the then enemy. The money was given, will be exhausted at a particular time, etcetera.  So, that was the understanding as to, as a guerrilla how to survive behind the enemy lines.  So, this is, this tallies with our military line of, as Azanian Peoples' Liberation Army and, of course, we take responsibility in that direction, as a high command, for those comrades who repossessed what belongs, basically, to the African people.
 So, basically, that was the thrust and that was how the things were, but as to the lists, it is not possible and I expect thousands, because this was the peoples' war, it involved, then, 30 million people, African people, where everybody can take part and contribute in whatever way and we expect more and more of our colleagues to apply for such activities, to comply with the Act that brought us here today.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ilan Lax.

MR LAX: Thank you Chairperson.  Just a question in terms of following up on this issue of repossession.  Is the Apla high command saying that all such operations were repossessions or were there instances where, clearly, either your members or people purporting to be your members conducted repossession operations and just kept the loot for themselves and did not, actually, use it or appropriate it for the purposes of Apla?  There must, clearly, have been some people who went on missions of their own.  There is allusion to that by some of, by some writings by some of your members.  I think one is in the panel here today and, perhaps, you could comment on that.

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: Chairman, Comrade Leklapa had already explained the existence of a special unit for this purpose.  It does not mean, therefore, that this special unit was only formed quite recently.  There may have been some cases before the formation of this unit where members of the Azanian Peoples' Liberation Army as fighting units, not as special expropriation units, may have conducted these for the purpose of survival.  So, it would be easy to judge, therefore, whether these were mere criminal activities by one, these activities would have been conducted by members of the Azanian Peoples' Liberation Army.  Those are the forces.
 Two, it became important, therefore, that this, the purpose of expropriating what would not have been for self-enrichment, but the principle here, in fact, the order was that whenever such loot was received it had to be handed over to the commander.  Thank you.

MR LAX: Just a follow-up question, to help the answer, possibly.  How would you know the difference, how would you know, for example, that your members had not, had overstepped the mark and what, how would you be able to do something about that?

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: May I take that up.  I think we are reasonable people and we are dealing with a realistic and reasonable situation.  I think the answers that have come from the members of the high command, one was that there was a special commander who commanded that unit and, I think, Brigadier Mofokeng did say that, well, perhaps, it is not easy, because these were all over, but the fact of the matter is that we, the high command is not covering everybody that attacked and took things and used the name of Apla and PAC.  The commanders will know them and those people will account to the commander or will account to Apla, but I do not think Apla says we are making a blanket demand that everybody who says or everybody.
 I think they will know, they will be able to verify that this was in the programme.  That one we do not know that person.  I mean these are reasonable people that we are dealing with, human beings.