Amnesty Hearings — Benoni — 1997-06-23

UNKNOWN: General all four of the previous Commissioners of Police would make this claim.  They claim that eventually it was no longer clear, if I understand this paragraph correctly, that eventually it was no longer clear what was allowed and what was not allowed; what was legal and what was not legal.  For the ordinary police officer it was no longer possible to determine where the limits were between these things.  Are you saying that that is not the case?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Chair I am not impressed by the fact that these four previous Commissioners are now thrown at me.  I served under all four of them.  I am not saying that this is nonsense.  You are referring to the ordinary police officer, what the ordinary police officer understood.  I am saying that this has no bearing on me as a person.

UNKNOWN: They continue on page 10, paragraph 29 to say,
"A grey area was to develop in which all parties became more and more desperate and various political leaders on both sides of the political spectrum exerted their forces to greater heights and pressurised them to achieve further successes in carrying out their respective tasks".

CHAIRPERSON: I think you must understand now there's a - you have a reaction from this witness who has been listening to these statements that you have been reading out to him and you are inviting his comment, where does that get you?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman if you will just bear with me, please.

CHAIRPERSON: Because I think that we have got to bring this to an end otherwise it's going to carry on ad infinitum.

UNKNOWN: Well Mr Chairman the evidence that this witness gave, as I understood some of the evidence that he gave Mr Chairman, was that there was no question at all that any orders to act illegitimately were given or could have been given at that time.  Now that contradicts what the Generals say and I just want to clear up exactly where does he differ from the Generals Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Now he's told you the limits of what he knows and what he said at that meeting and which was then conveyed telephonically.  Now that's the limit of what he says and how far can you push?

UNKNOWN: Alright Mr Chairman ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

UNKNOWN: Yes, thank you Mr Chairman, I will then end this line with the following question ...(intervention)

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Sorry Mr du Plessis before you leave that point, I hear your response but I think the way I understand the question put by Mr du Plessis, he's inviting you as an experienced policeman, you had been in the police force since 1947 until 1989 when you retired ...(intervention)

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: I spent another two years in Ciskei Sir.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Yes.  And he is inviting you to express your own personal opinion with regard to the assessment of the situation, whether your personal assessment of the situation accords with that one which has been made by the other Generals, I think you could be in a position to do that actually.

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Chair as I understand it that is how the Generals saw the situation.  I would agree that indeed there had been tremendous pressure, there was a great deal of chaos, it is the case that innocent persons became involved in these matters, but I do believe, Chair, that it's not possible for me to speculate.  If the Commissioner or General van der Merwe says what the ordinary police officer might have thought I cannot speculate on what the ordinary police officer might have thought.

UNKNOWN: But you see General there's more involved here.  What is involved here is that General van der Merwe, amongst others, gives testimony with regard to a particular incident where instructions were given by Minister Le Grange that there had to be use of Zero handgrenades, it's a handgrenade set at the Zero setting so that the moment that you draw the pin it explodes, and that these handgrenades were to be given to persons, persons who had the intention to attack the homes of police officers with these handgrenades which led to these people being blown up by the handgrenades the moment they drew the pins.  He has given testimony that he himself gave that instruction, that he received the instruction from Minister Le Grange.
	Here we have a particular incident where the actions went beyond the normal legal legitimate action which police officers were allowed to carry out.  This occurred illegally and General van der Merwe gave testimony with regard to this.  He also gave testimony with regards to Khotso House, where Khotso House was attacked with a bomb which was also an illegitimate and illegal action.  All that I am asking you is whether you bore any knowledge of, for instance, the Zero handgrenade incident?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: No Chair I bore no knowledge of this incident.

UNKNOWN: If General van der Merwe, and the other Commissioners who drafted this document with him, if they gave testimony with regard to such illegal actions, would you deny that these actions were illegal?  I've told you what I'm referring to already.

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Yes these would have been illegal actions.
I have said in terms of our law this would have been illegal actions.

UNKNOWN: You have also given testimony that when you gave the instruction, or rather in your statement when you spoke to Captain Hechter and to your son and to Captain van Jaarsveld, and your testimony is that you said the following,
"If you know who these persons are who are responsible intimidate them back, chase them day and night.  They must have no opportunity to continue with intimidation.  They must know that they are being hunted down".
What exactly should they have done?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Exactly what I said there.  If you chase a person day and night Chair then this person would have no opportunity to continue with intimidations and with attacks on the homes of police officers.

UNKNOWN: But General then how do you chase them, should you arrest them?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: If you can catch him you must arrest him, but you must make it difficult for him to continue with his actions.  You should go around to his people, his friends, his family, his sympathisers, you must look for him and which you are allowed to do, and he must know you are tracking him down.

UNKNOWN: So all that you intended ...(intervention)

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Sorry, sorry in that case there's nothing new that you would have been suggesting.  They would have known that if you find somebody doing that you arrest them.  Surely you are not suggesting anything new?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: This is indeed nothing new Chair.  But you know you can sort of look for someone, for a suspect, but when you spend 100% of your time on a limited number of people, as I have said to chase them day and night, this may perhaps not be anything new, this statement, but as someone who has some experience and if an experienced person says to the young person try this, chase him.

ADV DE JAGER: If you continue chasing him sometime or other you will have to catch him.  Now you arrest him, you bring him before the Court and people complained that no one wants to bring testimony, there's intimidation, they can't prosecute the person, that's what they complained to you about, they were not able to prosecute successfully.  They asked you, they thought that they would get assistance from you with regard to how they should handle this problem.

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: Chair what then is the question.

ADV DE JAGER: The question is, what might you have been able to do?  We all know they could have arrested them, but what apart from arresting could they have done?

JOHANNES JACOBUS VIKTOR: There wasn't very much more they could do during that time Chair.  You had to keep the person moving.