Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-19

MS POSWA: The information, you stated here on page 3, paragraph (a), seems to me to be one where there is a broader picture, a broader perspective of the whole reason for the existence of the operation and I, you should correct me if I'm wrong, but I certainly believe that an operation of such high sensitivity would not have, Mr Ndaba being so junior in the whole operation, would not have had so much information on him.  He would not have known as much as you have stated here.

H J P BOTHA: On the contrary, what I mention here is the minimum.

MS POSWA: So there is much more?

H J P BOTHA: In terms of what his real function was as it later became known in the documentation, yes.

MS POSWA: Now Mr ... unless I don't understand what you're saying in paragraph 8 and I said earlier Mr Chairman, I haven't had occasion to really read and digest this as it's coming to me in this Afrikaans, this new version, now the verse to me seems to summarise and give a broader perspective of the whole operation.  This to me is a summary of one of these publications we received from, by some professor in Canada.  It seems to me to summarise the whole object of the operation and the strategies and everything and I was just wondering whether you hadn't meant to put this in hear.

CHAIRPERSON: You're talking about now, for the time being, paragraph 8?

MS POSWA: yes, yes Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: It's been suggested that what's set down in paragraph 8, is something which you have collected or gathered from articles, written articles about Operation Vula.

H J P BOTHA: No, this is what I could recollect and I tried to place everything in the context in terms of the amount of information received and what appears in paragraph 8 is information which was given to me by him and if that in a nutshell, describes Operation Vula, then that is a precise confirmation of that which later became clear by means of the documentation.

MR LAX: You see, Mr Botha, that's precisely the point that counsel is putting to you.  What she's saying to you is this, if I could reframe it for her.  She's saying that, if one looks at paragraph 8 and you've confirmed that what is contained in paragraph 8 is in essence what you got from him in those first meetings, okay?  That's how you said it in your evidence in chief.  I agree with her.

H J P BOTHA: That is correct.

MR LAX: And what she's putting to you in essence is the fact that a person in Ndaba's position couldn't have been in possession of this sort of detail as you've indicated it here and that's really what she's asking you to answer.  have I put it correctly counsel?

H J P BOTHA: I understand the question and once again I answer that that which he told us or rather which he told me at our meetings was exactly that which related to his work.  He'd  already been within the borders of the country for about 6 months before our first meeting.  His position within Operation Vula was not so small if you for instance compare it to the position of Mr Maharaj, but the documentation will confirm what I'm saying here, namely that Mr Ndaba's position was actually far greater than what I describe here.  So that which appears here is in a nutshell exactly what his role and function was as he conveyed it to me.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, do carry on.

MS POSWA: Mr Botha, in your operations, how would disseminate information?  Would everyone know everything that is going on in the operation, in your intelligence operations would the word intelligence be used loosely?  Would everyone, you know, be in the picture?

H J P BOTHA: No, not necessarily.

MS POSWA: And what for example - I think it is important here, please bear with me Mr Chairman, it's important to belabour this point because when you send somebody out on a mission, like I would presume Mr Ndaba was sent, that it would not be prudent or wise to give him this broader picture.  You would just give him information on a need-to-know basis and I would suspect that that is a principal applied by all operatives, is it not?

H J P BOTHA: That is correct.  I understand the import of the question and if I interpret it correctly, my answer will be as follows,  If Mr Ndaba's unfortunate arrest had taken place a week after he infiltrated the country and I had put this paragraph in here in that context, then it wouldn't have made sense but he'd already been actively busy in Operation Vula within the country for 6 months and it was only 6 weeks before his arrest that he contacted me for the first time and that I debriefed him on certain occasions.  The information conveyed to me was done in a very broad framework without details and it was within his own field of activity within Operation Vula and I think that Mr Maharaj would be able to give us a more precise explanation as to how and why Charles had already been exposed to the operation and to the leaders of that operation.

MS POSWA: Mr Chairman, would you be disposed to that, to the applicant's proposition?

CHAIRPERSON: I don't understand your question.

MS POSWA: The applicant here has suggested that maybe the person who can explain this clearly would be Mr Maharaj.

CHAIRPERSON: Well when the time comes for Mr Maharaj he can do so.

MS POSWA: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: But we can't juggle around between witnesses, him giving half the answer and then Mr Maharaj giving the other half and then we're going back to him again.  I'd rather you finish your questioning of this witness.

MS POSWA: Thank you.  So how many times did you meet with Mr Ndaba?

H J P BOTHA: Approximately 3 or 4 times, if I remember correctly.

CHAIRPERSON: If you have a version which is different from what you heard about Mr Ndaba's activities and you've been given a version, if you have, you've got to put that to him to say now, is this not what actually happened.

MS POSWA: Thank you.  I put it to you Mr Botha, that this whole paragraph here was created post facto when you had found out all about Operation Vula and having found that out you were able now to formulate this and that information did not at all come from Mr Ndaba.

H J P BOTHA: Such an inference is possibly correct in the light of my evidence which I have already given.  I in two paragraphs specifically referred to how the operation and the exposure became known to me and if you see this as the summary of the totality, then that is exactly what I've already described in previous paragraphs.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, do carry on.

MS POSWA: Mr Botha, you then go on to refer to a whole list of people, whom Mr Ndaba named here.  Can you please just go over what context this was, I'm afraid as I say, I haven't got the English version.

CHAIRPERSON: None of us have the English version.

MS POSWA: 9 and 10.

CHAIRPERSON: We said none of us have the English version.  The only English version is the translation of his evidence.

MS POSWA: I do not have the new statements, the newly formed statement, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: This document that has been handed in as Exhibit D.

MS POSWA: I have it Mr Chairman, but as I have indicated previously that I do not understand Afrikaans and I have made my preparations based on the first affidavit, the first disclosures made by the applicant.  Now that the applicants have, I don't know for want of a better word, chosen to give us yet another version, this is where I'm really having difficulties.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, you question him on what you can.

MS POSWA: Now on this Exhibit D, paragraph 9 and 10, can you please just tell us, can you please just recount what exactly Mr Ndaba had said about Mr Nyanda, Ronnie Casrills, Mac Maharaj, Pravien Gordhan, Dipak Patel and all that.  Can you just very briefly state a recap?

H J P BOTHA: We are talking about a period of 9 years ago.  A debrief.

MS POSWA: Mr Botha, I'm referring you to your own statement here, paragraphs 9 and 10.