Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-19

MR HATTINGH: And was that then the case?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes.

MR HATTINGH: Evidence was twisted and so forth to ensure that the offence or the crime would not come to light?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: And was that your perception with regard to your task at Vlakplaas?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson.

MR HATTINGH: Can we then also ask you generally speaking, whether there was any co-operation between the Security Police and the South African Defence Force with regard to this sort of action?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes.  There was a written agreement of co-operation between particularly Vlakplaas or C1 and the Directorate of Covert Collections, which was DCC of the Military Intelligence, it was a covert Intelligence operation.  And then on a second level, there was also an agreement with the CCB.  This was not written, but we were all convened at Vlakplaas at a function, where this co-operation in all its aspects were established and mutual assistance was guaranteed.

MR HATTINGH: Were members of the CCB also involved in some of the cross-border operations and some of the internal operations in which Vlakplaas had been involved?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson.

MR HATTINGH: So it wasn't only an agreement, there was real co-operation in the execution of certain operations?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Hattingh, could I intervene?  Could I intervene again, Mr Hattingh, I just want to get one point clear.  Mr De Kock, you have said that many of the operations that you were involved in, orders came from higher Officers.  Was there a channel of command, did you when you were Commander of Vlakplaas, receive orders through a specific channel, through Head Officer perhaps, or would for instance the Head of the Witwatersrand division of the Security Branch give you an order without going through Head Office?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Chairperson, as the Commander of Vlakplaas, I liaised directly with the Commander of C1.  Vlakplaas was for example Section C1, which was Counter Terrorism Unit, while Section C2 was the Section which undertook the identification of terrorists and that very same Section C2 also had membership of an organisation known as Trevits, which was a Counter Revolutionary Target Committee, which made decisions about targets.  However, I liaised with Brigadier Schoon, who was the Head of Section 2C and he liaised with the Head of Security who would then have been Gen Johan van der Merwe.  The Head of the Witwatersrand, for example Gen Gerrit Erasmus would not be able to contact me directly and give me an order.  He would have to go to Brigadier Schoon, or to Basie Smit and from there on, the order would come to me.  If anyone of those Officers however, was not available, then it would have been completely within line, or within our line, that one would be permitted to use one's own initiative.  However, this did not happen very regularly.  I was one of the persons who insisted upon liaison with my Officers from higher levels, however, it could have happened.

CHAIRPERSON: So you said Brigadier Schoon was the Head of C2.  What was Gen Basie Smit, what was his position at that time?

EUGENE DE KOCK: After Gen Johan van der Merwe, he was the Head of Security.  They succeeded each other quite regularly.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Thank you Mr Hattingh.

MR HATTINGH: You have just given evidence that sometimes one could use one's own initiative.  You will recall that Gen Van der Merwe also gave evidence before the Truth Commission and that he also testified there that it was expected of members of the Security Police, to take their own initiative sometimes.  Do you recall this evidence?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson, it was expected of one as an Officer, not only to ask what must I do now, but to be able to take one's own initiative.  If not, you would be removed.  It would be no good just having a figure Head there.  What made it more difficult with Vlakplaas was that it was an Operational Unit and it could have happened that if it wasn't an Officer who took that decision, it could have been a Sergeant or a Warrant Officer.  The members of Vlakplaas acted individually sometimes.  You could have a Sergeant in control of 20 persons and then he would have the responsibility of taking decisions within the framework of his operational qualifications.

MR HATTINGH: Were there instances where you used your own initiative and were there certain specifications, operational specifications that you had to fulfil before becoming involved?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, it had to be against an enemy or against a sympathiser or against an organisation which did not regard the government favourably.

MR HATTINGH: In other words, it had to do with the political struggle between the government on the one hand and the political organisations such as the ANC and the PAC and so forth, on the other hand?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, that is correct.

MR HATTINGH: Gen Van der Merwe also gave evidence that Vlakplaas was the only Operational Unit of the Security Police, did you hear that evidence?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson, we were the only established active Operational Unit and we were also equipped accordingly.

MR HATTINGH: In general terms, regarding equipment, there has been much evidence about that, could you briefly inform the Committee regarding weaponry which was brought down from Namibia to Vlakplaas?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes Chairperson, upon two or three occasions, Brigadier Schoon had been approached or liaised with Gen Hans Dreyer from Namibia and Brigadier Schoon then conveyed to me that there was weaponry and equipment which was to be fetched in Namibia which we could use.  We didn't use only Eastern Block weaponry such as AK's or Russian weapons, we also loaded South African weapons, because we undertook much training not only with our own weapons, but with all forms of weaponry which the opposition had to do with.  SWAPO used the same weaponry as the PAC and the ANC and the reason for that was your members should be skilled in all aspects with regard to explosives and weapons which were used by the opposition and one's own group.

MR HATTINGH: The weapons which you went to fetch, could you indicate the quantity and the range?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Chairperson, the quantities were phenomenal, we are speaking of tons at a time.  We are speaking of pistols, guns, machine guns, mortars, various calibre, handgrenades, plastic explosives, TNT, gun grenades, a non-backfiring cannon, 122 mm rocket launcher from Swaziland and the whole spectrum of launchers for anti-tank purposes - an entire spectrum of weaponry, even to light artillery level.  I will also refer to the fact that we were in possession of missiles for the purposes of air to ground defence, whether it be offensive or defensive.  There was actually nothing that we didn't have.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, these weapons, when you collected them, did you have your own armoury at Vlakplaas, were they actually kept there or did you go and draw them from some other Section or division?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No Chairperson, we had our exclusive arms stores and explosives stores at Vlakplaas which were filled completely to capacity.   Later we had to enforce an additional room in order to accommodate additional weaponry, to the extent that Gen Smit wanted to establish explosives and arms safes which would have cost the State millions.  In other words, there was a large capacity provision of arms for the fight against terrorism.

MR HATTINGH: These were the weapons that were brought from Namibia, which were stored at Vlakplaas?

EUGENE DE KOCK: That is correct Chairperson.  Excuse me, I can just add that we had an enormous variety of landmines, not only South African, but Eastern Block limpet mines as well, detonators - just to give you an indication.

MR HATTINGH: And the weaponry which was taken to Vlakplaas ...