Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-24

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: I acted fully on behalf of the AWB and I identified myself with their objectives.

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Steyn, you handed yourself over a while after these events, is that correct? ...[transcriber's own translation]

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Yes that is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Steyn, your application, do you confirm the correctness of your application, that is A and B as well as your application.

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Yes that is correct.

MR PRINSLOO: Thank you Mr Chairperson.

MR PRINSLOO: .

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs van der Walt have you got any questions?

MS VAN DER WALT: I have got no questions.
NO QUESTIONS BY MS VAN DER WALT

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Thank you Mr Chairperson.
	Sir what was the objectives of the AWB as you understood it then?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Mr Chairperson the objectives of the AWB was to obtain an own Volkstaat for the Boerevolk.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Is that all?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: No, the objectives were also such that, the AWB's objective was to stop the elections and to undermine the government of the day in order to create chaos during that election time.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Was that the only objective of the AWB during April 1994?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: No Mr Chairperson, the objectives, there were various objectives.  The main objective was the obtainment of a Volkstaat and that was also why we were called up.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Were you called up to found this Volkstaat or to protect a future Volkstaat?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: If there was time we would have established or founded it if we received permission but at that stage there wasn't time because the so-called Volkstaat's borders, we would have been able to protect it and then try and fight and by doing that found the Volkstaat.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: You see that is the problem.  You were there gathered together and right through the evidence I understand, to protect but not to attack, did you understand it in that way that you are there to protect?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Could you please repeat?

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: You were called up to the Western Transvaal, the Ventersdorp area to protect the farmers and the people and the Volkstaat that will be founded, to protect that.

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: I do not understand the question very well.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: You went to Ventersdorp to protect not to attack, with the original call-up instruction?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: No we did not go there just to protect, we were called up to Ventersdorp to make war.  That was our call-up
instructions, they told us that and that is why I accepted it when they call me up, that I must take all my weapons and ammunition and equipment with me and if there would be any situation I would have to execute those orders.

CHAIRPERSON: You see Mr Steyn in a war there are at least two sides, the one attack, the one protect, defend.  It does not necessarily mean that when you are called up to make war that you will attack.  Now what Mr Kriel is referring to is that during that evidence that we have heard it was said: "We were called up to Ventersdorp to protect the borders of the planned Volkstaat as well as the Boerevolk who were attacked at the farm", do you understand?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And that is what Mr Kriel is referring to, not to attack but to defend and in so doing to make war.

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Yes that is correct, to protect and defend.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR KRIEL

ADV GCABASHE: Thank you, unless you wanted to follow that up with something.
	My question again is related to the same aspect. To make war as you understood it - is that alright, to make war as you understood it against whom, because the evidence to date covers the NP, the ANC, communists, black people, where do you fit your political motive in? And the political objective of the AWB as you understood it?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Mr Chairperson a lot of things were asked to me, maybe if you could just ask it in a shorter way?

MR MALAN: The question - if I can speak Afrikaans to you I will ask them one by one, the question is that the war that you were talking about against whom would this be, the ANC?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: The war would be against the ANC Mr Chairperson.

MR MALAN: Against the SACP?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Yes the SACP alliance.

MR MALAN: Against black people?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: No not necessarily all the black people.

MR MALAN: Against white people?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Against white people, we would fight a war if they identified themselves with the ANC's policy.

MR MALAN: Against the National Party?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: At that stage they were also one of our enemies.

MR MALAN: What does such a war look like?  Have you ever thought to yourself, if the war is now going on where am I, who do I shoot?  Did you have a picture in your mind?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: Mr Chairperson, at that stage I would have believed that all the promises that they made there would be better planning, and I am not saying these things to make war just because our little group did something and they didn't do anything but there were also other people who made promises namely, Constand Viljoen them and people like him, made promises and then great things could have happened in this country.

MR MALAN: Mr Steyn, am I correct if I say that you did not have any idea how that war would be fought, where it is going to begin, who is going to shoot first, where you are going to shoot, you just want to fight in this war and you were satisfied to fight in this war of the AWB?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: I was satisfied with the fighting in a war. I was not, and I think only a few people could say what this war would have looked like and how it would have happened.

MR MALAN: Did you think that on game farm you would sit behind one of the sleeping places and dodge and people are shooting at you?  ...[transcriber's own translation]

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: But at that stage I still assumed that it was more in a beginning stage, the game farm, and I did not realise the real purpose of the whole situation at that stage.

MR MALAN: Did you think that you will fire the first shot or that people would shoot at you?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: I cannot really say, there we would have had to wait for instructions.

MR MALAN: So you didn't have any idea what this war would look like, you just knew that you were going to fight in a war?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: That is correct yes.

ADV GCABASHE: Now you said in your evidence that the reason you did not take your wife the first time was because you wanted to seek clarity on what exactly was going on, yes?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: That is correct yes.

ADV GCABASHE: But you didn't really get any clarity at all did you?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: After I spoke to Leon van der Merwe and they convinced me, I relied on them in the promises they made and I believed that we could rely on them and I did rely on them.

ADV GCABASHE: But they simply said to you: "We are going to make war", you didn't really know what you would be doing, how exactly you could fulfil your own ambition as an AWB member through your organisation.  You were really just there to take instructions.

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: That is correct yes.

ADV GCABASHE: So if they had said to you we are going back to, let's take the Bophuthatswana incident, if they had said to you that is where we are going to start, Mangope wants us to do something for him again, you would have done that because they were ordering you to do that and not because you believed you should be going to protect Mangope or prop him up?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: No Mr Chairperson, it was not part of our Volkstaat's ideal.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did you go to Bophuthatswana?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: I beg your pardon?

CHAIRPERSON: Why did the AWB go to Bophuthatswana?

PETRUS PAULUS STEYN: I carry no knowledge of that, I was not involved there.