Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — 1996-07-01

JEAN DU PLESSIS: That was at about the end of Std 7 that I began to attend AWB meetings with him. I also obtained an AWB flag that I kept in my room.  I attended various meetings of the HNP, the Conservative Party and other smaller groupings.

UNKNOWN: Was your father involved in any political movement?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Yes, I think he was an enroled member of the AWB, but he never became terribly involved with the AWB. In around 1987/88 - no, '87, he became a member of the Blanke Bevrydingsbeweging, a White liberation movement.

UNKNOWN: What did they advocate?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: The BBB was similar to the AWB, apart from the fact that it stood for all the Whites in the country.

UNKNOWN: Do you mean Afrikaans and English?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Yes, that means Afrikaans and English.  The European antecedents of our culture, this is what they felt, should not divide us, and they felt that the country should be deliberated from various factors which in their view actually dominated the country.  Apart from the National Party Government, they felt that the financial powers behind the scenes, also had a great influence on the country. That they were in control of the media and that there was a hidden agenda which was at its aim to drive out the Whites in this country. It was essentially a resistance movement or a liberation movement, which wanted to free Whites from these influences, and basically to establish a White country.

UNKNOWN: What did you do, what was your role?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: At that stage I wasn't really actively involved, seeing I was still at school.  However, my father  was an organiser in Durban for the Durban district of the BBB, and he compiled documentation pamphlets and distributed them for the BBB. I helped him of course.  My father often asked my opinion about the documents he compiled.

UNKNOWN: Did you actively believe in what was there?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Yes, very firmly.

UNKNOWN: What became of the BBB in '87/88?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: During that time the organisation was banned and Dr Schabot, Prof Schabot was put under house-arrest. Prof Schabot was the leader of the BBB.

UNKNOWN: What did you then feel about this banning?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Well, the security police came to our house and they confiscated all the documentation we had regarding the BBB, and we were told in essence that we should stay, keep quiet about the BBB, because it was not a banned organisation. This motivated me strongly, and even at that time, when I was in matric, that this inspired me to believe that the only solution would be an underground organisation, seeing that we had been banned.

UNKNOWN: Before you go on about the political aspects, tell us about your further education. Did you write matric?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Yes, I wrote the matric exam, I virtually wanted to leave school and join an underground organisation.  However, my father told me I should first finish my matric before I carried out plans of that kind.

UNKNOWN: And then what did you do?  What was your matric symbol?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: I passed matric with a university exemption.

UNKNOWN: And then immediately after matric, what did you do then?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: I moved back to Pretoria and I immediately joined an underground organisation.  We didn't really have a name for that. It was an organisation under the leadership of Horst Klenz. We went to the then South West Africa, Namibia.  At that time it was still known as South West Africa.

UNKNOWN: Before you continue.  For the benefit of the Committee, who is Horst Klenz and where is he now?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Horst Klenz, as far as I know at the moment he is in detention. He is a German, a fairly old man, who moved to South Africa with the aim of founding an underground organisation, to prevent the coming into power of a Black government here as well as in South West Africa.

UNKNOWN: Did you go with him to South West Africa or Namibia?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Yes, I went to Namibia with him, and there I became involved in an underground organisation.

UNKNOWN: Who else belonged to this organisation?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: I know that Mr Keith Brown was also a member. Keith Brown was the son of Mr S T D Brown who was the editor of the South African Observer.

UNKNOWN: What did you plan, what did you want to achieve, what did you achieve?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: The idea was to destabilise the United States troops there, and destabilise the entire electoral process so that Swapo could not come into power.

UNKNOWN: Ultimately, were you involved in any of these activities?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: I began to help with operations, but at one stage I saw that things were beginning to look as if they were going off the rails and I didn't have a great trust in Horst Klenz's leadership. In any case I had to come back to South Africa to report for my national service in August.  I decided I would withdraw, after which I had to report to the Army.

UNKNOWN: Tell us briefly about the influence the Defence Force had on you.

JEAN DU PLESSIS: I enroled at Phalaborwa, and then I was transferred to Oudsthoorn, where I went on an officers' course.  That's when I met Jurgens Matthew White.

UNKNOWN: That was the White who was involved in the whole matter involving Mr Van Wyk.

JEAN DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

UNKNOWN: That we discussed yesterday.

JEAN DU PLESSIS: That is correct. I received my training in various martial activities and techniques, in training of firearms, and during this period I and a number of other recruits who were undergoing training with me, who were also on the officers' course, I began to talk to them about my political views, and my ideas and thoughts regarding what was going to happen in this country.

UNKNOWN: What did the Defence Force teach you about people, about arms, about the struggle?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Well, during that period the South African Defence Force was still engaged in a struggle against the so-called Communist monster, and we were taught that the enemy should be destroyed, and that the Communists were a great threat for this country.

UNKNOWN: What was the Defence Force's attitude towards human lives?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: As far as our own forces were concerned, we obviously had to protect our own people, but as regards the enemy, they had to be destroyed at all costs, we had to destroy them.

UNKNOWN: Did you ever become involved in any action against freedom fighters at any stage?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: While I was in the Defence Force?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: No.

UNKNOWN: Were there any consequences, people being shot, being encountered?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Not in my Defence Force capacity, but where I lived in Amanzimtoti, which is adjacent KwaMakutha, there was violence.  There I had experienced it, but not in the Defence Force.

UNKNOWN: Didn't any of your friends or their families suffer any harm in the so-called terrorist attacks which were launched at that time?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: When I was still in primary school, a friend of mine, Pieter, his mother, with the Silverton Bank siege, occupied by terrorists and my friend's mother was killed by a hand-grenade there.

UNKNOWN: At this officers' course, did you play a leadership role in the Defence Force?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: I did my junior leader's course and from there I was transferred to Natal Command, but I didn't fulfil any particular leadership position while I was in the Defence Force.

UNKNOWN: At school did you have any roles of leadership?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: Yes, I was the - what does one call it?  President of the chess club.

UNKNOWN: In the Defence Force, what unit did White belong to?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: After I was transferred to Natal Command, White was transferred to 32 Battalion.

UNKNOWN: What sort of battalion is that, for the information of the Committee?

JEAN DU PLESSIS: 32 Battalion was the Defence Force's main offensive fighting unit.

UNKNOWN: What sort of training did soldiers there get?