Special Hearings — Trojan Horse Hearings — 1997-05-21

MR NTSEBEZA: It's precisely for those very reasons, I am just trying to see what was going on in your mind in the planning stage especially at the time that you say to this chap listen if the worst comes to the worst you must remember rather than that it should be your life you have a legal authority where a person is committing an offence, a schedule 3 offence whatever it is, the schedule now, to kill that person rather than allow the person to escape or rather than the person should go on and commit that crime, that's basically the thing.  Now did you foresee that elderly people, elderly people who had nothing to do with stone-throwing, nothing to do with bomb throwing might have been you know caught in the crossfire?

UNKNOWN: I can't tell you exactly what I thought on that particular day, it's too long ago.  I've already told you why I mentioned Section 49 to Lt Vermeulen, but I can't tell you that I specifically thought about that.  It might have been the case but I can't say that I specifically considered the possibility of children or adults or elderly people who could be caught in the crossfire.  I can't say that.

MR NTSEBEZA: You see it is important for us to be able to conclude, to make some conclusions, and one of the conclusions we must make is whether you acted negligently or irresponsibly in the position of a commanding officer, and we can only do that if we are able to satisfy ourselves that you weighed this matter, that this matter was weighed with you most heavily.  I don't want - you also wouldn't like Vermeulen to look back on things and come to the conclusion that you set him up.  That you gave him an instruction when you did not think of all the possibilities so that he should take the can.  And I am sure you don't want those sort of conclusions to be drawn about you.  So I can't cause you to remember whether you took into account these certain things.   And you know I understand that the operation was also ordered to take place in the afternoon, that is at the time that schools got out and most of the school children are in the streets, did that strike you that at that particular time, the time that you chose for the operation to take place was a time when children are roaming around the streets because they've just come out of school, some have come out of Muslim prayers or stuff like that, did you take that into account?

UNKNOWN: I can't remember what I took into account.  I can only say what I would have done.  But you must remember, you are saying the operation was planned for the afternoon, that was not the case.  The operation was planned insofar as we thought that that was a way in which to achieve arrests, but the execution of this operation was done on the basis of information fed through to us from the ground.

MR NTSEBEZA: What was this information that came from the ground?

UNKNOWN: I don't have the information at my disposal but the information was to the effect that it was now an opportune time to perform this operation because there were regular attacks and if you look at the video you will see that there were attacks on that particular place, but you must also remember that we had planned a route.  We didn't know that there would be an attack on the corner of St Simons and Thornton Roads, it could have happened in Lansdowne Road which is a much wider road, where there are no houses lining the street, there is actually nothing on the side of the road, it's just bush and it's a double carriageway.  It is unfortunate that the attack took place in Thornton Road which is a narrow road and a built-up area, but it wasn't specifically planned for Thornton Road or that area.  The planning covered the whole area.  We had to provide for circumstances in that entire area.

MR NTSEBEZA: Are you saying this is a coincidence that it took place in the place that it did take place, and it happens to be the place that you had mapped out as a route that must be taken?  Why didn't you just use the Lansdowne Road or Klipfontein Road, why did your planning incorporate a built-up area with narrow streets where there was a great likelihood of that sort of incident taking place?
 Let me put the further proposition.  Did you in your plan anticipate an attack taking place of such a nature that the police would have to withdraw from the area as a matter of urgency, where the police, feeling the intensity of the attack would have to escape from the area, did you plan for that, that possibility, withdrawing from - retreating?

UNKNOWN: No, no I don't think we foresaw that, that we would have to withdraw.  Our purpose was to go and make arrests.

MR NTSEBEZA: Yes.  Is it unfair to say you didn't provide for that because you had Section 49 that you could rely upon?  You didn't have to run away, you didn't have to retreat if you couldn't effect arrests because you could always kill, isn't that a fair assumption?

UNKNOWN: No that is not a fair assumption.  That was never our motive, it was never our motive to kill in the sense that if we were unable to perform arrests then we could simply resort to killing and that is what you are implying.  That was never the case.

MR NTSEBEZA: Yes, well what I am saying is, why else then didn't you make a contingency arrangement for your police to be able to withdraw in the event of an intense attack which was far more intense than you had anticipated?

UNKNOWN: Nobody expected an attack to take place in the way that it actually took place, but the purpose of the whole operation was to go in there and perform arrests after an attack on the vehicle.  And if we had to withdraw after each attack on the vehicle then we would never achieve the object with which we set out.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now are you saying to this Commission that on that day the only way the Police, the Army and the Railway Police could have effected an arrest in connection with crimes that were being committed was by way of sending an unmarked vehicle?
 Are you saying that that's the only way you could have effected arrests?  
 What had happened to your methods which had been tried before?  Your informers would tell you who were behind the attacks, that has been a method that had been used before, informers would tell you who were behind all these attacks, you would conduct pre-dawn raids, or midnight raids and arrest the agitators as you have been told by the informers, why was it so that a method of arresting was the one in which there was going to be a possibility of people being killed?

UNKNOWN: There was no other way to perform mass arrests.  In normal patrolling processes there were some incidents of stone-throwing and here and there arrests were made, but we never managed to arrest a significant number of people when these things happened.  So if people were unaware whether it was a police vehicle or not ...(intervention)

MR NTSEBEZA: I've just told you one of the methods that the police used.  The police used to use informers, the informers would tell them who the ringleaders were in a particular situation, those ringleaders would be arrested, the laws in the country provided for arrest without detention, I mean detention without trial.  If you were talking about a situation where you didn't have draconian laws that provided for legal arrest and detention of people I would understand you.  You had laws where you could arrest people on mere suspicion, you know that don't you?  You know that don't you Brigadier?

UNKNOWN: Yes I was aware of the legislation ...(intervention)

MR NTSEBEZA: What was wrong with that?  Why didn't you arrest people - are you saying you had no informers in Athlone?

UNKNOWN: We did have informers certainly but we didn't have the necessary information ...(intervention)

MR NTSEBEZA: Didn't they tell you who the ringleaders were?