Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

MR GOOSEN: And would you say also that because of that approach that you in fact understood the circumstances under which policemen were required to operate, you understood the mind set that was predominant within the police force?

ADRIAAN VLOK: I tried to understand their mindset.  I wasn't always successful in that but I did try because I believed that if I could understand how their minds worked I could motivate them to do the job which needed to be done.

MR GOOSEN: In fact is it not so that you in the period in which you were a minister, you would attempt to spend a great deal of time, as much time as you possibly could with policemen and women on the ground and with commanders dealing with situations on the ground in order to gain an understanding of how they perceived the situation that they found themselves in.

ADRIAAN VLOK: Yes I tried to do that but I must point out to you that the police operated within a certain structure and I didn't go and visit people or police stations or had contact with police men and women on the ground without it having  been done through the proper channels. If I wanted to do any such a thing, if I wanted to meet with people, I followed the proper channels and if people wanted to visit me I was always accessible but if work was involved then it went through the official channels and my main task as I saw it, was to listen to what they had to say and I had to motivate them to do the job which they had to do.

MR GOOSEN: I want to just put a brief passage from the evidence that was tendered during the course of last week, tendered by Major Williamson describing to some extent the mind sets from the time. He said,
"As a result of the ever increasing revolutionary climate in the Republic during the '80's and especially after the so-called 1979 Simonstad Beraad, at which the security forces were told to take the gloves off in the fight against the revolutionary enemy, the security forces came under increasing pressure to perform.  The South African Police and it's Security Branch in particular, were under special pressure.  There was the increasing revolutionary pressure on one hand, political pressure to resolve the problems on the other and various other elements in the security forces, especially the defence force and military intelligence structures which wanted to play an ever increasing role in the conflict and in society. As a result there was pressure on all of us to perform.  I would say that the pressure was probably most intense on the Security Branch divisional commanders, especially in hot spots such as the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Johannesburg.  In this context results became far more important than legality. The 11th Commandment was well known, especially to those in the covert or the special force elements of the security forces. This was, Thou shalt not be found out. The psychological effect of fighting such a counter-revolutionary war should also not be underestimated, especially when this entailed long periods of covert operations either within or outside the Republic.  The members of the security forces, especially those in covert units used against the revolutionary enemy, saw themselves as the elite front line troops in a critically important secret theatre of the overall war. Enemy successes such as killing of security force members, attacks on economic targets like SASOL or Koeberg and Civilian bombings produced recriminations, guilt, frustration and anger. Security force successes such as arrests with convictions, cross border raids cover killings or sabotage of the enemy produced praise, pride and relief from pressure."
Now would you agree with that description of the sort of context in which Security Police members would have been operating in the mid 1980's? And could you comment on the views expressed by Mr Williamson?

ADRIAAN VLOK: That's a very long paragraph, it's the first time I've heard it but when he makes the point that there was pressure on the security forces to achieve and to perform, that is true, there was pressure from lots of different sides.  We told them that we couldn't do anything with excuses, you simply have to perform because the Eastern Cape is in flames and you have to stop the further spreading of the riots. So yes there was pressure from various quarters on the security fraternity and you heard this morning how Mr Botha also said that there was pressure on the State Security Council exerted by the community at large and in this regard I must also tell you that the pressure didn't only come from one part of our society, the pressure on us and on the security forces came from all levels of society. There was pressure, stop these people, I want to send my children to school. There's problems at school, you must help. So there was pressure on all the different components. That is correct.

MR GOOSEN: And in the context of that pressure, pressure experienced by the security forces, I want to read a passage from the evidence of General van der Merwe at the same hearings last week where states that,
"All the powers were to avoid the ANC/SACP achieve their revolutionary aims and often with the approval of the previous government we had to move outside the boundaries of our law.  That inevitably led to the fact that the capabilities of the SAP, especially the security forces, included illegal acts.  People were involved in a life and death struggle in an attempt to counter this onslaught by the SACP/ANC and they consequently had a virtually impossible task to judge between legal and illegal actions".
Would you agree with those views?

ADRIAAN VLOK: As I put it in my submission, there were cases where certain STRATCOM actions were involved and where we didn't give approval per se for such illegal actions, it simply ultimately amounted to an illegal action being committed.

MR GOOSEN: So I take it that from, seen firstly from the perspective of as it were the operatives, the lower ranking policemen and not those in either in management positions or senior command positions, that you would agree that in the pressure to perform, the interpretation of the instructions that they received, the directives that they received, that as Mr Williamson stated it,
"That the pressure to perform became more important than the legality of the actions that they in fact engaged in."
Would you agree with that perspective from the position of the people on the ground?

ADRIAAN VLOK: I don't know how the man on the ground saw the position.  I don't know how he could have said that the pressure was greater now, I can act illegally.  Perhaps because of the greater pressure we exerted on them, they experienced greater pressure to act illegally and perhaps then that was also under that part of my submission where I say that I'm sorry or we are sorry that we pressurised them to such an extent that it led to people being killed and that policemen landed up in problem situations. So maybe I should include it under that heading.  Once again it was a case of perceptions which we perhaps had a hand in creating because I said to the policemen and men on the ground, you have to achieve and perform, you have to solve this problem and this matter. So perhaps, if that led to that kind of pressure, I'm sorry.

MR GOOSEN: Given the fact that you did attempt as much as possible and probably more than most government ministers at the time, that you in fact did understand the circumstances under which policemen and women were operating, you did understand their mind sets, would you say that the formulation of policies or directives in language which would be capable of being misinterpreted in the circumstances that that was, with the benefit of hindsight for the moment, that that was not a reasonable action on the part of the policy formulators in the circumstances?