Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-09-14

MR PRINSLOO: Well it was to convince the government to denounce the elections, we wanted to show them that we are serious, that it was not just talk.  De Klerk did not want to listen to us, he ignored us.  After various messages and after I personally was invited to a parliamentary sitting where we wanted to discuss certain matters with him and where Mr Hernus Kriel addressed us, Mr de Klerk never listened to our requests.  After CODESA he didn't leave us any other options.

MS VAN DER WALT: You said when you received the instructions ...[intervention]

MS GCABASHE: Sorry, very quickly for clarity.
	Mr de Klerk you mentioned, why did he or his party then not become your target?  Just in the context of what you've just said, Mr de Klerk wouldn't talk to you and he ignored your requests, so why didn't you ...[intervention]

MR PRINSLOO: That's correct.

MS GCABASHE: So why didn't you make him and his party your target?  Just help me understand it.

MR PRINSLOO: We looked for him but he was in hiding and he was well protected, in that we couldn't get hold of him at that stage.  We did attempt to get hold of him but we couldn't do it.  Attempts were made from the right-wing to get hold of him.

MS GCABASHE: Yes, but what of his people, his party, his supporters?  By the 24th of April you knew exactly which were the NP areas in the area that you were in charge of, it was easy to find out.

MR PRINSLOO: That is correct.

MS GCABASHE: So why didn't you target those particular areas where you knew NP supporters lived, to send a message to their political head that you were unhappy with the way he was treating you?

MR PRINSLOO: At that stage all National Party offices were in the Western Transvaal and all of them were, bombs were planted at all of these offices, as well as the one in Ventersdorp.

MS GCABASHE: But those were the offices ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Why not the ANC offices?

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Chairperson, the ANC offices or at that stage buildings, were not properly positioned.

CHAIRPERSON: During that time buildings like Khotso House, was that blown up?

MR PRINSLOO: No, I hear what you are saying, but the SAP did that before we could.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we do know that.  Shell House was there.

MR PRINSLOO: Obviously yes but you must realise that at that stage these places were well-guarded and it was not part of our planning at that stage.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I understand that, I would just like to get things right.  If the targets were people who would vote, and if I understand your evidence correctly, the attack was targeted in order to stop the elections.  Now we all know that the National Party was deeply involved in the elections, they wanted to become the opposition and indeed they did become the opposition.

MR PRINSLOO: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: The DP was also deeply involved in the elections, as well as the ANC and the alliance.  I would just like to get things clear, why did you just target the alliance or the supporters of the alliance if we accept that the whole purpose of the attack was to disrupt the elections?

MR PRINSLOO: In order to create a fear psychosis in the general public, and that was to target taxi ranks, restaurants, we saw or history taught us that to attack a military base or military personnel or SAP personnel, it does not have the same effect, or it would not have the same outcome with regards to the general public.  If you attack ordinary members of the public, and that the ANC showed us by bombing Wimpy Bars and to look for soft targets, they created a large psychosis of fear amongst the general public members who were mostly white.

ADV BOSMAN: Mr Prinsloo, what is not quite clear to me is that many of the applicants said that you wanted to prevent the elections taking place, you wanted to disrupt the elections, did you want to disrupt the elections in preventing people from going to vote in large numbers or did you want to disrupt it in order for the government to stop the election as a whole?  I am not quite clear about it.

MR PRINSLOO: It was a bit of both. It was to force the government to firstly listen to what the right-wing wants to say, not to listen to what we wanted to say, they at that stage knew definitely what or what our requirements were but at CODESA they ignored it and wiped it off the table.  It was also so that we could not afford to have the elections taking place  ...[intervention]

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike is not on.

CHAIRPERSON: After the elections a bomb also exploded or was it the day of the elections?

MR PRINSLOO: Are you talking about the Worcester matter?

CHAIRPERSON: That is another one, I'm talking about the airport bomb.

MS VAN DER WALT: That was the morning very early, the day of the elections.

CHAIRPERSON: It's now then too late to stop the elections, we all knew that the elections would continue on the 27th of that day.  Why was a bomb planted at the airport, the previous attempts were not successful?

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Chairperson, at that stage it had gone too far.  At that stage there wasn't time to turn around and at the end we still believed that we would be able to achieve something by committing these deeds.

CHAIRPERSON: Then one last aspect on this point, was there any reason why there wasn't a bomb planted in Houghton or Kempton Park or Vanderbijl, or the areas at that stage in which white people lived?

MR PRINSLOO: No, there was no specific town.

CHAIRPERSON: It was in Johannesburg area?

MR PRINSLOO: It was the East Rand, no, West Rand, there was no specific area.

CHAIRPERSON: You see, it seems peculiar to me Mr Prinsloo, in that as the previous witness said, the target was directed towards black people and all the bombs were planted in places where it was mostly black people who moved around there, except for the airport bomb.  Can you maybe give some clarity on that?

MR PRINSLOO: As I discussed it with my legal representatives and what I said earlier on is it was not about people of another colour, we knew that most of the supporters of the ANC/SACP alliance were black people.  There were various incidents.
	I personally had an agreement within Vereeniging with the Zulu supporters.  We assisted various Indian communities in the prevention of crime, protection of their businesses or buildings in the rural areas.  Amongst others there was a group of coloured people in the Western Cape who approached us and asked us to show them how does the structures of the AWB work, how it is put together.  I personally flew down and helped them with this.  
	They also didn't want to serve under ANC/SACP alliance, they also wanted to create such an organisation.  If they wanted to start a para-military organisation I do not know, I cannot say but they wanted to know how our structure was, how it fitted in.  Many of the Indian communities in Natal, we had close connections with them.
	Our business people of other colours, for example in the Western Transvaal, these people were responsible for the, or the provided us with logistics.  So it was not that it was only targeted at black people.

CHAIRPERSON: I understand that other people worked with you but I'm talking about the planting of the bombs.  It creates the impression that it was specifically targeted at black people.

MR PRINSLOO: You see at that stage I would 99 or 98% of the ANC/SACP alliance was black people, that was their support base and that is where most of the people chose take part in the elections but we wanted to create a psychosis of fear.
	We wanted them to understand that they must not dare to go to the polling booths because it would be too dangerous on the streets, they had to stay away and then the elections would have been disrupted.

CHAIRPERSON: And those who would have voted for the National Party or the democratic party?

MR PRINSLOO: Well the DP people were safe, they sat in their house in Houghton.