Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-19

CHAIRPERSON: But just let's say for example, the Early Learning Centre, which the General has said that there was such a discussion.

MR MARTINI: General, all I'm trying to do is understand these procedures.  According to, let's call them the footsoldiers, the persons on the lower ground, the aware members of the cell, for example like Mr van Zyl, according to their evidence they understood the procedures to be that ultimately when they came up with a plan, for example, the blowing up of the Early Learning Centre or to eliminate Minister Omar, that plan after the first in-house was then going to be discussed between the Managing Director and the Chairman, which would have been yourself.  Is that a correct understanding of, for example by Mr van Zyl that that was how the procedure should operate?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, Chairperson.

MR MARTINI: And therefore, generally speaking, would the procedure then be, after you had met with the Managing Director and a decision taken, the Managing Director would then convey the decision down the line?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, Chairperson.

MR MARTINI: To either Mr Staal Burger, the Regional Manager who would in turn convey the decisions to the relevant cell members down the line, depending on the project.  Is that correct?

EDWARD WEBB: Well Col Verster would have gone to the Regional Manager and the Regional Manager would have conveyed it to the footsoldiers.

MR MARTINI: Correct.  So would you accept then that if the footsoldiers were told to carry out an elimination, that the footsoldier, so to speak, believed he had authority within the structure to carry out this project?

EDWARD WEBB: If his Regional Manager had given him an order, yes, he could accept that it had been cleared with the higher command.

MR MARTINI: That's my point.  The footsoldier could accept that there was authority within the structure to carry out the particular project which he believed had been discussed between the Chairman and the Managing Director, is that correct?

EDWARD WEBB: I think I've just answered that, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: You didn't expect the footsoldier to telephone you or communicate with you to confirm whether approval had been given or not?

EDWARD WEBB: Definitely not, I didn't even know them.

MR MARTINI: So if Mr Verster had told the Regional Manager, who had in turn informed, for example Mr van Zyl, "Go ahead with the project to eliminate Minister Omar, Mr van Zyl was correct and was entitled to accept that he had authority from the top, so to speak, to carry out this project?

EDWARD WEBB: That he had authority to do the project, yes.

MR MARTINI: Which would have included the elimination of Minister Omar.

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, Chairperson.

MR MARTINI: And the same would have applied to the Gavin Evans conspiracy.

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, Chairperson.

MR MARTINI: Thank you, no further questions, Mr Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MARTINI

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Martini.  Mr van Eck, do you have any questions?

MR VAN ECK: I've got no questions, thank you Mr Chairman.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR VAN ECK

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Coetzee, do you have any questions that you would like to ask?

MR COETZEE: General Webb, the members of Region 6, did you know them?  Do you know who they were, all the members of Region 6?

EDWARD WEBB: No, I only knew the Regional Manager, I only had met him.

MR COETZEE: The discipline of those members, you've already testified that that would have resorted under the Defence Act, was there a procedure relating to the placing on ice of a member?

EDWARD WEBB: Are you talking about Martial Law?

MR COETZEE: No, that's what I want to know, was there ...(intervention)

EDWARD WEBB: No, but you're asking me whether it's under the Defence Act?

MR COETZEE: Yes, yes, in the military legal situation.

EDWARD WEBB: No, but a Commanding Officer can do a thing like that.

MR COETZEE: What is it, what does it mean to place a person on ice?

EDWARD WEBB: My understanding is that such a person is then placed in the cooler so that he can't do anything.

MR COETZEE: Yes, but that does not make him a lesser member of the Defence Force, he's still a member of the Defence Force until such time as there's a disciplinary action against him.

EDWARD WEBB: He's not being fired, he's just being placed one side and placed in a cooler and he can't do anything.  He's not fired.

MR COETZEE: And the people placing him on ice also have the right to draw him back in again, so there isn't any real procedure once a person has been placed on ice, as to when and how he comes back?

EDWARD WEBB: Definitely not.

MR COETZEE: I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR COETZEE

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.  Mr Bizos, do you have any questions you'd like to ask?

GEORGE BIZOS: General, I'm going to read to you a passage from the judgment of His Lordship, Mr Justice Stegman, in the Webb Inquest - Webster - it was because I was looking at the document, I didn't intend to be disrespectful to you, Mr Webb - in the Webster Inquest, at page 118 of the finding I want to read to you the following.  I want you to listen carefully because my question is going to be "Does His Lordship's judgment of the credibility of the members of the CCB, apply to you, and is the same happening here?"  Listen carefully.
"At this point I digress to observe that I have at various stages of this Inquest, had occasion to realise that several of the witnesses are trained, skilled and experienced in the art of deception.  They are, to put it bluntly, professional liars.  They make their living out of deception.  This is certainly true of Verster and the pseudo ...(indistinct) Luitingh and of Barnard.  Indeed it must be true to a great extent, of everyone who has worked as an operative for the CCB.  They have all been required to appear to have one occupation, the so-called front, whilst their main concerns have been their covert activities.  They are all aware of the need for apparently independent corroboration of whatever untruthful proposition they wish to have accepted for the truth, and they plan accordingly.  The so-called corroboration becomes as suspect as the proposition itself.  They are accomplished in the art of secret conspiracy.  When conflicts emerged between them, as happened in some instances, they showed themselves ...(indistinct) resourceful in falling back on other propositions which may themselves be nothing more than even more deeply laid conspiracies of falsehood.  In their world conflicting allegations by no means to be assumed to be conflicts between the truth and falsehood.  They just as easily could be conflicting falsehoods.  The truth lies very deeply buried and the task of those engaged in trying to expose it to view, is no easy one.  So it is with regard to the reasons why and the purposes for which Verster recruited Barnard to the outer circle of the CCB.  Of the various versions I have been given, I doubt whether any reveals the whole truth.  None of those versions touch on Barnard's character."
...(intervention)

MR P DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, sorry I have to interrupt here, I'm sorry, but Mr Bizos was objecting to my questions on the basis that I was seeking an opinion from the General, and what Mr Bizos is now doing, he is putting the opinion of a Judge and it's nothing more because the Judge formed his conclusions from evidence given over months before him.  That evidence is not before this Commission.  Now Mr Bizos is reading this out on record and I submit that this is actually highly improper and aimed at influencing this Commission, and this Commission, remember, has not got the evidence in the Webster Inquest before it, it's not part of the evidence, and now this opinion of the Judge, Stegman, is put forward to this witness for his opinion on what the Judge said.  So I have to object at this stage.