Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

GEN NEETHLING: Sir I am very happy that you are asking this question. I couldn't get it into any answers of Mr Vally because I would have liked to. I have seen at least 60 people who were maimed by chemical warfare. I have had blood analysis done on Choline esterase inhibition which clearly showed that these people have been poisoned. And they told us, the UNITA soldiers, something happened, something fell out of the sky. There was smoke and then all of a sudden they could not walk. They were lame. Sir if you saw these people, and I saw them not only in Pretoria at 1 Military, but I saw them in a hospital that was created specifically for soldiers in Angola. I was there myself. And it is horrendous. And we had no protection.
 And that is why I am saying this programme is not BC it is ABC. There was no protection for the special force of the police, for any one of those. Atomic, biological or chemical. We have gone and we have produced the best material. 
 And I want to just tell you one thing. I have a letter here from Technotech. You know what company that is. Which says, it is a company that we have supplied during the Gulf War a very large(...intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me. Any document that is sought to be introduced and does not form part of the documents has to be discovered first to legal representatives of the ministry. I am not saying that document cannot come in, except that until they have seen what it is you can say then you cannot refer to it.

GEN NEETHLING: Okay. What I am saying to you Sir is this, that our equipment that was produced, gas masks, defensive clothing was of such quality that one of the major forces in the Gulf War - and I am sure that I am saying this for the first time and if I proliferate, I will proliferate - was the best there was in the world. They refused to put on their own clothing. They only used our clothing and they took the lot that we had produced. So good was our stuff.
 What I am saying to you Sir is we had this capability developed over a 10 year period. From when they started in 1981, 1982 planning this, the product the fruit of this whole project, of which I am proud to be part of, came about for the first time tested under battle conditions in Iraq. And we said thank God we did.

DR RANDERA: Just for the record when you say you are proud of the product you referring particularly to this? You are not referring to the whole CBW Programme?

GEN NEETHLING: No, no I know nothing about the rest. I told you what I know. I know about my involvement.

DR RANDERA: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Sooka?

YASMINE SOOKA: General you have told us today that you consider yourself quite an expert and quite often in your testimony you talked about the fact that you had been a number of times overseas. And I am quite intrigued by the fact that you supplied this Mandrax and LSD for the purposes of developing this riot control teargas. The question for me is, do you know of any successful teargas that has been produced from these substances? Either here in this country or anywhere else in the world?

GEN NEETHLING: I do, covert, yes. The Americans are producing beautiful things, beautiful.

YASMINE SOOKA: From?

GEN NEETHLING: From derivatives of this class. And I must say this to you there is a lot of things that a lot of countries have got which they do not talk about because it is a national security threat to divulge things like this. It is a national security threat to divulge your system of defending your VIPs. When the President goes and he starts eating at a function ...(intervention)

YASMINE SOOKA: Sorry just one last question.

GEN NEETHLING: Ja, I am sorry.

YASMINE SOOKA: Was it successfully produced in this country?

GEN NEETHLING: I do not know.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.

GEN NEETHLING: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: General Neethling you are excused.

GEN NEETHLING: I would like to thank you very much, your whole board for being so tolerant with me and I am very happy that I had this opportunity to talk to your board and I hope that you will deliberate on all the facts that you will still be confronted with to get the truth of this product. Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON: You are welcome.

WITNESS IS: .

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Vally your next witness.

MR VALLY: Mr Chair there are three things outstanding. One is Mr Jan Lourens needs to be excused. He was kept on standby on 24 hour's notice. Dr Jan Lourens for cross-examination and that has not happened. And there has been no request that he be recalled. So he must be -there have been discussions about it I presume. Mr Cilliers will address you on that.

MR CILLIERS: I just want to put on record in order to accommodate Dr Lourens, Mr Currin, Chaskalson and I had a discussion. There are various things that we dispute but it is such not so essential regarding this project. It is more marginal issues. Our feeling is that we don't want to incur all these costs and we just want to state that we don't agree with all Dr Lourens' evidence. That we dispute some of that. And then we are not going to insist that he should be recalled. Mr Currin and Mr Chaskalson are also satisfied depending on your decision.

CHAIRPERSON: In any event in the case of any finding that would be made that would be detrimental to your client's interests the provisions of Section 30 would apply. And I think if we leave it on that basis.

MR CILLIERS: We are prepared to do it and also to address the problem of time. As it pleases you.

CHAIRPERSON: Very well. The second matter Mr Vally?

MR VALLY: And for the record Dr Jan Lourens should be formally excused from this forum.

CHAIRPERSON: He is not here.

MR VALLY: Through his attorney then.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Currin is Dr Lourens - well there is a difference of opinion whether it is Mr or Dr, it doesn't really matter. Dr Lourens is excused.

DR LOURENS IS VIA HIS ATTORNEY: .

MR CURRIN: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Would you like, you are still going to hold a brief?

MR CURRIN: I am still here on brief we are not sure what other witnesses are going to say and he obviously reserves his right to cross-examine anyone who may say something which. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Indeed.

MR VALLY: There are two outstanding issues. One is the reply of Mr Cilliers to the constitutional argument that he raised and I responded to. And secondly it is the cross-examination of Mr Daan Goosen.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Cilliers does not seem to be here.

MR VALLY: Mr.

CHAIRPERSON: Can we take the cross-examination now?

MR VALLY: We have got no objections.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Daan Goosen, Doctor Daan Goosen.