Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

JUDGE WILSON: : Apart from dealing with it yourself, isn't
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this a question where there should be some consultation with anexperienced pathologist as to whether the heat would affect theestimation of age.   If you are told once somebody has been burnedlike this you can't estimate age, it's an end to the matter.

MR DU PLESSIS: : Yes, Mr Chairman the point I would havewanted to make, the point is two-fold.   The first point I wantto make and perhaps I can do it now, the first point I want toplace on record is that we have had indications from Mr Currinabout the ages of these people, I would want to request Mr Currin,where he acts on behalf of these families, if he could try andobtain birth certificates.   That would be the easiest thing possibleto ascertain their ages.   I can't understand why that was notdone.   In any case probably he didn't have time so I'm not pointinga finger to him at all.   That's the first point Mr Chairman.
At this point in time, there is a lot of confusion about how oldthey really were.   The second point is if this document reallyrefers to those people, then clearly from the document itselfit contradicts what was told to the Committee about the ages.  The third point I want to make is that this document doesn'tconnect each of the people referred to by Mr Currin to the specificpeople in this document.   I don't really know what the worthof this evidence is, I'm placing that on record, I'm going toargue that Mr Chairman that worth or the value of the evidencethat I've dealt with now is really, according to the applicants,nil.

CHAIRPERSON: In the long run, when the death of the littleyoungsters is no longer in doubt there might be very little toargue about how they were killed, whether they were
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 killed as a result of an explosion in the Kombi and so on, thatmight be just a minor issue at the end of the day.   On the otherpoint, as to the ages of these youngsters I think that can beput beyond doubt and if Mr Currin is in a position to do so, wewill be pleased if he does take steps to obtain their birth certificatesor else call their mothers to give evidence if they are in a positionto tell us precisely when their children were born.

MR CURRIN: : Mr Chairman I can mention to you that duringthe course of this morning I spoke to every mother and one sisterof all the names that I gave to you and the ages that I put tothe Brigadier were on the basis of what the relatives told me.  They are all in this room at the moment and if necessary theycan all be called to assist in verifying ages.   So the evidenceis right here if it's needed.

CHAIRPERSON: I'm just wondering whether it isn't possibleto obtain their birth certificates because sometimes birth certificatesare a little more reliable than people's memories about when theirchildren were born.

MR CURRIN: : Yes, I think mothers generally do know butwe are taking instructions at this very moment to see what sortof documentation we have available.

JUDGE WILSON: : Can I make another suggestion and thatis if the Inquest report itself was received, not just the postmortem,that should contain details of where the bodies were found etc.,and may possibly make it clearer whether they were found in aKombi which had been exploded.

MR DU PLESSIS: : Yes Mr Chairman, we're simply interestedin establishing the truth and that is why I accept what Mr Currinsays and I don't for a moment really want to doubt
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 what the people say but we all know that when documentary evidenceis available, one would like to have that and the applicants wouldlike to see the documentary evidence about the ages and theirbirth certificates.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: : Mr Chairman perhaps to inform the Committeeon this, as I have indicated this forms part of an Inquest thatwas held in Madiqwe to respond to Judge Wilson's issue.   TheInquest report was studied by myself, these charred bodies werefound in that Kombi at that place in Nietverdiend.   It is inthe Inquest.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR DU PLESSIS: : Mr Chairman I just want to clear thisup, can we accept that this document refers to those 10 peoplewho were in the Kombi?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: : Mr Chairman I would say on the basis of thepoints I have just stated when I was handing them out, it couldbe inferred that these are the people who were in the Kombi.  They were 10 in the Kombi and the postmortems are 10 as wellas Mr Chairman the abridged death certificates that don't tellus anything just to say there are also 10.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR DU PLESSIS: : Mr Chairman then on that basis I acceptwhat my learned friend says, we don't have any real reason todispute this except that I will then argue that if there is noother evidence about the ages then this is the only evidence aboutthe people's ages before this Commission.

UNKNOWN: There is other evidence about their agesand this is an opinion obviously expressed but not first-handbecause the doctor obviously expresses an opinion but it's indoubt whether he expresses an expert opinion or not in this case.
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MR DU PLESSIS: : Well to the extent that we have to workwith what we've got Mr Chairman, the only point I'm trying tomake is that is why it's important that the birth certificatesare provided.   Thank you Mr Chairman.   May I proceed Mr Chairman?  Thank you very much.
JAN HATTINGH CRONJE (suo)
RE-EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS

<UNKNOWN>: Brigadier during the time of this unrest, andwe've heard extensive testimony before this Committee that therehad been such extreme unrest during 85/86, would it under thesecircumstances have been effective in any way to attempt to arrestactivists and to persuade them in a police station and then torelease them?

ANSWER: Not at all.

<UNKNOWN>: Would there have been problems with the prosecutionof activists?

ANSWER: Since no one was willing to bring testimony againstanyone, there were problems.

<UNKNOWN>: Would this route then have been an effectiveroute if you wanted to persuade people to desist from their activities?

ANSWER: No.

JUDGE WILSON: : ...impressed about your failure to attemptto get any evidence by using things like tape recorders and othersuch devices which were well-known to the police in those days.  You keep on saying people wouldn't give evidence against themand that excuses everything, there were many other things thatthe police could do, weren't there?   You tapped telephones, youopened mail, you frequently taped conversations didn't you?

ANSWER: If we placed such testimony before Court, Chair,
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then I do not believe that we would have been able to achieveconvictions.

SISI KHAMPEPE: : Brigadier Cronje, didn't you have EmergencyRegulations that you could have relied on?

ANSWER: Again we would have had to motivate the detention,we would have had to give reasons and this would have had to persuademy head office, and we did not have such motivations available.
MR DU PLESSIS (contd)

<UNKNOWN>: Brigadier were you able or would you have beenable, with regard to other activists who had left the countryfor training, would you have been able to arrest them and detainthem in terms of Security Legislation or in terms of the existingLegislation against them?

ANSWER: No.

<UNKNOWN>: Brigadier, were you aware of all of the activistswho did leave the country for training?

ANSWER: No, not all of them.

<UNKNOWN>: As far as you can remember, broadly speaking,how many people - activists - left the country for training duringthat time?

ANSWER: During 86 the exact number is not clear but itwould have been a great number.

<UNKNOWN>: You mean 1986?

ANSWER: Yes 1986.