Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-10

MR VAN ZYL: The problem that I have remains, Dr Van Rensburg, they could tell you research had to be done on X, Y and Z, it was not necessary for them to tell you what the reason for that research was, then still you were able to provide in the requirements of the scientists, but it was not necessary for them to tell you we are looking for an agent who could make somebody who dies, death appear like an accident, it wasn't necessary to do that?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: Mr Chairman, yes, I agree one hundred percent, it is not necessary that I should know, it is not necessary that I will be told, it wasn't me to control the words out of Dr Basson's mouth, he volunteered it, he told me.  I never asked, there is no such thing as daring to ask the purpose of anything like this.
 It is entirely information volunteered by Dr Basson and he was quite chatty, too much so from a security point of view.

MR VAN ZYL: When you initially became an employee of RRL, you were certainly told or was any reason given why this need to know principle, had to be adhered to for security reasons?  Was that told to you?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: The specific reason was not given.

MR VAN ZYL: Was that an internal requirement of the company or was it a requirement from your clients' side or from the Defence Force?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: Those were guidelines from the so-called Army or the so-called shareholders.

MR VAN ZYL: You also testified yesterday that you were initially sceptical about this project when you were approached, and that you wanted to think about it and that you had to clear it out with yourself, that a modern Defence Force had to have this kind of information which had to be researched.
 Then furthermore you added, if I understood you correctly, and your words were "if you don't know the dirty tricks, you can't avoid them"?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: Right.

MR VAN ZYL: Do I understand by that that it was necessary for a Defence Force to protect itself against counter-biological warfare, that research had to be done for those agents and that tests had to be executed on equipment which could be used to protect the Army.

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: That is largely correct Mr Chairman, I accept that all modern Armies have a covert capability.  The capability I am referring to is they have knowledge of the dirty tricks.
 You can quite easily procure very think manuals on this thing, emanating from Russia for instance.  That will give you ninety percent of all the known dirty tricks in the world.
 You must be aware of what the enemy is possibly doing if you have actual outbreaks of probable covert actions against your own troops, as we did have in Angola.  You should be knowledgeable enough to go in there, see the symptoms, make a guess, get the forensic examinations of the (indistinct) if there are any, to be able to sample the environment, the food they ate, the water source.  You must come back to the laboratory, you must take a guess, there guys were given Thallium or Botulism or whatever, you must have the apparatus ready, you must have reference substance ready to measure, to calibrate your instruments so that you can detect minute amounts in tissues or food or whatever.
 If you know what the enemy is doing, it is always a great shock if the enemy knows that you know.  If the enemy knows that you don't know, they will only proliferate these tricks.

MR VAN ZYL: Dr Van Rensburg, it is only logical just to know, doesn't help at all, the most important thing is to protect yourself.  It is useless to read all the literature, do all the research but the day they attack me, I can't do anything, I have to protect myself.

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: I accept that retaliation against foreign enemies, in certain circumstances is certainly justified, that I do accept, foreign enemies.
 But the question is did we not have enough repressive laws to control our own people, why do you have to kill them?

MR VAN ZYL: I am not referring to any specific person, I am referring to the principle.  The principle regarding chemical and biological warfare, as I understand it, and you can differ from me,  which sounds logical is an analysis which is done of what that capabilities of the other country is who could use it against you to go and evaluate those, and put defend mechanisms in place, should it happen again.
 This is the end result which you want to achieve?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.

MR VAN ZYL: So you agree that the research by itself was not important, but also the necessary evaluation of for example protective clothing against the specific agents to see whether you can protect yourself?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: Mr Chairman, over the years I repeatedly confronted Dr Wynand Swanepoel about why do we not do protective work against covert or conventional warfare.
 The end, particularly when we were desperate for contracts to put the budget up, I pushed him hard on this point again and he said to me equivocally, that is not Roodeplaat's brief.  All defensive work is done elsewhere.

MR VAN ZYL: What you are actually saying is that these tests were not done at RRL, it could have been done somewhere else, you did not know about it, was that possible?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: That is correct.  Later on I heard, we heard yesterday that it was done somewhere else.

MR VAN ZYL: The fact of the matter is according to what was told to you, that it was done, but not at Roodeplaat?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: It was never told to me that it had been done or it was being done.  It was only early in 1991 that Dr Swanepoel answered me clearly and put it to me that it is not our reference.  This is not our work, to do defensive work.
 It was round about, early, very early 1991 was the first time I knew that it was not our brief to do defensive work.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Van Zyl, I don't want to - I just want to indicate that somehow your instructions must come out in the sort of cross-examination.
 You know that in the procedures that we have adopted in these hearings, that there is always a very limited time for cross-examination as such.

MR VAN ZYL: I accept that Mr Chairman.  When I have gone through the aspects that I would like to deal with, I am going to put the version of my client.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR VAN ZYL: Thank you.  I also want to put it to you Dr Van Rensburg, that amongst others the protective clothing which was used during the Gulf War when chemical weapons and when CBW was involved and it came from South Africa and it was found that it was of the best in the world.  Do you have any comment on that?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: I am proud of the achievements of Protechnic, I never knew, it is the first I've heard of that.

MR VAN ZYL: Regarding the fertility programme, did that project ever come off the ground, for example that the end result was achieved or wasn't it taken any further because of problems?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: The fertility project progressed very well almost ahead of schedule, if one looks at any normal developmental project.
 It of course is a far more complex project than the people who instructed us to do it, realised as is often the case.  The products which theoretically should work, were made while I was still there, and shortly before I left, they were given to baboons.  What happened after that, I have no knowledge of.

MR VAN ZYL: Are you saying that that project was still going on when you left Roodeplaat?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: Yes, it was still going on.

MR VAN ZYL: But the point I want to make is that the end result, that which could be used physically at the end of the day, to achieve birth control, you did not achieve that result?

SCHALK VAN RENSBURG: No, that was still far ahead in the future.