Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-19

MR LAX: Yes, sorry, sorry, I don't mean to be disparaging in that sense at all.
	What I'm trying to say is it doesn't seem like you had a particularly businesslike plan though, whatever happened to be coming up on the day, that's what you discussed.  It doesn't seem like you had a particular order of discussion or a ...

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, we wouldn't like start the meeting in a formal way and say the meeting is now open, it was simply a discussion between Verster and myself.  There would be certain things which he wanted to discuss and likewise from my side.

CHAIRPERSON: You didn't keep minutes or records?

EDWARD WEBB: If we kept some form of record it would just have been in a short abbreviated form for your own purposes, no minutes were kept as such.

CHAIRPERSON: Just personal notes?

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, personal notes.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now if Frank Chikane was an enemy of the State and he was said to have been seriously ill by the poisoning of his clothing - do you recall that it was speculation that it was the dirty tricks department of the South African Security Forces that must have been responsible?

EDWARD WEBB: I don't recall there was a dirty tricks department in the South African Security Forces, there were simply allegations made.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, yes.  Well I use the expression for the sake of shorthand.  Now did you - were you not interested who your partner might have been outside the CCB, trying to get rid of such a high profile enemy, and did you not ask Verster, "Hey, what's going on here, is someone else doing it or is this our project?"

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why not?

EDWARD WEBB: Why should I, I didn't even know that Chikane was being monitored, I read his name in the paper for the first time, why should I concern myself with him?

GEORGE BIZOS: I see.  So you never asked any questions in relation to Mr Chikane.

EDWARD WEBB: That's correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Let's go to the next one.  Did anyone ever approach you in relation to Mr Roland White?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Who was Mr Roland White, do you know?

EDWARD WEBB: I have no idea.

GEORGE BIZOS: I would have thought that as a General in the Army, he would have been high up on your list of would-be acquaintances.  He was the top man in the End Conscription Campaign - he was high up I'm told - I'm sorry, I correct it, high up on the End Conscription Campaign, the person who was really trying to get the would-be soldiers in your army not to join up.  Never heard of him?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now you see, the evidence before the Committee is that Botha and Barnard - you'll find that in B4, Mr Chairman, Botha and Barnard were monitoring him and Mr White being an observant and law abiding citizen, went and reported to the police that two men were shadowing him and the two were arrested, the two CCB operatives were arrested and there had to be some creative thinking on their part as to what they were doing, in order to avoid their being exposed.  Isn't that the sort of thing that Verster would have wanted to report to his Chairman, in relation to the lack of ...(indistinct) by two of his operatives as well?

EDWARD WEBB: Chairperson, I didn't know the operators, why would Verster report such things to me when I didn't even know the operators, because I wasn't going to pay him a production bonus or make a merit assessment of him, it had nothing to do with me.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't think whether you knew the operatives or not is of any importance, but the mere fact that somebody in the employ of the CCB had been arrested, wouldn't you as Chairman have expected that to have been reported to you, taking into account the covert nature of the whole operation?  I mean, you got very close to being exposed, wouldn't you have expected that?  Whether you knew of the person or not, if you're a General in the Army and a soldier commits an offence by going AWOL or seriously assaulting another soldier, you would expect to hear of it as Commander, not because you knew that soldier personally.

EDWARD WEBB: That only came to my attention later, Verster didn't report that directly to me.  I think that came out later at the Harms Commission, that these two had been detained or had been arrested by the police.

CHAIRPERSON: So it was never reported to you by Verster at one of your weekly meetings?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.  Because it was of a covert nature, Verster would first have checked to see what happened, was the CCB implicated or not, was there a red light flashing or not, and only then if there were to be some problems, Verster would have reported to me.

CHAIRPERSON: Because one would imagine if somebody was arrested then even if nothing happened to them in relation to them being charged or whatever, the police would have their names.

EDWARD WEBB: Yes, definitely.

GEORGE BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) Hamutenya mean anything to you?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, you must be careful about that.  Perhaps I should remind you, you are credited of having played an important role in the SWAPO/MPLA/Savimbi conflict.  Did you?

EDWARD WEBB: Who credited me?

GEORGE BIZOS: I beg your pardon?

EDWARD WEBB: Who gave me that credit?

GEORGE BIZOS: Never mind.  Is it true?

EDWARD WEBB: I spent time in the South African war, South West African war, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: And Savimbi occupied Angola.

EDWARD WEBB: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: SWAPO was the enemy of Savimbi as much as the enemy of the MPLA.

EDWARD WEBB: Not SWAPO, their military wing was, SWAPO was a political organisation in South Africa, not banned.

GEORGE BIZOS: You're quite right, yes, I know about that, but their military wing was.  And the view, the view of the South African Security Forces and the Army was that there was close liaison between SWAPO and their military wing.

EDWARD WEBB: I suppose so.

GEORGE BIZOS: Ja.  And you say who gave you credit?  You are credited of actually having formalised the informal Army of Savimbi into an efficient fighting force.  Were you not credited with that?  Don't laugh.

EDWARD WEBB: I have no idea what Mr Bizos is referring to, none whatsoever.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, is it true, did you organise Savimbi's Army?

EDWARD WEBB: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: No?  Well then perhaps you'd better look into your own history.  But anyway, let's leave Savimbi out of it for the time being.  Wasn't the third person that I have mentioned to you, Hidipo Hamutenya, a very - one of the top people in SWAPO?

EDWARD WEBB: That's possible.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was he being monitored by Mr Botha?

EDWARD WEBB: Not as far as I knew, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was it ever reported to you that one of the CCB operatives was monitoring a Namibian?

EDWARD WEBB: No, Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was the CCB to confine itself in the activities within the Republic, or could they go outside in '89?

CHAIRPERSON: I think you're talking Region 6.

GEORGE BIZOS: Region 6, yes.
	Could they go outside?

EDWARD WEBB: If the information was to that effect, I suppose you could use them, yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why would they be monitoring a high profile SWAPO politician?

EDWARD WEBB: I've just said, I don't know about that monitoring.

MR LAX: Could I just clarify something?
	Why would they work outside the country if their information pointed that way?

EDWARD WEBB: Depending on what forces you had at your disposal, depending on what kind of operation, you must decide what forces you had and how you were going to do the operation.  If you didn't have that capacity, maybe you had some other capacity.  You had different capacities from which you could choose what you were going to use for Special Forces.