Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: Well, it was eroded constantly, especially after the signing of the Record of Understanding and the fact that by-elections were abolished and throughout it was the CP's stand that we were a political Party and we gave preference to the Democratic political option but those options were gradually eroded and scaled down.

MR PRINSLOO: Did the Conservative Party then start looking at other options and did they implement these or not?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: In the course of 1992, we realised that because those options were diminishing, we would have to mobilise our people to demonstrate in a visible manner that we were quite serious for the preservation of our liberty.
	And in March 1993, we - in respect of the talks and the discussions and the planning which took place in '92, this all led to the mobilisation action which was launched in March of 1993.  
	The mobilisation action amounted to us - in respect of our own people and 18 interest groups which included Education, Agriculture, Local Government et., and also security and safety, we mobilised our people on 18 different fronts to in fact take steps and plan how we would actually maintain our freedom.

MR PRINSLOO: What did this mean for members of the Conservative Party to maintain your freedom, how was it seen by them?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: Well, we realised that the country was heading towards a certain dispensation which we didn't agree with, we thought we would lose our freedom and we wanted to retain our freedom.  And we had to act in such a way that if the country was headed for such a direction, that we would not go along with that, that we would walk our own road of freedom.

MR PRINSLOO: Did the Conservative Party see as a probability that the SACP/ANC alliance would take power in the country?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: Yes, it was very clear to us.

MR PRINSLOO: Was it acceptable to the Party?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: No, we were in no way in favour of surrendering our freedom voluntarily.  I may remind you that the beginning of the century our forefathers were similarly not prepared to give up the liberty to Great Britain, so we were not prepared for that and we are still striving for freedom.
	And furthermore we realised that there was more to it, there was also the issue of a take-over by the South African Communist Party or a Party which would be dominated by the SACP.  And at that stage it was already clear that communism was a failure, globally it brought only misery and death world-wide, it brought no economic prosperity and we were not prepared to go in that direction and especially to accept it voluntarily, we wanted to avoid living in such a dispensation.

MR PRINSLOO: Now, in what light did your party - the CP, view the Communist Party of South Africa?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: We saw the SACP for what it was, namely, it was a part of world communism.  The SACP - according to our information, had links with the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and it didn't have an own independent policy which differed from the Soviet Union's Communist Party and the results of the Soviet Union's policies were clear for all to see and we knew that the South African Communist Party's results would be exactly the same for South Africa.

MR PRINSLOO: Doctor, in what light did your Party view Chris Hani?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: We actually didn't regard him as a patron or a champion of the Afrikaner and also not of the Conservative Party, we realised that Mr Chris Hani was the Commanding Officer of Umkhonto weSizwe.  That Mr Chris Hani had on occasion said that the Whites had to be maimed so that - when they were visited by their next of kin, the people would say: "The price is too high" and they would surrender.
	And that members of Parliament had to be killed, that certain members of the judiciary had to be killed, that the country had to be turned into a wasteland.  And we in fact regarded him as more or less enemy number one of the Afrikaner.

MR PRINSLOO: Now Doctor, how did you view his position - especially as a possible successor in the SACP or as a possible leader of the Party or as President of the country?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: At that stage Mr Hani was the Secretary General of the SACP, he was Mr Slovo's successor and previously he had been the commanding officer - or whatever it was called, of Umkhonto but he still played an important role in the MK and he was the leader of the Communist Party.
	He obtained the most votes on the ANC Executive Committee election which too place not long before that.  He actually obtained more votes than Mr Mbeki, so we just assumed that he would be Mr Mandela's successor.

MR PRINSLOO: The Party learnt of Mr Hani's death on the 10th of April or sometime thereafter, what was the CP's attitude immediately when this news broke?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: We took note of the death of Mr Hani and it is true that even though we saw Mr Hani as enemy number one, that loss of life - it doesn't matter who the person involved is, is simply not a pleasant thing to hear about.
	We heard that Mr Hani had been killed, we didn't know who it was and where it came from - there was a lot of speculation obviously immediately afterwards.

MR PRINSLOO: On the 19th of April, there were reports - this was 1993, reports in The Beeld:  "Clive's Taking into Custody - A Great Shock for CP leaders".

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: Yes, that's true.  Mr Derby-Lewis is a friend of mine, so if I walk out of hear and I hear that he's being arrested it would be a great shock and that is why I was shocked when I heard that he'd been arrested.  He was a personal friend, he was a colleague and we learnt that he'd been arrested, so obviously we were shocked.

MR PRINSLOO: At the stage that Mr Derby-Lewis was taken into custody, did the Party distance itself from Mr Derby-Lewis or what did they do?

FERDIE HARTZENBERG: The Conservative Party never - in any circumstances, distanced itself from Mr Derby-Lewis.

MR PRINSLOO: Now, after Mr Derby-Lewis had been charged and found guilty of the murder of Mr Hani - along with the second applicant Mr Walus, what was the Party's attitude then?