Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-02

MR SIBANYONI: If one looks at Exhibit D which is hand-written and under normal circumstances if it was a request like we had a request or an Intelligence note which was done before an operation, we saw an Intelligence note in the Nelspruit incident, that was thoroughly prepared, it was typed, if one looks at this one, would it not fit to a sort of cover-up, "dekstorie", which was done after the incident, the letter being hand-written, maybe backdated to the 6th of June and written in hand instead of being typed properly?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: No Chairperson, this was definitely not one of those cases, and I want to give you the assurance that nothing that one is proud of, but if this was a clandestine operation, then there would have been no survivors, not at all.  I can give you that assurance.  As we had gone in Swaziland and all the other cases, Ms Patel had led evidence there too, if we had gone there, we kill everyone, you make sure that everyone is dead, this was not a clandestine operation.

MR SIBANYONI: We have seen Mr Nofomela being adamant, insisting that you were there and you deny that you were not at the bridge and in other words you didn't practically participate in the operation, is it not perhaps so that when Nofomela started talking about these things, even when he appeared before the Harms Commission, he didn't talk about Chesterville, maybe as a result of that, you didn't apply for amnesty for the Chesterville event and as a result, you don't want to put yourself into the picture?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: No Chairperson, no.   If there was something wrong here, I would have applied for amnesty in this case.  I was not at the bridge, I give you that assurance.  I have not once hesitated to take responsibility for myself or on behalf of my people for any shooting incident, and I would not have done it in this case either.   I can give you that assurance.

MR SIBANYONI: During the Nelspruit 4 incident, we heard that there was the death of a white woman in Witbank who died in a robbery and that 15 askaris were sent there, was Simon Radebe and Nofomela one of the people who accompanied the askaris to Witbank, can you remember?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: I have no memory about who went, some of the askaris did go and I also said that I had sent some of the Koevoet members in case a tracking had to be done.   It was on request of I think Gen Engelbrecht had asked us and it was on request of that Murder and Robbery Unit and that Security Branch.

MR SIBANYONI: During the inspection in loco which we attended at Vlakplaas, you gave us the impression that you were sort of a person who always fought for a transformation, I remember a specific incident that you changed the situation how the black members were treated in Vlakplaas in the sense that at the end, you were treated equally, everybody was treated equally, but we have just heard from Nofomela that the way you operated, there was a difference between how white people were treated from how black people were treated, more specifically that they as the black members were never in other words, there were no operation where a white person was killed?  What is your comment about that?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: Chairperson, no, there is more than one answer, or there is more than one question in the first place.  I could make changes in Vlakplaas, because I was the Commanding Officer, I could not do this beforehand.  I did make these changes and black members could start driving the same vehicles as the white members, the canteen had been opened up and various changes had been made.   I started the first black Parachute Unit, I did this because I felt that we needed a black Parachute Unit and where it was in my ability, I brought these black people, black members on an equal footing, I knew that the black members could not get housing and they could not get housing subsidies.  I here refer to unmarried people and in this regard, I did what I could.  Unfortunately I could not usurp the government and bring them in, but where it was in my ability, I did what I could possibly do.

MR SIBANYONI: Finally ...

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: There was also another part, it was two questions, regarding white people being killed Chairperson.  There are now millions of white people saying that they had fought for the ANC and that they had supported the ANC, this is not the case.  Where myself and my people fought, we found black MKs and black people, but in 1985 in December, a white woman had died in Lesotho in a skirmish, where she died in cross-fire, she was the wife of the senior MK member in Lesotho, the Commander of MK in Lesotho.  I know that we were looking for Damian de Lange who was an MK member in Swaziland, on occasion we just missed him, we were drunk that evening, we just missed him, we would have shot him if we had found him and we also looked for Mr Kasrils on occasion where we received information that he was there.  I smuggled some of the askaris through to Swaziland and we went to go and look for him, so the white people that we could reach, who were MK members, we did try and get to them.  There weren't really white people who were fighting for MK Chairperson, although as I say now all of a sudden there are two million white people who fought for MK.

MR SIBANYONI: Finally, the impression I got after listening to Nofomela is that when he was in trouble after he had killed a white person at Britz, he expected either you or people from Vlakplaas to come to his assistance, but the message you sent to him was sort of a racial tone to say because he has killed a white person, he would have to carry the pain.

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: No Chairperson, this is not true.   Of the Vlakplaas members, black and white, visited him on a regular basis.  The person who told him that he would just have to take the pain, was not me, it was a Captain or a Lieutenant Snyders at that time.  The warder who was there at Correctional Services where Snyders told this to Nofomela that he, Snyders, was saying this, this warder is available, I will get his name for you just now.  He was then a Warrant Officer when Capt Freddie Khoza and Lt Snyders came to visit there, it is a person, Warrant Officer Steynberg, he was present when Snyders told him that.  This was not a message from me, Chairperson.

MR SIBANYONI: Maybe the real final question will be, if Nofomela didn't participate in the Chesterville incident, have driven the people to the bridge there, why do you think is he applying for amnesty for this incident?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: I do not know Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: In other words why does he put himself on the scene, this is the question that my colleague is asking?

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: I understand Chairperson, and I do not know.

CHAIRPERSON: We will take the lunch adjournment and reconvene at two o'clock.

MS PATEL: Honourable Chairperson, sorry, just  one minute before ...

CHAIRPERSON: You can do it when we come back.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

EUGENE ALEXANDER DE KOCK: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: Please be seated.  Are there any other questions from the panel?  Oh yes, you wanted to say something?

MS PATEL: Yes, thank you Honourable Chairperson, just for the record, Mr de Kock, following on the questions by the Honourable Mr Sibanyoni, referred to a clandestine operation which if an operation of that nature was carried out, it would be, they would make sure that everybody was killed and he referred to the Swaziland incident in which I was the Leader of Evidence, I just want to place on record that that was in fact the Nyanda McFadden matter in which there was in fact a survivor.  That is all, thank you.

MR SIBANYONI: Mr de Kock ...

ADV DE JAGER: Was the survivor not an informer who was arranged beforehand that he could get away?