Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-13

ADV PRIOR: .. report that all the victims that were scheduled for next week, that is the Nxiweni family and the kwaMashu 3, are present.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairman, Visser on record, my learned friend, Mr Prior, has neglected to mention that it is Friday the 13th.
	Mr Chairman, the relations and family of the victims being here, it might be in their interest just to repeat very briefly the facts to where we have come at this stage.
	You heard yesterday Mr Chairman, the evidence of Mr Botha about the discovery of an Area Political Military Committee, that came to be established in Natal and of the arrest of a number of members of that APMC in December of 1985.
	Evidence was led that Ms Ndwandwe was in fact released from custody after she had made a Section 29 statement in writing and that she thereafter lay low for a while and then struck up units from those, involving those people of the APMC who had not been arrested in December of the previous year.

CHAIRPERSON: Or had been arrested and released?

MR VISSER: Or had been arrested and released.  The evidence was that due to actions taken by the Security Branch against members of those units, Ndwandwe left the country in 1986 and as far as the information which was available to the Security Branch was concerned, she received military training in Angola.  She thereupon returned at a time when there had been some shuffling of the command leadership of Umkhonto weSizwe in Swaziland and the two previous Commanders had been removed for one reason or another.
	She then became the ...

CHAIRPERSON: I don't think it was leadership of Umkhonto weSizwe as such, was it, it was of the Natal Section?

MR VISSER: Yes, that is probably more correctly phrased Mr Chairman, yes.  She then became the de facto Commander, regarding Natal operations in Swaziland and the Security Branch received information about her activities from informers who were placed in Swaziland.
	A point was reached in October 1988 when due to the terrorist activities in the area, in Port Natal, a decision was made by basically Taylor, Botha and Steyn, that she had to be neutralised and eliminated.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry to interrupt you again, for the sake of the audience, could you give the ranks.  They were all three members of the Security Police of the South African Security Police Force and were all three Officers?  Can you remember the ranks at the time?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I speak under correction, I think Steyn was at that stage a Colonel, he might have been a Brigadier.  It was Major Taylor and it was Captain Botha at the time.
	An elaborate scheme was then devised which was put into operation to abduct Zandile Ndwandwe from Swaziland which involved two informers have made contact with her.  We don't know what their pretence was, why they wanted to meet her, but in terms of a note which we received, which is an Exhibit before you, one M.K. Jones suggested that it had something to do with the obtaining of firearms and or explosives.
	However that may be, the members and the informers went to Swaziland where Ndwandwe got into a bakkie with the two informers, they were intercepted on the way, on the road to the Big Bend and she was transferred into a Toyota bus.
	Botha immediately started to talk to her.  I neglected to say Mr Chairman that although a decision was initially already taken that she would probably have to be eliminated, to neutralise her and her influence in the violence in Natal, it was always important to attempt first to obtain the services of such a person because the information would have been more valuable than simply eliminating her.
	For that purpose, she had to be abducted from Swaziland.  On the way to the border post, already Botha started talking to her, finding out, probing and trying to find out whether it would be possible to canvass her, to elicit her services as an informer of the Security Branch.
	They eventually all got together, apart from Mr Wasserman who I think, was a Sergeant at the time, and Du Preez was a Lieutenant.  Lieutenant Du Preez and Wasserman who stayed over in Manzini on that first day of the abduction and Botha and Ndwandwe exited Swaziland through the fence, not through the border post and they all got together, apart from the two gentlemen which I have mentioned, at a house, a police house at the border post at Onverwacht where the interrogation and attempts to obtain the services of Ndwandwe was proceeded with until about half past twelve that evening.
	The next day when Wasserman and Du Preez had joined the group at the Onverwacht border post, it was clear that she was not yet willing or had not given signs that she was willing to act as an informer for the Security Branch, and they then proceeded to Pietermaritzburg.
	Also on the way to Pietermaritzburg, Botha was talking to Ndwandwe and they eventually reached a farm in the district of Maritzburg, where Botha continued talking to her and eventually realised that she was unwilling to cooperate with the Security Branch of the South African Police.
	When that happened, he handed her over to the other members of the Security Branch, who were present there and he left with the two informers for Durban.
	What is important was that in the process of the interrogation, Botha learnt from Ndwandwe certain information which was new to the Security Branch, and other information which was confirmed by her, which was already within the knowledge of the Security Branch.
	We refer to page 6 of volume 2 of the papers where the incidents were dealt with and we cross-referenced those incidents to Exhibit A and what it boils down to is that it was learnt as I understand the evidence of Mr Botha, that the incidents which are mentioned here and of which the Security Branch was obviously aware at the time, it was confirmed or for the first time, told to the Security Branch, were carried out by units under the control or a unit under the control and directions of Pumeso Nxiweni.
	Mr Chairman, while I am at that point, I neglected to make a reference, a cross-reference to Exhibit A.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser, you are addressing the audience, I don't think it is necessary to go through the documentation, they haven't got copies.

MR VISSER: It is in any event not serious, we will rectify that at a later stage.
	What then happened was after Mr Botha had left, he doesn't know what happened thereafter, but evidence will be led by others, to say that she was executed there on the farm, and buried.
	We have now gone on to the next step and that is the action taken by members of the Security Branch against Mr Pumeso Nxiweni.  We are about to start there Mr Chairman, if I remember correctly, when we adjourned yesterday.

MR MALAN: Mr Visser, just before you proceed, you mentioned in your summary that the decision had been taken by Botha, Taylor and Steyn to eliminate.

MR VISSER: Yes Mr Chairman, I didn't want to go into the details, you heard the evidence that they ...

MR MALAN: Mr Visser, I just have a question following this, I am not challenging anything.
	You also mentioned that at the time of the abduction, a decision had been taken that she probably would have to be killed.  From the evidence thus far, that wasn't made clear that it is the same decision which you are talking about, that Steyn was involved, because there wasn't such evidence to my knowledge, in the probability of her killing before the abduction.
	He does not give any such evidence in his application which Mr Botha confirmed.  He said he had read Steyn's application, and he incorporates it in his.  Will you at some stage please deal with that too.