Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-10

MR VISSER: And do you confirm that those were the basic political, that was the basic political background against which you require the Amnesty Committee to look at your amnesty application?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: That is correct.

MR VISSER: Would you like to extend a little on that, go a bit further and tell the Committee of how your mindframe was after you had come to the Republic of South Africa and how your political views were forged.

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: Mr Chairman, after arriving in South Africa, I realised that the revolutionary onslaught was on at this side of the Limpopo.
	It was very similar, or it was about to gain in similarities to that which I had experienced in Rhodesia.
	I also came to realise that there was not that much difference between the ideologies of the three liberation movements including the South African one, and the ANC.  On joining the South African Security Branch, I had reason to study the ideologies and the groupings relevant to the South African struggle and familiarise myself with it and particularly familiarise myself with the increase in Umkhonto weSizwe activities, military activities of that organisation and its recruiting increased of its military activities inside and outside South Africa and the increase of its underground activities.
	I also studied many of the events which built up the terror campaign and familiarised myself with threats of a communist invasion, which was, which I anticipated would start happening inside South Africa.

MR VISSER: Did you find yourself in sympathy with those learnings, with the theories and did you take those seriously to heart, yourself?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: I did indeed.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Just continue.  We are talking about matters which had an effect upon you.  Yes, continue.

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: The amount of MK activities in Natal and the expose of MK's activities in Natal in the form of bomb attacks, assassinations on SAP members and personnel and people that were not sympathetic to the ANC, and members of the SAP had a profound effect on me.
	Some colleagues were killed and injured and their homes destroyed, whilst they were performing duties.  They were targeted as legitimate targets by the liberation forces and that effected me merely because they represented or was seen to be upholding what was the government of the day.

MR VISSER: Which was in fact so, not so?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: That is correct.

MR VISSER: Yes, continue.

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: Myself and my colleagues in the Durban Branch, we were also aware that we were targets ourselves and these factors did ensure that we had to do anything we could to contain and normalise the situation in this province.

MR VISSER: Did you visit scenes of maiming, scenes after explosions where people had been murdered, or injured yourself?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: I did Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: Give us some experiences which you had.

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: Well, I attended all the major bombs in Durban, in the Durban central area.  I had gunfights myself in which there were killings and woundings.
	I attended houses of members and councillors who had been bombed.

MR VISSER: What did such experiences have on you personally?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: It made me determined to oppose these attackers and stop them.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Please continue.

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: I realised that as policemen the major primary role is to protect the public from destruction, devastation and killing and the situation here was particularly difficult to do that.
	Many people in this province discriminated against us because we were not always able to achieve and to keep things normal.

MR VISSER: What was the situation with investigating crime and taking people to court in regard to politically orientated violence?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: If that was principally almost the first intention, however, if we succeeded and one could get prosecution through the court, that would be a great sense of accomplishment.  However, the situation did get out of hand, and this became the exception rather than the rule Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: What were the problems in taking matters to court if there were any?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: The major problem was that due to the amount of intimidation,  violent reaction witnesses and intimidation of the public, they would not assist and lack of witnesses was the principle problem.

MR VISSER: Yes.   As far as you were concerned, would you agree with the proposition that has been made by many members of the Security Branch, that what you were expected to do was really to fight an undeclared war?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: Did you consider the circumstances in and around the Durban area to be a war situation?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: It definitely was Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: What do you ascribed that to?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: Mr Chairman, the amount of military activity which is now a matter of record I believe before this Commission, indicate in itself the amount of military activity conducted by the MK forces.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Mr Wasserman, with leave of the Committee and in order not to fall into repetition, we will not go into the detail of it now, but we will deal with it when Mr Botha gives his evidence, you know what his evidence is going to be, it has been discussed with you.
	Can you now say that you agree with his references to the violence which took place within this area during the period that you were here?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR MALAN: Is that a legitimate question Mr Visser, I mean he doesn't know yet what will be said?  There may be an intention, but it has not been said, but we get the drift of what you want to achieve.

MR VISSER: I did that with a tongue in my cheek.

MR MALAN: Then you may proceed.

MR VISSER: But Mr Chairman, in fact I shouldn't even have put the question, because it just occurred to me just now that at the end of this witness' evidence, I am going to suggest that he does not give evidence about the other incidents and that we deal only with the Bhila incident.
	He is going to be back any way, and he can then confirm it.

MR MALAN: Thank you.

MR VISSER: Perhaps that question can just be struck off the record.  You were faced with a faceless enemy we heard the evidence of Mr Rosslee, about workers at day and combatants by night?  I think the Committee has heard so often about the problems which the Security Branch members had, that I don't think it is necessary to drive these points into the ground and perhaps we can continue, going on to something else.
	But the fact of the matter is this, is it not, that instead of just merely exercising pure police duties, you were called upon as members of the Security Branch, to uphold political party's views and policies?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: And as such, became more and more embroiled in a political struggle, rather than taking people to court and investigating cases as normal policemen would be expected to do?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: Was it your experience also that your colleagues as well as yourself, were called upon to do duty as we know it, border duty?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: That is correct.

MR VISSER: And that there were problems with adapting as Mr Rosslee put it when you returned to Civvy Street, to the country?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: Yes, that is correct.

MR VISSER: Did you, yourself, find a difficulty in that adaption?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: Yes, I did.

MR VISSER: Through all of this, Mr Wasserman, and I am leading a little bit Mr Chairman, for the sake of going a bit quicker, is it true that you experienced certain pressures?

LAWRIE WASSERMAN: I did.

MR VISSER: Where did those pressures come from?