Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1999-10-28

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: No Your Honour, that building, the windows had wire mesh, wire grills around it and the front door was the only door, double door. It wouldn't have made any sense operationally and in terms of our objective, to have placed that limpet anywhere else.

MR PAPIER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: There was no back door?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: No Your Honour.  The front were wooden double doors, Your Honour.  Remember we had wanted to cause an explosion.  The back door wasn't that accessible, there was a grill, there were all those types of things.  The front door was really, if you would pardon the expression, it was the perfect place for us to be and it wouldn't have made it, if we had placed it at the back of the sides.  It wouldn't have made it less dangerous Your Honour.  It wouldn't have meant that there was a greater likelihood or a less of a likelihood of something going wrong had we placed it at the back or at the sides.  It was really immaterial Your Honour.

MR PAPIER: In your view, Mr Salie, was there any prospect of placing any member of the public at risk by selecting and choosing that specific spot?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: Your Honour, no.  The one issue we emphasised very, very much with all the operatives was to avoid civilian casualties.  We were extremely, extremely insistent on that and they knew, the operatives knew that  they would, that whatever they did, however they conducted themselves as they went through the operation, that they knew the instructions were that if there was the slightest chance of civilians being caught up in this operation, if the conditions at the target had changed in any way, then they were to abort the operation.  They were not to come and tell us afterwards that:  "Yes, we did notice that and the other but we were under pressure to perform this operation so we carried on."  Your Honour, so in our opinion, Your Honour, that Rent Office is used during office hours.  It's not used after hours at all.  It's not used as something else after the Rent Office.  It is an area where the public doesn't gather.  It was at night.  The limpet was primed to go off in the middle of the night, 4, 5, 3 o'clock thereabouts.  Your Honour, it's our understanding from our discussion with Moegamat Noah and with his mother and with his sister that unfortunately the victim had a preponderance for exploring certain areas of his township that other people might not do.  His mother said that he was such a sweet child, he would often bring her little things home everyday, little empty packets, little boxes of things, old cartons, old pieces of disused stuff.

CHAIRPERSON: How old was he?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: When, at the time?  I think Mr Bartlett was 24.

MR PAPIER: I understand that Mr Bartlett is mentally challenged, is that correct?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: That's correct, yes.  So Your Honour, without belabouring the point, I think we want to state quite respectfully that we really went to the ends of the earth to ensure that there wasn't a possibility of civilians being injured, being caught up in this.  There was nothing requisite...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: While it may have been your intention to avoid it, you are saying that he caught in the cross-fire unfortunately.

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: Unfortunately, yes.

MR PAPIER: Now Mr Salie, as Commander of the Detachment, what was your response to the injury of Mr Nurudien?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: Well Your Honour, we called for and we received very extensive reports from all those concerned as to what they did, step by step report on how they conducted the operation, how they conducted themselves.  They were thoroughly interrogated Your Honour.

MR PAPIER: And I understand that, well, evidence before this Commission earlier today is that you had visited the family.  Were you part of this initiative in 1997?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: Yes, Your Honour.

CHAIRPERSON: 19 when?  Say again. 1997?

MR PAPIER: That's right.  It's two years ago.

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: Can I just speak to that quickly, Your Honour?  You know we have been very troubled by the injuries to Mr Bartlett.  It is something which weighs very heavily on us and there were basically four or five people who knew that we were responsible for this operation and once we were settling down into "normality", we said to ourselves that we really ought to go and approach the victim to say to the victim:  "Look we are the people who did this to you and this is what we did and this is why we did it and how we did it and these are the people involved" and we didn't do that Your Honour for any other reason than we thought it was the correct, human, moral, ethical thing to do.  In Umkhonto weSizwe we were instilled with a set of values, Your Honour, which made it incumbent on us, we felt, to do this.  To go to the victim.  To explain ourselves and to try and bring some peace to the victim and the victim's family and we did that not because we knew we were going to sit here one day eventually.  At that stage we hadn't even thought of applying for amnesty.  In fact, as you would know, Your Honour, there was always a little bit of grey areas as to what constituted a gross human rights violation and what not.  We've got P W Botha who said that his bombing of Khotso House was a gross human rights violation because nobody was killed, but it was the most devilish operation Your Honour.  It was right opposite a block of flats where there were old people recovering and they were and Eugene de Kock in his own testimony said that they were surprised by a Security Guard and they had to cut short the operation, had they carried it through, Your Honour, it would have been devastating but PW Botha felt that wasn't a serious...(indistinct), but I digress Your Honour.

MR PAPIER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Well let me digress a bit.  Then, and I don't mean to pose awkward questions to you, I just need to clarify it in my own mind.  If it be a ...(indistinct) that was developed in the realms of moral wars, that you consider yourself with the injuries caused by the activities of MK and that when you did eventually go visit the family, you were not urged to do so by the prospects of Amnesty, why did it take you so long to go there?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: Well, there were a number of things that we had responsibility for as to Detachment, our work didn't end in 1990 when the ANC was unbanned.  We had responsibility for weapons which we were ordered to hand over only in the beginning of 93 and, Your Honour, it was a very difficult thing for us to do, to go up to Mr Bartlett and to Mr Bartlett's family and to say:  "We blew off your leg, we blew out your eye.  I guess we are a bit cowardly, Your Honour, that's why it took us so long.

MR PAPIER: Now Mr Salie, in your capacity as Commander of the Detachment, you have also prepared a submission on pages 4 and 8 of this bundle, 4 to 8 of this bundle, which you now wish to read into the record, is that correct?

MOEGAMAT ANEEZ SALIE: I do, Your Honour.

CHAIRPERSON: I was wondering Mr Papier when I read this, how does this fit into the application?