Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN: Because, presumably, they were concerned that chaos and a race war should not come about as you intended.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I am not able to presume that on their behalf, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: Yes.  Did you anticipate that there would be a race war in the vacuum that was created with Mr Derby-Lewis', Mr, I beg your pardon, Mr Hani's assassination?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: No, I did not, Mr Chairman, particularly, when one recalls that when one of our former Prime Ministers, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, was assassinated, every Greek in the country did not pick up arms and start shooting Afrikaners or every Afrikaner did not pick up arms and start shooting every Greek in the country.

UNKNOWN: To the credit of the Afrikaner people.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: But the fact remains that there was no idea of a potential race war, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: Yes.  What did you mean by chaos?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: General mayhem, Mr Chairman, and, obviously, ...

UNKNOWN: What is general mayhem?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: People killing one another, but Mr Chairman ...

UNKNOWN: I beg your pardon?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: People killing one another, but ...

UNKNOWN: How many people did you expect to be killed for the purposes of the success of your objective?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I was hoping that it would be kept to a minimum.  I think, Mr Chairman, it has been clear in our planning, that we wanted to avoid harming as many innocent people as possible and our hope was that it would happen quickly, there would be a minimum of casualties, but it would be obvious that there is total lack of control, because de Klerk would not act anyway and that the people would be, could then be motivated into filling the gap.

UNKNOWN: Mr Derby-Lewis, are chaos, mayhem and minimum synonyms?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, I am not here on a language discussion.

UNKNOWN: I beg your pardon?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I am not here on a language discussion, I am ...

UNKNOWN: I am sorry, I am not hearing, what sort of discussion?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I am not here with, busy with a language discussion.

UNKNOWN: Language is very important in communicating your thoughts and you used those three words in relation to your objective.  How could there be chaos and mayhem as your stated objectives in one hand and minimum number of people being killed on the other?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, the fact that we only targeted one person shows that our intention was to keep it down to a minimum.  We could have gone out and targeted a whole lot of people if we wanted to do what you are insinuating.

UNKNOWN: Well, if that answer is correct, either you have not disclosed the real objective of creating chaos and mayhem or your objective failed.  Which of the two do you say was the case?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, our objective was reached up until the time of the problems experienced at Bophuthatswana.  In fact, Mr Chairman, to my knowledge as well, there was not that much, in terms of deaths, during the aftermath of the late Chris Hani's assassination.  In fact, I have figures which I can provide for the Committee which are produced by the Human Rights Monitor which indicate, in fact, that there were more people killed the week before Mr Hani's assassination than during the week of his assassination.

UNKNOWN: Do you agree that the country was thrown into a crisis as a result of the assassination?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I agree it was, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: Did you agree or do you agree that not only did people die, but that the confidence in the future of the country was severely effected?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, may I ask Mr Bizos from what document on record he is quoting so that ...

UNKNOWN: Well ...

MR DERBY-LEWIS: ... I can see the context in which statement was made.

UNKNOWN: I am asking you whether, what your state of mind was and your information.  Do not worry about the documents I am looking at.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, I am aware of press reports, but I am also aware that certain people published these alarmist opinions when, in fact, there are other reasons which are causing certain lacks of confidence and so on.

UNKNOWN: You see, let me just read to you, as an example, once, you will not admit something unless I refer you to a document.  Business Day, Friday, April the 16th 1993 in R3, Section D, page 24.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Section D.  It is not in my bundle.

UNKNOWN: You got it?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: It is not in my bundle.

JUDGE WILSON: R3, Section B?

UNKNOWN: Yes.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Oh, yes.

UNKNOWN: at "... consumer confidence had taken a near mortal
blow since the assassination last Saturday ...".

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: R3, Section B.

UNKNOWN: D, D for Danny.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh, D.

UNKNOWN: D.

CHAIRPERSON: I am so sorry.

UNKNOWN: Page 34, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.

UNKNOWN: "Business and consumer confidence had taken a near mortal blow since the assassination last Saturday of SACP leader, Chris Hani, economists said yesterday.  Econometrics economist, Tony Twine, said confidence had been edging up since the beginning of the year.  However, it had taken a dive since last weekend and it would plunge further if any of this weeks activities got out of hand.  We are only halfway through the minefield.  We need a clear demonstration that the authorities are in control and that rage and anger have cooled Twine said.".
and then statements from Stellenbosch University, Mr de Klerk and everyone else and there are, there is a whole section, the whole of section D deals with the chaos that was caused and the attempts made by the Government and, particularly, the leadership of the ANC and the South African Communist Party to quieten people down, that you wanted to cause chaos and mayhem.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, as I have stated, and Mr Bizos has referred to this press report, it was one economist who made that statement.  His statement was semi-supported by somebody from the University of Stellenbosch, but then that same person made a strange statement, Mr Chairman.  He said further,
"Until a new Government was in place and South Africans had a clear picture of the future, confidence would remain low.".
That confirms the point I was making, Mr Chairman, that it is not these incidents that caused a big hiccup, it is a general situation and here, according to him, the situation was that people would not settle down until there was a new Government and it was not so much the Hani assassination.  Then the further statement here, the Durban Regional Chamber of Business, Mr Chairman, said nothing about business confidence, it said that, 
"Rampages in Durban on Wednesday by ANC supporters were inexcusable.".
Then, Mr Chairman, the Southern Natal ANC Alliance said,
"Disciplinary steps would be taken against the unruly elements once they had been identified.".
Nothing to do with business confidence and I am submitting, Mr Chairman, that always under situations like this journalists use people to exaggerate the situation and if you look at these other statements that Mr Bizos is referring to, Mr Chairman, there are a number of repeats.  I did a quick spot check to see whether information connected in one clipping was, perhaps, also repeated in another clipping and that is so, Mr Chairman, and this is not the only section that this has been done.  There are other sections where they have used up to six statements regarding the same incident to prove their point or to try to prove their point.

UNKNOWN: Mr Derby-Lewis, you say that your act was a successful act until the setback at Bophuthatswana.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: What I said, Mr Chairman, was what happened after confirmed that we were right in our assessment and that it would mobilise the Afrikaner leaders to act and to come together and to forget their differences and to try and stop the rot.

UNKNOWN: And the intention was to create chaos and mayhem?