Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-22

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now, Nico Bessenger, we dealt with already in relation to the diary.  Trevor Manuel.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I can't remember.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Daniel Tjongarero.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No.  No, I can't remember.  I know he was a member of SWAPO.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Well, it appears to me that the only people that you remember are the people in respect of whom you've applied for amnesty, with the one exception of Mr Roskam.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, that's correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You've already said that you were aware that there was a target list containing names.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, I was told about the priority list.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Did these strike you as being the kind of names that might have been on that target list?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: Can I just clarify?  Was this a target list, or was it a priority list, or was it a priority of targets list?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Mr Lax, I am so confused myself by this stage, I really don't know whether it was a - it is a priority list of identified enemies of the forces, that's how I regard it.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but a priority to do what?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: A priority list of targets, persons ...

CHAIRPERSON: I mean in other words there'd been a decision to eliminate them and if you come across them, preferably do so in the following order?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No.  No, it was a priority list in terms of which you had to, in respect of your various disruption techniques, in terms of which you could apply those and eliminate fell under that.

MR LAX: I've seen some of those lists, for example some of them developed in the State Security Council and they specified different priorities of actions in respect of different individuals and they were carefully drawn up lists with A and B priorities and C priorities and so on and in some instances they were priority for elimination, in others there was priority for removal, in others there was priority for - all sorts of these euphemisms were used.  Is that the sort of thing you're talking about?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: At my level I never had access to those documents, I never saw those documents but I was aware of ...(end of tape)

MR LAX: ...In terms of names, which people were you told were identified or prioritised for elimination?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: That came from time to time via the co-ordinator to myself.  It was difficult for me and I think it's difficult for you to understand that I did not have access to the CCB structures, I didn't have access myself to the intelligence structure, to Derek or to ...(intervention)

MR LAX: I've heard all of that, but here you are, you're the Regional Manager, you have several operatives underneath you and how you're even going to know that you've come across an opportunistic target, as you guys called it, if you didn't have at least in your head a whole whack of names that you could think:  "Well okay, these are priorities, these are the sorts of people if we do happen to come across information or the opportunity presents itself, we can quickly arrange to eliminate them, for example, whereas others are not worthy of that, but if we do get an opportunity and we hear of information about them, we'll send that information through because that's in the line of monitoring as opposed to that, whereas someone else might be only of a priority that if you do happen to come across them, you slash his tyres or throw paint remover on his car or whatever.  Do you see my point?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: Now if you didn't know those people, if you hadn't sat down and had a meeting where you've done a target analysis and prioritisation of a group of people that you had to work on, how would you be able to operate?  Just on a totally one on one basis?  Surely you didn't work like that, one project at a time?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: Only?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.  I can understand that it might be rather difficult for you to accept that, but that is the way it was and we as Region 6, actually in 89 we started with our operational side of our tasks and it was only in the middle of 89 that I started linking up with the Regional Managers, the other Regional Managers who met with Joe Verster on a weekly basis.  As far as the targets and the priority lists and the analyses as to what should happen to these targets was concerned, at that stage it was chiefly done by the co-ordinator via the intelligence structures.  It was conveyed in that way to myself.  We were, however, aware of the bigger targets and their identities such as Mr Slovo etc. and if an opportunistic target came up, yes then we would act speedily, that is true.

MR LAX: But you see, names like Slovo and company were external targets.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes, that's correct.

MR LAX: So what other - what I'm trying to understand, you see, you've just confirmed my impression in a sense, what other big names that didn't come to you opportunistically like Omar's did, for example, what other big names did you have in the back of your head so that if you did happen to come across them you could do something about it?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: With hindsight, I think perhaps Mr Joe Modise I could say and people like that who were known to me.

MR LAX: But he was also external, Modise.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: You see, none of these people are internal targets.  You've told us essentially ... just let me finish.  You've told us essentially that you never did anything wrong externally, you're adamant about that.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: So - and you only spent one day in Namibia.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: I don't know what other time you may have spent elsewhere, but primarily from the impression that we have is that you were busy in the country.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Yes.

MR LAX: So which internal leadership figures were you, did you have as potential targets?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: I can't remember all the names of the UDF members and so forth and that's why Mr Verster started activating us by sending the co-ordinator and saying: "Give them names, give them lists", amongst which was the name of Mr Evans, so they helped us in identifying these targets.

MR LAX: You see, one would have thought that you would have called your men together in a meeting for Region  6 and the co-ordinator would have brought you some sort of crisis analysis of the onslaught and in that crisis analysis would have said to you:  "Well here is the UDF, these are the ten leading figures in the UDF, these people are in Natal, these people are in the Free State like Terror Lekota for example, or these people are in Gauteng.  Now these people in the Western Cape, those of you that are going to be working in that area, focus on these people."
Wouldn't that have - I mean that's basic stuff.

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: That was to have happened in due course, I believe, but I really say we were still in our infancy and we hadn't yet progressed that far.

MR LAX: So you didn't even have the depth of analysis to be able to know and question whether somebody was actually who someone else told you they were?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: No, I think the targets or the people mentioned to us, the names given to us, one could ascertain from one's own observation that that person was a member of the ECC or UDF, or whatever.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Kahanovitz.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Mr Burger, Region 6 might have been newly established, the CCB wasn't new, correct?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Region?

MR KAHANOVITZ: Region 6, you and your men might have only started working in early 1989, CCB itself had been in existence long before then, correct?

DANIEL F DU TOIT BURGER: Apparently, yes.