Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

DR BORAINE: Thank you Mr Erasmus.

MR CORNELIUS: That is our evidence Mr Chair.

DR BORAINE: Piers.

MR PIGOU: Thank you Chair.   I just want to refer you back to your statement page 3 paragraph 5 where you refer to President Mandela as being an obvious target but due to his impeccable integrity - the next sentence I just need that to be explained to me a little bit more.  "I/we put out the message that he had little control over the radical ANC cadres and SDU's, there was a power struggle within the ANC hierarchy, he was going senile" and this is the point that I perhaps explain to me. "..and had little control over his wife who was running rampant in the townships with her Football Club who were inter alia intimidating the local population". Now the subject of much the discussion for the course of this week has been about his wife who was running rampant or alleged to be running rampant in the townships with the Football Club who were inter alia intimidating the local population.  Were you spreading disinformation about the Football Club and Mrs Mandela as to what they were doing in the townships or were you spreading information over the fact that he had little control over his wife who was running rampant in the townships.  Do you understand the difference that I've got here, I just need you to explain that to me.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I find it a little bit to distinguish between the two.  I would answer yes to it.  As I've explained and I think my former colleague and unit commander explained, Stratcom operated on a mixture of or various aspects of intelligence gleaned, some of it intelligence reports, media reports, rumours hearsay or whatever,...(intervention)

MR PIGOU: And factual information...(intervention)

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: And factual information.

MR PIGOU: So what I'm trying to establish in the course of the Mandela United Football Club activities, was the information that you received about this factual or was this information that you spread as disinformation, that it wasn't actually information that was actually happening at the time or were these factual reports that you were receiving?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: Some of the reports were factual.

MR PIGOU: Could you give us a sense Mr Erasmus because you seem to have ben quite close to this process, although I know you became only full time in 1990 from my reading of your statement of those particular things.  Sorry I'm mixing you up with Mr McPherson, could you give us sense of how much of the material that you were receiving around the Football Club was factual information and how much was actually stuff that you had to rework so to speak.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I think I must maybe just explain that Mrs Winnie Madikizela Mandela and after the President's release were obviously the most heavily targeted people in the Security Branch in the Stratcom sense in the country.  Mrs Mandela all the years, I'm very aware of it and I'm on safe ground if I say was under 24 hour surveillance.  The telephone was tapped, the house was bugged, here movements were monitored on a 24 hour basis and I cannot think of any other circumstance or situation in the South African Police Security Branch where more attention was given to anything than Mrs Winnie Madikizela Mandela's situation.  Now with the advent of Stratcom in Johannesburg to get to your question, I began to receive intelligence reports and especially after this international capability that we had, had opened his doors to us, I began to receive reports but not on a regular basis.  There was some bureaucratic bungling or whatever but I received reports on an almost daily basis sometimes about the goings on within the Mandela home.  These reports were incredibly accurate.  What time the President got up, for example, literally what he had for breakfast, what Mrs Mandela was doing.  A lot of it was absolutely innocuous which wasn't of value to me in a Stratcom sense although I was exhorted on a day to day basis and given these reports and said do something with it as if I was a machine that could turn out a dirty trick for every occasion, I wasn't able to do it.
 I also received verbal reports about, I had never specialised and had little knowledge  of the Mandela United Football Club.  I did at times in Stratcom seminars and at meetings and at braais and with regular contact that we had with people at Soweto was given information verbally on the goings on and ...(intervention)

DR BORAINE: Mr Erasmus can you just make your replies a little shorter and little more precise please.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I am sorry but I am just trying to put things in perspective.  I did receive information about the Mandela United Football Club as mentioned here for smoking dagga or marijuana, the glue sniffing kids and were uncontrollable, intimidating other residents in Soweto and so on.

MR PIGOU: Could you tell us, I just want to get this clear,
according to a press release that I have a copy of here that you 
made on the 9th of September 1990 it says that -
"One of the major Stratcom operations code named Romulus 
included in this definition many ad hoc activities aimed at the 
ANC, SACP Cosatu alliance and from 1990 onwards I headed the 
application of Operation Romulus in the Johannesburg area on a 
fulltime basis. ".
You weren't working on Romulus on a fulltime basis during the period which has really been under question here, end of 1988 or shall I say 1987 I think we've been listening to cases today through to mid 1989, we're mainly looking at disinformation, you were talking about disinformation from 1990 onwards, is that correct?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: That is correct,

MR PIGOU: And the nature of the allegations that you seem to be talking mostly about are matters which don't fall within the purview of this Commission is that correct?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: That is correct.

MR PIGOU: What we are very interested in is the so-called rampant running around in the townships of the Football Club and the reaction to that by the security branch.  Now you've indicated that there was heavy surveillance of Mrs Mandela, her residence, physical surveillance and telephone tapping and so forth.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: Correct.

MR PIGOU: Would it surprise you then that criminal activities could go on inside the Mandela household or emanate from the Mandela household and nothing would be done about them by the local police, security branch or other policing structures?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: That wouldn't really have surprised me.

MR PIGOU: Why not?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I think at the time during the latter years anyway Mrs Mandela, although she was under heavy surveillance and so on was almost feared by the state, any move against her would really have upset the political apple-cart.  There was many times that we questioned why Mrs Mandela I think, the security branch questioned why legal actions weren't or prosecutions weren't taken against Mrs Mandela but the general feeling was that she should be left alone as far as possible and that after statements like the necklacing thing she would be digging her own grave anyway and counter-productive to the ANC's ...(intervention)

MR PIGOU: Thank you.  Would you say it was also quite useful for the security branch to have the kind of activities that were emanating out of the backyard in Soweto from Mrs Mandela's house, that this was actually very useful propaganda material for you?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: Most definitely.

MR PIGOU: So would you be saying then that much of the information or some of the information, I don't want to put a figure on it, or a percentage or whatever, proportion of the information that came out about the activities of the Football Club was indeed factual then, it was actually happening it was happening out of that back yard in Soweto?