Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-10

MR SNYMAN: Your Honour, it was an office that was also used by staff.  It was not continuously or continually used for interrogation.  It was also used by members of the branch as an office.

GEORGE BIZOS: Where was the hosepipe used then by Mr Niewoudt, kept?

MR SNYMAN: I don't know, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: How did it appear on the day in question?

MR SNYMAN: I have said that I cannot recall it.  It might have been there and it might have been used to administer lashes, but I cannot recall it.

GEORGE BIZOS: Let us deal with your supposed orders from you superior.  Did Col Goosen ever tell you that you were entitled to beat up people or to allow people to be beaten up by your juniors?

MR SNYMAN: No, your Honour, the instruction from my commanding officer was or had been that Mr Biko had to be interrogated intensely and that his resistance had to be broken down.  In other words, he was not to be allowed to sleep and so forth.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  The question was:  he never told you that people could be beaten up.  Is that correct?

MR SNYMAN: That is correct, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did he ever tell you that you were authorised to inflict injuries such as those we'll submit were inflicted by you and your
colleagues, in common purpose, to Mr Biko's head and lips?	Did anybody - did your superior officer tell you that you can punch up a person if in fact you could have done it by less violent means by subduing him when he was outnumbered?	Were you ever told that you had the right to beat people up?

MR SNYMAN: No, your Honour, these circumstances were of such a nature that the person who resisted us, that we had to restrain him and in that process violence was used to restrain him, since he offered resistance.  It was necessary in order to restrain him.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did Mr Goosen tell you that you were entitled to restrain a person with handcuffs and leg-irons against a grille door in the manner in which you described yesterday?

MR SNYMAN: Your Honour, he was not shackled during the scuffle.

GEORGE BIZOS: No, I didn't say during the scuffle.  I said  did he ever authorise you to restrain a person with his arms outstretched and his legs in leg-irons with a chain shortened, in the manner in which you described, you did to Mr Biko, yesterday?

MR SNYMAN: That was the instruction, your Honour, that he should be chained like that after this fight.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now did you get specific instructions to do that from Mr Goosen before you actually did it, or did you do it and did Mr Goosen come in thereafter?

MR SNYMAN: This was done after we restrained him, since we thought that he would created further difficulties and that he would offer continued resistance.  That is why he was shackled.

GEORGE BIZOS: That he was shackled before Mr Goosen came in?

MR SNYMAN: That is correct, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now, Mr Snyman, I respect your rights that not to refer to the other applications for amnesty that you have made, except to the extent that they are necessary in order to test your bona fides in relation to this application.
	You have made an application for amnesty in relation to the killing of Matthew Goniwe and his three passengers in the car.  Is that correct?

MR SNYMAN: That is correct, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: You also made an application for amnesty for the killing of the persons known as the Pebco three?  Is that correct?

MR SNYMAN: That is correct, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now I only want to deal with one point for the purposes of comparison.  You used the same form and you are asked to describe the political objective which you wanted to achieve.  Do you recall that?

MR SNYMAN: Would this have been this morning or when, your Honour?

GEORGE BIZOS: No, when you filled in the forms or the forms were
filled in for you for amnesty for the killing of Mr Goniwe and for the amnesty for the killing of the Pebco Three, you were asked to describe the political objective that you wanted to achieve?  Do you recall that?

MR SNYMAN: Yes, your Honour.  These applications were drafted in the presence and with the assistance of my attorney.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes.  Well, in each one of these cases you give substantially the same, if not the same reasons that prompted you to kill Mr Goniwe and three others and the Pebco Three.  You give the same reasons for killing them as you give for whatever may have happened to Mr Biko?
	Do you accept that?  I see your attorney shaking his head, but will you please have a look at page 7 of this application, page 8 of the application for amnesty ... (intervention).

MR SNYMAN: Watter aansoek is dit nou? (Which application is this now).

GEORGE BIZOS: ... for the killing of Mr Goniwe and page 8 for the killing of the Pebco Three.

MR SNYMAN: Ek het nie daardie ding voor my nie. (I haven't got that thing in front of me).

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, let me get it - please ask your attorney who shook his head to put those three documents in front of you.

UNKNOWN: We haven't got them available here, M'Lord.  We are dealing with the Biko application, not with the Goniwe application or the Pebco Three.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you must just try and confine yourself as far as possible to this case and if you are going to tell him that you're advancing the same reasons in those applications as you have done in this and if he says, yes, that's the end of the matter.

GEORGE BIZOS: That's the end of the - that's all I want, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: No, well, perhaps it's the way you put it, I think.  Please understand me, we're trying to clear matters up.

MR SNYMAN: Ek kan nie hoor nie.  (I can't hear).

CHAIRPERSON: The reasons you have given, your political objectives for what you did in the Biko case, is it correct that you're advancing the same objectives in respect of your applications in the other matters?  Is that so?

MR SNYMAN: Your Honour, it might be so.  I don't have the applications in front of me, but I believe that it is in fact the same.

CHAIRPERSON: You believe that it is in fact the same?

MR SNYMAN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes?

GEORGE BIZOS: It's a matter of record.  I will not take up time reading them, we have checked them and they are substantially similar.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, granted.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now, wasn't there a fundamental change in relation to the Government's policy between 1977 and 1985, 1986 when Goniwe and the Pebco Three were murdered?

MR SNYMAN: No, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you ever hear of a Security Council resolution passed in 1986 in relation to the elimination of activists?

MR SNYMAN: Your Honour, that is possible.

GEORGE BIZOS: You served in a committee in Port Elizabeth in relation to - it was called GOS, wasn't it - G-O-S.  What did that stand for?

MR SNYMAN: I served on the GBS (Gesamentlike Bestuursentrum) JMC, the Joint Management Centre.  In Afrikaans that would be GBS.

GEORGE BIZOS: GBS?  When was that formed?  Well, you don't need to give us a precise date.  That was after 1977, was it not?

MR SNYMAN: That is correct, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: The total onslaught policy of President - of PW Botha was unheard of in 1977, isn't that so?

MR SNYMAN: At that time he was not the Prime Minister, your Honour.

GEORGE BIZOS: I want to cut this short, because I don't want to deal with your applications for amnesty in relation to Goniwe or Pebco Three, but I want to put to you that your reasons for the death of Mr Biko, in your mind were the same?  Is that correct?  Otherwise you
wouldn't have signed the application?

MR SNYMAN: That is correct, your Honour.  In 1977 there was also a struggle.  There was also general unrest.

GEORGE BIZOS: Once you gave the same reasons, if you are in good faith in the matter, you must have believed that in 1977 you were entitled to beat Mr Biko to death as you killed the other seven?

MR SNYMAN: No, your Honour, I did not kill him.