Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  On page 11 which is continuation of page 10, which is the report in the Rapport of the 18th of the 4th 1997, no, sorry, Rapport, can't be 1997, must be 1993. If I can just correct that page 2 of that report is on page 11, Mr Chairman, and this is a statement by the official spokesman for the Conservative Party, Dr Pieter Mulder - and it reads as follows
"Dr Pieter Mulder, MP of Schweizer-Reneke, and the CP's official spokesman, yesterday evening said he cannot react at this stage because he does not know whether or not Mr Derby-Lewis was arrested on a charge and whether he was only detained for questioning. He said he questioned Mr Derby-Lewis with regards to rumoured connections with the Walus brothers and he gained the impression that there had been such an association in the past."
I think it is also material to mention, Mr Chairman, seeing that the whole question of the period  ...(intervention).

GEORGE BIZOS: Mr Chairman, I have patiently listened to the handing-in of documents, which they didn't even have the courtesy to give us a copy of.  In answer to a simple question and I would appeal to the Committee, Mr Chairman, not to give this witness his head from time to time to avoid answering questions, by quoting at length from documents.
	The question was a simple one.  We are on page 1 of the transcript of the report of Agenda and the question was, is the statement by Dr Hartzenberg correct that there was no violence in the Conservative Party, and we have reached the stage that violence is not in the Conservative Party, it is outside the Conservative Party.  The question was a simple one:  did Dr Hartzenberg in that paragraph and the two sentences in the next paragraph correctly represent Conservative Party policy at the time of Mr Chris Hani's murder or not?  That is the question that I am sure that the Committee wants an answer to.  And not what Dr Treurnicht said in Kimberly some time before that or what anyone else may have said, which is subject to interpretation, can we have a simple answer to that question?  And may I appeal to the witness to please listen to the question and answer it, and not regard it as a licence to read at his pleasure from various documents.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, may I ask a question before I answer that question?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, please do.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Now is it permissible for Mr Bizos to tell me how I must answer questions? I am trying to present the whole circumstance here and he is preventing me from doing this.

CHAIRPERSON: No I think that as far as possible your counsel can ask you all the questions he thinks is appropriate to clarify anything which he thinks ought to be clarified, if he thinks you have omitted something, he will have the right to elicit that evidence from you.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I understand that, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: But I think that for the time being if you are asked a direct question and if there is an answer to that, you should answer that.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I understand that, Mr Chairman, but with those specific two sentences referred to by Mr Bizos, where Dr Hartzenberg clearly said the violence is not in the Conservative Party, it is outside the Conservative Party.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but you must ...

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I have been trying to illustrate that it is broader than that.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you have answered that.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Yes, thank you, Mr Chairman.  Can I now ask Mr Bizos to repeat his question so that I can try again.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: Does the previous paragraph and those two sentences correctly represent the Conservative Party policy towards violence at the time that you killed Chris Hani?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: The official policy, yes, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Right.  Are you saying that at that time there was an official Conservative Party policy in relation to violence and an unofficial policy of the Conservative Party in relation to violence?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: What I am saying or trying to say, Mr Chairman, is that while the official policy of the Conservative Party was against violence, and I also qualified it earlier by saying that no political leader would put anything like that on paper, I am also saying that the interpretation, the perception was that the Conservative Party was already involved in violence, with the mobilisation plans and the statement by Dr Treurnicht.

GEORGE BIZOS: But Dr Hartzenberg said precisely the opposite, that violence is outside the Conservative Party. Was he telling the truth or not?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: He was telling the truth as confirmed by Dr Treurnicht, when Dr Treurnicht was talking to the mobilisation process which was outside the CP.

GEORGE BIZOS: Please confine yourself to the statements of Dr Hartzenberg.  When he said that violence was outside the Conservative Party, was he telling the truth or not?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: He was telling the truth, yes, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Thank you.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I have already said that.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes. Now you say that there was an unofficial policy of the Conservative Party.  What was - what was the unofficial policy of the Conservative Party in relation to violence?   It must be violence.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Mr Chairman, I did not say there was an unofficial policy within the Conservative Party, I said it was outside, it was bigger than the Conservative Party.

GEORGE BIZOS: We are not concerned whether there was violence in the ANC or the Communist Party or the National Party or the security forces, we are concerned with a policy of the Conservative Party which you say in your application, moved you to commit murder. I am asking you, was there an unofficial or an unexpressed policy of violence in the Conservative Party, a policy which the leaders did not speak about, that you didn't speak about and that you actually misled the people of South Africa when you say that there was a policy of non-violence in the Conservative Party?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: No, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: No.  Now you say that no leader - that no leader will openly say that his party is for violence. Is that what you said?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I said no leader of a political party, yes, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: No leader of a political party would say it.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: So that there was no leader of any political party or any political organisation purporting to represent the Afrikaner volk that was publicly advocating violence at that time?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: No political party, is what I said, Mr Chairman, and I repeat it.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was there any political, known political organisation which was advocating violence at that time?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: As far as I know, there was, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Who?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: There was an organisation by the name of the Boere Weerstandsbeweging who were advertising war.

GEORGE BIZOS: Boere Weerstandsbeweging?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: That's correct, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you have anything to do with that?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: I had to do with them, yes, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did you do it on their behalf, perhaps? (Laughter).

MR DERBY-LEWIS: No, I did not, Mr Chairman.
(Applause).

CHAIRPERSON: Try and avoid interrupting these proceedings, please!

GEORGE BIZOS: Right. So we can leave them out.  The reason why I am asking you these questions, Mr Derby-Lewis, is because I want to refer to a document in your own handwriting E11.  You have got it in front of you.

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: This is a document which you tried to smuggle out to Miss Chris Steyn.  Is that right?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: Yes, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Who was she?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: She was a journalist with The Citizen.

GEORGE BIZOS: A friend of your wife's?

MR DERBY-LEWIS: No, Mr Chairman, just somebody I had met during the course of my political duties.

GEORGE BIZOS: To whom was she married?