Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-06-23

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, it's easy to deny a specific question, like Roskam's car.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Now when this planning process took place, who was in the meeting?

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, you're talking about the planning for the ...?

MR KAHANOVITZ: For the Harms Commission.

CHAIRPERSON: The Harms Commission.

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, I think it was - I suppose you have to say that Mr Verster had a large hand in the whole thing and that you can't involve the legal team.  I'm not making the statement that they were party to the attempts.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Did you - before you met with your lawyers, did you plan what you were going to say, or did you plan what you were going to say in the presence of your lawyers?

WOUTER J BASSON: No, Chairperson, I repeat, Mr Verster felt that the whole matter had to be dealt with in that way as a result of various reasons and there was a decision beforehand that that was the way we would deal with it.  I can't say that - I can't involve the legal team and implicate them in something of which they were innocent.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Alright.  So you and Mr Verster and I assume from the version of Mr Burger at the Harms Commission, at least the three of you were involved in putting forward a united front?

WOUTER J BASSON: Yes, I don't know who apart from those three people.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Was Gen Webb involved?

WOUTER J BASSON: Gen Webb was involved up to some point, I'm not sure - well, at some stage there was a problem between Gen Webb and Col Verster and then the decision was taken that we wouldn't consult jointly but that Gen Webb would consult alone and we were to consult separately.

MR KAHANOVITZ: It appears, as you say, that there was a falling out between the two of them, what was the reason for that?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, I think it revolved around the Omar and the Evans cases.  It I remember correctly there was some dispute between them as a result of that.

MR KAHANOVITZ: That Joe Verster's attitude was that Gen Webb had approved them and Gen Webb was denying it?

WOUTER J BASSON: That is correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: But for purposes of the Harms Commission, inasmuch as the version was going to be that Region 6 did not engage in internal assassinations, why would that falling out have mattered?

WOUTER J BASSON: I don't know, Chairperson, I decided that - and other people along with me, we decided to plead privilege in respect of certain incidents and that is what I stuck to.  I can't vouch for what Mr Verster's attitude might have been.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Sorry, if you could just give me a minute I can maybe speed it up.  Mr Chairman, might I just indicate, the reason that I'm not going to put a number of other passages which I could put to the witness which are untrue, is they're basically all in support of a similar version.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR KAHANOVITZ: If you can just turn to page 1276, you'll see at round about line 15 you told the Commission that the End Conscription Campaign was constantly monitored.  You see your evidence?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, I see it.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Would you care to expand on that here?

WOUTER J BASSON: Once again that was a way to creating the impression that the CCB were mainly involved in monitoring actions, which was actually just another method of concealing the real actions.

MR KAHANOVITZ: You also told - I'll show you the page reference if necessary, but you also told the Harms Commission that there was no campaign, disruption campaign relating to the South West African elections, but you changed your evidence in the Webster Inquiry, to say that there was.  Correct?

WOUTER J BASSON: That's correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: At page 1405, lines 11 to 18, you are being asked certain questions by Mr Pretorius about Chappie Maree and you tell the Harms Commission that Mr Maree was working in Natal and you say that he concentrated exclusively on the trade unions in that province.

WOUTER J BASSON: That's correct.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Is that evidence true?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, I am not sure, I don't want to say it's untrue but I'm of the impression that he was given that specific instruction to concentrate on the trade unions.

MR KAHANOVITZ: To what end was that instruction given?

WOUTER J BASSON: Well I just want to say outright that there was never a project on that.

MR KAHANOVITZ: No, but obviously he would be gathering information for some purpose, what was that purpose?

WOUTER J BASSON: That is correct.  Chairperson, we all know what the purpose of our intelligence gathering was, but nothing materialised in this regard.

MR LAX: We don't know what the purposes of your intelligence was because you see - just listen, because a couple of times now when it's been put to you what a particular purpose was, you've denied that purpose.  When Mr Kahanovitz put to you earlier that the purpose of doing monitoring on Evans, for example, could only have been to kill him, or could only have been for this or that purpose, you said "No, no, no, we hadn't decided on a purpose yet", now you're saying we all know what the purpose was.  So I think if we all know, what is it that we all know?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, I made an assumption.  If Mr Maree had worked on trade unions there would have been intelligence which was to be verified and if there was an order to eliminate a particular person in a trade union, then there would have been a project accordingly, that's what I mean.  But that didn't happen.

CHAIRPERSON: What was the problem?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, I don't know, Mr Maree, I think he had a lot of problems to adjust to the new methods and modus operandi.  Previously reference was made to the fact that, in other testimony, that Mr Maree in fact did nothing.  It's true that Mr Maree struggled to adjust to the new methods of work as he was instructed.

CHAIRPERSON: If that was the case why should he be sent abroad to do an operation?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, perhaps it was easier for him, there was a specific plan that he possibly would be transferred there permanently and that he would be able to operate with greater ease there and adjust to that situation, with greater ease than locally.

MR LAX: Sorry.  You said he had difficulty adjusting, that's a euphemism, what was his problem?

WOUTER J BASSON: He struggled to recruit people, he couldn't really come up with good indirect members.  That is the reason.

MR LAX: Was he productive in other ways?

WOUTER J BASSON: Well as far as his Blue Plan was concerned, that was quite good at that stage, but he just took longer than for instance Mr van Zyl, in respect of the development of production, but his Blue Plan activities actually progressed very nicely.

MR KAHANOVITZ: What was his Blue Plan?

WOUTER J BASSON: Chairperson, if I remember correctly - well I can't remember the name of the company, but it had to do with the import of Eastern substances, wall clocks and things like that and that it was to be sold throughout the country.

MR KAHANOVITZ: One of the reasons why Mr Maree wasn't available to carry out many projects in Natal, was because he was deeply involved in the campaign related to Namibia.

WOUTER J BASSON: Mr Maree was only involved in the establishment of Aitchison in Namibia, he was not involved in any other way in respect of the disruption of the elections.

MR KAHANOVITZ: Well you will have seen in the statements of Mr van Zyl and Mr Barnard, that - well at one level they say they certainly speculated that Maree was responsible for Lubowski's assassination.

WOUTER J BASSON: I didn't read the Section 29 statement in that way, Chairperson.

MR KAHANOVITZ: They even take it further than that, and I know that Mr van Zyl wishes to deny certain aspects of one of his statements, but that a in-house was observed where it was inferred that Maree was making a presentation on Lubowski to Verster.  Were you present?