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

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: A lot of the information yes, was correct.  I never specialised, I must just point out, Mrs Mandela even at the height of these activities was one of many people that I dealt with, I didn't have the time or the opportunity or in fact the capacity to make a full study of a given situation.  My work load was just too heavy to do it.

MR PIGOU: Thanks.  Are you aware of any, well within Operation Romulus, because I am not sure if there were any other operations, perhaps you could tell us were there any other security branch Stratcom operations against Mrs Mandela, were you aware or to your knowledge was Operation Romulus used to intervene in criminal investigations in order to falsify information or evidence to involve Mrs Mandela in criminal activities such as the Stompie Seipei killing and the kidnapping?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: Well I think what I said about just the use of dagga is a clear indication of that type of - oh of evidence in ...(intervention)

MR PIGOU: Yes I mean we are talking now about falsifying evidence which could be used for criminal prosecution.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: No I am not aware of that.

MR PIGOU: Okay.  Returning to your document very quickly, end of page 3 again paragraph 5 you refer to Sergeant Pretorius as the handler of one Jerry Richardson would that be the same Sergeant Stephanus Pretorius who died in Jerry Richardson's house on 9 November 1988?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: That is correct.

MR PIGOU: I just want to talk briefly now through some of the reactions that we had during the course of the in camera Section 29 hearing, this is 1989 so you may not have had direct knowledge as you weren't working fulltime on these Stratcom operations but you may well have had insight into these kind of things so we will appreciate whatever information you can give us about this.  We have been referring in the last couple of days to a Mandela Crisis Committee document which was sent, according to the Crisis Committee members who sat here, to Lusaka in early 1989.  During the course of our in camera hearing Mrs Madikizela-Mandela when asked about this document basically said that it was a Stratcom or she had been informed that it was a Stratcom document, I beg your pardon, do you have any knowledge as to whether this was a Stratcom document?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I have no knowledge whatsoever.   At that time my involvement with Stratcom if I can just point out, was very much limited, there wasn't, as I have mentioned in my statement, there wasn't a formal unit on Johannesburg although there were people that were given certain Stratcom or strategic communication tasks.

MR PIGOU: Thank you.  Going on to the next page, page 67 if you want it for your reference of the second Section 29 in camera hearing we asked the question, my colleague Mr Vally
"Are you aware of the statement issued by what was then called the Mass Democratic Movement and reported in the press on the 17th of February 1989?"
and the response was -
"Yes a statement was issued by Murphy Morobe as part and parcel of that Stratcom exercise".
Are you aware wether the MDM statement was a part of a Stratcom exercise?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I have a vague recollection of the statement but I have no knowledge of whether it was a Stratcom exercise or not.

MR PIGOU: We then follow it up in saying, asked Mrs Mandela whether Murphy Morobe is part and parcel of the Stratcom operation, and the response was
"What we subsequently established was that from the very onset when the so-called Stompie affair broke out the media had amongst its fraternity reporters who were working for the system at that time. You have all seen the media presentations that have been made to you.  My subsequent information throughout the years has been that the first reporters who broke the so-called Stompie affair...."
and I am not going to name the names, I am going to withhold those,
"....were in fact part of the informers who were planted in the media and that statement to my information thereafter was that it was part of the exercise that was influenced by Stratcom".
Are you aware at the beginning of 1989 whether the first stories and subsequent stories - but let's confine ourselves for your answer now to the first stories, the initial batch of stories that came out around the Stompie Seipei incident, do you have any information as to whether these were part and parcel of a Stratcom exercise?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: The only information that I can give you Chairperson and that was that the media were obviously heavily targeted by the security branch.  I personally handled agents who contact and had contact with the media over the whole duration of my career, but I have no specific knowledge of the situation regarding information being given to the media in the Stompie case.

MR PIGOU: So once again that would be a situation would it that the information, factual information would come to you and there would be something that you could utilise at a later stage or was utilised at a later stage.

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: At a later stage, that is correct.

MR PIGOU: Were there any other Stratcom operations related to Winnie Mandela?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: Not that I am aware of.

MR PIGOU: Who did you deal with in Soweto, who was your contact person in Soweto in the Stratcom unit there, who were you receiving information from?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: It was a Sergeant Badenhorst that gave me information from time to time and I had quite a lot of contact with the unit commander or the most senior person involved with Stratcom that was Colonel Louis de Jager, or Colonel "Tickey" de Jager.

MR PIGOU: Were the intelligence reports that you received complete?  In other words were the transcripts of the telephone tampering covering 24 hours every day or were you receiving just snippets as to what Soweto or other units in the Witwatersrand would want to give you?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: From time to time I did receive full intelligence reports when and if Sergeant Badenhorst or Colonel de Jager whoever at Soweto thought it might be of use.  As I mentioned before a lot of the information was useless, absolutely useless to me, there was nothing that I could do.  Sergeant Badenhorst also gave me information telephonically and from time to time just brought me up to date by virtue of an intelligence report that gave me something of an overview of the situation.

MR PIGOU: Thank you.  Just a couple more questions very quickly Chair, I will be finished....

DR BORAINE: I was about to ask you.

MR PIGOU: I could see that was coming.  You've talked about informers in the Football Club, do you have any concrete information about informers inside the Football Club?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I don't, it was never security branch policy although we always used to within our own ranks play spot the agent type of stuff, it was just curiosity to try and deduce from reports who the agent was and it was something of pride that you could see a colleague and say I know who your agent is or I figured it out or whatever.

MR PIGOU: From your lengthy experience inside the security branch would you be surprised if the security branch in Soweto did not have informers inside and around the Football Club or the youths that frequented the Mandela household?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: I would have been amazed if that was the case.

MR PIGOU: Could you just tell us one last question now, what was the reason that you who were based at John Vorster Square carried out Stratcom operations directed towards people living in Soweto?

PAUL FRANCIS ERASMUS: As I mentioned before it was because of the international capability that I had with agents in Britain and the agent network that was set up in Britain that I was given that type of information.

MR PIGOU: No further questions Chair.

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much.  Mr Semenya.