Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-11-17

MR B WILLIAMS: Yes, but you were down here specifically for the purposes of infiltration?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I was the group leader of that group.

MR B WILLIAMS: And you certainly were not going to tolerate people doing, being on their own jaunt, as it were?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.

MR B WILLIAMS: So, you had contact with them regularly?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: They would contact me, I could not contact them.  If we had a meeting this, one afternoon I would say we would meet again on Friday or Monday if we did not reach agreement, there was a way of reaching or contacting them.

MR B WILLIAMS: All right, I understand that.  Now, in addition to that and I am afraid some of this has already been covered by my colleague, in addition to that you also  had Captain Liebenberg and his sources who were infiltrating the same group, not so?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Captain Liebenberg should comment on that.  He also had informers, I do not know who they were, but later on I heard that they were also involved in infiltrating.

MR B WILLIAMS: Yes, but you were aware of that at the time?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR B WILLIAMS: And you say today to this Commission that it was absolutely impossible to effect any pre-emptive arrests?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: These people did not have specific addresses.  We could not look for them at those addresses.  The askaris could not pinpoint those addresses and that is why I stand with my point.

MR B WILLIAMS: You see, this is what I am having difficulty in having understanding.  You must help me here, Captain Bellingan.  Your askaris maintained contact with this group for a period of months.  Am I correct?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, even before that they were also here.

MR B WILLIAMS: Right.  They have regular contact with these people, and you are saying and you are wanting the Commission, the Committee to accept that there was no way that you could arrest a single individual?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, if I had arrested one of them I had to use the askaris or the security branch members to give evidence in camera in the court and then we would not have found out who were the freedom fighters trained overseas.

MR B WILLIAMS: Yes, that is somewhat of a different answer, Captain Bellingan.  So, now you are saying that it was possible to arrest some people, but that would have defeated the purpose of the operation?
MR BOOYENS OBJECTS

MR BOOYENS: That was not what he said.  He said should you arrest one of them it, he did not say it was impossible.

MR B WILLIAMS: I will accept my learned colleague's criticism, your Worship.  So, are you saying then that it was possible to arrest one or two people, at least?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, if we could have done it we would have, but this had happened 11 years ago when Liebenberg was there, we conveyed the information to them and he has to explain.  I cannot say now whether we could arrest one or two of them or not.

MR B WILLIAMS: You will agree that as Vlakplaas operatives and in terms of the, some of the methods which you used, you were extremely effective in getting information, not so?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, we were successful in many cases, Mr Chairman.

MR B WILLIAMS: Indeed, you were the experts.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: You can say we were experts or we were the best, but there was also place for failures and not successes.  We were not the very best in the country, we did make mistakes, we were not untouchable.

MR B WILLIAMS: Yes, well, that is a matter of opinion.  Captain Bellingan, why, if you were the experts, are you maintaining to this day that it was not possible to arrest anybody?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, I cannot comment on that.  If we could, we would have arrested them.  We tried that morning and the operation was unsuccessful and they attacked us first.

MR B WILLIAMS: All right.  We will come to that in a moment.  What do you say about your erstwhile colleague, Mr Mbelo's comment, that when he infiltrated this group it was quite clear to him that they operated from a house?  What do you have to say about that?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: As I have said earlier, they have changed houses from time to time and the time when Mbelo or the other askaris came here and they went in, we went into the squatter camps often, you kicked out the doors and found nothing.  We tried to arrest them.

MR B WILLIAMS: But, Captain, this is what I do not understand.  Your junior colleague, Mr Mbelo, is able to go to their house and you cannot arrest anybody.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: If we understand Mbelo correctly, in certain cases we did not find weapons with them and if we could then make a prima facie case from that it was another question.

MR B WILLIAMS: Yes, once again you are raising another question, Mr Bellingan, now you are saying, you are raising issues about what the worth would have been of arresting them, not so?  That is not what we are talking about at this point in time.  I am talking about whether you could arrest them or not.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Often we went to Guguletu with the Murder and Robbery Branch, I do not have the reports today, I have kept records of everything I did, every minute and then even when the farm was disbanded I destroyed everything and now I cannot say we did this or that.  We did try to arrest people.  There is an example when we obtained information from Guguletu Branch, we called Bright in, because he was implicated as an informer.

MR B WILLIAMS: You see, I find it difficult to believe that you would, it would appear, without more, decide on the option of trying to apprehend what, according to you, were heavily armed insurgents in a residential neighbourhood.  You are saying that that was the only option available to you?  You want the Committee to believe that?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That was not a normal residential area.  Crossroads, there were no roads there, it was a total uncontrollable area, there were no numbers on the houses, the streets were not named, it was not a normal residential area like in Goodwood, for example.

MR B WILLIAMS: Mr Bellingan, with the greatest of respect, there were people living there.

CHAIRPERSON: I think what council was asking you about was not where they lived, but where you planned this operation on that morning, which was, as I understand it, just outside a hospital, there are buildings there and that is the area he is referring to.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, when Mbane brought the information that they want to attack the bus at that crossing we put our vehicles at various places to arrest them at that section, although I realised it would be very difficult.

MR B WILLIAMS: I am indebted to you, Mr Chairperson.
	Mr Bellingan, you are saying that you considered an armed attack and a response, a reaction, an armed reaction by yourself, in a residential area, where there are two hostels, to be preferable to every conceivable effort that you could make to arrest these people beforehand?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, during the planning session we decided whether we should rent a lorry, if the bus would come that way and said, please try to keep the weapons under control so that we, with all the police vehicles, so that we can trap them there.  There was the idea there first to arrest them.

MR B WILLIAMS: Yes, but the question is that you had already decided that you were going to go ahead with an operation in terms of which you anticipated an armed response, not so?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.

MR B WILLIAMS: And your, in your judgement at the time that was better than trying to effect any other efforts to possibly arrest people?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, Mr, Jimmy could not contact us, it was difficult to contact him and to tell him to put them on a wrong track or do something else.  Jimmy took, Jimmy said he, they took the leading position.  This group had respect for them.