Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-11

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Mr Chairman, no not really in my period.  I know Dr Wouter Basson initially wasn't very well acquainted with General Neethling and we discussed the General's role in the project in being, having to be responsible if some of the products needed to be forensically tested at the end of the line, the General's department would be involved.  But that's bona fides.

MR CHASKALSON: Earlier on you talked about a narrow line between defensive and offensive and so on projects.  I accept your argument but I would like to ask you about intent and what your understanding of the intent of the programme was.  Could you comment on that?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Yes.  Chairman, as I've said before we were not really unclear about the intent of the programme.  We had a few concerns about it and that was the need to know principle, that if targets were identified - and we received descriptions of the scenario which would be applicable to the target, for instance the snake venom.  Dr Basson would tell us: "Look, we've got access to this guy, we've infiltrated somewhere, we can get access to him, close access, we can hold him down, we can inject him and then we can kill a snake next to him and it would be made to look to everyone else he was bitten by a snake.  So we were definitely presented with that type of scenario and develop and produce these tricks to apply to the scenario.  We were very concerned about, that this should be used for legitimate opponents or the enemy - which we won't waste time on, I think we know, we understand who was the enemy at the stage, the ANC etc.  We had long discussions on, with Dr Basson on Nelson Mandela, Dr Mandela, Oliver Tambo, all these guys.  Die ...[indistinct] hierarchy, those were potential targets and we should develop these non-traceable stuff for them ja.

MR CHASKALSON: Now you are listing here individuals who opposed the government of the time, you are not talking about an attack on a military force which would be in some form of self defence or to prevent an initial attack, we're talking innocent people  Am I correct in understanding that this is what you're saying?  ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: In one case may we note, he was talking about a prisoner who was incarcerated in jail if we are talking about Mandela.  I don't know how much of an enemy he was in prison.

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Ja.  Mr Chairman, to answer your question yes, that is true.  Those people were considered the enemy by us.  We cannot deny that, that is true.  To come back to President Mandela.  It is true, I personally had discussion with Dr Basson about, in the general lines, if one had to release him it would have been good if he had a disease which you know wouldn't, so that he couldn't be too long a problem.
 We spoke about carcinogens at the stage and again as I said, carcinogens are reasonably available.  There was no definite plan formulated in my presence that I know of.  This was general sort of discussions on what the possibilities will be.  No definite plan was formulated as far as I know.

MR CHASKALSON: Could you tell us what a carcinogen is in layman's terms?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Carcinogen is a chemical substance or any substance for that matter which will precipitate and cause cancer induce, that is can induce cancer.

MR CHASKALSON: So, it would be a clandestine way of ultimately causing the death of somebody?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: That can be correct, ja.

MR CHASKALSON: During your discussions with General Knobel in which you spoke about concerns of the programme, did you ever specifically discuss any of the substances which we have heard could have been used for or against individuals?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Initially when I was getting the scientific side running at RRL, we had meetings with the "borge" which consisted of two parts, one was the reporting on techinical aspects and the other one on financial.  First the financial one and then the auditors would leave and then we would discuss the projects.
 And these types of projects were discussed at one or two meetings  because these meetings fell then in this use.  And that was a centre of control, where we all could sit down with the people we respected, like the General, that he would be in control of the end use of these products.

MR CHASKALSON: What happened after those meetings fell into disuse, how did you used to report and how were your potential concerns about the use of these projects taken care of?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Mr Chairman, that was after the first 18 months when I was removed.  That was then the stages where it happened, just before the period where I was sort of not reporting anymore.
 What happened is, in 1985 Wouter, Dr Wouter Basson attended an officers course for one years, the highest course to be able to become a General I understand and being on that course he was not available to the project for one  year in '85.  
 That created a bit of a void because Dr Basson was the link between me as Managing Director and the money and everything that was going on.  And that was part of what developed into the situation, that we had some discussions on management and the problems in management and how this should have been managed, this company in '86 but I was fired before we could resolve anything.

MR CHASKALSON: Could you indicate for us what you view as scientific achievements that were made by RRL?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Mr Chairman, the scientific achievements were made in the field of Chemical Biological Warfare and please, this is not proliferation, this is history.  We supplied a lot of crude products which could have been used, we could have supplied and developed a lot of crude products which could have been used as this dirty tricks stuff, James Bond stuff.
 We advanced far on the development of an anti-fertility vaccine but it was never really produced and I can say this, I was involved on the hard sides up to 1989.  The third side of developing a biotechnological component, the genetic engineering side, no real biological weapons were coming from that.  That unit, that unit has been transferred by Dr Mike Odendal refusing shares in the company.  He transferred the unit to a non-war situation where it is developing and producing for the country for the first time recombinant(?) vaccines for use as good products.  And again, the unit is still involved in producing Botulinum Toxin to very sophisticated levels.  And it's a legitimate use, it is the thickness of leaf away from a weapon and not a weapon and the control is also not easy.

MR CHASKALSON: Just to clarify on that.  Earlier on you told us that between seven and ten million rand was used for operating costs at RRL for a period of approximately nine years.  You discussed a six and a half million amount which was used for the building of the facility and a thirty million amount which was for the upgrading of the facility.  If we take the low side of the seven to ten million, 7 9's are 63 plus 30, we're at 93, we are talking approximately something like a hundred million rand which was spent.  And given what you have just said to us we don't have any scientific achievement, we have crude dirty tricks and we have another genetic section which you said has subsequently been taken out of RRL and made a success elsewhere.  Would that be an unfair representation?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Mr Chairman, that would be the bottom line, 100% correct, completely under production for what was spent in the project, completely.  But of course it can't be evaluated by a Managing Director who doesn't know about science.