Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

MR DE KLERK: Can I just say that I can distinctly recall that Minister Kobie Coetzee has indicated that there were guidelines of this general nature in place, these were updated, these were refined, but there wasn't a void, there were such guidelines and within my whole experience as I say, the guidelines, the ethos was, we're not above the law, crimes are not allowed. And I think this also came across very clearly when Gen Malan gave testimony a week or so ago, where he said overall responsibility yes, but where a person committed a crime, then that person must accept responsibility for that crime, crime wasn't part of the authorisation.
So somewhere in your quest for the truth Mr Chairman, you'll have to, without rewriting maybe a number of text books, develop a clear picture as to what are the rules of war. Because the rules of war a different from the rules of a normal peaceful society. In war certain things are internationally accepted, this is what happens in war. While certain other things, even in a war remain unacceptable and fall outside what can be regarded as acceptable under such special circumstances. I'm not an expert on that, I'm a lawyer by training and I cannot give you expert advice, but I think you will have to look very carefully at this in order to put the matter into context. Because we must realise that all the atrocities and all the things which shock us all so much, which happened on the side of the security forces, didn't happen in a void. It happened in a war situation. 
It happened in a situation where innocent civilians were being killed by bombs, where nobody felt safe to walk in a street or go into a Wimpy bar to have a coke. 
It happened in a situation where at times attacks were made on public places where people gathered for their pleasure and relaxation. 
It happened where people could no longer travel on a country road without the fear of being blown up by a limpet mine. 
It happened in a situation where if you wear a uniform and you're a police person, whether you support apartheid or not, whether you're Black or White, whether you are doing a marvellous duty in protecting people in a neighbourhood, you're a target, you can be shot and you can be killed.
So the atrocities from all sides happened in a situation which we must come to understand. And the tragic thing is of this situation, is that from the other side, these activities were stepped up as we were moving towards reform. It reached its height in the last five years of the '80's, that is especially when the civilian targets came in, and that was when we've already decided separate development is gone. When we already have instituted a three chamber parliament, started to broaden democracy, that happened at the stage when already there was a willingness growing, we must negotiate. When the whole atmosphere was improving and it was stepped up at that stage, and there was a threat that the country could become ungovernable.
So what I'm getting at is, I'm not saying this to say that anybody can condone or say well, now I have sympathy for the man who committed an atrocious murder, no, but to say that the deeper task of the Commission is to get to that understanding so that when you prepare your report Mr Chairman, you and the members of the Commission, so that you can bring understanding to all the people of this country.

MR GOOSEN: Mr de Klerk, you make the point that I tried to make far more articulately than I could hope to. You see in the context in which you've just outlined, it's clear there is a revolutionary onslaught, it's clear that innocent persons are suffering, there is a perception of that conflict and there is the perception of that conflict on the part of the security forces. There is a concept, a notion of what the terrorists are doing and how they are doing it, and that much is very apparent to members of the security forces. It's also very apparent to members of the State Security Council, members of the National Party and the Cabinet what the revolutionary onslaught is about. 
And precisely in that context, you indicate that it's responsibility, operations executed in terms of a reasonable interpretation of such instructions, I want to put it to you Mr de Klerk very simply, for a member of the security forces, a member of the security police, whose daily task involves him coming face to face with the terrorist that you describe, whose day to day activities exposes him to the methods that terrorists use, when that person is told, develop ways to effectively wipe out terrorists, use their own methods to do so, his reasonable interpretation, his reasonable interpretation Mr de Klerk, is to use the methods that he knows so well, to combat the terrorist.
In addition, to make a statement like that in that context, no reasonable person can possibly not foresee that a reasonable man would interpret such statements to mean, you can kill, you can assassinate, you can bomb, you can annihilate, and I put that to you.

MR DE KLERK: No I disagree with that, because firstly there was at all stages the basic ethos and approach that the law must be upheld, that the courts' independence must be upheld, that any criminal act must be followed up and prosecuted, and there are examples. Why if that was the attitude and the intention, why would these prosecutions have taken place? Then it would have been justified, then the law would have been made, we had an overwhelming majority in Parliament to indemnify such people who committed such people who committed murder, but that didn't happen, and we didn't use that power.
Secondly, let me on a more emotional level say, we, broken jugs as we are, that's not a correct translation for gebarste erdekruit, sinful people, I'm not playing holier than thou, but for us it was serious, it was a matter of great importance that this country is a country with an overwhelming majority of Christians, and where we as an ethos tried to adhere to Christian norms and principles, and in that sense of the word, it is unthinkable, my whole physical spiritual experience, it is unthinkable that anyone would callously say, because of this we relieve everybody of all moral and religious responsibility to act as Christians within the framework of the work of law. 
That was the whole ethos under which I grew up and under which I served, firstly as an ordinary member of parliament, then as a member of cabinet, and that was the ethos also in the cabinet under my Presidency. 
And therefore I reject the imputation that there was this sort of almost immoral, everything goes in a state of war, the end justifies the means. That was not the philosophy within which I lived, within which I operated and within which I served. And inasmuch as the philosophy that I'm propounding here, was transgressed, it's a tremendous pity, it is a dark blotch on our history, it is for that I've expressed the deep regret.

MR GOOSEN: The ethos of adherence to the law and due process and that persons will be prosecuted for offences may have existed in theory, but there are clear instances, and we can go back to them, we can talk about the Stanza Bopape case, we can talk about a number of other instances where the very guardians of that process, that ethos, were themselves involved in the undermining of that ethos.