Amnesty Hearings — White River — 2000-05-02

SIPHIWE NYANDA: No.  This particular Viva Chairman was killed in Swaziland according to reports, de Kock and some of his people, they've asked for amnesty with respect to his killing and that of two others who were in the car with him.

MR SIBANYONI: Thank you Mr Chairperson, no further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Sibanyoni.  Mr Nyanda, just in regard to the landmine campaign, if I understand you correctly, there was some means of monitoring how this project, this campaign was developing, you had some feedback, not of everything, but you had an idea of what was happening to the campaign.  Would that be a fair summary of what your evidence is?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes, I think, Mr Chairman, it would be a fair summary of my evidence, because as I said, we used to get reports in the newspapers about detonation of landmines by the South African Police, by the South African Defence Force and also sometimes by ordinary civilians, farm workers.

CHAIRPERSON: Now as the command structure for this particular campaign, in view of this feedback that you got, what was your view about the campaign itself in terms of its success, or its failure, or whether your guidelines were being roughly, largely followed and that sort of thing, what was your feeling as the Command?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Chairman, firstly, I think the evidence has been led here and I said I was not around at that time, that the ANC decided at some point to culminate this campaign, which was a campaign countrywide, through Northern Transvaal, through structures in Zimbabwe, Botswana as well as the Eastern Transvaal.  I participated from 1986 and early 87 as Commander of this project Kletshwayo.  It was a brief period, then I was recalled back to Lusaka and to another task and during my carrying out of those other tasks, the ANC decided that this campaign must be stopped and it decided I think in the ...(indistinct) wisdom because oft he casualties, especially civilian casualties that were being reported.  I think during the time when I was there, there were instances where civilians were injured or died as a result of the activities of the operatives that I commanded, but largely military as well as police people were also affected by the campaign.  I think because of the overall effect, impact of the campaign on civilians, the ANC decided to terminate this campaign and my impression as well was that the campaign because it attracted severe casualties, had to be terminated.

CHAIRPERSON: Now if you can recall, those instances where you had knowledge of civilian casualties in the operations, what sort of idea did you form about these?  Were these cases of blatant disregard for your guidelines, or would it have been cross-fire instances as you've referred to earlier where people were caught up in the war that was going on?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Chairman, I'm convinced that there was no disregard of the guidelines by the operatives at least that were briefed under my structure and that these were genuine accidents.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Mtanga was referring to a particular incident that is documented in the papers before us here and its not quite clear to me whether it, in fact, resulted from your operations or not, but in any case I'll give you the details and perhaps you can tell us whether you have any idea about this one.  According to the papers before us, I'm just looking at one of the statements by, it appears to be an investigating officer on page 73 or the papers, this particular incident happened on the 23rd of March 1987, it seems to be about half-past five in the afternoon and it seems to have been in the vicinity of a mine on a gravel road in the vicinity of what is called the Diepgesit mine and over the page, on page 74, there is a further report by this policeman about the incident and then on top of the page, the second line, he explains where and in what circumstances the incident happened.  It seems to be this gravel road which seems to be a road that is formed by cars driving, it seems to be in the veld somewhere.  He says it's got two sort of - it seems to be one of those gravel roads with just the two marks that are caused by the wheels of vehicles and it seems to be in the vicinity of this Diepgesit Mine and Josefsdal Road turn-off.  This is the one that Ms Mtanga referred to where some people were injured, on the fact of it civilian people.  Now March 87, were you still in the operation at that stage?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: I'm not sure, I think I had left by then.

CHAIRPERSON: Would you have left by then already?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: You don't recall an incident of this sort of nature?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: No, I don't recall this particular incident.  From the, as she put to you, there were four people killed apparently and one person injured and it appears from the surnames Msivi, Sithole, Motsa, if you look at page 3, the last group of names there, so on the face of it it appears to be civilians and the five people involved, that doesn't ring any bell?  You don't recall anything of that sort of nature?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: I have no recollection, but as I said, Chairman, that it is quite possible that this thing happened under my command and that it happened, it was carried out by people who fell under Kletshwayo, but I have no personal recollection of it and it is quite possible too that I was still in Swaziland then, in charge of this project.

CHAIRPERSON: From this little bit of information that we have here, it seems to be somewhere near to a mine.  It doesn't look like it's a road that's regularly used, it's a gravel road with two sort of lanes caused by wheels and so on.  It looks as if it's somewhere out.

SIPHIWE NYANDA: It is quite possible that it was a road which was used to patrol, as well, by the military or the police and that the people had reconnoitred it and placed a mine in the hope that it would be triggered by those patrols, because it couldn't have been placed there for ordinary civilians to trigger.

CHAIRPERSON: And would this be, now it's very difficult because we've got very scant detail about the thing, but it looks as if it's not a regular road, it doesn't look like it's a built road, it seems to have just been formed by vehicles moving up and down on the gravel.  Would that be the kind of area where you would have expected this border campaign, you were saying it was against the border, you were focusing on the role of the farmers in that particular area and the Security Forces.

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes, Chairman, provided that conclusion was reached by it, because we would give them general directives and guidelines about what kind of operations to carry out and where to place these landmines on roads which were used for patrol and so on and they themselves would go there, or they would know that this particular road or this gravel road is actually formed by - it's not a natural road but it is road that has been formed by vehicles on patrol and they would, if they take that decision, then place the landmine there.

CHAIRPERSON: As I say, it's not clear on what is before us, whether in fact that is beyond any doubt, an incident that resulted from the operations, but that's the sum total of what we have here.  Were you - you say that it was between 1986 and early 1987 that you were involved.  Now was it - when about in 1986 were you ...

SIPHIWE NYANDA: I think late 85.

CHAIRPERSON: Late 85?  Late 85 to early 87?

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: The incidents that you list on page 17 of the papers, the six incidents there, they all seem to have occurred during 1986.

SIPHIWE NYANDA: Yes, Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And were these all within the ambit of your guidelines and your operation at that stage?  In other words, these were authorised operations?