Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-11-19

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, in those bushes numbered I there would have been people and the opposite bushes, on the western side, there would have been people posted, there would have been people round the corner where I indicated where we were sitting.

ADV MOTATA: Excuse me, Mr Bellingan, I see on the map we are referred to two places where there are "bosse" on both sides of NY1, but if you do refer us to the map and where you placed people, have some specifications so that we could follow.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, as far as I know, Dolf Odendal made the placements in the bushes, I, at the eastern side, on the right-hand side of the page.

CHAIRPERSON: I?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: U Sir, U.

CHAIRPERSON: U.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: U.  It is U and then the bushes on the western side, TSRQ, in that vicinity and, as I have heard later on, is that there where they crossed the bridge, there was also a group of people.

MS PATEL: That would have been Mr Odendal at the bridge, not so?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: I think so and Liebenberg perhaps.  I do not have that planning with me.  As I have said yesterday, we were parked round that corner and the other people were stationed at various places, but it would not have been far from the crossing.

MS PATEL: Would you accept, Mr Bellingan, that the area surrounding the intersection was, in fact, surrounded by your men or by the people in your operation that morning?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, the people in that vicinity would have all been people from our group.

MS PATEL: And that from five o' clock in the morning?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.

MS PATEL: And you confirm that Mr Mbane would have been told to come to the scene past seven o' clock that morning?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, it had to appear normal.  If he had decided on a different time we would have been in place.  I cannot say what could have happened on the ground with them.  They could have been involved in an accident or anything.  So, we made provision as from five o' clock that morning.

MS PATEL: All right.  Just in terms of the planning, there is a document in your bundle, that is Volume III, I think.  It is not titled at all, so I am not sure how I am going to refer to it.  Perhaps if, grant me a moment please, I will point the page out.  It is on page 102.

CHAIRPERSON: This is Volume III?

MS PATEL: That is correct.   Do you have it, no?

CHAIRPERSON: I think we could take the adjournment at this stage and you can arrange for them to get a paginated volume.  We will take the short adjournment now.

MS PATEL: Would everyone please rise.
HEARING ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: (Still under oath).

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Booyens, have you got the numbers now?

MR BOOYENS: M'Lord, I have got some numbers at this stage.  We have not, we have grab hold of our own document and start paginating.  We got as far as page 118 at this stage, so, but we will get somewhere, I am convinced.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS PATEL (cont)

MS PATEL: Thank you Mr Bellingan.  Could you please, if one looks at that document, it does not have a title or a heading, one is not, could you perhaps explain where this comes from?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Mr Chairman, after Colonel de Kock took over in 1984, 1985, his instructions was that everything should be organised, there should be control, records should be kept, there should be in-service training, attention should be paid to rehabilitation of the askaris and he asked me, as I have previously said, that various times the police regulations, the standing orders, when they should shoot and not, I had to convey it to the askaris, the permanent Black members and all other members.  Every month meetings were held, in-service training was held and later on, because of my experience and because I was one of the older members at that unit, I drew up certain documents regarding deployment and, for example, when I was involved in this training, I referred to these documents so that they know what the haves and the have nots were or what they had to do.
	It was not like them being like a pack of wild dogs.  There was certain order in everything, there were certain, what were the instructions regarding arrests, when there were shootouts.  This document is part of that.  What should the people do when they were for three, in the veld for three weeks.  When they returned to Pretoria they had to do  certain things after they had come back.  They had to do research at the Research Desk, C2, they had to bring their photo albums up to date, they had to know about new legislation.  
	So, this document does not have a heading, because it is part of that type of document. We have tried, for this application, to find bits and pieces of all old documentation.  This is an in-service documentation, because based on this, instructions would be given regarding the servicing of the vehicles and if certain askaris, if they were involved in a false flag operation, they had to be careful.  For example, they had to know whether the specific person I needed to apprehend should not know me, for example.  When an askari worked in a certain area, the liberation, they have heard from the liberation fighters that he had been arrested or he is co-operating with the security police.  Therefore, I could not send in a person to infiltrate if they knew he had already been apprehended.  You should be aware and prepare safeguards so that these people should not be ambushed.  This was a part of this document.

MS PATEL: So, if I understand you correctly, Mr Bellingan, this is almost a code of conduct, a checklist of what should be done, what should not be done at certain stages in an operation?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, this was used to tell the new members, based on experience, to try to give them as much guidance as possible.  Many of the people who were there have not been with us for a long time.  We wanted to organise Vlakplaas, under de Kock, as a controlled unit.  There was a bit of chaos before that.

MS PATEL: So, it is a properly controlled operation that you are involved in.  Is that what you are saying?

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: That is correct.  We tried and we were successful to develop control mechanisms.  The place had to be neat and tidy.  Everybody knew what his responsibilities were.  It was a rehabilitation progress, we had to develop these askaris.  After a few interviews de Kock decided that they had to go to Hammanskraal so that they had to undergo crash courses to become policemen, because they had to be placed out to, sent to other units.

MS PATEL: And that is one of the reasons, Mr Bellingan, that you were so highly regarded in your job, is that you were able to keep control, you were able to maintain discipline, you were good at training people, you had extensive counter-insurgency experience, this and other similar factors taken together, are part of the reason of why you were so highly regarded in whatever you did and that was, even at that stage, during 1986.

W RIAAN BELLINGAN: Yes, Mr Chairman, this was part of the whole scene.  Mr de Kock wrote a, recommendations in my personal file and that I was doing what a disciplined policeman had to do.  I knew that there was only the one way to do something and that was the correct way.  I always tried to do my utmost best.

MS PATEL: All right.  If I can just then specifically refer you to page 102 of that volume, paragraph 13.  You make mention there of a "pseudo-operasie".  Could you please explain more fully what is meant by this term and under which circumstances it would have been done?