Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-10-02

GEORGE BIZOS: Now we know that hundreds of people were killed on trains, what do you know about that, Mr Barnard?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, I've only got limited knowledge concerning that, except that at a certain stage Vlakplaas members told me that they handed over weapons to the Zulus at the hostels, to commit those crimes.  At a certain stage I was at the Three Sister Restaurant in Hillbrow with Chappies Kloppers, who then testified at a later stage against De Kock and Willie Nortje, and then Chappies Kloppers told me that they had to go and deliver a certain amount of weapons, I think it was in Tokoza, and I had to accompany them, but I was then busy with something else.  It was not that I was scared to accompany them, I did these things every day, but I had something else going, so I could not accompany them.  It was the same with the Boipatong massacre, a days few before that they also told me that they were handed over a large amount of weapons by Vlakplaas members and that will be used where the Zulus or the ANC will attack people, and I assumed it was for the Boipatong massacre, although I cannot prove this.  But it was only a few days before the event.

GEORGE BIZOS: It may be convenient, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  We'll take the short tea adjournment now for approximately 20 minutes.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

FERDINAND BARNARD: (s.u.o.)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos.

GEORGE BIZOS: (Cont)
	In the CCB and the DCC that you took part in, what was the attitude in relation to killing innocent people, if it served the purpose of the organisation?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Sir, I can answer as follows.  If someone presented a threat to the organisation or the government of the day, he could be killed.  Mark Francis was killed with the exclusive purpose to silence him because he was about to expose the scene in Johannesburg.

GEORGE BIZOS: What I have in mind is that, for instance those who were mandated to kill, whether the Security Police, the CCB or the last organisation that you worked for.  Let us take the Ribeiro killing for instance.  There has been no suggestion that Mrs Ribeiro was in any way connected, but it would appear that if you were a hitman and you had to kill, you might as well kill the witness as well.

FERDINAND BARNARD: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Whether the witness was involved or not.

FERDINAND BARNARD: It is precisely as I testified during my evidence with regard to the Adv Omar incident, I was asked why I didn't floor the woman as well.

GEORGE BIZOS: Would that have been, killing Mrs Omar, would that have been in accordance with the way in which you would achieve the objectives of the CCB?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Correct.  In the same breath I can tell you that with regard to my evidence regarding the Webster incident, when the vehicle behind us kept on approaching, I prepared myself to fire at that vehicle, and ten to one it would have been a completely innocent person in that vehicle who had absolutely nothing to do with politics.  I was prepared to kill him if need be.

GEORGE BIZOS: We had other examples, for instance in the Goniwe killings, one of the four in the car was on the finding, an innocent passenger, you couldn't kill the three and leave the - within their own idea of innocence and guilt, you couldn't kill the guilty and leave the innocent alive, because the whole game would have been up.  So killing innocent people was not something contrary to the way in which the CCB did its killings.

FERDINAND BARNARD: I agree with you.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now with that in mind, were you surprised that Van Zyl told you why didn't you kill her?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, I wasn't surprised.

GEORGE BIZOS: What did you say to him?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I told him that I didn't do it that way and that I wasn't prepared to do it that way.  I had a personal problem with doing it that way.

GEORGE BIZOS: What was the driving force against it?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Chairperson, I was raised in such a way that women and children should be respected, and after the incident with Dr Webster took place, the thing that upset me the most wasn't the fact that I had shot Dr Webster dead, what upset me the most was to see what Ms Maggie Friedman had experienced in the press and personally as I saw her.  I cannot explain to you what it feels like to sit during a Commission of Inquiry and to sit with a post-mortem inquest and not be able to look that women in the eye.  The fact that she was present makes it more humiliating for me.  The process of shooting someone in the presence of his or her loved one, it was a cowardly act, it was not the same as the Special Task Force in the Police, who did penetration actions and knew exactly who would be in a building that they were about to penetrate.  To shoot a man in the presence of his loved one was cowardly, it is not something that made me feel good, it upset me.  The aspect pertaining to Maggie Friedman, I began drinking uncontrollably after that incident, morning, noon and night, after I had seen that she was present, because I did not physically see her during the incident.

GEORGE BIZOS: In some of these cases it has been said that it's unfortunate if people get killed in the crossfire, now I don't know apt an expression that is where there's only one side that's doing the shooting, but was it used as a justification, this expression: "Well you get caught in the crossfire", if you killed innocent people standing by?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, I assume that it would be put down to part of the war that we were waging, it was justifiable.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now with that background I want ask you questions, having regard to your knowledge of how the CCB worked.  From your understanding, if people actually or on false information given, were responsible in the mind of Verster or of Van Zyl, of putting bombs at the Magistrate's Court, at the post office and if they thought that they were going to plant other bombs in which people would have been killed, how did you expect the CCB, from what you knew, to deal with such people?

FERDINAND BARNARD: Chairperson, to quote the motto of the CCB, it would be to disrupt them on the maximum level and to kill them.  It was the same thing with Bishop Tutu, we could just as well have played knock-knock or thrown stones on the rook, we could have blown down the tyres of the security guard's bicycle, that really would have disrupted and upset Bishop Tutu.  It doesn't make any sense, if these persons were identified as terrorists, if an activist such as Dr Webster could be shot dead, then so more could stricter action be taken against those who were planting bombs, for example.  They would have been killed.

GEORGE BIZOS: The fact that there was information that it was a whole committee that was going to meet at the Early Learning Centre, within the practice of the CCB, would the killing of 10/12 people on this committee, possibly the night watchman that was there, other people that may have been there, would that have been a deterrent affect on the CCB to blowing people up?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, it wouldn't Sir, to my understanding.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now please tell us precisely, insofar as you are able to, what Van Zyl said to you about the Early Learning Centre.