Human Rights Violation Hearings — Moutse — 1996-12-05

CHAIRPERSON: The policy was, independence, and therefore there are political implications and I'm asking you again, do you not take responsibility that the law and order which
was required of you was a political law and order, it was not an ordinary law and order, as you said you were not an ordinary policeman, it was a political policy which you were to ensure succeeds, namely independence and therefore you were to carry out actions against people who were seen as political opponents. Is that not what your role was? And in the process of carrying out those orders, is it not the case that those who were seen as political opponents had their human rights violated, that they were either tortured, that they were either illegally detained, that they were either abducted, is that not the case. If there is a political conflict, and there are two sides to the political conflict, and one takes one position in that political conflict, how else are you going to secure the triumph of one political position over another if not by the use of force?

BRIG HERTZOG LERM: Chairperson, I used the wisdom of Solomon at the time, the government was here, there were ministers, they were supported by President Botha and I merely came to maintain peace and order and I would like to say to you, as I said previously, I came here under a state
of emergency, I did not come here as an ordinary commissioner, I came here as an emergency relief solution.  There was a state of emergency and I had to enforce it.

CHAIRPERSON: The question is, did you use force in order to suppress what you saw as an uprising or as opposition to MOUTSE  HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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the policy of the day?  Did you use force and sometimes undue force in order to secure those political objectives?

BRIG HERTZOG LERM: Chairperson, that is a lie. That's not true. I am a policeman and I have police culture. I know the functions of the police, and I merely exercise those functions, I would never have allowed necklacing and
vultures to prey on people like that.

CHAIRPERSON: That was where the other side was involved with, they were the comrades or UDF or ANC, their complaints of actions against them by either kitskonstabels or Mbokoto or the police, did you pursue those actions against comrades or UDF as vigorously as you pursued the other part of the conflict, those of people who were necklaced and had their businesses burned?  Were you even handed in the way that you pursued those who were involved in the conflict?

BRIG HERTZOG LERM: I went so far as go to the Attorney General Mr Don Brunette, and the Cabinet said to me, "Listen, I am mentioning his name again, Daantjies van Wyk left here with all the dockets, they left here with all the dockets, there are witnesses who can corroborate that.  When Piet Ntuli died, they left with all the dockets, when I asked I was told they were still being written out, and the Cabinet came and said to me and said, something's wrong here, it seems as if only these people are being detained and you don't know what's happening to the other dockets. I said, "Listen Chief Minister, I will personally attend to
it", and I went to van Wyk and we spoke to Brunette and I said, "Listen Sir, Mr Brunette, I don't want you to do anything but to enforce the law in a uniform fashion, there should be a balance because there are complaints, the Cabinet alleges that only their matters investigated and not MOUTSE  HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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the opposition, and I merely did my duty, nothing more, nothing less than enforcing law and order and ensuring that there is a balance.  I negotiated with these people and the main thing was that they did not want independence, they did not want to live peacefully with each other, they just wanted to fight, they did not maintain peace and order, we 
would not have been sitting here today.

CHAIRPERSON: The members of the panel may want to ask you some questions, to start with, Mr Tom Manthata, there are some questions he would like to put to you.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Brigadier I don't think I would even make a lot of questions, all what I want to observe is, the Commission is by and large on reconciliation and it appears here we are dealing with a very difficult situation of mind sets and once we deal with mind sets I don't think we can even proceed to have reconciliation.  So I mean when Brigadier talks about independence should be there, come what may, you know it is serious mind set.  When the Brigadier talks about, this was a civil war, when this region was never at any stage independent, because when we talk about civil war, we talk about a sovereign state where people within the sovereign state are at arms against one another.  And you know these are the issues that scare me, to be very frank, and because we feel that everybody here still has a role to play, that is in terms of reconciliation and it's only when people are going to be able to place themselves at a level where they can listen to and opinion the other side that we can begin to sit down together, because what we are dealing with here is the situation where lives were lost and here we are talking primarily about lives which were lost for political motives.  We are not MOUTSE  HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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talking about theft, about rape, if it was rape or...( end of tape 5)

BRIG HERTZOG LERM: ..been buried, we have to cover it and we now have to start loving each other again and cooperating, that's what we have to do.

MS MHKIZE: Mr Lerm, you've just said that you didn't condone any violence, but ever since you I've been here during the hearings, time and again, witness would tell you that atrocities were performed against them by Mbokoto or whoever in the presence of your police who were onlookers and who never intervened. What did you do about that or were they following instructions that they should do so?

BRIG HERTZOG LERM: Chairperson I'm aware of that.  I am aware of civil cases after I left, that they actually paid out, that people told me about that. If you mention cases to me, because I've heard of cases that I'm not aware of, but I'm well aware of people who were tortured, and I've already said this, that I read a piece from a newspaper, a Mr Isaac Setseku who was tortured by means of electrical shocks, during my days.  I can tell you they might have used a sjambok, they might have used a kierrie, and I'm against this whole question of electrical shocks. A policeman would not have dared doing it.  Mr Goldstone who is now part of the Constitutional Court, he visited the cells, he went to Witbank, we detained people in Naboomspruit and then he wrote me letters where he said that they didn't have combs,
they had complaints about bibles.  I know of people who were assaulted and I know these claims were paid out, and I know that they were seriously assaulted, I don't want to lie now but I think some of the present peoples' families here, it's a man from Moutse, Frans Mutane, that was a very serious MOUTSE  HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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violation of human rights.  There was an assault case, it was in the Supreme Court and it was paid out to him, that's as far as I can remember. I already told you that there were covert operations, there was torture it's this or that policeman, that's what I can't tell you.  We had a Colonel King, every case he investigated, I told him to do that, and the Security Police also tortured some of my people, it's Alfred Ngoma, we registered cases, it was investigated. It's a very simple thing, if you are assaulted you make a case, why didn't people make cases?  That was actually done.