Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-09-28

FERDINAND BARNARD: Yes, I can.   During October 1988, when I was activated, one of the first things that I did after I recruited McQuillan and that excursion of him to London took place, I met a mandrax smuggler, an international smuggler.  I cannot say I recruited him, but I knew him before, when I was a Narcotics Detective and I worked on syndicates.
	I re-recruited him, although I did not put it like that to the CCB, I knew he had a lot of good contacts as high up as even Tanzania.
	I went to go and see him and the first information that he gave to me was, that I entered into the system, was verified. It was with regards to a house in Chunga, some zone in Lusaka, Zambia, being a terrorist infiltration house of the ANC and MK.  I took this information, entered it into the system via Lafras Luitingh.  Mr Luitingh returned to me after a few days.  He was very interested or very excited.  He told me that under no circumstances must I lose this person.  He immediately gave me R5,000 in cash.  He said the information was confirmed, and this was the type of information that they needed.
	Then in the media I read certain reports that there was an explosive device and it was detonated in Lusaka at such a house that was attached to the ANC.  I spoke to Mr Luitingh about this, and he denied it.  He said it was just a coincidence, but I knew it was the same thing.
	He came back with me, with money at a later stage, to again give to George.

MR COETZEE: Who is George?

FERDINAND BARNARD: George is the smuggler who provided me with the information.  Then the same smuggler provided me with information concerning a house in Alexander Road, Hatfield, Harare.  It was similar information, it was an MK infiltration house, where they were armed.  I entered this information on the system in the same way.
	They again handed over a few thousand rand that I should give to him.  They came back to me and said that the information was confirmed.  I cannot today really recall independently if I saw that something appeared in the media, or if they told me that they acted on it.  They were very satisfied.  I received a bonus after the second time.  I think they gave me about R3,000 after I provided them the second time with some information.
	I had another source that I newly recruited.  It was also an international mandrax smuggler, who worked in the African area.  He spoke about the Grassroots Bookshop in Harare as being an address that was visited by Stanley Madizela, who at that stage was the Head of the ANC in Zimbabwe, that he would there meet and have co-ordinating meetings at the Bookshop.  Above the Bookshop, there was a flat or room and that they would meet there and have these co-ordinating meetings and that he was accompanied by three or four MK members at a time.
	Once again, I cannot today recall if they acted on that, but somebody told me, I cannot independently confirm this, but if they acted or not, but once again, they were very satisfied with the information.  They checked it out and it was verified, and at a certain stage, later, he told me that they acted on this premises and that Madizela was not there.  I could not confirm that, I did not read it in the media.  I do not know if they acted or not.

MR COETZEE: Just to place this into context, you have referred to your vehicle and you referred to Tjongarero
in Namibia.  For the sake of clarity, can you explain how you became involved there and what your tasking was?

FERDINAND BARNARD: After I was instructed by Kobus le Roux to stand down from the Lubowski matter, after the video of his house was made and so forth, he told me that the target would now be Mr Daniel Tjongarero.  Mr Tjongarero was a senior member of SWAPO, as I deduced.  He lived internally, in other words he did not go into exile.
	The CCB wanted to kill him in order to drive a wedge between the people of SWAPO who were returning from exile and those who remained on the inside.  They had to create conflict between the two.  That is how it was conveyed to me.
	An address was given to me, it was the address of Mr Tjongarero in Katura neighbourhood.  He also gave me binoculars, quite an expensive set of binoculars.  I am not an expert in the field of binoculars, but it certainly would not have cost below R40,000 to R50,000, this was provided to me.  It also had a night vision setting.
	I traced the address and I found a small hill which I could use to penetrate, in other words, what I mean is that I could gain access through that without having to point a gun at a security guard, I could get to the place.  There wasn't a regular stream of people there.  From that position, I could observe the house, which I indeed did.
	In my Section 29 affidavit I see that I said that the vehicle was a white Toyota Cressida.  I cannot recall independently, but I do know that it was a sedan vehicle, with a short registration number.  I saw that the vehicle left and returned to the residence quite regularly, from Katura to Windhoek.   I obtained a description of the person when he disembarked at a certain point, and sent all that information back into the system, via Kobus le Roux, who came back to me and said that the information had been confirmed, and that it was indeed the target.  There was a weapon available, and I said "look, the job is on, I can do it any time."  I had driven besides Mr Tjongarero, I have been positioned right next to him at a traffic light late at night.  I conveyed it as such, and then something curious took place.
	A few days passed without anything happening.  I was waiting for the firearm and so forth, and I started looking around for a vehicle to hijack to use for the job.  Then he came to me and he said that the target had changed, that Mr Tjongarero would no longer be shot, that it was now Mr Hidipo Hamutenya.  There were other people working on it, and I just had to remain patient.
	In the meantime, he returned to Pretoria and then he had me come to Pretoria.  I left everything there, that is when I left my vehicle there and went through to Pretoria to see what the situation was with Mr Hamutenya.

MR COETZEE: Did you do any work on the Hamutenya case?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, I did not.

MR COETZEE: And then with regard to the election which was held in South-West Africa Namibia, were you involved in any way with that?

FERDINAND BARNARD: I was not physically involved in the election, but during the time that I spent there, the pre-election was held.  That is when I was there, but I was not specifically involved there.
	What did take place was that there were discussions, Kobus le Roux and I had social dealings, and at one point we had a conversation and he told me that he was involved with the Lubowski and Tjongarero matters, he and his people were involved in the disruption of the elections in Namibia.  Then he gave me examples of how they planned to interrupt the elections.  One had to do with poisonous snakes.  
	He conveyed it as such, that there were projects under way.  He said that the CCB had a vegetable farm in Namibia, that that was allegedly the front.

MR WESSELS: Mr Chairman, at this stage we have now been hearing evidence for some time, about so-called events that took place in Namibia or outside the country.  This is all hearsay evidence from other people.  I don't know how long we are going to continue listening to this hearsay evidence?  It seems rather inadmissible and a waste of time and totally irrelevant to the proceedings that we are dealing with?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, it is quite clear what he is talking about now, is inadmissible.  However, as we have said earlier, we are, we do have a bit of latitude when it comes to this sort of evidence in proceedings of this nature.  How much longer will you be on this?  We do have a time factor and as Mr Wessels says, it is not pertinent to the subject matter of the amnesty applications directly.