Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-14

MR DE JAGER: Well, well, well, Mr Chairman, they were indeed short.  That's contrary to the nature of attorneys.  Mr Chairman, I have prepared a written submission for you.  I had some computer problems this morning, I don't know if you're aware of it, but it made me also the typist.  But I have it available, I would just like to stand off and hand it to you just after I have given my oral submissions.  It gives me the first opportunity to double check whether there aren't any more spelling mistakes and so forth, but I'll hand it up to you afterwards.
Mr Chairman, I make the submission to your panel on behalf of the former State President, Mr P W Botha.  Mr Chairman, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
 /hereinafter
hereinafter referred to as the TRC, informed our client, in his capacity as the former State President and Chairperson of the State Security Council, on the 23rd of June 1997, that he was implicated in documents in the possession of the Commission in a manner which may be detrimental to him. 
As our client's good name was clearly at stake we attended these proceedings during the past week and a half.  From the documents provided to our client, as well as in the evidence of numerous witnesses, Mr Botha's name was, save for the minutes of the State Security Council, never directly mentioned.  
The only attack levelled at the former State President came through the submission of Mr Howard Varney.  We neither regard Mr Varney as a witness, nor his so-called testimony as fact.  His spirited attempt is at high-water mark simply no more than some sort of a submission.  Mr Varney has set up a conclusion according to which all the people involved in the deliberations leading to a decision to assist Chief Minister Buthelezi with the training of a paramilitary force are accountable for the acts of violence that flowed from the creation of this project.  To this end it becomes necessary to establish to an unlawful intention by, inter alia, our client, to actually create what is popularly known as a hit squad.  Without proper evidential material available to him Mr Varney is obliged to make wild deductions and to create at best a factual basis from which sinister connections and deductions can be made in order to force our client into his net of accountability.  
For this purpose, Mr Chairman - and I must at this
 /point pause
point pause to say to you that my submission will be short - I am going to deal with the attack of Mr Varney, and the way I perceive it is that he used a three-pronged attack.  He employed three avenues of attack, ie, our client's request that the State Security Council conduct an investigation into the establishment of a third force, which by strange reasoning he eventually received in the form of the Caprivi trainees.  Then secondly, Mr Chairperson, he adopts the attack that the doctrine of counter-revolutionary warfare, which our client supposedly propagated, and which, with a little stretch of the imagination, then materialised in the creation of a hit squad in KwaZulu-Natal.  And the third leg, Mr Chairperson, is the secrecy, ie, the covert and/or clandestine nature of the operation as an illustration of the unlawful design underlying its creation.
Now, I shall deal with these seriatim.  And, Mr Chairman, whilst we were in Durban we did a little research, because you will know that on numerous occasions there is this link of the third force.  It is linked to Operation Marion, it is linked to other activities, it is linked to other - may we call it wars in this country at the time, to other conflicts.  And on more than one occasion one gets the impression that certain documents become available, and they tend to show that this is indeed the situation. 
Now, Mr Chairman, unfortunately we could not make copies, and I'll deal with that in my submission now, but I just pause to say this to you, that it was out intention to put each and every document which is still available in State archives to give you a full picture of what really
 /happened
happened there, because without the full picture you will also be confronted, as the Truth Commission, the courts of law, etcetera, etcetera, with extracts from documents tendered to suit the purpose of the person making out some sort of a case.  And for that reason that is the only aspect with which I am going to deal to some extent.  And what I did was I tried to put together a summary of all those documents available that tells a story, and to give you the historical development of the whole idea of a third force, which in fact did emanate from my client. 
And I am now going to deal with that aspect.  We do not intend to quote all the relevant details of the decisions taken by the State Security Council from time to time, but it has become of paramount importance for all concerned that full and transparent disclosure of the history in connection with the investigation of the establishment of a third force be made public.
At the State archives in Durban, under reference NI22/1/1/3/2, volumes 1 and 2, all the relevant documentation concerning the history of this subject are still available for scrutiny.  We intended to put, as I have pointed out to you already, both these files before your Commission, but we were not permitted to make copies of them, and are thus unable to assist you in this regard.  Your Commission, however, has access to those files, and should, in the interests of the truth, conduct a full investigation of same.
Mr Varney's attempt to use selective quotes in order to find some cornerstone for his otherwise shaky arguments is unfair.  If he had access to the few documents that he do refer to it is inconceivable that he did not have
 /access to
access to all of them.  
Mr Varney is correct that on the SSC meeting of the 12th of May 1986 the Ministers of Defence and Law and Order were tasked to investigate the creation of such a third force.  The following appears from the minutes of the State Security Council of that date.  Mr Chairperson, I have to quote in Afrikaans.
"Bespreking van die Derde Mag"
I skip sub (a), Mr Chairperson, and I directly go to the quote of sub (b), because that's what Mr Varney also stresses.
"Die Voorsitter se dat die voorgestelde Derde Mag aanvullend tot ander veiligheidsmagte moet wees sodat die..."
      "... should be supplementary to other security forces."
Sorry, Mr Chairman, I am now hearing the Afrikaans translation.  Just give me a moment.

CHAIRPERSON: If you put yourself on channel two, Mr de Jager, then you'll hear the English.