Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — UNKNOWN

GEORGE BIZOS: Now the important part of this, and this is the main reason why we asked for permission to put this document to you, appears on page 614, line 20
"The names of Mr Goniwe, Calata etc, would probably have been given by the Security Branch at Cradock and sent through to Port Elizabeth.  In other words this is the manner in which the Divisional Headquarters in Port Elizabeth would have followed normal procedures of security reports.  I can still remember that Mr Jaap Strydom assisted by Mr Jan Vermaak of Cradock during May 1985, visited him and met with interested parties, including Major Calitz, the then District Commander, Mr Gerber, Commissioner Marais and myself held to discuss whether Mr Goniwe should be re-appointed as teacher.  The idea was also mentioned to appoint Mrs Molly Blackburn as mediator and the possibility of her appointment at Graaff Reinet.
My personal feeling was that I was not opposed to the re-appointment of Mr Goniwe at Cradock.  Insofar as this was the function concerning Divisional Headquarters at Port Elizabeth, to Headquarters in Pretoria and what happened there, I am not able to divulge information about.  Information that was in possession of PE Headquarters did not come from Security Branch, Cradock, but would have come from several sources, from several parts of the country.  It therefore follows that any information was given to the top position from Port Elizabeth branch, did not necessarily come from the Cradock branch."
	Now, is that a correct description of what was happening at the time?

MR J VAN ZYL: Yes, I'll accept that.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now, who was Mr Jaap Strydom?

MR J VAN ZYL: I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, didn't it come to your notice that he was actually a highly placed person in the Department of Education?

MR J VAN ZYL: I accept that, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: And the person who assisted him, Mr Vermaak.  Who was he?

MR J VAN ZYL: I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: Wasn't he a person involved in education in Cradock and surrounding areas?

MR J VAN ZYL: That is possible.

GEORGE BIZOS: Major Calitz.  Who was he?

MR J VAN ZYL: I don't recall that I knew him.  I may have met him, but I have forgotten that.

GEORGE BIZOS: But he was the District Commandant.

MR J VAN ZYL: Of the uniformed branch, yes Mr Chairman.
	We had nothing to do with the gathering of security information.

GEORGE BIZOS: Mr Gerber?

MR J VAN ZYL: I have not an inkling who he was.

GEORGE BIZOS: Commandant Marais?

MR J VAN ZYL: I take it that Commandant Marais was a citizen force, maybe the head of the Commandos of that area, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now we've had examples of the sort of thing that was reported to Port Elizabeth, like visits from various people and phone calls, can you advance any reason why such an important meeting at which Mr Winter was present would not be reported and what its purpose was to Port Elizabeth?

MR J VAN ZYL: I cannot say that it was not reported, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well now, if it was reported,  and the question of re-instatement of Mr Goniwe was being considered in May, why would either Mr Snyman or any other person involved in the sifting out of information in relation to Mr Goniwe had kept it a secret from you that this was going on?

MR J VAN ZYL: I  cannot tell you why, Mr Chairman.
	I would like to point out though that Mr Winter confirms what I had said earlier.  In the passage below that one where he says that
"Information that comes to Port Elizabeth does not come necessarily from Cradock but from other areas in the country".

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, that merely says that it wasn't only Port Elizabeth that I reported to, but that the Security Police in Port Elizabeth had other avenues of being informed, so that will increase the probability, would it not, that these matters were going on.
	Can you explain any reason why, if information did come from elsewhere, why it should have been kept a secret from you?

MR J VAN ZYL: Information in connection with the activists' activities, Mr Chairman, came from sources that we handled and from sources that other branches handled and that is what he is referring to in this passage, it would seem.
	He does not necessarily refer to information about this meeting with Commandant Marais and Mr Gerber.

GEORGE BIZOS: Are you suggesting that information about the re-appointment of Goniwe was not of sufficient importance to be reported to Port Elizabeth Security Police?

MR J VAN ZYL: I did not say that at all.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now as far as Mr Winter is concerned, may I refer to page 838...
"Yes, I thought that he could not say anything to you in connection with education and that he would recuperate in Cradock in connection with..."
	And then again in line 25, "I want to ask you, there was an unsatisfactory situation in Cradock.  Children did not go to school, there were school boycotts, the civic system did not work without the JBS. What was the solution?  The solution was to have dialogue with interested parties and this was why I had an appointment with Mr Goniwe and it was our discussion, we had future communications".
	Would you agree that your perspective of Mr Goniwe was completely different to that of the Security Police and the man on the spot in Cradock?

MR J VAN ZYL: It would seem on the strength of this, yes, Mr Chairman.
	And if he was having all this dialogue with the activists, it did not seem to work at the time at all, because there was no ceasing in the activities in the areas.

GEORGE BIZOS: That's another point,  Mr van Zyl.  If you relied on information from Cradock where your man had these views, how could you have been of the view that death was the answer?

MR J VAN ZYL: I do not know if he communicated this with my divisional headquarters, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well was he asked or did you ask him what do you think the solution to this problem is before you took the drastic step of sentencing Mr Goniwe to death?

MR J VAN ZYL: I was  a junior member.  If he communicated this he would have communicated it with the Divisional Commander, and if the Divisional Commander thought it was sufficiently important he would have definitely have communicated it with me Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Is the answer to the question that you didn't bother to ask Mr Winter for his view?

MR J VAN ZYL: No, I was just not the person that should have done that, Mr Chairman.

GEORGE BIZOS: Then on line 10
"Well it didn't work.  What was the solution after this.  What was the solution according to you?"
"It was to get the concerned parties together and I was concerned where they would be brought together.
		....preparation to put the men to death"

MR J VAN ZYL: That's correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Do you concede that if you took the trouble to discuss this matter with Mr Winter, you may not have carried on with the plan to kill him?

MR J VAN ZYL: In retrospect, Mr Chairman, there seemed to be a lot of solutions.
	At the time, we were convinced that this was the only one.

GEORGE BIZOS: But you didn't even bother to ask the man in charge of the Security Police on the spot?

MR J VAN ZYL: Personally I cannot recall that I did, no.