Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-03-18

UNKNOWN: Honourable Chair, I understand what you are 
referring to that chaos was the objective, and that various people 
would be killed in the process.
	That a racial war would occur and as I also understand it in 
this aspect, during that time period when this killing would take 
place, the Police and the Army would take over and they would 
recreate order, and that that takeover would be intercepted, that 
is how I understood it.
	What I would like to propose is that the objective which 
they held, in comparison to the actions that they took, as well as 
the consequences which it held, in conjunction with the idea that 
the Army and the Police would take over, and that the system 
would be reinstated, and that the parties and the leadership on the 
Right Wing, would be reconciled and take over, it would result in 
a greater level of reconciliation and cooperation between the 
Right Wing leadership, that would have been the objective as 
well.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Well, I thought I understood your evidence 
to be that a situation would in consequence develop, a situation 
of chaos, and the Police and the Army, there would be a situation 
when they would not be in control, and in that milieu, then the 
Right Wing would then grab power or something to that effect?

UNKNOWN: Honourable Chairperson, that is how the 
testimony devolved, but the leadership would also come together 
again, the Right Wing leaders and they would utilise the situation 
and reinstate order and prevent any further ANC/SACP takeover.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Well, if the Police and the Army came in and 
restored the order, that would have been prevailing before the 
assassination, what would they have benefitted then, what would 
the Right Wing have benefitted, except that people would just 
have been killed?

UNKNOWN: With respect Honourable Chairperson, if a 
leader would be taken out from the SACP, the objective was to 
make the party disintegrate.
	Mr Hani as a leader was seen as a successor to Mr Mandela, 
he was a strong leader who had a lot of supporters and to take 
him out, would create confusion and chaos.  It would have the 
same influence of blowing up the ballot boxes and bringing about 
chaos, in order to make people afraid of voting.
	It would create that kind of situation, it would bring the 
National Party to another type of insight, where they would 
realise that there were elements who did not want this process to 
take place, that certain things had to be reconsidered.

JUDGE WILSON: Are you suggesting the Nationalist Party did 
not know that there were certain elements who did not want this 
to take place, weren't they told that time and again by the Right 
Wing?

UNKNOWN: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: Are you also suggesting that if the Police 
and the Army and the Right Wing took over, there would have 
been peace in our land?

UNKNOWN: Honourable Chairman ...

JUDGE WILSON: Do you think Mr Derby-Lewis could have 
believed that?

UNKNOWN: Honourable Chairman, what he believed under 
the circumstances was that it should be prevented that the ANC 
and SACP take over and that is why those methods had to be 
used.
	Whether or not there would have been peace, is a matter of 
speculation.

ADV POTGIETER: Mr Prinsloo, I think that is exactly the 
problem which is emerging here.  All these situations and 
scenario's which you have sketched, are supposition, very loose 
suppositions, and let us assume that after Mr Hani was murdered, 
and that this chaos had ensued, or that the chaos had not ensued.

UNKNOWN: Well, then another decision would have to be 
taken regarding further steps.

ADV POTGIETER: Was there any contingency plan which was 
suggested?

UNKNOWN: If I understand the evidence correctly, the 
applicant would have consulted certain actions within his party 
but that went wrong, because Walus was arrested.

ADV POTGIETER: The question was it not a very reckless 
form of behaviour to unleash something so loosely, something 
which could so easily move out of control, without any definite 
structures?
	Was that not out of proportion?

UNKNOWN: If one considers that even members of the 
Police have planned to kill Mr Hani in the past, that this surely 
must have exercised some kind of influence that it would have 
some kind of consequence to take out such a leader.
	To take out a leader, would definitely have the consequence 
of disbanding the party, so regrouping would be necessary and 
reorganisation would be necessary, and such an action would 
definitely have had this sort of effect.

CHAIRPERSON: May I just ask you, are you telling me that I 
must accept that an acute, trained, experienced politician, 
seriously believed that the killing of Chris Hani was going to 
cause chaos in the country?

UNKNOWN: With respect, that is what he believed.  That 
is what he maintains in his evidence.

CHAIRPERSON: I understand that that is the evidence, I 
understand that that is the case you are making out, but isn't it 
more likely that the chaos was not going to be caused by the 
single death of one man, but the plan went very much further, that 
to cause chaos effective chaos, to enable the CP and others to 
take control, would mean eliminating a whole group of leaders 
and only then would there be chaos?
	As things stand, if he believed that the killing of Chris Hani 
itself would cause such chaos, then quite clearly he has 
miscalculated the position terribly, isn't it?

UNKNOWN: Honourable Chairperson, with respect, during 
the 1976 unrest, by shooting one single student by the name of 
Petersen, total chaos was unleashed in Soweto.

CHAIRPERSON: I can understand something happening in 
Soweto at this time, I am not talking about an experienced 
parliamentarian, a politician of considerable experience.

UNKNOWN: With respect, by killing someone like Mr 
Hani, with respect it would have then - one could have assumed 
that this would have taken place.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you really saying that he genuinely 
believed that the killing of Hani would produce the necessary 
chaos in the country?

UNKNOWN: Subjectively he believed it, and with respect, 
according to the circumstances, that belief was bona fide.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I suppose you could say particularly if the 
murderer had not been apprehended, I suppose you could argue 
that there could very well have been serious consequences?  I am 
trying to help you, I am not against you.

UNKNOWN: With respect, I appreciate that, but one must 
consider both sides of the circumstances.  If the murderer had not 
been caught, what would the people have said, our leader has 
been killed, it is the National Party who are in power, who did 
this, they are allowing it, that is what Mr Mandela said at one 
point.
	He said that the National Party had criminalised the 
deceased, Mr Hani, that they had marked him as a target.  If one 
considers that, then that argument of yours could be extremely 
valid.

CHAIRPERSON: We will take a short adjournment at this 
stage.