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

CAPT VAN NIEKERK: Chairperson, the State Security Council authorised this suggestion on that day on recommendation of the civic to which I referred to and a recommendation was made I stood up and I objected.  I objected vehemently because I felt that Umbokoto could not work with the police.  Then the State Security Council authorised the suggestion and said that we should do it.  Thereafter there was a
cabinet meeting which I had a meeting with the cabinet and I said to them, "look in spite of the decision of the State 
Security Council, I would like to refuse that Umbokoto should work with the police". I had refused and the only manner in which I would allow Umbokoto to assist the police is that Umbokoto should go out to the people and make peace with the people, and I still made a symbolic example that they should take off this ugly mask and put on this nice face.  The cabinet agreed because I would really not have wanted to work with them, and they agreed with me and they said, fine, the most problematic part that they find is at Tweefontein and that they would want to use Umbokoto at Tweefontein.
 Later that afternoon I and some of the defence force people got hold of Minister Mgunutu and we spoke to him for quite a long time in trying to find out if he didn't want to take control of these people who, what does one call it, these so-called mediators, because he was well educated and we trusted him, and he did not see any chance of that happening.  When we walked out with him, Simon Skosana and Piet Ntuli were waiting for me and they seemed very uneasy, to me at the time but in any event it was arranged that without any firearms, it was said so expressly to them and MOUTSE  HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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to the cabinet that they were going to go to Tweefontein and speak to the people.  We had a full back up section of the police under the command of a very competent lieutenant and were deployed to the area where they were to speak to the Umbokoto people.  As soon as the Umbokoto people moved in, Lieutenant Potgieter called me on the radio and said that there is shooting here, and I said to them, "Go in there and get Umbokoto out!"   So if Umbokoto thought that they had a 
licence to kill that day Chairperson, then it was expressly arranged in the cabinet that absolutely no weapons were to 
be taken in by them, if they were to be attacked, we would get involved. There was absolutely no need for firearms, it 
was against the rules which we had made.

CHAIRPERSON: General, I only have two questions.  The first question is, this Victor that you're referring to, is he a brigadier?

CAPT VAN NIEKERK: No he's not. No that one is with a k, this one is with a 'c, Victor.  No it's not the same person, no. Not the same person as in Bisho.

CHAIRPERSON: We have, as a Commission part of our responsibility is to make a final report with recommendations to Parliament about how things should function in future.  Now implicitly and explicitly in your testimony, you have referred to what you see as the proper way in which a police force should function in relation firstly to the people and secondly by implication to the security forces and to the government, and you have yourself said that you are not political, that you have never acted politically. Could you explain a little bit further about that because our history doesn't tell us the same story?

CAPT VAN NIEKERK: Chairperson, I don't know whether I'm MOUTSE  HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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following your question correctly, but I can say in this regard that politicians take decisions and then they have peace with us, and then the police on the ground, the police are the government's arms on the ground and then, while they  don't have to execute the decisions, but those laws that aren't correct, they have to apply. If a policeman doesn't do his job, he is charged, he has a hearing and he is sentenced.  So a country should be governed in such a way 
that the politicians do not take decisions that would place the police in a position where they would have to use 
violence against the public. In my heart I knew that Moutse's people had a case.  I had to look them in the eye, 
I have to throw them with tear gas and the government has no problem with that, and the people who took the decisions sit in offices with air conditioning.  They don't see what's going on on ground level. The people who didn't want independence were frightened because of Umbokoto, when they acted, we also had to react with teargas but we knew that their case was the right one, they were ones with the right point.  But now the police have to be used to do that work. I didn't join the force to do that, I joined to combat crime and to be a policeman, and I didn't believe that those things would come in my way, that is not why I joined.

CHAIRPERSON: Being removed, at the time that you were moved, what could you have done?

CAPT VAN NIEKERK: Yes I was removed on the 5th of August.  Chairperson, I really believed, and perhaps I was naive in a childlike way, but I believed that the South African Government would do something to solve this problem, and I told you what my opinion was, how the problem could have been solved and they could have made me District
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Commissioner of the Kwandebele area, I would have stayed here and I would have continued with police work, but I was honest about this, with General Coetzee and with some of the officials and I told them that, should Kwandebele become independent, and my last day would be before the day of independence, and then I would leave, and the people who I brought along with me also leave, we would not have stayed.

CHAIRPERSON: Could I just ask you one last question, what
happened to you after you were removed from Kwandebele in terms of you r career as a policeman and somebody in the 
police force, how do you see your career as having been affected?

CAPT VAN NIEKERK: Chairperson, I have to tell you that I tell this to the world, but I had a psychological knock. At that stage I felt as if I was someone who was cast in stone and I couldn't escape. That was the feeling that I had.  I started suffering from a fear of anxiety and I left here, I went to the Northern Transvaal, I worked there.  I went to the Division Border as divisional head.  I was there promoted to general and in 1991, the Kwandebele illness had almost left me then, and then the National Peace Accord was signed and one of the sections to me that had to do with investigation of political complaints that would harm the image of the Force, I was involved with that.  And then I once again had these political problems.  Once again I had problems with the politics, one party was complaining about the other party, and then the Kwandebele problem started again, and eventually at the end of October '92, I was medically unfit, I am 58, I could have worked up to 60.

CHAIRPERSON: General van Niekerk, thank you very much.

THOMAS MANTHATA: This is not a question, General van Niekerk,
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I'm just aware of what you said right now, that one of the ways to get you back onto your feet perhaps would have to be to try and put together all those pieces of what used to exist in this area, perhaps this would give you a new lease of life, that is for reconstruction and rehabilitation of this area amongst these people that were once divided and today they've begun to see that the fault was not theirs but was somewhere in that place where it is now resolved. Do you think that you can avail your efforts in that direction, that is for reconstructing the communities of Kwandebele?

CAPT VAN NIEKERK: Chairperson, if I can be of any assistance, I would do that gladly. I would really like to
see the people forgive and also forget, that we take hands and that we move forward, thank you.