Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

MR DREYER: I take note of your answer, let me take you away from this.  I am not going to try to catch you with words.
	Let me ask you the following.  You say there was a specific order that you received at some point from Gen Oelofse and eventually we will come back to this.  What I want to clear up with you now, you stand here in front of this Commission with an application for amnesty, when you were exposed to criminal procedures, the death sentence was still part of the criminal procedure in South Africa and you looked the death sentence in the eye and you were sentenced to death, is that correct?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: That is correct.

MR DREYER: The whole objective of this Commission is the opposite, even if you in terms of the new legislation this was turned into prison sentence, but you are here today because you have the opportunity to be indemnified and receive amnesty and go home, is that correct?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: Mr Chairperson, I received the death sentence four times and now I sit here with an application for amnesty, that is why I am speaking the truth and that is why at that time, to protect Gen Oelofse and others, I had to keep my mouth shut and speak for myself, and that is why I am conveying what I am saying here today.

MR DREYER: Mr Kloppers, it is a simple construction.  If it was important for you then to lie, because you tried to indemnify yourself while you were about to receive the death sentence, then it is if you agree with me, it is more important that you speak the truth today, because you have the chance of being totally indemnified?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: That is correct.  There is just one thing that you lost sight of even if I do receive the death sentence, I would have gone home, I wouldn't have cared.

MR DREYER: The point that I wish to convey is simply, do you agree with me it is of utmost importance that you put the correct facts here, put it on writing for this Commission when they consider your application.
	Why would you then when you are confronted with the interpretation with simple sentence constructions, why would you tell the Commission that they must now attach a different meaning to what they read there.  That is not what I meant, and at this stage that would be the most important thing in your life to place the correct facts in front of this Commission in order to receive amnesty?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: Mr Chairperson, I made one mistake and the mistake was that I did not put Gen Oelofse's name in front of Gen Constand Viljoen's.  That is where the fault is.

MR DREYER: Mr Kloppers, if it was a small mistake we would ignore it, but that is the problem, this is the total basis of your application, that you received the order from Gen Oelofse but yet you omit that, the core principle of your defence, this you conveniently omits?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: I stand by the fact that I received instructions from Gen Oelofse and this is stated throughout my application.  This is where the problem is, where Gen Oelofse's name is not in this paragraph.

MR DREYER: I cannot ask you questions about what the instruction was that you put to the rest of your group, what you precisely told them, we will never know.  We would have to listen to what your fellow applicants say and I do not doubt that what you say here today, what you told them, is quite what you told them then.  We have to accept that that is correct because there are many people testifying here and in different applications they say that this is what  you told them, and on the strength thereof, they acted, do you agree?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: I agree.

MR DREYER: The problem is unfortunately that we only have your word from all the applicants, that that was the instruction that you received from Gen Oelofse and that you believed it was an instruction from the top structure.  You interpreted it correctly and that you conveyed it correctly, is that correct?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: That is correct.

MR DREYER: Then would you agree with me then that if any, in any factual construction, in any paradigm if the point of departure is wrong, then everything that follows, is also incorrect?  Is that correct?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: That is correct.

MR DREYER: And if you for some or other reason out of personal conviction was - because you made a mistake with relation to the conversation that you had, or whatever reason it might be, if you made a mistake with the interpretation of what was put to you, and you incorrectly conveyed to the rest of your group, then their actions are not actions that were carried out in terms of a legal instruction?  They acted upon an instruction that they believed that you received from a higher authority, am I correct?

CHAIRPERSON: I will not allow that question the way it is framed, because it is incorrect.

MR DREYER: I am sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: Because the other applicants, their version is that they acted on the basis of the order as put to them by this particular witness.

MR DREYER: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: He can't answer that question, it is for us as the Amnesty Committee to decide whether if he had interpreted the order from Oelofse but that the other applicants understood him correctly, whether or not they are entitled to amnesty, or whether or not they acted properly, is for us to decide, it is not for him.

MR DREYER: As it pleases the Court Mr Chairman, that is not the impression I wished to convey.  I accept that whatever Mr Kloppers told the rest of them, they accepted it as the correct order that he received from a higher authority.
	They had no reason not to believe him.  My statement that I make is that the instruction that he conveyed to them, is not the order that he believed that he received.

CHAIRPERSON: As long as you restrict yourself to his own case, not the case of the other applicants.

MR DREYER: As it pleases the Court.  Mr Kloppers, you were asked what was the instruction.  If I can just get my notes in front of me, I would like to read to you what you said.
	You started to say that with the 1993 meeting in the Assembly Hotel in Pretoria, Oelofse told you that the meeting took place.  You were just there for security reasons, you did not participate in this meeting, it was only for top structure members.  Is that correct?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: That is correct.

MR DREYER: And then you say you used the following words, you said he let certain things shine through and in Afrikaans ideologically speaking this means that if I don't, if I have it correct, he did not tell you directly and in detail what was decided, you said he had certain things shine through, is that correct?

PHILLIPUS CORNELIUS KLOPPERS: That is correct.

MR DREYER: And that would mean that from your own version, these things that you heard from him, according to your own interpretation, because he just let it shine through, it was no - nothing was told to you in detail.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Chairperson, I don't think you understand correctly.  You asked me what happened at the Assembly Hotel and now you come back to the happenings of the evening of the 12th of December.  These are two different incidents.

MR DREYER: I am not with the two different incidents, I am involved with whatever you had shone through.  This is the departure point, and you say at that meeting certain things were, Gen Oelofse had it creep through, shine through and I would say that "shine through" would mean that you did not receive detailed orders, but according to your own version, it was left up to you to interpret it in whichever manner you wanted to.