Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-11-18

CHAIRPERSON: I think my understanding of the argument that has been put forward by the victims is that when saying that it was the intention to kill the people in the ELC, they're not just confining that to Mr van Zyl and Mr Botha, they are saying that the project, the object of the project was to kill.

UNKNOWN: Yes, I understand that.

CHAIRPERSON: And they put their grounds, saying that you know, that's why the remote control was used, that sort of thing.  So that does include ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: It does include ...(indistinct), but what I'm saying is that ...

CHAIRPERSON: ... you can't just say, well they didn't know what was happening on the ground, therefore that doesn't ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: No, I'm not saying that Mr Chairman, what I'm saying is that on the facts in totality, on the evidence in totality, this Committee will not be able to make this finding that it was the intention of this whole project to kill the people.  And yes, I submit - I will make further submissions then, rather later on, with reference to the victims' Heads.
	The next is the object or objective of the act.  What I submit here is that in each of these instances - page 22, as far as each of these instances is concerned, it cannot be said that the object or objective of the act was unrelated to the political situation in the country, the context of violence, the context in which the CCB functioned.  As far as the bombing of the Early Learning Centre is concerned, I submit that Van Zyl obviously obtained the information in the first instance, he gave that to his superiors, being Burger and Basson, and that information was in turn then given to Verster.
	Now it was said in evidence that, and by Van Zyl as well, that he did not obtain all the information which subsequently appeared on record regarding the Early Learning Centre.  So obviously someone obtained something further and Burger and Basson are saying is that they knew that Verster had his own channels to obtain further information or to check out information with other sectors of the security community and that as far as they were concerned, the information did not only come from Van Zyl and from his informers in the Western Cape, but it was dealt with correctly in terms of the procedure which the CCB created, and one must now remember - and may I just interrupt here to say that as far as Basson is concerned Burger had no information sources of his own, he was not allowed to speak to anyone to check out information.  Basson had to do it in terms of the contact he had with Derrick.  Now he - and that was the prescription by the CCB, he had to check it out with the information officer, Derrick and then it would come back to him, confirmed or not confirmed, and they would act on that basis, and obviously that would be taken up with Verster.  And the impression was that he had his own sources.  
	And as far as the Early Learning Centre is concerned this is one of the examples where Van Zyl gave certain information and when the instructions came back from Verster and Webb, there was further information.  So I submit that the applicants I represent had all reason to believe that they were acting on valid information.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, if you can just refresh my memory, there's been so much evidence.  What was the evidence, I think Gen Webb gave it a name, wasn't the ELC a sort of opportunity target, that there was a short time, it had to be done before ... because the elections were looming or something like that.

UNKNOWN: That is so.

CHAIRPERSON: So how do we know then that - would they have verified that, because it was an opportunity target?  Would the same procedures apply?

UNKNOWN: Yes, well the same procedures did not necessarily apply.  But the point I'm making is that there was further information added to what Van Zyl got.  For instance the Khayelitsha burning which they were going to burn certain sections of Khayelitsha township, etcetera, to create unrest.  Now that didn't come from Van Zyl.  It didn't come from Basson, because he couldn't check out the information with Derrick at the time, but someone added that information and it could only have been, as far as my applicants are concerned, it could only have been Verster or Webb.  And the instruction came from Webb.
	So point I'm making is not that that information was necessarily correct, but the point is that both Basson and Burger had all reason to believe that this operation has been approved, in terms of the workings of the CBB as prescribed.  They didn't have reason to believe that no-one checked out the information and that innocent individuals were going to be targeted.  That's the point I'm making.
	And then I go further to say as far as the ELC is concerned, one must take into consideration the evidence of Mr Alexander, and from it it is clear that there was information, at least, existing within the community.  There was conflict in that community between certain people, whether they were gangsters or not.  But it must be remembered that Burger and Basson were not footsoldiers at the scene in the Cape, so they couldn't check this out, but Mr Alexander makes it clear that they were all political activists, they were known to Hardien, etcetera, they Security Police were interested in them, they were having their meetings at different places to avoid the police, etcetera.  So at least, this is not a matter where you had totally incorrect information, where the people concerned were not politically minded at all.  Mr Alexander ...(intervention)

MR LAX: Could I just stop you there.  There's some confusion on this one I think, because there's a big difference between KYCO, which was the Cape Youth Congress, which was the organisation which was meeting when the bomb went off.  Which wasn't the intended target.  And that was an out and out political organisation, no question about that, but the Kewtown Youth was a different kind of organisation, on the evidence and there's must be a - they weren't secret.

UNKNOWN: ...(inaudible - sound cut off)

MR LAX: So I'm saying, Alexander's evidence in this regard, with regard to the Kewtown Youth Movement, is different to that with regard to the Cape Youth Congress.