Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-10-05

CHAIRPERSON: A different person, okay.
MR McBRIDE
	"As far as I can recall these are the only people who were involved in that incident.  At the time of this operation, I was not formally recruited by Gordon Webster, however I was actively engaged in assisting and working with an ANC MK unit in Wentworth, the area I lived in since 1984.   I understood the ANC as having then issued instructions to all people who regarded themselves as patriots.  Such instructions were amongst others to carry out acts of political or revolutionary violence.  In consequence various persons, including myself in Wentworth, formed our own combat unit.   
	The first operation (and I should add in here the last one, there wasn't any other that I was involved in according to my recollection) was the arson attack on the Fairvale School.  I say this because shortly thereafter I was recruited by Gordon Webster.  By coincidence within the matter of a week or so, after then.   The object was in the main to highlight the inferior and dilapidated condition of the school, a complaint that we had tirelessly taken up till then.  We hoped that this long standing issue would now be addressed.  
	My own activity in the operation was that I poured petrol into the school and threw a match in which caused the petrol to ignite and thus caused the arson.  The school was partly damaged, however at a very superficial level.  This is not an aspect ..."

ADV SIGODI: Please go slowly, Mr McBride.

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: Sorry.

MR DEHAL: Mr McBride, you have been asked to go slower.
MR McBRIDE
	"This is not an aspect or an operation that I have been charged with, nor convicted of.  I speak of it freely in my own desire to express full disclosure."

MR DEHAL: If you will pause there, Mr McBride.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr McBride was Fairvale Senior Secondary School a government school?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it your alma mater?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct, yes.

MR DEHAL: I now take you to the item enumerated 5 on page 7 of bundle A1, which deals with the incident of supplying weapons, it says to Robert McBride, from Botswana.  That is weapons supplied to you in Botswana and to be brought into the country, do you see that?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: Yes, I have that.

MR DEHAL: You did not have within your amnesty application, in bundle A1 from page 103 to 110, any aspect specifically enumerated as per this incident, correct?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct, yes.

MR DEHAL: However you deal briefly on page 106 of the bundle under paragraphs (f) and (h) with the recruitment, training and the supply of weapons to a combat unit in Taylorshof, Macabisa?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct yes.

MR DEHAL: If you would go to Exhibit G and deal with paragraph 2, which deals with the supplying of weapons to yourself in Botswana and read those paragraphs 1 and 2 slowly please.
MR McBRIDE
	"This is dealt with as item 5 on page 7 of bundle A1.  This is also referred to in my application for amnesty.  At the time all such weapons and arms and related material, were supplied to me and brought into the country by myself.   (Just to add that all weapons used by the Gordon Webster Unit and the unit of which I was a Commander, were brought into the country by myself."

MR DEHAL: Sorry, then you say you have been recruited into Special Operations by comrade Gordon Webster?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct.

MR DEHAL: Then you go on to say that you were so recruited during October 1985, do you see that?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct.

MR DEHAL: Continue from there.
MR McBRIDE
	"All such material was brought into the country with a view to carrying out the directives of Special Operations.  The persons who supplied these weapons to me were my seniors in Special Operations.  I refer in this regard to the applications for amnesty by the first four applicants in this matter and their support of my application."

MR DEHAL: Thank you.  Mr McBride, the next paragraph deals with the attempted sabotage of the Cato Manor substation.  This you would agree is dealt with at item 6 on page 7 of bundle A1, correct?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct, yes.

MR DEHAL: Will you please read that into the record?
MR McBRIDE
	"This is an operation that I was not involved in by prior planning.   Comrade Gordon Webster and Naziem Cassim were to have carried out this operation, but as a result of Naziem Cassim having not arrived, comrade Gordon Webster called on me in the last minute to come in and assist him in the operation.   I got to the substation with comrade Gordon Webster, and on his instructions, cut a hole in the fence and both of us entered the inner premises of the substation.   A ladder was also used.  I understand that this ladder was placed there on some earlier occasion.  
	In the course of our activity, an alarm went off and we had to abandon the operation.  We observed an armed security guard with a dog, a short distance away from us.  I do recall that on an earlier occasion, I dropped both comrade Gordon Webster and Naziem Cassim close to this place.  In as much as I did not know what the purpose thereof was at the time, in retrospect it is clear that they were carrying out their reconnaissance mission in the substation."
	I just want to add I was convicted and sentenced for this.

MR DEHAL: Thank you.

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: As with incident 2 on page 2.

MR DEHAL: That would have been a conviction within the trial that you so often referred to, especially in your application for amnesty, correct?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct, yes.

MR DEHAL: I now take you to bundle A1, page 7, item 7.  You see that deals with the substation explosion at Wentworth, but it has come to be loosely termed the Chamberlain Road substation explosion, correct?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct, yes.

MR DEHAL: Now you deal with this in your amnesty application, on page 104 of the bundle in sub-paragraph (a).  I point that out to you.

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct.

MR DEHAL: Before we begin to read what you have recorded in Exhibit G, may I just take you back to page 7 of the bundle.

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: Yes, I have it.

MR DEHAL: You see the victims injured there are Mervyn Dunn, Mr Zimmerman, Mr van der Merwe and Mr - or D.A. Booysens, is that correct?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: That is correct, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Dehal, we have heard that there was also Mr Baker that was injured there, I believe?

MR DEHAL: Thank you Mr Chairperson, yes, that is correct.  I just want to deal with that aspect.  You see that in as much as Mr Baker is not referred to in page 7, in item 7, we have heard of Mr Baker that was injured in this incident, do you remember?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: Yes, I just want to mention this is the first time I have heard of a Mr Baker, at all, related to this incident.  Not in the trial court or in subsequent appeal hearings or anywhere else has a Mr Baker been referred to.  Neither was this name included in the summary of substantial facts of the indictment, neither in the further particulars requested by my legal team at that stage.  My Baker is a completely new aspect of this incident.

MR DEHAL: When we dealt with, sorry when within your trial, we dealt with the question of sentence, and the number of victims in each of the incidents, is it not correct that the name Baker had not featured at that level as well?

ROBERT JOHN MCBRIDE: Yes, that is correct, it did not feature at all.