Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

PREMIER MATTHEWS PHOSA: Thank you Chairperson. I would like to start by saying that in fact in waging the armed struggle we broke very few eggs to make a huge omelette. If you look at section 51.2 and look at the policy of the ANC, you look at 51.3 and the following subsections, I think in the difficult situation of not being government, not having the certainty of the lines of command and control, the ANC tried as far as possible to live up to its commitment under the Geneva Convention. Chairperson we could have used anti-personnel mines, but we did not. We used the three, the heavy ones which could not be detonated by merely stamping of a foot. We had seen this in Angola and Mozambique, up to this date there is still an effort to try and sweep out those mines. Now if we had wanted to be indiscriminate there will have been nothing to have stopped us from using anti-personnel, but because we wanted to avoid being indiscriminate we avoided using things like anti-personnel.
And Chairperson if you, as you go along, will listen to the application for amnesty, you will listen to the cadres of MK how they had to restrain themselves walking around this country, avoiding schools, churches, civilian residences, searching under difficult conditions for the Koeberg plant and other military stations, an effort by our cadres to avoid getting involved in an indiscriminate armed operations. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Modise?

MR MODISE: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Mr Chairperson when conflict intensifies then the targets begin to blurr. The difference between ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: You are too cultured, you want to speak a little more loudly - speak directly into the microphone.

MR MODISE: My fear is that if I do Mr Chairperson then these microphones will tear apart. I was saying Mr Chairperson when this struggle intensifies, when war is in the increase, then casualties are going to be high, not only amongst the people who themselves are engaged in conflict, innocent bystanders will also be affected. I think when the statement was made that the struggle is going to intensify and the difference between soft targets and hard targets is going to blurr. What was actually meant was that the country must prepare itself for this type of casualty. It must prepare itself for a situation where the armed struggle was going to be escalated to the point where quite a number of innocent people will also be caught in this conflict.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Mr Zuma?

MR ZUMA: Yes probably we think it's important to emphasise this point. I don't think we could say there has been a war in the world that has been fought wherein those who were fighting were able to avoid the casualty of what you would call civilians. In some wars towns have been bombed to ashes by the most civilised nations in the world because it is in the nature of the war and the nature of that particular war that you are able to fight that particular war.
I think what should be taken into account here, the ANC President then was being questioned on the ANC policy. You will recall that we carefully waged the armed struggle at the beginning and this was articulated by the Deputy President here. That there was a very clear instructions as we started sabotage in 1961 that no life must be lost. That indicated a level and stage of our armed struggle. We had reached a stage where the war had taken different levels. All what President Tambo was saying we were no longer going to carry the struggle as we did in 1961. We had reached a stage of a war wherein it's going to be difficult to avoid the casualties of innocent people. That was just a statement. It's not in contradiction to the Geneva Conventions provisions and I think we should understand this in the context of any other war that is fought, and I think we were still being clear and careful, but admitting the fact that we have reached a stage where the intensity of our struggle had reached a point where it would be difficult to avoid such casualties, because we are now going to go out to look for targets wherever they were, unlike at the beginning where we would go for the pylons somewhere in the bush. I just thought I should also underline that point.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Sorry Dr Boraine.

DR BORAINE: Chairperson for me the crux of this matter is not - is he going to continue on that one, okay.

MR VALLY: I am sorry about that.

DR BORAINE: I will come back if you don't.

MR VALLY: Certainly. I just want to follow this thought through, because I want to refer to the first submission of the ANC on page 60, the second last paragraph left-hand column, 60.
"The much publicised case of the car bomb explosion at the Magoo Bar and Why Not Bar on June the 14th 1986 provides another example of an operation in which civilians were victims in the context of the intensification of the armed struggle. Three civilians were killed, 69 injured..."
and it talks about McBride. I want to go onto the next column, the second paragraph,
"This attack was in line with the ANC's attempts to take the struggle out of the Black ghettos and into the White areas".
then it talks about the Why Not Bar. How does this accord with what you were saying? And I also defer to Dr Boraine now.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: I thought I had indicated that the enemy forces were often located in commercial or civilian areas. In this particular case whatever was the actual outcome the fact of the matter was that the comrades who acted on this target had intelligence, tactical intelligence suggesting that the security forces when on off-duty congregated at this venue. So that was the basis on which they had acted. And if they had acted on that basis then they were in line with the practical problems that I had outlined that we were facing in the country.
The same problem, Chairperson, is highlighted in Church Street, because it was the Air Force target. Had that bomb gone off at 16H30 it would have caught the majority of the people would have been - the overwhelming majority would have been from that place. But it went off prematurely and it had been carefully reconnoitred. So there was our problem. And the target was selected, not directed at the civilian population but at the security force members.

DR BORAINE: Yes if I could - do you want to say something?

UNKNOWN: Ja, thanks, sure. It's just to reinforce what Comrade Mac has said, because if Mr Vally had continued with the quote you would have had the key phrase,
"The attack was in line with the ANC's attempt to take the struggle out of the Black ghettos into the White areas..."
but then you omitted Sir was,
"The Why-Not Bar was targeted precisely because it was frequented by off-duty members of the security forces".
Now apologies have been stated over and over again by Robert McBride, by our movement, precisely in line with what Mac Maharaj has just said. There was a mistake that occurred, that particular evening it wasn't as filled with the security force members as had been seen in previous reconnaissance, they believed that the bar would be full which was very often the occasion. So what we have been consistent with is the targeting of the security forces. In the same way as Church Street. But in war, in conflict of course one can't always be 100% efficient, effective in an operation, and that's what obviously occurred in relation to this one. But we are consistent here in terms of our principle and approach.