Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

VIC MCPHERSON: There was the case of George Da Costa, he was Head of the Security Services or Intelligence Services of Mozambique.  He came over to South Africa in the 1980's as a defector and although he didn't bring along with him any documentation, he brought with him a lot of knowledge.	We inter alia compiled certain documents as a consequence of this regarding certain events in Mozambique.  They were real events, but the documents didn't exist.  We then fabricated the documents with the necessary stamps, signatures etc.  We inter alia obtained a Portuguese typewriter to make them look more authentic and with this story we went to Republican Press and submitted it to Scope.	George Da Costa asked his price, they paid him R11 000,00 and these documents appeared over five issues beautifully taken in by the public and one of the documents inter alia indicated that Minister, that the Mozambique Minister of Security had seven of their heroes killed by a firing squad.	He had given the instruction, but this was never documented.  But this document appeared.  Scope also appeared in Mozambique.  And the government fired this person.  It was a temporary set back, because he was reappointed at a later stage, but to us it was a success.	It must be regarded from the perspective of the time, because Mozambique was strongly supported by the Soviet Block, Cuba and Eastern Berlin.  And that was the type of activity that we were involved in.	As far as operation Vula is concerned, the Investigating Officers in the matter, discovered computers in safe houses, in various cities in South Africa and we succeeded in breaking the code relevant to these computers, regarding information reports in the covert operations of the ANC.	And we drew off 6 000 pages with valuable information inter alia that the late Joseph Slovo formed part of the group and that although he was in the Negotiation Council and part of the Groote Schuur Conference, he had collaborated with this group.  I passed this information on to certain journalists, leaked it to them and it caused quite a bit of trouble.	As a matter of fact, the late Joseph Slovo nearly lost his position in the negotiation group as a consequence of this.  	TV documentary which was also done in the 1980's, the ANC offices in London operated as if they were the foreign office of the ANC and carried a lot of authority in Europe.  It was very important for us to uncover the activities indulged in by these offices and upon our visits in that area, it was very clear that trained MK members and similar persons, who were actively involved in the armed struggle, regularly visited the offices, but the British government did not want to close these offices.	We cooperated with the SABC TV staff who wished to compile such a documentary, we did all the research.  We provided them with all the photographs and they sent a team overseas.  They photographed the offices and homes of various individuals and they compiled a documentary which actually had its resignations within the British government as well.	With regard to Olivia Forsyth, she was a  Lieutenant in the Security Branch.  She was in Quatro Camp in Angola where she was held for four years.  After her return to South Africa, we obtained information that the Pretoria News had her full statement made to the ANC in Lusaka in their possession, and that they intended making a voluminous article out of this.	I negotiated with the Editor of the Pretoria News and said to him that Olivia was with us, that we were drafting her story, that we were debriefing her and that we were prepared to give her full story to the Pretoria News as an exclusive and all that we asked in return was that when they published the story of the ANC, we would be granted an equal opportunity also to state our side of the case.	The logic behind all of this was that should a story be published, and it would be to one's disadvantage and one had to react to this, in the papers the next day, the damage had already been done, and whatever you did the second day afterwards, or the third day afterwards, or a week afterwards, would not be believed by anybody.	But if one received an equal opportunity, there was at least a chance that people could see these aspects in perspective.  We then succeeded in negotiating this and it increased the status of Olivia Forsyth in this whole matter.	Another action after the elections of the National Executive Council of the ANC, after they had all returned to South Africa, just before the elections, we had an article placed in the Citizen.  It was titled 37 Reds elected to top ANC body.  The purpose was to indicate that the South African Communist Party had the upper hand in the ANC.  And it was just a matter of destabilising things.	The names were published of everybody elected and where their loyalties were.  	Another action was with the Gaberone invasion in the 1980's.  During this invasion 13 insurgents were killed in Gaberone.  We prepared the necessary press releases, the photographs of people who were targeted, the plans of the houses of which they were living, etc.  were all achieved proper background material for the media, and all these things were prepared and upon the return of the attackers, a press conference was held and inter alia one of the articles published in the Sunday Times on the Sunday, was entitled the Guns of Gaberone.	The last action which I would like to use as an example, a person came to our offices and offered to write a negative book around Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.	He offered us just an entry amount of R120 000-00 and he would have the book published in the USA.  And obviously we couldn't obtain permission at such brief notice, but something else happened.  A Miss Gilby, who was an American citizen, came to us and said that she had basically finished writing the whole book and all that she needed was certain information that she just wished to have confirmation of information that she already disposed of, to ascertain whether it was correct.	I obtained permission to have her look into Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's file at Headquarters.  We obtained permission.  The book was published in the United States, without any costs involved for us.	That is it, thank you Mr Commissioner.

MR LEWIN: Mr McPherson, thank you very much.  If I could just ask you a couple of questions to follow up what you have told us.	Thank you very much for giving such precise details.  If I could go back to the, you talk about the National Management System and the different projects that you were handling.  You had this budget of R4,5 million.

VIC MCPHERSON: Yes.

MR LEWIN: But the budget for the media section was only you say, R150 000-00?

VIC MCPHERSON: No, R50 000.

MR LEWIN: R50 000-00?

VIC MCPHERSON: Yes, that is R50 000-00 of the R4,5 million.

MR LEWIN: Okay, and I think at some stage you mentioned that there were some 30 projects that you were involved in and the media was only one of them.

VIC MCPHERSON: That was just one of them.

MR LEWIN: Okay, could you give us the breakdown of how you used that money for the media?