Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-10

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Chairperson I was brought up in the ANC never to blame the people, I still can't.  The proposition the Deputy President put, who benefits from this violence is the key.  The people don't benefit.  They are the ones that are dying.  Not even you and me are dying.  The problem in this equation is the great culpability of the National Party regime, it's refusal to rise to the political challenge of reconciliation, it's refusal to come clean,
when we say there are, clearly the evidence is that somebody was interested to ensure that cooperation and peace between the ANC and the IFP does not prevail in KwaZulu Natal.  I am saying now that what we have been saying gently that it is located in the National Party strategy of that period.  But they would not come forward so that all those people on the ground can see that the portrayal of IFP-ANC is at heart a false portrayal.  That it would be a tremendous act of statesmanship for the National Party regime to say, yes, we did these things to arrest the democratic change, but now that we have democratic change let us come clean so that everybody can see how they were manipulated by us.  Whether Siphiso Nkabinda in the ANC Midlands provincial secretary, or somebody in the IFP leadership let us all see how we were manipulated so that that perception that the Deputy President put forward is accepted as the framework within which we then appeal to the people on the ground, make peace.  Because they have no other framework at the moment.  
 So that is why I think the ANC makes it clear that it is deeply disappointed with the role of the National Party.  And I believe that if you can persuade them you would have done a tremendous service to the (break in recording)... that would apply of course as Ronnie is saying to all arms of the security forces.  It would open the door for security force officers to come forward and say yes, we did this, rather than hedging it and bringing dictionaries to argue what is the meaning of eliminate.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ntsebeza.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now yesterday we heard evidence, from among others, Major Craig Williamson, and one of the points that he made was the whole theory of my enemy's enemy is my friend, and in contextualising that he did indicate that certain forces were used as surrogate forces in the perpetration of violence and he gave a series of examples, divide and rule, contain them and all that.
 Now I just want to know whether it is your perspective that when you say who benefits from the perpetuation of that violence it is something akin to what Williamson in other words was indicating, that their duty as security forces was to maintain the status quo, and one of the methods that they used was to couch the sustenance that divide and rule and maintenance of the status quo through other methods, one of which is to use the phraseology of my enemy's my enemy's friend, or my friend is my enemy's enemy?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Chairperson all that theory that Craig Williamson has been using belongs to the dictionary of the anti-colonial struggles through the centuries in every country.  He would have been of greater help if he told the TRC what role he played in the killing of Steve Biko, as we have said in our previous submissions.  But I think he does testify to an aspect of the truth.  Yes, it is
always tempting to put up the rules of my enemy's enemy is my friend.  We too have, from time-to-time, some of us in the national liberation movement made those statements.  I think my great colleague Ahmad Kathrada in the Rivonia Trial said "I will sup with the devil to destroy apartheid but I will do so with a long spoon".  
 The real issue is the evidence, and the evidence stares us in the face, and as a I say the National Party and its leading officers who were key government people and key people in the security forces does not want to come clean.  The training of the KZP, Caprivi, their deployment thereafter; their incorporation into the KwaZulu police; their provision with all sorts of covers so that the one would surface in the Black Cats somewhere, another one would surface in Welkom and always it would be in the context of fomenting black-on-black violence.  The role of Koevoet.  The Witdoeke in the Western Cape.  The Crossroads conflict.  Now all of them there is one common thread portrayed as black-on-black violence, reality - somebody else, somebody else has an interest in fomenting it.  
 So people like Williamson contribute to now bringing about the understanding of what we called a Third Force, and bringing about some acceptance that there were these dirty tricks, covert operations.  
 But they do not advance substantially the cause of taking us 
to that political leadership, that State Security Council, that body where when documents appear and the word eliminate  appears, it is then argued by those same security force generals, that no, it meant detention; by the same security forces, individuals who come and say only at a late stage in the eighties when detention and arrests were failing did we use methods that became illegal.  Nonsense Mr Chairperson.  
 People were being tortured, thrown out of windows in 1963, 1963.  The genesis of NIS goes back to the Republican agency, it goes back, when I was in detention in '64 a number of my torturers were on the payroll still of the South African Railway Police.  They made it systemic and not just endemic to the apartheid system.  That's the (...indistinct).  And this is why, whilst the evidence is helping us to understand and accept that there was this covert operation we still cannot firmly prove it and depend on you.  
 We remain by putting the question, in whose interest was it?  And when you ask in whose interest, it was in the interest of the apartheid system to survive.  But we've got to dig out this evidence.  What would be really helpful if the National Party leadership was to come here and come clean.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.  Minister Maharaj accepting for the moment the argument in respect of a
covert strategy or a third force, is it your contention that a third force or a covert operation of some description is the sole explanation for the level of conflict that we've witnessed in KwaZulu Natal?