Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-05-06

MR VISSER: Yes.  My reply to you Mr Commissioner is obviously not.  I am talking about a few days ago or since he filed his application with you.  That's what I am talking about.  I am not talking about when this witness was outside the country and he didn't have any means of discovering what had happened.  Certainly you are quite correct.

MR TRENGOVE: But with respect Chairperson I am not sure what the suggestion is.  The witness is required to make full disclosure of the information he has.  My learned friend now criticising him for not analysing the information given to him by the Amnesty Committee.  Surely there is no duty on him to take what he receives from the Amnesty Committee only to give it back to them.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes we can certainly deal with this aspect in argument, but those figures you are reading from you prefaced before reading them by saying that he wouldn't have had sight of that.

MR VISSER: No he wouldn't have had Mr Chairman ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: So what is that, is that an official document?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman this originates from the South African Police Service ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Because I must say my reading of all these papers, including these documents that have been handed in recently, the figure, the only figure that I saw relating to the deaths was 11 defence force people.

MR VISSER: Really, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: But I might ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman we have a spare copy here incidentally, could we hand it up to you.  It is marked unfortunately in a yellow pen.  I am not sure whether the defence force people are marked there or whether the civilians are marked there.

CHAIRPERSON: The defence force people are marked, they are highlighted, yes.

MR VISSER: You will then see that it's numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 14, 18 and 19.

CHAIRPERSON: If I could just pass this on to the witness to look at the copy.

MR VISSER: And items no 2 and 17 represent the deceased Ezekiel Maseko and Freddy Shongwe Mr Chairman.  As it pleases you.  Would you bear with me a moment Mr Chairman.
	Mr Ismail you subscribed just now to the view that a parcel bomb is a terrorist weapon, do you remember that?

MR TRENGOVE: No I don't think he subscribed to anything of the kind.  He was asked about a particular incident when a particular civilian was assassinated by means of a parcel bomb.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I don't think there was a general statement that a parcel - perhaps you can ask him if it was - to whom it was addressed to ...(intervention)

MR VISSER: I stand corrected Mr Chairman, my learned friend is correct.
	In the article which I read to you where the question of - the whole issue of terrorism was discussed there was a reference to a parcel bomb which killed Ruth First, do you remember that?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR VISSER: I thought I asked you but I will ask you now.  Do you agree with his statement that such a parcel bomb would constitute a so-called "terrorist weapon"?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: It could, yes.

MR VISSER: If that is so so much the more I suggest to you would a car bomb constitute such a weapon.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Not necessarily Mr Chairperson.

MR VISSER: You see because following the line of his argument he ...(intervention)

MR TRENGOVE: May the witness finish his answer, he was interrupted by my learned friend.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson in war one has weapons.  A weapon is made up of the charge or the thing that is going to cause the injury, it is made up of a delivery mechanism and in this case the car was a delivery mechanism. It was a way of getting it there to that precise point.  In fact that was more specific in targeting what we wanted to hit than if we had gone somewhere and mounted an artillery piece and aimed to hit the Air Force Headquarters from somewhere because that artillery piece is less accurate than that would have been.
	An artillery piece is take to be a weapon of war accepted throughout, but simply because explosives are packed into a vehicle and delivered there, if those explosives were taken and put into something else and put there that doesn't make any difference.  The issue is that the explosives were brought to the point to where the targets were to strike at them.  The connotation of car bombs is simply because elsewhere everywhere people then make out that these are terrorist weapons etc.  We are suggesting, or I would suggest that within the means that we had at our disposal that was a weapon we could use.  It's use was authorised by a political organisation, by our President and we used it.

MR VISSER: Are you finished Mr Ismail?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR VISSER: I am suggesting to you that the basis of the approach of the article which I read to you was the question of terrorism.  Did you understand that as well?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR VISSER: I am suggesting to you that if he describes, and I submit quite correctly, a parcel bomb is a terrorist weapon so much the more a car bomb would be a terrorist weapon for the reason that it kills indiscriminately.  That's the point.

MR TRENGOVE: With respect my learned friend says the article described a parcel bomb as a terrorist weapon.  It might do so but not in the parts that he read to us and I haven't seen the article.  What it did was to describe the attack on Ruth First by means of a parcel bomb as a terrorist attack, and of course a parcel bomb or a gun or a bomb can be used either for legitimate purposes or for illegitimate purposes.

CHAIRPERSON: Like a knife as well.

MR TRENGOVE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: But I think what Mr Visser is asking you Mr Ismail, he's suggesting to you, he's putting it to you like a gun, shoot out and pick out a single target, you may kill indiscriminately by using it in a busy place.  I think that's what's being put.  Is that what is being put?

MR VISSER: Yes Mr Chairman.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, firstly let us examine weapons and weaponry.  Most weapons are fairly indiscriminate.  In all the world wars, in other wars many civilians died. The SADF uses artillery pieces, how specific are they?   I suggest to you an artillery piece is made up of a delivery mechanism, an engine that drives it and there's an explosive at the front that is then going to cause the destruction it's going to cause.  It is used.

CHAIRPERSON: So you're saying that most bombs are indiscriminate with weapons that are indiscriminate.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes because there are very few weapons, when the Air Force goes in and fire a missile, it is only in the latter day that there are weapons that are being still created with pin-point accuracy and even then is within a few hundred metres that they are accurate.  Now you raise the question of a car bomb and say, is this a terrorist weapon, and I say to you no it is not, it was not because the issue was, what is it aimed at?  What is it primarily made up of? It is made up of a car with a means to get it there and it is made up of the explosives that are in it that are meant to kill.  That constitutes a system, a weapon, a weapon that we had at our disposal and that we used.  It was not meant for terrorist purposes, it was meant to strike at military personnel at the Air Force Headquarters.

MR VISSER: I suggest to you Mr Ismail that you're over-simplifying a very obvious fact and that is that with any kind of mechanism which you can aim there is a question of selectiveness, some more accurate, some less accurate but you can aim, you can take aim, you can't take aim with a car bomb except place it in a busy street where people frequent.