Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

MR DU PLESSIS: In this regard Brigadier Cronje will alsobring testimony that he reported on events in his section andhis unit to his commanding officers that there were files withregard to certain events and activists, both at his branch aswell as at the security branch and that he had never, with regardto any action against activists, whether intimidation or eliminationor any other event that he would 4A ever/...
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ever have been repudiated even though he had reported in thisregard, could you comment in this regard?

GEN VAN DER MERWE: Mr Chair in my entire existenceI never saw such a report, I am not sure whether you mean thathe literally reported exactly what happened even where there wasillegitimate actions against a particular person and it was statedas such in the report, I can hardly imagine this.

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes that is what I implied.

GEN VAN DER MERWE: No I never saw such a report.I can hardly imagine it.  I can assure you that all persons involved with files could affirm this that there had never been such areport in which it was reported that in the action against a specificperson who was eliminated that I had ever seen such a report. I cannot comment in this regard but I might imagine that anyother person seeing such a report would just have left it at that.

SISI KHAMPEPE: General van der Merwe was it not a standardrequirement that the commanding officers should receive detailedreports on how the orders had been executed by the operativesspecifically with a view of assessing the legitimacy of the operatives'conduct during the execution of their orders?

GEN VAN DER MERWE: Chair one has to take into accountthat there were hundreds and at certain times thousands of incidentsevery day.  With regard to instructions, depending on the instructionsand their scope it would hardly have been possible to report backon every single action and incident and to evaluate every incidentor action.  There might have been operations where the scope ornature would have been such that one would have expected completereporting and this was done, generally speaking.  One could
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not generalise to say that with regard to every instruction giventhe understanding would have been that there would have been reportingand evaluation in detail.  These were simply the circumstances,it was not possible to do so.

MR DU PLESSIS: General I want to pay attention to a differentsection of Brigadier Cronje's application with regard to instructions. Before doing this I just want to make a statement to you thatthe testimony of Brigadier Cronje with regards to instructionof Brigadier Victor has been corroborated by Captain Hechter. Brigadier Victor first called in Captain Hechter and then BrigadierCronje.  I just want to state this to you that there is corroboratingevidence.
 I want to refer Mr Chair, to page 15 of Brigadier Cronje's application,the last paragraph thereof, of his submission.  My apologies page17, the last paragraph.  It is likely that interpreting will notbe possible.  My apologies I return to page 16, the second-lastpage where Brigadier Cronje says the following.  
  "In my knowledge the same action was taken in all othersections of the security police throughout the country.  It wasa generally accepted way of acting without repudiation by HeadOffice, the Commissioner of Police, the State Security Council,Cabinet or Government".  
As far as I can understand it pro-active action against the liberationmovements was taken up with the agreement of the government ofthe day.  I know you disagree with this but I simply state theview of Brigadier Cronje.  General as I understand your pointof view you are affirming that Brigadier Cronje might have beenunder this impression is 
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that correct?

GEN VAN DER MERWE: Yes.
MR DU PLESSIS
  "All actions under my jurisdiction were taken up in situationreports sent through daily to Head Office.  The procedure wasthat further reports in this regard were also sent through tothe State Security Council.  Actions under my command were thereforesent through to Head Office and must have been taken up in reportsto the State Security Council.  Monthly meetings at the jointmanagement centre also had discussions of all these actions withrepresentatives from various sectors".
I know this is an over-simplification of the system but wouldthat have been correct?

GEN VAN DER MERWE: With regard to the normal incidents,legitimate incidents this would have been the case.  I must justconfirm again that I am really not aware of any report made inwhich there was mention of illegitimate actions concerning thegross violation of human rights, not while I served in these bodies. There might have been communiques in this regard but not by meansof normal reports.

MR DU PLESSIS: General, Brigadier Cronje was not involvedin the higher levels of authority such as the State Security Council,at the bottom of page 17 he says that he had no doubt that hisactions and that of his subordinates "under my command wouldhave been made known to the State Security Council". He givesan example that of the handgrenades which we had already dealtwith.
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 Then General another important point is the following.  Thisis a further factor concerning which Brigadier Cronje will bringtestimony which convinced him that he's acting legitimately andcorrectly under the instructions of the government.  This regardsBrigadier Schoon who phoned him on a particular incident, whogave him instruction that the Security Branch with the militaryspecial services were to act.  
  "His instruction to me was that the SADF's special serviceswas to cooperate with us.  This was the special combat unit workingwith covert actions.  If Brigadier Schoon gave me instructionto work with Military Intelligence I would not have consideredthan an instruction war, but the instruction to work with specialforces was a direct instruction to get involved in direct militarywarfare.  This instruction was given to me during a time afterthe instruction of Brigadier Victor.  It was within a couple ofmonths of each other.  I accepted Brigadier Schoon's instructionand respected it as an instruction to get directly involved withmilitary action in a military way.   It was therefore no longernormal policing actions or tasks which I had to carry out.  Myresponsibilities were therefore far wider".
Do you know of this instruction from Brigadier Schoon?

GEN VAN DER MERWE: No I am not aware of this instruction. If such an instruction had been given I would agree with theway in which Brigadier Cronje had understood it, but I am notaware of such instructions.
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MR DU PLESSIS: General the fact that there had been cooperationbetween the security police and special forces would then be confirmedin the testimony of the applicants with regard to more than oneincident also with regard to the case of Piet Mtuli and the Robeiroincident.  I am simply stating this to you.

GEN VAN DER MERWE: I am not aware of this Chair.

UNKNOWN: In the structure if there had been suchincidents where Cronje acted in terms of Schoon's instructionand he had sent in a report to whom would he have sent this report?

GEN VAN DER MERWE: Depending on the nature of itscontents if it had to do with a normal individual suspect it wouldhave been sent to the particular section at Head Office who wouldhave dealt with this and depending on whether it was of nationalimportance or only of local importance this matter would havebeen dealt with by either the divisional head of the divisionor it could have been taken up to a higher level.  That wouldhave depended on the importance of the particular incident ona national level.