Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-06

MR KNOETZE: Page 665.  There we find a summary and the last paragraph starts as follows
"The counter-revolutionary authority structure as instrument or component of a total counter-revolutionary model aims to establish a plan of action for a continuous co-ordinated employing of the total Eastern Cape capacity on all areas and terrains to achieve the national objective."
Page 666:
"The current JMC system in principle is contained within a sovereign State within the existing operational framework, and some changes to realise the counter-revolutionary authority structure may however be necessary to make the system effective and streamlined."
Could you please just explain that.

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Yes.  Chairperson, we did not from the outset want to create new structures, we rather wanted to involve the existing structures, the JMCs and the so-called "GBR" system, and the regional advice systems.  So in other words, we wanted to work with the existing structures.  The whole idea of Plan Strelitzia was on the regional level to join up all these bodies and structures so that it could jointly form a counter-revolutionary structure which also had to involve the Transkei and the Ciskei as independent States.

MR KNOETZE: Then page 686.  The plan had been drafted and thereafter what did you and your co-compilers do with this plan?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: We then organised a presentation to an extended State Security Council meeting which was held in Pretoria on the 12th of June 1985, during which we, that is myself and members under my command and also members of the Advisory Board mentioned just now, we all went to Pretoria to present this plan.

MR KNOETZE: And 686, do we see there a list of the people present at that meeting?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Yes.  Minister Vlok was the Chairperson.

MR KNOETZE: How was the plan received?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: We were disappointed, Chairperson.  It was quite clear after we'd made our presentation that there was quite a considerable degree of confusion and also lack of understanding.  The plan was not approved and we went back to Port Elizabeth without our plan having been approved.

MR KNOETZE: Now without boasting, what do you think would have happened if the plan had been approved?  How would it have affected this situation which existed in the Eastern Cape, or later existed in the Eastern Cape?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Chairperson, the idea was to establish a representative regional government which would then be involved in one structure.  I can perhaps add that - maybe it will make it will make it clearer, we were convinced that the tri-cameral parliament at a national level could not combat the counter-revolutionary war in our favour.  So the idea which you then see in Strelitzia is to, on a local and a regional level, to have a four chamber parliament in which all those structures are involved and joined in one structure and which would then form the basis of a counter-power base against the revolutionaries.  That is why we presented the plan as we did with various options to the State Security Council.
	Now I personally think that the plan was ahead of its time, the internal political climate was not yet receptive, ready for this.

MR KNOETZE: But certain portions of the principles and ideas that you've mentioned now, for instance the idea that an area should be governed by all four the population groups, the four chamber idea, was that every applied on a local management level?  For instance I think here of the system which was in place in Adelaide.

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Yes.  By means of an experiment we looked at certain of the smaller more manageable areas to try to find out how could such a local government system function as a fully representational system - Bedford, maybe Adelaide as well.  In those areas we consulted the community leaders from all the population groups and we brought them together under the auspices of the white council at the time.  And in that forum these people had a say on behalf of their communities and that worked very well and it also helped us to combat the alternative structures which sprung up everywhere.

MR KNOETZE: Alright.  Now just to emphasis the other point, General.  In Plan Strelitzia, were there any hard military options outlined?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: No.  No, it's a non-military plan and it's actually chiefly a constitutional plan which also has economic and social advantages.

MR KNOETZE: So, to get back to the explanation you gave earlier, it dealt with the normalising level?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Yes.

MR KNOETZE: So could one then say, General, that you were absolutely convinced that normalising should take place before stabilisation?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Yes.  If you go back in history, the history of revolutionary war in South Africa, you will see that from the beginning the emphasis was placed on stabilisation or Security Force actions.  That emphasis only started shifting in '85/'86, to the 80% welfare area.  In that time we had the kind of slogan "stabilisation through normalisation".   In other words, a normalised area would inherently also have stabilised elements in it, or normalisation almost automatically leads to stabilisation.  Now the opposite is not true.  Unfortunately that only started manifesting after the mid-80's.

MR KNOETZE: Well to get back to your situation, Strelitzia was written and it was approved of, it was not adopted?  What plan did you make then?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Well plans were being made constantly and as the commanding officer and also as the chairperson of the JMC I was aware of constant plans being made and also the situation was very fluid, so we had to make contingency plans and plans for different options.  But in the year after we made Plan Strelitzia, we then gave birth to Plan Katzen or Plan Katzen was written.

MR KNOETZE: Could I then refer you to page 9 of the bundle. ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, General.  Where does the name Katzen come from?  Who was Katzen or what is Katzen?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Chairperson, the first time when I wrote the plan, it didn't actually have a name.  Afterwards the plan was re-written and in the re-written plan 2 as such, the name Katzen was added and the staff officers who re-wrote the plan, I think took the last "zen" part of my surname and joined it with General Liebenberg's nickname, "Kat" and gave the plan a name in this way.  That's the only explanation which makes sense to me, because it's a strange name, an unusual name, not common in our country.  So the "Kat" is "Kat" Liebenberg and the "zen" comes from my surname, van der Westhuizen.

MR KNOETZE: General, document A, what document is this?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: This document which goes as far as page 70, is a document drafted by a group of people who in some or other way were involved in Plan Katzen.  I don't think the entire document will be known to all the people involved.  They did not all play a continuous role in this process.  But I read it through and in my opinion it gives a very good overview, external idea of Plan Katzen, but it wasn't written by me.

MR KNOETZE: Just a correction, General, the document does not go up to page 70, it's only up to page 40.  The rest is a translation.  I take it that you don't take any responsibility for that?

CHRISTOFFEL PIERRE VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: Yes, that's correct.