Amnesty Hearings — Potchefstroom — UNKNOWN

<UNKNOWN>: So roughly in 1984 you went to Edenvale.   Between 1984 and 1989, were you continually a supporter of the AWB or involved with the AWB, and how strongly were you involved during those years?

MR VAN STRAATEN: I then met a friend, Robbie Coetzee, who was an AWB member.   I often went with him, he invited me to join him and my involvement increased during this time.   Because of circumstances, I could not join the AWB.   They wanted me to gain explosives for him, but this was against my principles.

<UNKNOWN>: You said that you worked at a factory.   If you did not work at this particular factory, would you have joined the AWB?

MR VAN STRAATEN: Yes, I would have, but my involvement would then certainly have gone further than it in fact did.

<UNKNOWN>: You said that this Robbie Coetzee took you along to place, or you joined him on certain events.   Where did you go and what did you do at these particular events?

MR VAN STRAATEN: I went with him to meetings, and at a certain point he wanted us to go to a petrol depot at the Germiston/Alberton border to blow it up, but I refused to do this because I was not a member of the particular organisation or any other organisation at that time.

<UNKNOWN>: How did it come that in 1989 you went to your brothers with a plan, what exactly was the run-up to this particular event?

MR VAN STRAATEN: This person...
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<UNKNOWN>: Who was this person?

MR VAN STRAATEN: This is Robbie Coetzee.   Robbie Coetzee then said to me that I should make some plan and that I should start an underground cell of some kind which would then allow me to continue to create amok or to do things which would in some way help to overthrow government or at least take away the attention of government from certain events.   I then went to my brothers on the evening of the 17th of June, and I told them of this plan that I had, possibly to take over some place or to do some damage to some or other place.   We then decided to look at a particular place where there were also night guards.

<UNKNOWN>: Was this a particular place, or did you just decide to go and look at a range of particular properties?

MR VAN STRAATEN: No, we decided in particular to go and look at a number of specific places.

<UNKNOWN>: With regard to the cell that you were supposed to found, could you give us some clearer indication of the purposes of this organisation or cell, what particularly would your purposes have been?

MR VAN STRAATEN: To take any particular soft targets or government targets and to destroy these, or even only to damage these.   In this way we could have gained the trust of someone and then later on could have had larger operations.

<UNKNOWN>: Who were these people whom you wanted to gain the trust of?

MR VAN STRAATEN: As Robbie Coetzee had told me and with regard to his own plans, with which I was never closely involved in, but from what I heard, I did not agree with him.
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<UNKNOWN>: Was Robbie Coetzee a member of the AWB, or what was his involvement?

MR VAN STRAATEN: As far as I know, he was a member of the AWB.

<UNKNOWN>: According to you, you then, in June 1989 you went to your brothers and told them about your plan.   Could you continue from there, what then happened?

MR VAN STRAATEN: I told them of this plan.   We went into my vehicle and we drove to a couple of properties.   The particular property of Terblanche Transport was the third property past which we drove.   I saw the night watchman there.   The property was not clearly secured, there was only a chain which served as a gate.   The first thought that came to my mind was that it would be easy to gain entrance to the property.   We drove somewhat past, left the vehicle there and then decided that Willem and Dawid would first enter the property, with the purpose of tackling the night watchman and tying him up.   Gideon and myself then entered the property after them.   Upon entering the property, I saw that there were two night watchmen.   The moment we came next to them, Willem and Dawid each grabbed a night watchman.   I then knocked them over the head with a flashlight.   I then told Dawid and Gideon to go and see whether there were any ropes in the property with which we could tie up the night watchmen.   They came back and I then gave them instructions to guard the night watchmen.   Willem had already moved into the property by that time.   I moved deeper into the property and then found him at one of the trucks there.   He then told me that this particular truck is right in front of the gate, and that it would be easy for us to remove this particular vehicle.   We began
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opening up the vehicle and to prepare to remove it from the property.   While we were busy, I heard a noise, and I told Willem that I would go and see what was happening.    At the place where I left David with the one night watchman, I saw that he and the night watchman were struggling.   I approached and kicked against something on the ground, which I then picked up and it was the particular, an axe or whatever, with which I attacked the night watchman.   I then gave the chisel to Dawid and told him to look after the night watchman.   He then told me that he couldn't find any ropes, and I then told him to see to it that the night watchman would not get up again.   I returned to the vehicle, where I told Willem that one of the night watchman were now hurt with the chisel.  I told him that we would have to hurry up to remove the vehicle so that we could get away from this particular property.   He then started up the truck.   I returned to Dawid and told him to collect Gideon and open the gate so that we could leave the property with the truck.   He went to Gideon and told Gideon to get into the truck with Willem.  Dawid then took the chain which served as a gate, he opened that up, Willem and Gideon then left the property with the truck.   Dawid and I went in the opposite direction around the block and moved back to my own car.   We got into the car and picked up Willem and Gideon where they had left the truck.

<UNKNOWN>: Did you find them at the truck?

MR VAN STRAATEN: No, as we approached the truck, I saw that there was a white vehicle next to the truck, I drove past and saw neither Willem nor Gideon at the truck, so I simply drove past and drove away from the truck.

<UNKNOWN>: You said you had this particular plan which you
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had discussed with your brothers.   What was your purpose, your goal, with this plan, what would you have done, what did you want to achieve with your actions?

MR VAN STRAATEN: With this particular action, in which we failed, we had removed the truck and our intention was to take more than one of the trucks and then to show that the night watch people were not up to the task.

<UNKNOWN>: How would you have brought this under the attention of the owner, that these black night watchmen were not up to the task?

MR VAN STRAATEN: Well they would have arrived there, the night watchmen would have been tied up, which was our intention, and the trucks would have been removed off the property.   At that time there were also white people who were unemployed, and of these white people had applied for these particular positions, which they then did not get.

<UNKNOWN>: If you're saying they did not get these positions because it was given to black people, or why would you say did they not get these positions?

MR VAN STRAATEN: That was my feeling at that time.

<UNKNOWN>: What was your intention with the trucks?

MR VAN STRAATEN: The plan was to take them off the property so that it would look like theft, motor vehicle theft.   Both of the night watchmen then died and we were scared, so we simply took away the vehicle, so that it would appear to have been a robbery.