Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

DR BASSON: With potential, no ability.

DR RANDERA: ...going and travelling into these countries, being accepted, as you say, your qualifications seemed to be accepted without too many questions. You were quite straightforward with them and they were willing to share your viewpoints, and so what I'm trying to understand is, are you saying that scientists were more concerned about Eastern Bloc potential threat and communist threat than what was happening in South Africa, that there wasn't a concern by them towards the plight of millions of black people in this country?

DR BASSON: Dr Randera, I think that's a slightly loaded question, but I'll try and answer it to the best of my ability.   I personally did not experience the anti-apartheid feeling in Europe.   When I was there, I was not influenced by that.   That was not part, and I'm not for or against that, I only experienced that the scientists I had contact with were worried about weapons of mass destruction, because they had the potential to be very harmful, when we saw in Tokyo, for example, with the subway incident.   The assistance I obtained was direct and indirect.   Some of the scientists were really worried about what the Eastern Bloc countries were doing.   Some of the scientists were more worried about what was happening in their own countries, and much of the information I gathered came from physicians for human rights.   What they did, they watched their governments so carefully to make sure that nothing would happen and they used the democratic systems in their own countries to obtain information and to force information from the government, and then they don't sell it, but they tell it to everybody else.   The same way in which SIPRI, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute handled their affairs.   We know that was a cover-up for the Eastern Bloc countries, because they were collecting databases of old chemical and biological warfare research countrywide and then made it available to embarrass the relevant countries.
 The answer I want to give you is a combination of yes, a great number of these scientists were afraid of the Eastern Bloc countries and saw us as a channel through which their problems could be addressed, and many of them were also worried about what their own governments were doing, and anybody who had a sympathetic ear, not about apartheid but about their own political situation in their countries, and that's why they provided us with information.   
 Apart from my South African passport making it very difficult for me to travel, I did not experience the apartheid problem in the scientific world, and there was no discrimination against me in that regard.

DR RANDERA: I see Mr Vally has returned, so let me hand over.

MR VALLY: Thank you for the indulgence, Mr Chair.   Dr Basson, can you explain to us why is it that General Knobel's attitude when he saw this list, TRC52, and it was put to him that these were items amounting to murder weapons in a sense, he conceded that?

DR BASSON: Mr Chairman, my legal adviser advised me not to speculate any comment on why General Knobel thought.   What he was thinking is speculation, I please don't want to speculate, I don't know why he had said that.   All I can say is from my own experience that that list is nothing more dramatic than you will find something in a corporation in a rural area regarding poisonous effect.

MR VALLY: It's a strange place you shop, Dr Basson, because cyanide capsules and paraquat in whisky and salmonella in sugar and thallium in beer and typhirium in deodorant, etcetera, etcetera, is not something one buys at the normal supermarket, but my question... (intervention).

DR BASSON: Mr Chairman, I've already commented on this.   Will you please ask Mr Vally not to repeat these allegations.   I can't deny that again.

MR VALLY: Did General Knobel know about these items?

DR BASSON: I can't say that General Knobel knew about this.  He knew about the defensive programme and that this defensive programme was executed on a broader level.  In the sense of counter-intelligence, for example, General Knobel knew about that.   To ask him whether he was aware of the specific list is to ask the same if I was aware of this list.   I was not.

MR VALLY: You were the project officer, he was the project manager.   Did he know that you were making such substances, such combinations of... (intervention).

DR BASSON: Once again, I can't answer that question.   It's just like asking me whether I know that the theatre sister has not sterilised the instruments this morning.   This is operationally a very low level, much lower than which Knobel functioned on.   He was aware of the concept, yes.

MR VALLY: Right.   So he was aware that you were mixing thallium with beer, he was aware of that?

DR BASSON: Mr Chairman, I've already answered the question, I've said General Knobel was aware of the concept.   I'm going to say that for the last time.   I don't know whether he was aware of every single substance, I don't know whether he was aware of this list, I did not know about the list.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you think you can take it further than that, Mr Vally?

MR VALLY: Well I just want it noted that when this was put to General Knobel, he did look quite aghast and he agreed that these were instruments of murder.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, the witness doesn't seem to be saying that should not have been so, he says he was aware of the concept, but whether he knew the specifics, for instance whether he knew that there was that particular list with that sort of contents, he cannot say.

MR VALLY: Well, if we ignore the fact of the list, was he aware of these specific ingredients being mixed together, forgetting the list?

CHAIRPERSON: Well if you can put that to the witness.

MR VALLY: Dr Basson, did General Knobel know about these specific mixtures of items, these combinations?

DR BASSON: My answer remains the same as the previous answers, I don't know.

MR VALLY: So it was possible that the project manager was kept in the dark?

DR BASSON: Mr Chairman, no, I refuse to answer that question, because the question is so broad, I'm not a legal person, but to ask whether the project leader was held in the dark, it's such a broad question I can't answer.

MR VALLY: In respect to these mixtures of items, where toxins were mixed with normal everyday substances, was General Knobel aware that lethal toxins were being mixed with everyday substances?

CHAIRPERSON: But has he not replied to that?   He says he doesn't know.   That's what he has said, that's what I have heard him say over and over again, he does not know, he doesn't know what General Knobel... (intervention).

MR VALLY: Mr Chair, I disagree with you, with respect.   I'm trying to determine whether, what concept means, concept may just refer to that the... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Very well, Mr Vally, put your questions.

MR VALLY: For the very last time, Dr Basson, did General Knobel know that you were experimenting with mixing thallium with beer, for example, or whisky with paraquat, that is toxins with everyday substances that you could buy in normal shops, did General Knobel know this?

DR BASSON: For the very last time, I don't know.

MR VALLY: I put it to you that the fact that you can state such a thing means that you were not responsibly accounting for your activities to General Knobel?

DR BASSON: Mr Chairman, this is a conclusion I cannot agree with.   In the broad context of this project, this would have only been a small part of this project, to allege that there was not a responsibility in accountability because Knobel did not know about thallium in beer is just absolutely absurd.