Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-19

EUGENE DE KOCK: After that, at various occasions or on a regular basis, I maintained contact with Nieuwoudt, I even developed a source network in the Transkei and I was able to warn him timeously about coups from the Transkei which were aimed at the Ciskei.  Approximately two to three weeks later, Nieuwoudt informed me that Duli had been wounded in the assault during the coup and that later in the presence of Gen Holomisa and Brigadier Matanzima and Holomisa's vehicle driver, known as Whiteboy, I think it was an MK name, I am not sure, he had been shot, he, Craig Duli, was shot dead by one of the aforementioned persons.  I was also informed by Nieuwoudt that Colonel Duli before he had been shot dead, had been very seriously tortured.  A short while after this failed coup, members of the Transkei Security Police under the command of a captain of the Transkei Security Police, abducted Mbotoli from his home in Johannesburg.  An Austrian was involved in this, his name was Moringer.  My information was that Mbotoli had been detained, tortured and tried in the Transkei and then sentenced.

MR HATTINGH: And all of your knowledge about this, was based upon hearsay?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Not all of it.  We also received Intelligence reports from the Security Branches in East London, among others also from the Ciskei Military Intelligence Services who confirmed some of these versions.

MR HATTINGH: Before I ask you to deal very briefly with the third incident, I would just like to finish this incident off thoroughly.  With regard to the first incident about which you have given brief evidence and the second incident, did you ever receive any compensation or remuneration for your supply of weapons?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No, there was no agreement for remuneration.

MR HATTINGH: Did you ever receive any compensation with regard to the first two incidents?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No, on the contrary, it was own expenses for me.  Naturally the State covered it, but there was no talk of remuneration for members of Vlakplaas.

MR HATTINGH: Why were you prepared to provide your co-operation in this regard?

EUGENE DE KOCK: It was already known that Gen Holomisa had achieved success after 1990, that he had provided assistance for members of the PAC and the ANC and that assaults had been launched from the Transkei and in adjacent areas.  I will refer to a case during which two MK members were arrested on the way from the Transkei or Umtata, I think they were on their way to Queenstown, with an AK47 and a Makarov pistol with a silencer.  While they were in possession of legal ID documents from the Transkei Armed Forces, they were charged and found guilty, but later they were released.  The ANC and the PAC after this availability of the Transkei, continued with their attacks especially on vehicles which were used by whites or which were driven by whites.  There were various incidents during which whites in transit on the roads in Transkei, were attacked and wounded.  There was also a base at Sterkspruit where six PAC members had established themselves in the town itself.  There was also a PAC base, approximately a kilometre from the Aliwal North/Transkei border.  It was a house which was used by them and which we had prepared to attack, but this plan was later abandoned by the Generals.

MR HATTINGH: If this coup had succeeded, how would it have been of any advantage to the former government?

EUGENE DE KOCK: It would have established a friendly government in the Transkei for the National Party to have Kaiser Matanzima as the Head of State and to have Colonel Craig Duli as the Military Head.  That would probably have benefited the manipulative objective of the NP.

MR HATTINGH: Would that have had any affect on the Police and the Army's ability to act against members of the ANC or the PAC who found themselves in that area?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes, it would have given us unconditional access to the Transkei where Vlakplaas in particular would have been used very effectively with regard to the identification of PAC and ANC members, because virtually the whole of Vlakplaas consisted of former MK or APLA members and we would be able to arrest these persons and recruit them, we would also be able to neutralise stockpiling locations by being able to trace these places and destroying them.

MR HATTINGH: Did this contribute to your decision to cooperate and provide weapons for the coups?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes.

MR HATTINGH: Very well, this bring us to the third incident.  Once again, we are not submitting this to the Committee, I would just like you to deal with it very briefly.  Did you also provide weapons at later occasions which were used to execute coup d'etats?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Yes.  After this second incident in which Duli died, I was approached by Commandant Anton Nieuwoudt and he requested me to assist him for the delivery of weapons, particularly Eastern Block demolition chargers and he specifically requested some seven missiles because the Transkei at that stage, had two helicopters which could be fitted with canons.  I complied with that request and delivered a large quantity of weapons and ammunition to him.  When I refer to a large quantity, I am not talking about tons, but it was more than what I had provided to Duli.

MR HATTINGH: The supply of these weapons, did a coup follow on this or was there an attempt at a coup after this?

EUGENE DE KOCK: Chairperson, there was an attempt from the Transkei where Colonel Guzana, I hope I pronounce it correctly and Gen Charles Sebe came to the Ciskei for the purposes of executing a coup in Ciskei.  I would just like to mention here whether it was Ciskei or Transkei or any other country in the world, this was - an integral part of a coup was that you had to be sympathetic and you had to have armed forces, and from the public itself, you had to have assistance, but the two of them alone could not execute a coup by themselves.  This was concurrent with unrest in the army barracks in the Ciskei.  Some of the Army members died there in the Ciskei and the Gen Guzana was shot and Gen Sebe was murdered.

MR HATTINGH: These weapons which you supplied at this instance, did you receive any or did you have discussion for any benefit of this?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No Chairperson, remuneration was not asked for, it was not given.

MR HATTINGH: The assistance that you had to give ...

EUGENE DE KOCK: Chairperson, firstly, I was prepared to oppose the ANC and the PAC.  I would not have gone with any compromise and this was not connected to any financial remuneration.  For me it was about the case, the matter.

MR HATTINGH: After you had supplied the weapons, was any offer made to you for any remuneration?

EUGENE DE KOCK: No Chairperson, but the evening before we departed, the members who helped me with the supply of these weapons to Commandant Nieuwoudt, the same evening Commandant Nieuwoudt visited me and placed a white bag on my bed at which he said there was something here for me.   When I asked him what it was, he said I had to have a look at it, it was for me.  I opened the bag, it had money in it, notes.

MR HATTINGH: Did you know how much money was in there?