Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-11-16

ADV PRIOR: It is the 16th of November.  We proceed with the amnesty applications of last week and Mr Botha was still being cross-examined.  I have a few questions for Mr Botha, with the leave of the Committee.

CHAIRPERSON: I have a request before we start, is it possible to twist those lights away a little?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: (still under oath)

ADV PRIOR: Mr Botha, I just have seven aspects that I want to canvass with you.  The first being my understanding of your evidence as well as the evidence of Mr Wasserman et al, regarding Operation Butterfly.
	Was it paramount with the Security Branch, that is your division or your office, to either dismantle those structures or destroy those structures by either prosecuting the members in those various structures or by eliminating those members?  Sorry, the third possibility also, by turning those members?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Mr Chairperson, in 1985 with Operation Butterfly, exposure - the prosecution of the members of this movement, and this was the first option.

ADV PRIOR: And it would appear from the evidence and from the documents we have seen, there was great success with the investigation and prosecution of many of those MK members?  Is that correct?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct Mr Chairperson.

ADV PRIOR: Is my sense of what happened thereafter correct, that your Branch experienced a sense of frustration at the fact that the court process wasn't one hundred percent effective?  In other words, due to problems that you either did foresee or did not foresee, certain of the accused, the MK cadres were in fact acquitted which gave rise to a sense of frustration within your unit?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes, there was a build up of frustration Mr Chairperson.

ADV PRIOR: As you testified last week, you, as well as possibly Colonel Taylor at some stage, came to the realisation that the only effective way to destroy those structures that you had been working on since 1985, Operation Butterfly, the Natal machinery, would be to eliminate those persons in key positions within that machinery?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: No Mr Chairperson, it was not that the people who were left, had to be eliminated.

ADV PRIOR: Maybe let me qualify that, the personnel in key positions, for examples Ndwandwe, Portia Ndwandwe, to name an example?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Yes Mr Chairperson.  After the arrest and the conviction, or successful conviction of these people, there was from those who were left over from Butterfly, who was not charged at all, they were used as witnesses.  Some of them were not charged at all.
	The monitoring of them was in the nature of the case, it was our responsibility and we would continue and we would then, or we decided then that people would continue.  When she left the country to go to Swaziland, she became a primary target.

ADV PRIOR: Just to move on briefly on the preparation for the trial.  Would it be correct to suggest that some, if not many of the State witnesses, were in fact coerced into making statements and into giving evidence against their colleagues?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: All those who were detained according to the Act, made Article 29 statements.  In the interviews of these people it was decided who would be willing to act as State witnesses.

ADV PRIOR: Would assaults have occasioned the making of those Section 29 statements or not?  I am not suggesting that it was across the board, but what I am driving at is that a lot of those statements that those people made, were they made as a result of coercion or force being applied to them?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: In terms of the Act, they had to make a statement, yes.  There was pressure on the detainees to make a statement.

ADV PRIOR: But you say pressure because of the nature of the provision of the Act?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: But you have told us as I understand your evidence, that practically everybody you questioned, was assaulted?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is negative Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Didn't you tell us you punched people, you slapped them?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Not all of them Mr Chairperson, it was a few incidents?

CHAIRPERSON: The majority?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: No Mr Chairperson.  I would say the majority of the people were not attacked or assaulted.

CHAIRPERSON: That wasn't the impression I got from your evidence last week.  Ndwandwe I think, was about the only one you said, wasn't.

ADV PRIOR: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Mr Botha, given your position within the Security Force structure in Durban, Port Natal at that stage, were you - let me put it this way, we heard evidence last week that Mr Bhila was eliminated, it would appear on the instructions of Mr Taylor.

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct Mr Chairperson.

ADV PRIOR: Am I correct in understanding that you had nothing to do with that episode?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct Mr Chairperson.

ADV PRIOR: It never came to your attention that a decision to eliminate Bhila had been taken?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Negative.

ADV PRIOR: Had it come to your attention?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: With the amnesty application process in 1996, I did take notice, yes.

ADV PRIOR: I am actually talking about at the time, 1987?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Negative, no, I did not have any knowledge of this.

ADV PRIOR: In retrospect, should that information have come to your attention, being the Head of Information gathering, or Intelligence as you were?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Negative.  The fact that a decision was made by Taylor, did not have to be shared with me.

ADV PRIOR: Did that not lead to any friction between you and Mr Taylor?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Negative.

ADV PRIOR: You described your relationship with Mr Taylor as a good one?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct Mr Chairperson.

ADV PRIOR: I just want to develop just briefly on that.  Bhila was described to us last week as being a dangerous terrorist.  He had been acquitted and that seems to have been the underlying motive or reason for killing him?  Would you go along with that?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct.

ADV PRIOR: On the same basis, Mr Nxiweni must have been equally dangerous?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: That is correct.

ADV PRIOR: Yet, we have a situation that Mr Bhila is murdered three days after his acquittal and Mr Nxiweni is almost a year, if not longer after that acquittal, he is eliminated.  Are you able to assist us in just understanding what went wrong, if anything?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Mr Chairperson, I do not know what Colonel Taylor's idea was at that stage and as I understood in his evidence, it was his decision.  He did not share this decision with me and it was according to the Act that inspired him to do that.

ADV PRIOR: Is the name Pindele Mfeti known to you?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Could you please repeat the name and surname?

ADV PRIOR: Pindele Mfeti?

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: Negative Mr Chairperson, I cannot say that I remember this name.

ADV PRIOR: Our information is that Pindele Mfeti was also a medical student, I beg your pardon, a law student and was the cousin of Pumeso Nxiweni, and apparently was also a similar age, in his 40's.

HENDRIK JOHANNES PETRUS BOTHA: I do not know him Mr Chairperson.