Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-08

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: The information regarding these matters, was not only available to me, it was already well-known when I came on the scene.

MR GOOSEN: Two things in regard to that.  You don't by virtue of the fact that somebody else has the same knowledge as you, lose your responsibility to comply with the law of the country with a Defence Act, in particular, and the second aspect is the fact that other persons, at a senior level, presumably both in the Police and the Military, and the South African Defence Force, had the knowledge that you had indicates that you participated in a cover up of that investigation?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: Mr Chairman, the information I could convey, had already been conveyed and reported to me that it had been conveyed.

MR GOOSEN: I have no further questions, thank you Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Goosen.  It remains for me to thank you General Geldenhuys and your legal representatives.  I am not aware that there are any other issues in relation to which you would be requested in which event, you are then excused.
 It may well be that Admiral Putter might be recalled, because it is quite clear that we are not going to take the full roster today.  We just want to put in the Head of the South African National Defence Force.
 If I could quickly have you General Meiring.   I see that you are accompanied by Brigadier Slabbert, I don't know whether he is going to be testifying in any sort of sense himself, all right.
 Before you testify I will ask Commissioner Lyster to swear you in.

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: (sworn states)

CHAIRPERSON: I do not know whether you have a statement that you are going to be reading into the record.

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: Chairperson, no, I was requested to answer some questions, so what I wanted to read into the record I have done so this morning.

CHAIRPERSON: Adv Goosen?

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much, Mr Chairperson.  I am going to try to be as brief as I can be.  General Meiring, do you have a copy of the responses that were furnished via the (indistinct), available before you, because the questions I am going to ask, will touch on a few of the questions that were presented to you and the answers given in regard to those matters and it would be best if you had those documents in front of you?

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: Chairperson, no, I have got an additional submission which elaborated on those questions, but I do not have those questions with me at this point in time, or the answers.

MR GOOSEN: I think perhaps then to facilitate, what I will do
is I will indicate the question asked, refer to it in the document and the response given.  If you are wanting to see the actual response in particular, then we can obviously make that available to you, but we have drawn it up on the basis of the question and the answer and there is an additional question that we would ask in regard to that.
 If that will be acceptable to you.

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: Indeed Mr Chairman, but I must also point out that I have indicated that should any additional questions emanate, which I am not able to answer, I am willing to respond within a reasonable period of less than 30 days, to give you a written response on these aspects.

MR GOOSEN: All right, thank you very much.  To begin with in the reply to the questions which is dated 10th of June, we have called that document A, it is on page 5 of that.  The question was asked what form of action did the State take to halt revolutionary organisation and mobilisation and did this involve the neutralisation of political leaders?  The response furnished was the strategy was to fight the strategy with a revolutionary movement and not the individual.
 Ideally nobody was to be killed in order to avoid sympathy and martyrdom.  Now I note there that the wording is ideally and that that seems to contemplate that killing should be avoided, but under certain circumstances it may be acceptable.  And that is reinforced by the rationale for avoiding killing because it may create a situation of sympathy and martyrdom.  Are you able to state unequivocally, would any member of the South African Defence Force who gave orders for a member of then banned organisations,  an ANC or PAC leader or activists to be eliminated, would such a person be acting in the cause and scope of his duty as a member of the South African Defence Force and within his express or implied authority to do so?

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: Chairperson, I facilitated the answers.  I did not draw them up myself.  However, I in my more than 35 years of service in the Defence Forces of this country, do not know of any such action whereby murder was authorised at any time.  If that was what the question implied.

MR GOOSEN: Would it be within the, you've indicated from your experience that obviously it wouldn't be expressly authorised, would it fall within the individual's implied authority to do so?

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: Chairperson, I do not know and I don't think so.  As far as I know, no.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.  On page 8 of that same document, a question that was asked is about the role of the Directorate Special Tasks.   I beg your pardon, no question on page 13 of that document, the question was asked did the CCB authorise any actions of an unlawful nature and the response was that the CCB had no authority to authorise operations, lawful or unlawful.
 In the light of some of the evidence which has been heard, you have not had the benefit of hearing all of that here and in the light of the fact that amnesty applications had been received in respect of from some CCB operatives, would you still request that we accept the answer that you provided that they had no authority to authorise any operations, unlawful or lawful?

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: Chairperson, I cannot comment further than what I have done in the initial submission on page 123, at paragraph 73.
 This states emphatically at no stage during this time, however, was it official policy of the government or the military that the South African Defence Force or any organisation was above the law.  Neither did the military see itself as a substitute or a caretaker of the government of the day.  Neither did the former SADF (indistinct) a so-called silent coup, in order to be able to play the predominant role.  I emphasise that we worked as far as humanly possibly Chairperson, as far as I know, within the limits of the law. Apparently everything wasn't always done that way.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you General Meiring.  General just to pick up on a point that you made earlier.  You indicated that you in fact facilitated the answering of the questions, you weren't responsible in the sense for the contents of the answers, is that correct?

JOHAN LODEWYK MEIRING: Chairperson, it is correct in the sense that when the questions were posed after the first submission of the old South African Defence Force was made to this Commission, we had a little point which we considered to be the managing actor in the present day Defence Force, to facilitate the answers requested from us.  In many of these instances, records did not exist, we had to work from memory, we had to call up people to answer specific questions.
 We had to do investigations.  In that way yes, I was able to facilitate the putting up of the (indistinct) point, to answer the questions as truthfully as humanly possible in the limits of the knowledge that we had at that point in time.

MR GOOSEN: In that process of doing investigations or calling people from the former SADF to provide assistance, would you have consulted with the former Chiefs of the South African Defence Force and other senior Officers in regard to matters canvassed by the Commission in its questions?