Amnesty Hearings — Mmabatho — 1998-09-23

MR VAN DER BERG: That is so Chairperson, the fact that the shooting did take place at the TTA.  That is a fact, I am not going to try and argue that away.
	But at the end of the day, who was responsible for the people who were shot or injured?  I think that evidence was concluded with the Tebbutt Commission, by the Tebbutt Commission, and because we do not know who was responsible for the people who were shot there, because the Defence Force was also shooting at points, so there was crossfire.
	A woman was shot in the stomach, according to this witness, yes indeed, there was a shooting going down, but the question at the end of the day is, after the shooting stopped and that is where the applicant is blatantly lying to the Court, he says that when he got to the Mercedes Benz, there was still shooting. 
	I asked him, no it stopped, hadn't it, and he said no, people were still shooting.  It is evident from the video, it is evident from the evidence of Mr Peter de Ionne, that there was no more shooting taking place.  So right there and then ...

CHAIRPERSON: If you can just push your button there.

MR VAN DER BERG: As it pleases you Mr Chairperson, I thought somebody wanted to ask a question.

ADV MOTATA: No, but if we look at the, or recall the evidence of Peter de Ionne, he says at the Mercedes there was no shooting, and the question was asked about generally within the Bophuthatswana area, because you must recall he said, they got the news late, he only came in the following day.
	This aggressiveness and tension, could we say other than the Mercedes having stopped shooting, can we say with certainty that there was no shooting anywhere else, because that is the only evidence we have before us, with respect?

MR VAN DER BERG: Chairperson, with all respect, there is no other evidence which indicates that the shooting was still going on.  The only shooting taking place, was the incident we are talking about, there was no other shooting going down.

CHAIRPERSON: In the video, didn't we see injured people lying in front of a shop door on the pavement?

MR VAN DER BERG: I am not quite sure, but that is not necessarily related to that incident.  It might be, it might have happened at some other point, I do not know, but we have to confine ourselves to this incident.
	We cannot hear any shots being fired, and we can also refer to De Koker's evidence when he said no more shots were fired.

CHAIRPERSON: We are talking about at the scene of the crime, at the Mercedes Benz, in the immediate vicinity, there was no shooting?

MR VAN DER BERG: Chairperson, let me just finish.  The evidence of Mr Peter de Ionne was simple, he said and you can also see this from my Heads, there was a tense atmosphere, that were his words if I remember correctly.
	The situation was no longer dangerous.  Not at that stage any more at least.  It is quite evident the media went and actually had interviews quite comfortably with those people, they were all standing there, they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
	It clearly indicates that at that point, there could not have been a war situation prevailing.

ADV SIGODI: Mr Van der Berg, what I fail to understand is how can you have a war situation now, and then suddenly there is no war situation?   When does a war situation stop?
	If there is a short break, if there is no shooting for say about 10 or 15 minutes, can we really say that the war situation has stopped?  How do you know that people are going to shoot after 20 minutes?
	I am talking about a practical situation, when there has been an ongoing shooting, people coming in and shooting and taking over the military base from the previous day, from the previous day on to the following day, and shooting going on, you know, even the following day and you hear that people are being shot?
	When does one perceive that that situation has stopped?  Does it stop within 10 minutes, does it stop within 15 minutes and if there are still cars, still driving out of the situation, how do you, how can you be expected to know that they are now leaving, and they have been told to leave?
	If it is a break of about 10, 15 minutes when the shooting stops, I personally if I were in that situation, I wouldn't be able to say that the war situation has stopped?  I would like you to clarify to me, when does a war situation stop?  When do people feel safe that they can go out because from what we saw in the video, there were still soldiers running around and there were still, well, some shooting?

MR VAN DER BERG: Mr Chairperson, with all respect, one would certainly have to go and look at what the definition is of a war situation because a war situation is as wide as God's mercy.
	It can be the World War II and it can also be in a room where a wife and man hit each other.  Mr Chairperson, my submission is the following, there was not truly a war situation as the applicant mentioned it and that was his own terminology that he used.  Shots were fired and it was a few moments, in other words it was an incident that happened very quickly, so it wasn't a full scale war.
	In that war situation, and that is my argument, that came to an end when that blue Mercedes Benz stopped and when the three AWB men handed over, or gave up and put their hands in the air, they are lying there, they have no weapons and this is when the war situation ended.
	How can you say it is still a war situation when they have surrendered?  It cannot continue and continue until the people are in hospital.  It must end there where the men surrender, we have now finished.
	With the background of the AWB convoy leaving Bophuthatswana, I will continue later and argue this further.  Mr Chairperson, I would also like to mention it and I think it is on paragraph 16.
	The last sentence, it was apparently the first deed that he did for the ANC and that was the question of Ms Bosman.  It was apparently the first time that he did something for the ANC, and that is when he killed these AWB men, which is ironically on a further question of Ms Bosman, if he joined the ANC later on and he said no.
	But if he was so eager and so serious about a political organisation that he is going to kill people for it, and support them in such a manner and when it ended, he did not even join the party.  That does not tally.

ADV MOTATA: Mr Van der Berg, let's look at it in perspective.  We know the ANC and other liberation movements were banned.

MR VAN DER BERG: Not at that stage.

ADV MOTATA: No, no, but had been banned, and we look at now Bophuthatswana, was Mangope truly because the unbanning was in the Republic of South Africa and probably a few Homelands as well, like for instance the Transkei.   Would you say the ANC was unbanned in Bophuthatswana and with the utterances of the President of the then Bophuthatswana against the ANC, and we say let's be practical and be open-minded about this, let's not hide behind incidents, we say even in the Republic of South Africa when the ANC was banned, would you even just wear a T-shirt because we would land in jail for that.
	We must now relate ourselves to the situation of Bophuthatswana, it was not, ANC was not unbanned.  Would I be right?

MR VAN DER BERG: Yes certainly Mr Chairperson, the ANC was not disbanded, but one would expect that if someone say that he is this loyal supporter of the organisation, one would expect more from him, than what the applicant said in his document or statements.
	In that document he did not say that.  If it was truly such a big political goal and he was such a big supporter, then he certainly had to put it in his document or statement?  He would have mentioned it in his document, but by not putting it in the documents and to say that I forgot, it was a long time ago, it is not good enough, not if it is so important, then he would have mentioned it in the documents.