Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — UNKNOWN

CAPT BOKABA: That was my duty with Selahla that we did in Mamelodi area.  We gathered information. We left every morning and afternoon, after gathering information and then we give it to Col Loots.  Also in the evenings we would contact our sources. The following morning hand over the information to Col Loots, myself and Selahla.  And Warrant-Officer Van Wyk also.

ADV MEMANI: And what I am saying to you then is that you would have passed on that information to JOC, as you have told us.

CAPT BOKABA: In my first explanation, if the information was quite urgent, maybe something urgent was about to happen and we had information from an urgent agent, it was not necessary for me to go to Col Loots. I would go directly to JOC because so that their patrols would attend that incident.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: In instances where you would not yourself be giving information directly to GOS, you would apparently be taking that information and be giving it to Capt or Col Loots.  The information that you gathered in the township, you would give it to Col Loots. Isn't it?

CAPT BOKABA: Yes.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: But was it not within your knowledge that Col Loots would take that information and then go and give it to GOS?

CAPT BOKABA: No.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: How would the information that you have gathered in the township given to Col Loots, how would it reach GOS, if Loots did not have to pass that to GOS?

CAPT BOKABA: Let me explain this manner.  That JOC or GOS, Col Loots probably took the information there.  How did they that I do not know, but the information reached GOS.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: You didn't know whether he would drive from his office to go to Mamelodi and give that information to GOS?

CAPT BOKABA: No, how they took the information there I don't know.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: The information to GOS?

CAPT BOKABA: That is correct, as I have explained.

CHAIRPERSON: As I understand the position and I may be wrong, nobody else - other people don't seem to understand it in the same way. This GOS office at Mamelodi was an office there to control the unrest, if there was any, in the township.  It was to control the patrols in the townships, of the different - patrols by the Defence Force and by the Police unrest units.

CAPT BOKABA: That is the case, your Honour.

CHAIRPERSON: The sort of information you collected, was about political activities, about what people were doing, things of that nature, which might have nothing whatsoever to do with unrest or was never passed on to the GOS office, because it had nothing to do with them, some of it.

CAPT BOKABA: That is the case.

CHAIRPERSON: The GOS office was just a specialised unit, for patrolling the townships, and you would go to them as a matter of urgency if you heard there was going to be a protest march that afternoon, so that they could take steps to monitor it.

CAPT BOKABA: That is the case.

CHAIRPERSON: They weren't an intelligence-gathering unit?

CAPT BOKABA: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

ADV MEMANI: Now if Loots had been attending the meetings at the JOC, obviously he would have come back to you at times and said I attended a JOC meeting, one of the information who attends those meetings, has passed this information to me, please investigate this matter.

CAPT BOKABA: I do not know how you explain this, because I have stated to you that whether he attended the meetings at the JOC or GOS, I do not know.  I don't know how to explain it.

ADV MEMANI: You see, Captain, you and Selahla were the field workers. Loots depended on you.

CAPT BOKABA: That is correct.

ADV MEMANI: Now if he had got any information of importance from that structure, he would have passed it on to you and would have told you that I have been given this information by a certain information of the structure, would you please investigate the matter or assist in one or other way in connection with this matter.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I don't want to object, but I personally don't understand the tenor of the question at all.  I don't understand what my learned friend wants and maybe he can make the question a little bit clearer.

ADV MEMANI: Let's see if the witness understands the question.

ADV DE JAGER: Could I perhaps try to assist. Did Mr Loots on an occasion or on two occasions or on a few occasions come back or when you met him in the office one morning, said listen, yesterday I had a meeting with GOS and they gave me the following information, let's discuss it and could you kindly go and see whether it is in fact so or confirm it or see whether it is a rumour or whether it is a fact. Did that kind of thing happen?

CAPT BOKABA: I have never received such an instruction or such an order from Col Loots.

CHAIRPERSON: Before we go on. Tell me this, going back, this GOS office, how big was it?

CAPT BOKABA: Chairman, it was a big office.  Previously it was a barracks. Now the police used to sleep there in this Mamelodi police station, it can stretch from this table to that one there, at the wall, over there.  It was converted and used as an office.  They took out the police who used to sleep there.

CHAIRPERSON: And how many people worked in that office?

CAPT BOKABA: I may say four to five people who worked in that office.

ADV MEMANI: Now you say that you did not get any instructions from Loots that he had attended a meeting and had asked you to do something about what he had discovered at the meeting.

MR DU PLESSIS: What meetings, Mr Chairman?

ADV MEMANI: Obviously GOS, we are speaking about GOS.

CHAIRPERSON: He has just told us that, right.  Put the next question.

ADV MEMANI: I was waiting for the interpretation, M'Lord.

CHAIRPERSON: You are merely repeating the question that has just been put to him and answered by him.

ADV MEMANI: As the Chairperson pleases.  Now I put it to you that that is indeed so because it was yourself, Selahla and Ngo who attended meetings at JOC.

CAPT BOKABA: I say it is not the case.

CHAIRPERSON: Did Ngo say that in his evidence?

MR DU PLESSIS: They never said that, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Because my recollection is that Ngo did not say that once.  Put it differently, the three of them attended meetings at the GOS office.

ADV MEMANI: Mr Chairman, my understanding of what would have occurred there would be in the nature of a meeting, that they went to report and they exchanged information, and that exchange would have taken place in a meeting.

CHAIRPERSON: If you call that a meeting, Ngo's evidence was that if they had urgent information they would supply to GOS, and sometimes they were told something by then.  He didn't suggest anything in the nature of what I would understand as a meeting.

ADV MEMANI: The emergency was brought in by Bokaba. He said that they exchange information about what was happening in the townships.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I also just want to place on record that Mr Ngo also testified that evidence was obtained by them from GOS.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on.

ADV MEMANI: As the Chair pleases.  Now what is your reaction to what I put to you?

CAPT BOKABA: What are you saying, what I must respond, how must I respond?

ADV MEMANI: I am putting it to you that you did not get any feedback from Loots about what had happened at JOC meetings, because those meetings were attended by yourself, Ngo and Selahla.

CAPT BOKABA: I have already explained that I never received such instructions or order from Col Loots.

ADV MEMANI: Now ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: No, he is now suggesting that you, Selahla and Ngo used to go to meetings. What do you have to say about that?

CAPT BOKABA: I have explained that I have never worked with Ngo. I never worked with Ngo in my life.

ADV MEMANI: And is it your evidence that you only went to JOC where there was only - only where there was an emergency?

CAPT BOKABA: I explained it in that manner, that is correct.