Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-06

YASMINE SOOKA: I am sorry to come in again.  I think that we did agree, or rather it's the view of the Commission that in the same way that we want to make sure that you have an opportunity to put your point, I think that what we would prefer you to do, if you - I hear what you are saying, that a different document, in fact, was attached to the State Security Council minutes.  Now, if that is your point, put that to Mr Varney and get him to agree on it,
 /but really
4B but really let's move on, because are wrangling around this point now for the last 15 minutes.  If you want to address it further, you could actually put that in the submission that you are going to make, but I would prefer us to deal with concrete perspectives which you are disagreeing with on behalf of your clients.  This is, as we have said before, not a court of law.  We are interested in getting to some understanding of the truth, without in any way inhibiting you, of course.

MR NTSEBEZA: Put it in a different way, Mr de Vos.  If I gather correctly from the nature of your questions, it would seem to me that you would be disputing the premises on which Mr Varney has based his conclusions and it may well be that you want to say his conclusion that the policy was based on the two books is the wrong one.  I'm conjecturing here.  During the procedure that we have laid out and where, in terms of an agreement that was announced earlier, you are also going to be able to deal seriatim, point by point, with all the issues that you would like to raise in the documents.  It seems to me the approach should be that you put to him a version and then I cannot say this with much more emphasis than I've said before.  If it is your claim and it is your case that he has got it all wrong by presupposing that the State Security Council policy was premised on the two books, say so.

MR LYSTER: I think just to add to that, if you want to say that he has been selective in his choice of documents and that he's trying to mislead the Commission by attaching a document which wasn't, in fact, attached to the State Security Council document, I think that that should be put to him, because that seems to me that's
 /where you
4B where you are leading.

MR DE VOS: Mr Varney, we can make it simple.  I'm putting it to you that your assumption, which you made that the State Security Council's view was based on certain principles contained in Fraser's first book, that that is incorrect.

WITNESS:   Yes, that's your view.  I reject it.

MR DE VOS: I'm also putting it to you that the document which you attached is not the correct document.  It's not the same document which was distributed at the State Security Council.

WITNESS:   Yes, but, Mr de Vos, that is really a question of splitting hairs.  The documents are, by and large, the same and, as I've mentioned, the omission of a word here and a couple of sentences there and the reshuffling of the order means nothing.  The thrust of what was being said is the same in both documents.  Just because he was a Brigadier and became a General and then wrote a subsequent document based on the earlier one, it doesn't mean he suddenly changed his mind, as claimed by General Oelschig and, as I said earlier, that contention, in my view, is laughable and the question about whether it was the first document or the second document or both that ended up before the State Security Council is irrelevant.

MR DE VOS: Let us turn to the next document in your line of thinking and that is the State Security Council's meeting of the 12th May 1986.  Do you have that?  In your documentation you rely quite heavily on this meeting and you say that option 4 was accepted at the State Security Council meeting and that it was from this option 4 that the third force was born.  Is that correct?

WITNESS:   On the contrary, if you read all the supporting documents - you

MR DE VOS: /can't simply

MR DE VOS: 4B can't simply go to one document and say, "Therefore I draw this conclusion".  You have to see it in conjunction with all the supporting documentation and, Chairperson, if you look at the supporting documentation, you will see that the third force was but one aspect of the wider counter-revolutionary capacity and, following my reading of the supporting documents, and this particular document, option 4 related to the setting up of a structure - a co-ordinating structure - upon which the State President would sit and which individuals would be seconded to.  To say that that option 4 in itself was the third force, well, we are still waiting to hear whether, in fact, that was the case or not.  We don't know how far option 4 was taken and you'll read in my report that we say this requires further investigation.  We do note, however, that certain aspects of option 4 were indeed implemented.  For example, they talk of an operations room, and if you scan the State Security Council document you will see an operations room was, in fact, set up at some stage or another, but certainly that would have fed into a co-ordinating structure that may indeed have co-ordinated counter-revolutionary activities.  We suspect that perhaps Minister Vlok was involved in that particular structure, as head of the GBS, and it certainly does fall under the heading, "Discussions of a third force".  Another thing you must remember is that third force and counter-revolutionary capacity were used interchangeably in those years.  You will note that I don't make any particular - I don't deal in detail about the third force per se.  What I do say is that this particular meeting, where the State Security Council tasked certain ministers with undermining

MR DE VOS: /the revolutionaries

MR DE VOS: 4B the revolutionaries, using their own methods, that that indeed provided the type of direction to the security forces on the ground, to the security force commanders, both police and military, to, in fact, go ahead and to use those methods against the revolutionaries.

MR DE VOS: Let us look at Annexure 4 and option 4.  You didn't provide us with that, am I correct?  Option 4, this document, did you give that to us?

WITNESS:   Option 4 was referred to in supporting documents that were put before this particular meeting and, in fact, you, as a member of the legal team at the Malan trial, were given those documents and others weeks in advance and you presumably do have them.

MR DE VOS: And what is said in option 4 is the following.  I'm going to read it to you and I want to know if you agree.

MR DE VOS: "Different variations are possible and the following is one.

MR DE VOS: (i) Appointment of a chief, a counter-revolutionary.

MR DE VOS: (ii) A situation room under the commander of a chief counter-revolutionary.

MR DE VOS: Further, as 3(ii) above ..."

MR DE VOS: 3(ii) refers to a situation room under the direct command of the chief of counter-revolutionary forces or his delegated officer.  The point No 4 - I'm not going to read the whole thing - that deals with the restructuring of the South African Police's existing capacity.  Point No (c), elements of other law enforcement agencies can be divided under this heading, will fall under this heading.  (d) the requirement that this directorate must co-ordinate all counter-revolutionary strategies in conjunction with

MR DE VOS: /the ...[break

MR DE VOS: 4B the ... [break in recording].  Point 4, the JMC will continue in existence unchanged, to co-ordinate the counter-revolutionary strategy and to monitor it, and the last point, point 5, MKK and JMC will all continue in its current form to co-ordinate current actions and to monitor those.  Would you agree that that is what the document says?

WITNESS:   Yes, I accept, Mr de Vos, that you are reading out of it, so perhaps just put the version of the point that you wish to make and challenge me and I will respond to it.

MR DE VOS: I am sorry, I don't know what Mr Varney said.