Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-25

MR MALAN: Then why are you angry with them if the thing didn't work out, why are you disappointed in them that you could not reach your goals, you yourself is just as responsible?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes, I do not want to say that I am innocent.

MR MALAN: The point I am using and all the applicants are doing this, all the applicants are saying I was influenced by the leader.  I am sure you were influenced by the leader, but at the same time I also think that the leader might have been influenced by you, because you followed him and you said, yes, we also believe in this.

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is correct.  He must have seen that I also believed in this and that I was striving to obtain the same things he did.

MR MALAN: So you basically motivated each other?  You cannot point your fingers to a leader?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, I cannot point fingers, what I am saying is they deserted us, and they cannot get away with that, they have done that.  They have thrown us away and they threw our families away.

MR MALAN: But that is something different, that is when the objectives were not realised, it is after that?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Kriel, if you get to an appropriate time - are you still going to be a long time?

ADV GCABASHE: Can I just ask you, Mr Fourie, just arising from this discussion or your answers now to Mr Malan, you could still have held the same objectives sitting in your house, wherever that might have been.  It is the leadership that got you to move from your house and go up to Ventersdorp.
	The people who remained in their houses, may have had the same beliefs but they sat in their houses, so that is where the leadership issue come in, doesn't it?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is absolutely correct.

ADV GCABASHE: So you would not be in this trouble today, had it not been for those leaders who got you out of your house, is this what you are saying?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is correct Chairperson.

ADV GCABASHE: Thank you.

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Thank you very much.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: Thank you Chairperson, that was the aspect that I wanted to look at, so I have finished.

ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL: .

MR PRIOR: May I suggest that we finish the evidence of this witness and then deal with that matter in due course?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes Mr Bracher?

MR BRACHER: Mr Chairman, this applicant is not a person with whom my clients are concerned, I have no questions.
NO CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR BRACHER

MR PRIOR: Mr Chairman, I have just have two matters to canvass, possibly three.  Mr Fourie, you spoke about the psychosis of fear which you wanted to sow in the minds of the people and using the bomb explosions to achieve this?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is correct.

MR PRIOR: If I listen to the evidence of all the other applicants with regards to the training you received and the type of talks the leaders held, was there also a psychosis amongst the AWB members, a type of psychosis with regards to what would happen once the elections are in progress, the fact that you were so whipped up?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: With regards to after the elections?

MR PRIOR: No, I am talking about before the elections and close to the elections, was there a psychosis amongst the AWB members, a fear, about what would happen with the elections?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes, as I have said that fax which they intercepted which said that they would kill us, they said they intercepted this fax which said that  we would be killed.

MR PRIOR: I understand the military structures of the AWB and the Ystergarde, but even so you were all adult people, you were no longer young troops who received military training, wasn't there any mechanism where you could express your own opinions with regards to decisions which were taken?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: The decisions were taken for you in the top structure.

MR PRIOR: As a Christian, as a law abiding citizen and now receive instruction to kill innocent people and I think it is a gruesome way to kill someone, to unexpectedly throw a bomb at someone or to plant this bomb, was this not against your own principles?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes, to kill innocent people, indeed, but the situation ...[intervention]

MR PRIOR: But let's forget about the situation, were there no room to question that instruction?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No.

MR PRIOR: Why not?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: You could not question an instruction.

MR PRIOR: You could easily have said Mr De Wet, or your brother, wouldn't it be better to plant this bomb at a post office or a police station or an army base in order to convey the message?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, we wouldn't have been able to do that because that person would immediately tell you, look, are you questioning my instructions?

MR PRIOR: And then what would happen then, you just would have stayed behind?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, I do not think it would have been that easy.

MR PRIOR: Well, what would have happened to you?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: You could not turn back.

MR PRIOR: What would have been the consequences?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: If you did it?

MR PRIOR: Yes, if you questioned it?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: They would definitely have shot you, you were not allowed to turn back.

MR PRIOR: How many AWB members were shot?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, none were shot.

MR PRIOR: Were you present, this is another aspect, at the meeting of February 1997 in Ventersdorp, this is the meeting where you said in your application that a highly placed ...[intervention]

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: This is 1994 Chairperson.

MR PRIOR: Sorry, 1994.  There were talk of 40 000 men and tanks and ratels, who was this highly placed army Official?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: This highly placed Official was Brigadier Chris van der Heever, that is how I understood it.  This man was in the Defence Force and he conveyed this to us and said that the ratels and tanks and everything would be provided.  This was this Brigadier Chris van der Heever.

MR PRIOR: And he was a member of the standing Defence Force?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is correct.

ADV BOSMAN: Do I understand you correctly, do you  mean that at the time when he spoke at the Trim Park, that he was then still a member of the Defence Force?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is how I understood it.  That is what I believed at that stage.

MR PRIOR: A last question, notwithstanding the fact, we heard that Constand Viljoen stood in the elections, and he had posters up, this was a few weeks before you set off the bombs?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes.

MR PRIOR: Were there any instructions or information from the AWB top structure that Constand Viljoen would no longer support the AWB or the Ystergarde from the Defence Force side?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, they gave no feedback.  They never said those things do no longer exist?

MR PRIOR: Are you sure about that?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: I am dead sure, that is why I believed so much in this thing.  I received no feedback that this was not going to go on.  That is when Brigadier Chris van der Heever said in February and up until March, they were still planning all of this.

MR PRIOR: But did you not question the fact that Constand Viljoen would give support to the AWB?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is correct.

MR PRIOR: Now suddenly he is in the elections now, was there no debate?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Not that I know of.

MR PRIOR: No debate amongst you members with regards to that situation?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, there was no debate and nobody informed us look, this man is no longer with us.  I understood that he registered for the elections, but I believed that the goals he wanted to achieve was still there.

MR PRIOR: I have no further questions.

MR PRIOR: .

MR PRINSLOO: Thank you Chairperson.  Mr Fourie, let me just determine whether I understand you correctly, the two blind men as you said in your evidence, were they at the flat or were they not at the flat or what was the position when you were there?