Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-24

UNKNOWN: I just want to bring it under your attention that what I am saying here is totally my words and my view. While I was in the AWB it was Ystergarde special task force and the elite and all that and we were boosted by the AWB the leader, this is my man or this is the greatest or this one is a good captain or whatever, but when it comes to the question of cold feet I refer back to the bombing.   As the lady next to you said cold feet I will say, once the ...[indistinct] hit the fan and he had to give us full back-up on it and said: "Listen these are my people, they did it for us".  He could have got up and said it but he never did, that is why I say cold feet, not as much as cold feet.  	I think he wasn't there to get the cold feet.
	We did it in belief for the leader that stood with us that said "sa dood."  Now when the "sa dood" was done there was nobody for us and I think he got cold feet. That is why he sent you a fax, he didn't come here in person and deliver it.

MR MOTLAUNG: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Sir talking about the Germiston bomb would it then be fair to say that as far as that particular bomb is concerned for you as an AWB member it came as a shock?  You knew nothing about it or had an idea that something like this would happen in Germiston?

UNKNOWN: I didn't know Germiston was going to happen but when it happened I knew it was us.  It didn't come to a shock to me because the previous day there was a bomb that went off and this is the struggle, this is the struggle that is going on, this is what we were told to do and we went for it.  So the Bree Street bomb I think was the ignition, the beginning of it and when the pipe bombs went out and Germiston went, it was just a snowball effect and it was running.

MR MOTLAUNG: Sir let's put it this way.  As far as the pipe bombs were concerned you knew about them and that they were going to go off, correct?

UNKNOWN: That is correct, yes.

MR MOTLAUNG: As far as the Bree Street bomb is concerned you had no glue, no slightest idea that it was going to go off, correct?

UNKNOWN: No, I did not know about the Bree Street bomb, only afterwards I found out then I made the assumption that we were involved.

MR MOTLAUNG: Yes, because look for me I may be prepared to accept that certain people who belonged to the AWB planted these bombs but now I am saying, and I want you to go along and guide me, I am saying to myself these may have been some very few individuals within the AWB who decided to do their own thing at that particular stage?

UNKNOWN: No, Sir. I do not agree with that because coming from the West Transvaal, my area Lichtenburg, North West as it is being called now, there was a lot of AWB's Wen Kommando that was gathered there.  There were so many people gathered all over the West Transvaal where the Volkstaat would have been, so I did not see it as a splinter group or just a couple of us that was doing the terror.  I accepted, I waited for the rest of the people to get up and go, to get active as well because that was what was said, that was what was told that they are going to do as well, they are going to pick up the arms and take over and defend.  Alright, back to reality, it never happened because they didn't go that far, we went and we did it not as a splinter group, we got the command to do it.  We expected the other people that were called up to certain areas to go about and do exactly the same.  Okay not exactly the same as plant bombs but also to fight the struggle and it never happened because back to the reality again, once two or three people got arrested, the rest ran like cowards back to their houses, they weren't there for support for us.

MR MOTLAUNG: Sir, in conclusion, what I am saying to you is the following:  When the Bree Street bomb went off and when the Germiston bomb went off you loved the result, as an individual you loved the fact that black people were dying there but you had no prior knowledge that this is what the AWB planned?

UNKNOWN: Can you just turn your question because I never agreed to saying I loved what happened, I did it because I was a soldier and it was my task to do it.  I won't go toyi-toyi if your brains lies on the floor. That was something we had to do, I didn't love it, I did it because I was a freedom fighter.  So you can state your question again, just don't use love.

MR MOTLAUNG: Okay.  Look, you see the possibility that I am seriously looking at here is that I am actually shocked in the first place that bearing in mind what position you held within the AWB and the Ystergarde and that you were not somewhere here in Jo'burg, you were at the place where the things were happening.  That when these bombs come for you they also come when you didn't expected them.  You didn't expect the Germiston bomb, you didn't expect the Bree Street bomb, correct?

UNKNOWN: No, I did not.

MR MOTLAUNG: And tell me if anything, if you later find out that anything has been done by an AWB member, do I understand your state of mind correctly that you would then assume that it must necessarily have come from the leadership?

UNKNOWN: Sir, Mr Chairman, in this situation that we were placed in there is no doubt in my mind that it did not come from head office, that it did not come from the superiors and the Generals staff.  There is no doubt in my mind that it was a splinter group that had to do this, it was the AWB.   It was told and said by the leaders and the General staff to do it and we went and did it.  Where I got involved my state of mind said pipe bombs in the back of my vehicle, I associated myself planting pipe bombs.  When it came to my surprise that it was a Bree Street bomb, as soon as I saw it I questioned Koper Myburgh on it.  The next thing that went off I was not at Koesterfontein, I was at the "wildsplaas."   The next thing that came to my mind is this big bang down in Germiston and that I only heard when I came back from Randfontein.  I did not know about Germiston bomb that left because this was done at a different spot, more or less as you heard the other evidence 30 km, 15 or 10 or whatever.  I wasn't there. I never went there and I never discussed it what was going on there, so when those bombs went that is when I knew about it.

CHAIRPERSON: You see Mr Venter I think what Mr Motlaung is asking or suggesting to you, that while you may not have expected certain explosions, the overall intended chaos when it did come to your knowledge that certain bombs had gone off, it was gratifying given the policy as you understood it where the targets would be mainly blacks.  Now that is what he is suggesting to you, that the successes was gratifying to you.

UNKNOWN: If I can put it in different words I can say that every bomb that went off I knew it was us that put it off. For every bomb that went off I knew it was us that put it off.

ADV BOSMAN: I think Mr Motlaung goes further, he said that you experienced a feeling of success.

UNKNOWN: I did reach my goal, no success, it was not successful.   I did follow my order and reach my objective.  There is never success there is always the loss of life, so for me I would just like to refer you back to my statement.  It stands here that
three of the pipe bombs were a success and the Krugersdorp group buried their bomb next to the road.  I wrote in here because the word success I don't deserve.  
	I wrote here three of the pipe bomb missions were executed according to the plans and that is my view.  It was a plan, it was delegated and said do it and that is how I saw it, I did it and I think the other people they went and did the same was also in the same state of mind of doing it. I won't say a success.  I will say yes, we accomplished our goal.