Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-13

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, Chairperson, I cannot recall that.  There were meetings where I spoke to Krappies Engelbrecht or to Gen Badenhorst but if you place it in the context of the time, I have to emphasise that something was happening to the CCB and that was that the State, for whom we worked, were moving us out and they quietly caucused between Gen Webb and Gen Geldenhuys and the Ministers who said: "Let us make a clinical cut here, let's just cut out this region 6, let us just cut out the CCB" and this led to confrontation, for example the day when the first bomb exploded, figuratively where we were disclosed and I went to Gen Liebenberg's house and he said that Gen Badenhorst had been appointed and I told Gen Badenhorst that he was unreliable.  I knew him for many years.  He was someone who would stab you in the back at other times and I dealt with it as such and there was severe in-fighting where I could see that and where things were turned around.  Facts were constructed so as to make it look that we did things on our own which is not the case and that was the order of the day.

GEORGE BIZOS: ;   Did you attend any meetings in which Badenhorst and Krappies, I'm sorry, Gen was he Engelbrecht, were present at which you discussed Omar and Evans?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That could be.  There was an investigation by Gen Badenhorst at our offices and there was another occasion where Gen Badenhorst and Engelbrecht were together, so over a period we did meet Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Do you recall that there was a discussion as to the authorisation of the Omar and Evans matters?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson, we may have discussed it, we could have discussed it, I think we discussed all projects.

GEORGE BIZOS: Where was this meeting where you discussed those projects?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I am not certain now.  I don't know whether there was one in the hotel or whether it was at our premises.  We had several premises.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos is asking you, correct me if I'm wrong, can you recall a meeting where this was discussed?  I mean in your own mind as you sit now, can you remember?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I can only assume that we had to discuss it because it was one of the things that we applied for amnesty for and I cannot recall the specific circumstances right now because there were so many projects that were discussed.

CHAIRPERSON: But I think what Mr Bizos is asking, can you recall a meeting at which the authorisation was given for the operation to be carried out against Messrs Evans and Omar?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No that I cannot recall.  I don't know if that is what Mr Bizos meant.

MR LAX: Your mike Mr Bizos, sorry.

GEORGE BIZOS: You can't remember?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: No, but as I now understood it, you think in terms of the operation Chairperson.  I am under the impression that Mr Bizos asked whether I can recall that these two projects were discussed in the presence of Krappies Engelbrecht and Gen Badenhorst.  That is how I understood it.

GEORGE BIZOS: You see this couldn't have been an unimportant meeting.  If ...

CHAIRPERSON: Let's get it clear Mr Bizos.  Prior to the operations now, not ex post facto.

GEORGE BIZOS: I'm talking about the ...(indistinct - no microphone)

MR LAX: Your mike.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that's the authorisation of the operation.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, the discussion ex post facto of the two operations.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.  so long as we're not confused.  So he's talking about ...

GEORGE BIZOS: You understand that my question relates to what happened when it became known that these two operations had taken place, there were discussions about who authorised it.  Did you understand my question in that context?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I assume you mean that after the CCB had been disclosed and the two operations came to light, the operations - after the investigation had been launched.  That's how I understood it.

GEORGE BIZOS: It must have been a very important meeting because here was a senior officer, a General, discussing the operation which you say he, Gen Webb, authorised.  When was the first time that you learned that Gen Webb was not standing by you in admitting that he had authorised the Omar and Evans projects?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson I cannot specifically indicate but I may say that it was approximately 1980, 1990, when the CCB was disclosed or uncovered and I think it was in August 1989, I think it was with regard to the person, the problems that Ferdi Barnard and Kalla Botha had experienced and there I saw that the entire structure, the chief structure of the army and how they turned it around and it was told to me that if I had left Region 6 in the lurch, they will look at me and they will look at Gen Webb.  If I recall correctly it was then Gen Badenhorst who told me this and I only said that it was not my intention and in my opinion I had fulfilled my duty and various Generals turned around what they had said and later on no one was guilty, but the point that Mr Lax earlier asked, I want to reiterate because I think this went lost upon you.  An audit was done with regard to all CCB operations and that audit presented.   All projects as authorised and that meant that all monies expended were for authorised projects and in the presence of the Chief Payment Officer of the Army, it was taken away from the CCB, the documents, because the implication of this complete audit was that all these operations to which we referred to, that they had indeed been financially handled correctly right from the top and the original documentation was taken away from us and we never saw it again and a few days thereafter we read in the newspapers that, I think it was General Malan, that General Malan had said that approximately R500 000-00 was unauthorised and then an amount was taken and made unauthorised so that it would appear that it was never authorised while initially it was clean and then in the newspaper reports led that the financial plan that had developed from 1987/88, that in this financial plan there was no distinction between internal and external operations and it was dated back to 1986, in other words after the money had been spent.  Already after the money had been spent in 1989/1990, all of a sudden a new policy appeared that the handling of covert operations was presented in another manner.  I don't know if you comprehend what I am saying right now, but the great question now is, why did the entire State structure conspire to go and change the budget and the financial plan.  If I had acted ...

CHAIRPERSON: You're saying there was a cover-up by the authorities of the State, with regard to the CCB operations, they buried it as such?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: What I am saying, Chairman, is that we audited all the projects of the CCB.  What happened then is that after the audit everything was clean and then they took away the original audit and they changed it so that it looked as it ...

CHAIRPERSON: It came through as unauthorised expenditure.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: In the amount of about R580 000 or something.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

GEORGE BIZOS: What I want to ask you, just for the sake of completeness, this audit would not have had Mr Omar's and Mr Evans's name in, everybody had made up names and the projects were not named after the individual or the victim, so that this audit wasn't really for the Auditor to know the truth.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: What is indeed so is that the project did have a name.  There were certain project names and on those bases it was audited.

GEORGE BIZOS: We know that those documents were destroyed, were they?  Did you have anything to do with their destruction?