Amnesty Hearings — Mmabatho — 1998-09-23

MR TERREBLANCHE: Chairperson, when we do not work with the truth, then the heavens do drop on your head and if we seek the truth in a case like this, and you start only like amending the truth, then you find yourself in this ridiculous position, where you start lying to yourself and to contradict yourself as happened here.  Nowhere in the evidence of the applicant did I see a reason why I should believe him and think that he was busy telling the truth.
	There is a lot of examples which indicates to the fact that he was not telling the truth, but there is another very important characteristic which according to my submission, I noticed and that is indeed the fact that the applicant has got a very short temper.
	He himself says that he was so angry, he said that in evidence in chief and he also says it under cross-questioning and his legal advisor says the reason for the death was that this person was so angry that he could not remember things.  The evidence of the Sunday Times journalist says that this person was so angry that he was cursing the dying people and the injured people.  He cursed them not because he was a member of the ANC or he was a supporter of the ANC, or because he was angry about the political motive which was his inspiration, his people was oppressed by Apartheid for so many years and that is why he became a member or supporter of the ANC, that is his motivation, their dignity was taken away from them, he becomes a freedom fighter.
	That was never what he became.  He was a police officer who against the will of his people who he now wants to use to win the argument and he served under the BOP regime and with regards to the laws of the BOP government and the South African laws which forced these people not to go and vote, he was always in the same regime, he was never an ANC.
	Allow me to just mention Chairperson, that I was also a member of the Police Force, of the South African Police Force.  That I was in similar circumstances very often and forgive me for saying this, but it is quite relevant with regards to my argument, I was also chosen for the safety and the security of very important people and I had to protect the then Premier Adv John Vorster, I had to go and guard him.  I guarded him the same way the applicant guarded the General and the buildings of the State President.
	But I have a problem with Adv John Vorster, I had one.  I was not in his party and I left his party, I not only left John Vorster, I also resigned from the South African Police Force and I joined the HNP and I became a candidate and I expressed by dissatisfaction with the government and I used proper democratic channels to do this.
	Here we are sitting with a man who was in a similar situation as I was.  He says he is a supporter of the ANC, but he uses the force of his uniform and his rank and he puts his cheque, his payment, he gets his payment from the BOP government.  But then the unrest came about, that has nothing to do with the AWB, the buildings were burning and people were destroying the University and the people got angry and they go and vote, they want to go and vote and Mr Menyatsoe listens and he hoists his sails to the wind and he thinks to himself where do I find myself.
	Chairperson, he is scared.  If these people become the majority and the BOP government comes to a fall, where do I stand?  And then there was an interesting consequence that came about.  He hears from colleagues that the AWB is now in control of the military base.  I do not believe Chairperson, in all due respect, that he actually believed that the AWB took over because not a single shot was fired.
	If the AWB kills the public next to the roads, what an incredible war situation it must have been for him to believe that the AWB now took over the military base.  He says it is the strongest force that the AWB now control.  Mr Menyatsoe was not telling the truth when he said that, but what he does know is that the AWB is busy to anger the people in Bophuthatswana.
	He sees that people are being shot.  He hears the voice of Africa and the anger is prevalent in Mafikeng and this is with regards to people who were killed and he decides I must hoist my sails to the wind, the ANC might take over and then where was I?  Just a minute ago I was a policeman and I hunted the ANC because that is what Mangope did.  He was an ANC hunter in uniform, because Mangope gave him the instructions to do so and he knew this.  So now he has to stop it.
	He does like a typical traitor would who does not care about his own loyalty and he joins the other side, he joins the people.  But how would the people know that Mr Bernstein Menyatsoe is actually an ANC supporter and not an ANC hunter under employment of Mangope?
	He must get on the map, so he puts himself on the map so that the world knows about him.  He doesn't get the opportunity because he had a fright when the first shot was fired and it deflected close to his foot.  He is lying down next to the road when the vehicles come passed, we do not see him fight.
	Then afterwards, and then he ran.  After other bullets stopped the Mercedes Benz, not his bullets, he runs towards the scene of the crime in order to put himself on the map so that he would not only appear as an ANC supporter and as a supporter of the new government that is going to come, but he also wanted to be a hero.
	But typical in his nature, his dishonesty, his cowardice and his disloyalty to the oath he cannot remember, typical in his nature, of his nature, the only opportunity he has is to commit murder.
	And Chairperson, he has got the arrogance to say that by this murder, he stopped change and the AWB left, but the facts of the Tebbutt Commission shows you differently.  The AWB left on own initiative after they were told to leave Bophuthatswana, they did so in pickups, and they all went home.

ADV MOTATA: Mr Terreblanche, was it public knowledge that the AWB was requested to leave Bophuthatswana, if so by whom and was it also general perception that the AWB is leaving and had they been leaving, what is so and on the footage there was general shooting, and if they are requested to leave, would you do so by shooting, and if we say for instance the political upheaval in Bophuthatswana had stopped for a moment, at what juncture and what indication was there from the AWB that the political upheaval has been contained, we are leaving?