Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-09-28

FERDINAND BARNARD: Mr Chairperson, yes, it was during one of these excursions, I think it was the second time that I went to Cape Town, it was in August 1989.  As I have said, I booked in at the Inn on the Square, and Mr Slang van Zyl contacted me one evening and he arrived at the hotel.  He was also booked into the same hotel, I think.
	He told me that he was there for official business for the CCB.  It had nothing to do with the Omar incident.  It was about Bishop Tutu and that an item had to be placed at the Bishop's house and he asked me if I wanted to accompany him.
	During the discussion that we had, Mr van Zyl told me that it would be a foetus of a baboon.  He brought it with him on the plane.  We made a few jokes concerning this.   I asked him "what is this about" and he said he received an instruction to go and hang this thing up, and he wanted to know, I asked him did he know where the house was, and he said "yes".
	He said we had to be very careful, there were two guards, and they could be armed.  From there, we went to his room and he had a flask, it was placed in a bag and he showed me the baboon.  I said it was a very ugly thing, but I used harsh words to explain that.
	I said "yes, they are going to identify us with this baboon, because it looks like the Head of the Defence Force" and that was the only jokes that we made.  It was in bad taste, but it was the only jokes that we made.
	Then I told him "listen, I cannot understand why we must do this, that we must go through this risk, possible shooting, that there could be guards injured or killed, for something that seems to be mischief."  He said "no, it is actually a very serious project".  Then Mr van Zyl gave me a layout of a five step plan that was formulated by the CCB concerning this project on Bishop Tutu.
	It was described as follows:  the project consisted of five phases.  This would be phase three, the next phase would be the hanging up of a hyena, probably at Bishop Tutu's house again.  He was not involved in the first two phases, and he was also not involved in the next phase, the fifth phase.  It would be to poison Trevor Tutu, his son, with some poison from a witch-doctor.  He told me there was some unit from the CCB that had access to Tutu junior's food by means of people who were tasked, who worked on a servant and had access to the house.  I have no details concerning this.  That would be the five phase plan.
	It did not really make sense that we would do something like that, but I realised that this was indeed serious business.
	We met Peaches Gordon and another coloured man later that evening.  My experience was that it was approximately after twelve that evening.  We went to the Tutu house.  Mr van Zyl indicated where we should go, up to the house of Bishop Tutu.  It was a large estate.  There were lights outside and there were also lights in the house.
	At one part, the top part of the estate, we climbed over the fence.  I climbed over first and I stood on the inside.  Mr van Zyl climbed over and then there was Peaches Gordon, the three of us.  With us we had the flask with the baboon that Mr van Zyl took from me, when he climbed over.  We had six nails, six inches long, that according to Mr van Zyl's presentation would have been treated in some way, that it would have a witch-doctor connotation.  Bishop Tutu would then understand, if he found these things, it would have a specific meaning from the witch-doctor's beliefs of his tribe.
	These specific nails had to be placed on either side of a pathway or a driveway that was used by Bishop Tutu, it had to be nailed in on either side and the baboon had to be hung up on a place where he would find it.  At a later stage, after we executed a part of this project, Mr van Zyl mentioned it to me.  I think it was later that evening, or the next day, that the reason why the flask had to remain in the hessian bag was that Bishop Tutu had to see there was a strange object hanging from the tree, he had to be scared, he was not supposed to touch it.  He was then supposed to get the police to come and look, to see what this is, maybe it is an explosive device or whatever, and the reason behind this was to create a record.  There had to be a publication and there could be documentation concerning this, and Bishop Tutu can then phone the police.
	There would be a charge number or he make a crimen injuria case and there must be a publication.  The Defence Force wanted to create a background and a record over a period of time, that would show that Bishop Tutu's own people were busy with him, his own tribe was busy with him.  They wanted it to appear that Bishop Tutu, because he asked for sanctions against the country, if his own people were angry at him, because of this, and that they were now busy with witch-doctor stuff because they were losing their jobs and there is no jobs created because of his actions.
	This background had to be created and there had to be a record of this.  If it would then happen that Mr Trevor Tutu was killed in the way in which they planned it, and it would show to state involvement or a finger could be pointed to the Security Branch or the National Party, then all this information and this background that they created, they would then take it out, they would use the documentation and the police visits would be placed as "look, this man's own people are busy with him", and that is why we made a study concerning the witch-doctor poison.  It would have been herbal poison.  It all had to point back to his own people and the State could then point these things out.

MR COETZEE: Did you have any, did you receive any specific remuneration or bonuses for this project?

FERDINAND BARNARD: No, I just assisted Mr van Zyl in this.
	I would just like to say while I am recalling this, I knew that the end product in this case, was not directed towards, or was in the end directed to the death of Trevor Tutu and I did associate myself with it.  I was satisfied that this was a good thing to do.  I am not running away from my own guilt in this.  I am also aware that in my evidence for how long it may take now, and, that I will incriminate myself in things that I did not apply for amnesty and also the evidence that I gave yesterday concerning the Webster case and all the others, I did not apply for amnesty for these cases, and I cannot apply for amnesty now.
	I am doing it for a different reason.  Like I said, there was an event that took place, that made me rethink all these things, and I decided to tell the truth in the spirit of reconciliation, and for myself.  I wanted to get all this rubbish, put it all behind me.  I am not running away from the fact that I knew that Mr Tutu junior was going to be killed, although the original project was directed against his father, Bishop Tutu senior.

MR COETZEE: Mr Barnard, if we can now go to an incident that is overlapping in time, about what we have just spoken about, and that is the Lubowski incident.
	Can you tell the Committee where you received your first information concerning Lubowski and how you became involved in it?