Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-25

CHAIRPERSON: So how could you have thought that the stopping of the election is carrying on?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: I believed that these people said that if the election did take place, then they are going to enforce a Volkstaat, there will be war.  They will not accept it.
	Ferdi Hartzenberg also said this on television, if the election do take place, they will not accept it, there will be war, and I believed them.  That is why I went there in the first place, I believed what these people were telling me, with a handful of people you can't make a war.

CHAIRPERSON: Isn't that the point, you are telling us that the reason why you went to Ventersdorp, moved up there, was to create chaos in this country before the elections and you believed that the elections would be stopped or cancelled or whatever.

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: That did not work?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes, I must admit afterwards when I was on the run, yes, it didn't work.

CHAIRPERSON: And in June, how could you still have thought that this whole thing is still going to work?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: While I was on the run, even in June, because we were in Ventersdorp that morning, and the leader of the AWB told us that we would not be caught, that the war is in progress, I still believed it at that moment when I was still there and also when I was still on the run.
	While we were on the run, we ourselves, realised that we were deceived.  The people whom we trusted, they lied to us.  It was obvious that these people used us.  It was in order for them to achieve their goals and then they misused us and they threw us away.

CHAIRPERSON: Please answer this question, can you give us a reason why you did not realise this just before the elections?  You made the bombs explode according to your plans and I think by the time your bomb exploded, that was the fourth bomb, it doesn't matter how many bombs, but at that time, why did you not realise that you are being deceived and misused?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: I speak for myself, I still believed.  That is what I was Chairperson, I trusted in them, I believed that it was not the end, because they said they would not allow this to happen and it was going to be a war.

CHAIRPERSON: That is the point, you said and you believed that it would happen all over the country but did the fourth bomb only go off in Gauteng?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you not realise that it is not happening all over the country?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: The elections took place on the 27th, that is when the people got arrested.  That is the morning, we did not know about the arrests.

CHAIRPERSON: But did you not know that what is happening in Gauteng or in the Western Transvaal, did you not know that the same thing is not happening in the Eastern Cape or the Cape or Bloemfontein?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Before the people were arrested, I did not know that.

CHAIRPERSON: How did you monitor all of this to make sure that your tactics are actually bringing you some positive results?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: What I am actually trying to tell you is that I cannot say that I did not know that it was not working, because I believed that there was no end to the war, the war would continue, people were going to fight.
	That is why they moved up in such great numbers, and what they said about the commando's and the Defence Force.

CHAIRPERSON: Right up until June ...[intervention]

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, let me just correct it.  Up until when we were on the run, that man, when he told us do not get caught, the war is here, people are going to fight, I believed him that day, that was the 27th.

CHAIRPERSON: When did you stop believing him?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: While I was on the run.

CHAIRPERSON: Round about which month?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: May.  In other words we are talking about weeks, a few weeks.

CHAIRPERSON: In between the time when you were starting to be on the run, from that time up until the time that you realised that you are being deceived, did you do anything in the furthering of this war?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, while I was on the run, I didn't do anything.

CHAIRPERSON: Why not, because the war was on?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: They told us we must run, they mustn't catch us.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you see it as part of the war?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: That is a good tactic.

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: And then we consulted and we decided to give ourselves up because we knew that these people were deceiving us.  When we consulted with the Attorney with regards to give ourselves up, that is when they came to fetch us and we were locked up.

CHAIRPERSON: For me, were you on the run together or were you one by one, were you on your own?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: We moved in groups.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know if any of the other people did something in those few weeks whilst they were still believing that the struggle is on, the war is in progress. Do you know if they did anything in the promotion of this war, in the furthering of this war?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: No, that is why I feel we were deceived.

MR LANDMAN: Mr Fourie, I would like you to turn to page 201 of the bundle, that is the amnesty application.  That is page 9 of your  ...[intervention]

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Page?

MR LANDMAN: Paragraph 23 in the middle of the page, do you see it there?  Major Smit told you that you and other people, that you must take food and clothing with you because you were going to protect the farmers in the area.  Is that the order that was given to you?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: The instruction was given in this way by Mr Smit.

MR LANDMAN: How would that order, how would protecting the farmers further your revolution that you wanted to participate in?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: We had to protect the farmers because they said we would protecting the borders of the Volkstaat and at the same time, this instruction was part of the instructions given at the Trim Park and yes, this instruction was given to us.
	This protection would also be part of the goals we wanted to achieve during the month of April.

MR LANDMAN: By the 24th of April, you already had the borders of your Volkstaat drawn, you knew what the borders were, or where the borders were?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: I did not know exactly where the borders would be, I was only a soldier and I was willing to give my life for this volk, nation, but the borders I did not know about them.  I believed the leaders knew about them, the ones that were actually dealing with that.

MR LANDMAN: In paragraph 24 in page, your page 9, page 201 of the bundle ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: In that area which you thought would be the Volkstaat, was there no voting booths there or voting polls?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Mr Chairman, where I was and the patrol I was on, I did not see any voting points.  There must have been voting polls, but I didn't see any.

CHAIRPERSON: Maybe you drove through the wrong roads?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: That must be the case, whilst we were patrolling, that must be the case.

MR LANDMAN: Mr Fourie, was there not a polling booth in Ventersdorp?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: I was not at Ventersdorp since we left, because we were on the game farm and we had no contact from the outside.  I only did what I was told, that is to drive patrols, to protect the farmers, and that is what I saw.
	Voting polls, I did not see them.

MR LANDMAN: Mr Fourie, I am not asking you whether you saw them, did you not expect there to be a polling booth in Ventersdorp?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Surely there must have been one yes, I do not know, I did not think about it at that time.  I did not think of those things at that time.

MR LANDMAN: If you have a look at paragraph 24 on page, your page 9, page 201 of the bundle, do you see it there?

GERHARDUS D FOURIE: Paragraph 24, yes.