Human Rights Violation Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-06-11

MARY BURTON: You told our investigation unit about a presentation that you had made, presumably along these lines to a very high level delegation.

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Yes Ma'am.

MARY BURTON: Would you like to tell the present Commission panel and audience of ...(intervention)

ULRICH SCHELHASE: There were two presentations.  The first presentation was in 1985, late '85, I am not positive, but that happened in Guguletu at the Faseke Building where the then Minister of Defence General Malan and some other generals and police and I don't know whether the Minister of Police at the time was there, it was actually an embarrassment, and I can still remember that General Malan was very unhappy about the way that the violence vis a vis reward system was working in the Peninsula.
 And then the military decided to present, I think it was a few months or a year after that, I am not sure, '86, to make another presentation and this presentation was then made within the McEwan context, with the strategical context of counter-revolution.  Then the police had contributed on the safety and security level.  I have contributed on the more economic, welfare, social level.  The military did it on their levels, so it was sensible to the recipients, General Malan, and he supported it.  And he said, well he's very glad that he can see that there's some sort of systemic, there's some order in this whole approach to the counter-revolution in the Western Cape.  So I was involved there in terms of presentations, yes.

MARY BURTON: So if the establishment of Khayalitsha and its development were part of an overall pacification plan you are saying that it was important then to ensure that from the point of view of Crossroads and it's satellite areas that plan was also able to be effected?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Yes, when we come to the original planning of Khayalitsha I am not very certain, or absolutely not positive that Khayalitsha's planning and development was part of a grander scheme of things, like a grand strategy.  I think the whole birth of Khayalitsha was just that it happened because there was a lack of land and people were living in ghastly, as you know Ma'am, in very terrible circumstances, and there was a lot of influx, migration into the area and the areas became over-inflated with - and it became survival problems.  So we had to create some more room and space for people to live.

MARY BURTON: Thank you, thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ntsebeza.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you.  Can I just follow up on some of the questions that were asked by Commissioner Burton.
 How often did Roelf Meyer visit you?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Twice I think, I may be wrong but I think twice.

MR NTSEBEZA: Did he attend one of the presentations, the first presentations at the end of 1985?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: I think so.

MR NTSEBEZA: And what were his impressions?  You have given us ...(intervention)

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Oh Roelf Meyer was also impressed because he was at the time I think Chairman of the Security Council, and he was obviously in support of General Malan and he would have said that if he's not happy where we should do things in another way.  But they had commended us Sir.

MR NTSEBEZA: He was, you would say his thinking was the same as that of General Malan as far as ...(intervention)

ULRICH SCHELHASE: I would assume so, yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: And at that presentation was Adrian Vlok also there?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: The second presentation he was there, yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: Yes.  And would you say that Roelf Meyer's views would coincide with the views of Adrian Vlok to the extent that you understood Adrian Vlok's views to have been?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Sir I don't think that these personalities you name now had any choice but to support each other in the type of strategical outlook on things.

MR NTSEBEZA: Kat Liebenberg?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Excuse me?

MR NTSEBEZA: General Kat Liebenberg?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: He was there.

MR NTSEBEZA: General Constand Viljoen?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: I think he was there, I am not positive but I think he was there.

MR NTSEBEZA: And were you present at presentations by the military?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Was I present at presentations?

MR NTSEBEZA: By the Military?  I thought that you said ...(intervention)

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Ja it was normally a combined thing, military, police and civilians.

MR NTSEBEZA: Oh I see, alright.

ULRICH SCHELHASE: But the military did have their own type of presentations as well.

MR NTSEBEZA: And would it be your understanding of the military perspective that part of the McEwan Strategy was not only counter-revolutionary activities but counter-mobilisation as well?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Yes, it was part of the strategy Sir.

MR NTSEBEZA: And that part of what underlined counter-mobilisation was in fact to take an attitude from some of the theories propounded by McEwan that where you dealt with terrorists the method, and an effective method to deal with them, was to track them down and eliminate them, do you understand that to be the "terroriste te opspoor en hulle uittewis"?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Ja, ja.

MR NTSEBEZA: And if you look at what we now know as the Guguletu 7 wouldn't you see a pattern or a corollary, if the evidence is acceptable, that there doesn't appear  - or let me say, put it this way.  If the evidence in the Guguletu 7 saga suggests that there was no or little effort to take prisoners, but merely to eliminate, take them out, as far as you understand the McEwan strategy to have been, when you deal with terrorists, "Jy moet terroriste to opspoor en hulle uittewis", would you see a corollary?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Yes it is possible.

MR NTSEBEZA: And is it so that also the understanding of the McEwan strategy, as was part and parcel of those presentations, was that enemy leaders should be neutralised?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: There are three phases within the McEwan Strategy Sir.  The first phase is what they call the organisation phase.  A second phase is the terrorist phase.  A third phase is the guerilla phase.  Now we didn't have a guerilla situation in that sense of the term in the Western Cape, but we did have incidences of terrorism or people who were associated with terrorism.  There were special police units as far as I came to know that in the system who dealt with that specific situation.
 We were not involved actually in what happened with terrorists and how they were caught and who caught them and so on.  Our focus, when I say "our" I talk about the civilians and some of the military personnel, we were more focused on the organisation phase.

MR NTSEBEZA: Yes, yes I appreciate that Mr Schelhase, what I am trying to say is, I am trying to get a sense of what your impressions were in the two presentations that you have given us insofar as they were based on the McEwan strategy.   Do you recall if there was a view taken of what would have been considered to be enemy leaders, I mean in terms of in the context of what was taking place then you would appreciate that there would be, also in terms of the Oil Spot strategy there would be sections of the population which would be identified as friendly, government friendly?

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: For instance ...(intervention)

ULRICH SCHELHASE: Or anti......(intervention)

MR NTSEBEZA: Or anti-government ...(intervention)

ULRICH SCHELHASE: No, no, what I mean is that more - sorry for interrupting, there's just a slight interpretational difference here, it could have been that there were some people in the community that were not so much on the part, on the side of the government or ideologically supporting them, but more against the other side - let us call it (...indistinct) against the ANC, they were perhaps more against the ANC than they were pro the Nationalist Party if we want to put it in a political context.