Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-01-17

MR WEBSTER: I'm not going to reply seriatim to everything that was raised before you, Mr Chairman, because I think to do so would probably require an analysis of every other question and every other point that was raised, I'm just going to deal with some of the aspects.
	One, the so-called plan.  Information was that there was a bunch of terrorists in the house.  They've got AK 47's, they've got hand grenades, etc.  Breytenbach is the man who had the responsibility of stopping this vehicle.  Breytenbach is the man who has to arrest these people.  For my dear soul, Mr Chairman, probably it's my limited intellect that makes me not to appreciate this, but this is how I understand the situation, with my limitations.  Here are people who are carrying little toys, little hand guns, who are supposed to be at the back, behind the reaction unit.  What happens?  They see the vehicle.  They've got radios.  They don't say:  "We have seen the vehicle."  They don't have to ask for permission to stop the vehicle, if they have to stop the vehicle, but we're looking at probabilities.  They are hopelessly outgunned.  The most obvious thing to my mind is to say:  "Reaction unit, we have the vehicle in sight.  I'm travelling on the left side of the vehicle, the kombi is travelling immediately behind it, make a move, get up and catch up with the vehicle."  To me, in my limited way of thinking, that's logical, bearing in mind and never forgetting for one iota that these people are hopelessly out-gunned.  I still want to see a rational human being who pulls out a hand gun to start shooting at somebody carrying an AK47, to start shooting at somebody who is carrying hand grenades.  Even if he was shooting to stop it, Mr Chairman, logically, to my mind, you would never do that.  What does Major Botha do?  "Stop, stop."  Rolls his window down, "Stop, stop."  They don't stop, they try to ram him, he then starts shooting, then he sees flashes.  In fact, Mr Chairman, if I'm mistaking his rank pardon me, but Major Botha can't even remember whether he used all his 9 bullets that were in his magazine.  He believes he didn't.  Now Mr Chairman, when you talk of the plan, it's not a plan that went awry, it's not a plan that went wrong, as you've indicated, respectfully, there was never a plan, number one.  	Number two, Mr Chairman, there could never have been an intention or at least there could never have been a belief that these people were armed with AK47's and hand grenades, because if ever that had been the belief, none of those people would have taken that risk.

CHAIRPERSON: None of those people would have?  Sorry?

MR WEBSTER: My submission is, they would have conveyed the information regarding the presence of, or catching up with the vehicle to the Reaction Unit and left it to them to take over because not only their action, but that would also have ensured that there is no cross-fire on a major freeway with lots of innocent human beings around there.  Major Botha just started, bang, bang, bang, it doesn't make sense to me.

CHAIRPERSON: What you're really trying to say is, if I understand you correctly, when they saw, when the vehicle in which Botha was a passenger, saw this Toyota Cressida, they had it in their sight, why did they not slow down and make allowances and say to the Reaction Unit, "There you are, take over, there's the car ahead of us".  Is that what you're trying to say?

MR WEBSTER: Not only that, Mr Chairman, actually that they could even have kept up the pace because the General was sitting next-door here, or the Colonel was sitting next-door here, he could play with the little toy and tell his units: "Units converge, we've got them here, they're next to us."  Every move they made they were covered by radio, all the way.  They could have even forced them off one of these exit routes at some stage or another away from the road, Mr Chairman.  To me that is logical and whatever is against that logic, is because it didn't happen that way.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, the conclusion one can draw from what you are saying is that the thought of stopping this vehicle to arrest them, might have been just a possibility, that the real intention was not to do that.  The real intention was to deal with these chaps who were known to be terrorists and who it was suspected, had AK47's.

MR WEBSTER: Mr Chairman, if that had been said here, I wouldn't have asked a question.  I wouldn't have asked a question.  This is the argument I present to you, Mr Chairman, that the intention could never have been to stop that vehicle, because in the probabilities, no person would have attempted to stop that vehicle for the reasons I've already explained and that is why even ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct) the distinction, the intention was never to stop the vehicle or the intention was never to arrest the passengers in the vehicle?

MR WEBSTER: Well, actually what I mean Mr Chairman, to stop the vehicle in order to effect an arrest, but in fact it could have been anything, but why obliterate them?  That, Mr Chairman, to my mind, is the basic argument.  We then have elaborations on that argument, for instance like the document, I think it's Exhibit B which though having been accepted at other hearings, to my mind is nothing further than a document composed by intellectuals.  It's not necessarily, does not necessarily reflect the views of the applicants and in fact it was so put to them, to the applicants, that it was not their views.  As I say, those are just ancillary to it.  We also have the criticism levelled at the virtual verbatim repetition of the applications, what each of these people say in their applications and also the criticism that they all got together because each one couldn't remember the incident.  They got together, worked out contributions by all of them and at the end of that exercise, they then drew a document.  Now I seem to think, if I recall you clearly, Mr Chairman, that if I'd had my witnesses all in one room before I called them to testify in a trial before you, not necessarily me but anybody or any practitioner who would have done that, I don't think would have received your blessings.  I think he might have had a very bruised ego after that, but we have people here who get together and actually compose the whole incident and not only that, they then come here and present it as the truth. How much weight can one attach to that?