Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-04-22

DEON MARTIN: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Now, I don't understand why you would still have been under that impression when it must have been clear to you the very following day that you must have realised that other AWB regions did not on the previous night do what you people had been doing.

DEON MARTIN: I waited and believed until the 16th of December which was three days away, that something would happen and for that reason I did not conceal my Mercedes.  After the media reports appeared and mentioned the Mercedes which had been driving in the direction of Randfontein, I realised that it would be pointless to try to conceal the Mercedes.

CHAIRPERSON: And you say another reason was, at any rate people had noticed or come to know that there was a Mercedes Benze and they probably would know that it was yours.

DEON MARTIN: That's another reason.

CHAIRPERSON: You said one of the objectives was to search for illegal weapons?

DEON MARTIN: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And if you found then you would take them away?

DEON MARTIN: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: What about legitimately possessed weapons?  If you had found that one of the people you stopped had a firearm for which he had a license, that you would not remove?

DEON MARTIN: I can't answer that question because it didn't happen.  Our instruction was to look for unlawful firearms and that is what we looked for.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, you would not have gone against the order would you because the order said: "Remove illegally possessed weapons, so if you had to follow the order it would mean that the weapons legally possessed would not be removed?

DEON MARTIN: That is how I understood the instruction.

CHAIRPERSON: And then you put up a roadblock, you are in the middle of a revolution, somebody comes with a weapon lawfully possessed, you let him go with the weapon?

DEON MARTIN: As I've said, I can't answer that because it did not occur.

CHAIRPERSON: I just want to clear something with you, when I raised the question of the child you said something like, I thought you tried to estimate to us as to how big the child was or am I mistaken?

DEON MARTIN: I can't remember.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you not a few minutes ago try to indicate to me that it was not such a small child and try to indicate how big the child could have been?

DEON MARTIN: Yes, that's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Does he come into the picture, does that mean you are no able to recall the child and you now see the child in your mind?

DEON MARTIN: I can remember one thing and that is that he appeared to me to be a young man rather than a child.

ADV BOSMAN: Is that the one who was seated on the mother's lap?   I beg your pardon.  You've referred to a child at a later stage, that the child was seated on the mother's lap.

DEON MARTIN: That is what I found out afterwards, I can't answer to that.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying that in your view this child or however you describe him, are you saying that he was a legitimate target?

DEON MARTIN: When we listened to Eugene Terreblanche's social speeches, the child was definitely a target.

CHAIRPERSON: When you people decided to go and put up a roadblock, was it planned as to how this revolution would be carried out?

DEON MARTIN: I don't know, the information was not conveyed to me by Phil Kloppers.

CHAIRPERSON: Were you told how long your operation was going to last?

DEON MARTIN: No, it was not mentioned.

CHAIRPERSON: Were you told what time it should start?

DEON MARTIN: All that was said was that it would occur on that evening and we therefore acted on that evening.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it planned as to what should happen the following day?

DEON MARTIN: No, we didn't discuss any further plans before the time, we simply decided about the roadblock and executed it.

CHAIRPERSON: As a policeman and possibly also somebody who was an officer in the AWB, don't you thing that when people go on a military operation they plan properly?

DEON MARTIN: The planning which was conveyed to me was based upon information which the General gave to Kloppers regarding the roadblock.  Apparently a similar roadblock had been held before and he was aware of the fact that we had the equipment to undertake a similar operation and it was from there that we executed this operation.

CHAIRPERSON: In your view you were going to kill people, what did you as an individual Mr Martin, what was planned for example as to what to do with the bodies of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people that were going to be killed?

DEON MARTIN: Chairperson, I believed that it would create the fear among the general public to not participate in the elections and that the revolution would initiate there.

CHAIRPERSON: Now, what was to happen to the bodies, the dead bodies?  What was the plan?  You were going to kill so many people, what was the plan?  What plan was there as to how or what to do with those bodies of the many people you were going to kill?

DEON MARTIN: According to my instructions the corpses would simply remain there countrywide.  There would be corpses and the corpses would remain there in order to create that fear.

CHAIRPERSON: But you said: "according to the instructions", were those the instructions that you received, that the corpses of all the people who would be killed had to be left there or was that simply what you thought?

DEON MARTIN: That's what I thought.

CHAIRPERSON: Please, then you must not tell us that that was an instruction because then I'm going to ask you who issued the instruction and then the situation will become rather problematic.

MR MALAN: I beg your pardon Chairperson, before Advocate van der Walt proceeds I have two questions in follow-up.  Firstly you've said that during the questioning you couldn't determine who were men and who were women and who were children, that it was very dark.

DEON MARTIN: Well, I can't remember if everybody was questioned.

MR MALAN: That's not my point.  You undertook the questioning?

DEON MARTIN: Yes.

MR MALAN: But you couldn't really distinguish between men, women and children?

DEON MARTIN: It was dark, I couldn't see it.

MR MALAN: But you did have a torch?

DEON MARTIN: No.

MR MALAN: Where did you find the torch to ensure afterwards that everybody was dead?

DEON MARTIN: With Diedericks.

MR MALAN: Couldn't you use it during questioning?

DEON MARTIN: I didn't use the torch at that point.

MR MALAN: The torch wasn't used when you stopped the cars?

DEON MARTIN: Yes, it was used when we stopped the cars.

MR MALAN: Very well, and then you've said that you took the road back to Ventersdorp to identify vehicles with black passengers, that you would turn around, take over, issue the signal and stop them at the roadblock, that was the modus operandi.  In the dead of night you would take over a car, you'd be driving in opposite directions, the lights of both vehicles would be on but you'd be able to see who were black passengers and who weren't?

DEON MARTIN: Well, when one drove past one would clearly be able to distinguish.

MR MALAN: Very well.  The issue of the ear, I'd like to follow up this issue, what happened to the ear after it had been presented to Phil Kloppers?  You placed it in a plastic bag, gave it to him and placed it in the Mercedes.

DEON MARTIN: I assumed that he had given it to General Oelofse and that this would be confirmed.

MR MALAN: When did you find out from Mr Kloppers?

DEON MARTIN: He said it to me himself on that evening, that this was the ear for General Oelofse.

MR MALAN: No, the question is, you have said that the ear had been given to General Oelofse, that that had been executed.

DEON MARTIN: That was the following day.

MR MALAN: And that Kloppers had confirmed with you that he had done this.

DEON MARTIN: That's correct.

MR MALAN: When did he confirm this to you on the following day?