Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-10

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: If you look at our submission of August '96 Chairperson, Page 64, you will see a document referred to as an extract from the ANC discussion document titled, "Broad Guidelines for Organs of People's Power", and it says the layers would be cadres organised into self-defence units, combat units and MK officers was conceived.  It then discusses that whole question and how it arose in 1987 and what we've been presenting is in conformity with that.  It then deals with the SDU's in the low intensity period and in the post '90 period.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you, perhaps just a follow-up question, it's
perhaps directed to Mr Kasrils in light of his explanation.  Can you outline the functions of those SDU's, originally peoples' militia, ultimately SDU's in a low intensity period?  They were conceived of as defensive in nature and the question is whether they would be, whether they were conceived of as playing any, if you like, proactive role, proactive defensive role as it were in dealing with attacks directed at communities, and if so how that role would have differed from the role of MK per se?

RONNIE KASRILS: Mr Goosen just to go back in terms of that explanation with the discourse, that I gave about the original idea of a people's militia in the '70's or so, a la people's war.  At that point, if you see some of the discussions taking place and the way we're formulating it, what I've referred to as the militia, we didn't see that strictly as defensive but as a reserve, a support for MK's advanced combat units who we hoped, it never really materialised to that degree, would be involved in that all-out intensification of the armed struggle against apartheid.
 By the '90's in that new context, post the ceasefire we then were well and truly looking at something slightly different as the SDU's - we dealt last time, Mr Mbeki dealt with the fact that General Malan had actually said during the peace accord discussions, why don't you organise your self-protection units, and we then worked on that concept of the community-based self-
defence units which would not be MK or ANC. We dealt with this, Mr Mbeki dealt with this at length last time, and you've got a copy of the document entitled, For the Sake of our Lives, which shows it was really self-defence that we were talking about to defend a township or a village against the kind of Boiphatong attack.  So that's redolent with self-protection, self-defence etc.  But Mr Mbeki did elaborate when he talked last time how some abberations occurred, and I myself talked about how horrified we were when an individual in Vosloorus or from Polla Park on his own ambushed a hostel march and killed 46 people, it's a well documented event, that Mr Mbeki said in certain cases we could understand people taking a preemptive strike. That if you sensed that there was going to be an onslaught a la Boiphatong, and if you could intercept it before it reached the community, you would take a preemptive strike.  So there is that element connected to self- defence. And I think we should bear this in mind in terms of those individuals who have sought amnesty in terms of their role in SDU's, one must see that in that context.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax.

MR LAX: Thank you Chairperson. I hear the debate and I'm aware of the reference to abberations and so on,  but there were phenomena particularly in the province that I come from where there developed a kind of warlordism within a whole range of
leadership, and some of them in the late 80's were so-called UDF aligned warlords, some, certainly in the Pietermaritzburg area, acting with what would appear to be MK support.  At a later stage when those transformed themselves into SDU's there was what appeared to be an internal struggle between certain elements of the ANC and certain elements of MK and certain elements of SDU.  How did you as a leadership deal with that problem, were you aware of it, did you in fact deal with it?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Yes Chairperson.  Becoming aware was part of a process and intelligence work and looking at the conduct. We have documented the case of Polla Park because it is such a clear case study.  But in our presentation on the 12th of May, page 31 you will find that we refer to that first submission and go on to say-  "That the State made every effort to subvert the SDU's in order to prevent any form of sustained resistance to State-sponsored violence inflicted on their communities and to discredit the ANC.  Some SDU's became little more than gangs of criminals, at times led by police agents and inflicted great damage on popular ANC-aligned community structures.  This is well illustrated in the case of Polla Park and we say another instance of this nature is provided by the activities of police agent Siphiso Nkabinda".
 So we haven't gone into exhaustive documentation but it shows that there was a problem and that we were aware of this problem and increasingly became aware of it.
 How would we deal with it?  Since the SDU's by nature were supposed to be under the community's political control and guidance it would mean we would have to go and interact with the community leaders.  ANC members, ANC leadership would have to interact with the community because simply to say from the ANC that that SDU has gone corrupt is not enough. That would be the key to the processes that you would unleash.  
 At the same time we'd have to continue with intensive work at the intelligence level which led us to the point where we can say police agents were involved. Not an easy exercise, particularly as that exercise had to be carried out when generally in the major parts of the country in black areas violence was rampant and in addition to township violence, violence on the trains was taking place. So, but it is referred to in both our documents.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: You caught me by surprise.  I thought Mr Lax was going to follow that up.

CHAIRPERSON: Not often that that happens.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Oh I know that Mr Goosen doesn't want to listen to me sometimes.

MR GOOSEN: I'm just known to be sometimes a bit verbose and he was expecting that.

CHAIRPERSON: Right, Mr Goosen.

MR GOOSEN: If you just give me a moment.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Goosen wouldn't this be a good time to adjourn or have you got

MR GOOSEN: No we can definitely adjourn, my throat would appreciate it.

CHAIRPERSON: I would suggest that we adjourn and that we resume here at 1:30. Again for the delegation from MK, ANC, would you please make your way through there down to the 7th floor. Lunch will be provided if you'd like it.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Mr Chairperson may I just say one thing on KwaZulu violence before we break.  A point that has been missed is the question of large quantity of arms that are endemic in our, are prevalent in our society and in that province. Clearly government is doing more and more to try and contain that situation but it does look like the presence of weapons is a major problem also in that situation and we are deeply concerned about it.

CHAIRPERSON: One of the toughest investigations that we're involved now, as the TRC, is to try and identify sources which go
way back and caches that were there and with some success but our investigations are ongoing and I agree with you entirely that that's one of the major problems we are facing then and now, thank you. We are adjourned.
HEARING ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION