Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for your opening remarks. We appreciate them very much, and we obviously appreciate the fact that we will not have to use too much time in going through a report as you say that we have already had and we, on our side, will want to work in the same spirit. The person, as I indicated, who is going to be asking the questions is Glen Goosen who is the National Director of our Investigative Unit. Glen.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.

MR DE KLERK: May I just enquire Mr Chairperson I suppose we will follow the order of the questions as they have been posed and my replies in that regard, otherwise I would like us to avoid jumping around. We took great trouble to follow the order and to relevant to each specific question and it would be extremely helpful if we could follow that order.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you. Mr de Klerk, Mr Chairperson, we have obviously done an analysis and an evaluation of the responses to the questions, our questions are based on the submissions that have been made and we will obviously try to follow those where we need to deal with specific answers that are given. But we hope in the questions that we will present to maintain coherence so that it will be possible to follow that through. Thank you.
Mr Chairperson, perhaps just a very brief introduction which sets out broadly where we would hope to go. The primary purpose of the political parties' submissions, and obviously this hearing, is to enable the Commission to determine a basis upon which it will adjudicate, if you like, the question of political accountability, and to evaluate, whether in this instance, the National Party's acceptance, or otherwise where that appears, of political accountability is consonant with that judgment. I intend, in the questions which I will put, to use Sir, your own categorisation of accountability as set out in your submission, to determine whether as a framework it's capable of explaining the responsibility for the commission of human rights violations in the context of the past.
You are on record, in your second submission dated the 23rd of March 1997, that the National Party is, and I quote,
"Not prepared to accept responsibility for the criminal actions of a handful of operatives of the security forces of which the Party was not aware and which it would never have condoned".
and that appears at page 10 of the second submission.
In your first submission you explained that there were cases in which perpetrators of human violations were, again I quote, 
".....bona fide in their interpretation of orders and strategies in that they believed that they were acting correctly and with authority".
and that appears in the submission there as well. That category I will, for present purposes, refer to as the "misinterpretation category", it's a bona fide misinterpretation of the framework set out by government policy and by National Party policy.
In other cases you explain, and I quote at page 17 of the submission, first submission,
"The bona fides of those involved was clouded by bad judgment, over zealousness or negligence".
and I will refer to those as the "over zealous" category.
Apart from the two bona fide categories referred to by you in your submission you say in your first submission that
"Certain elements acted mala fide and that these elements misused State funds and were involved in unauthorised operations leading to abuses".
and that appears at page 18 of the first submission. Indeed you stress in both submissions that within your knowledge and experience neither you or your colleagues in cabinet, the State Security Council or any committee authorised or instructed the commission of unlawful acts. Even in regard to unconventional projects you state that none of these projects was intended to lead to any gross violation of human rights.
I intend to put to you a few examples of human rights violations committed by members of the security forces of the State, and I wish to ask you in each instance for your views as to what categories those incidents would fall into. In the first instance, on the 7th of June 1985 a Colonel Lourens du Plessis, who was then secretary of the Eastern Province Joint Management Centre, on the instructions of Brigadier van der Westhuizen, Chairman of the JMC sent a signal to Major General van Rensburg, head of the strategy branch of the secretariat to the State Security Council, the signal called for the permanent removal from society of three leading UD

<UNKNOWN>: activists. 
The second inquest court, which you specifically appointed, found that the signal was a recommendation that the three persons should be killed and found that there was prima facie proof that it was members of the security forces that in fact carried out the murders. A number of amnesty applications from senior officers in the Eastern Cape now confirm the fact that Mr Goniwe and his three colleagues were indeed murdered by members of the security forces.
In your view Sir, was this action an example of them misinterpreting their mandate, being over zealous, or was it mala fide action which led to abuses?

MR DE KLERK: Mr Chairman it has never been the policy of the government, the National Party, that people should be murdered, should be assassinated. I have said that clearly. Such instruction is in conflict with the policy as it has been at all times within my knowledge. If I, during my State Presidency, could have ascertained those facts I would have charged all those involved and I would have brought them before court on a charge of murder.
Can I furthermore say, I think this refers to Goniwe?

MR GOOSEN: Indeed.

MR DE KLERK: What did we do to ascertain the truth about Goniwe, because quite often the suggestion is made that we turned our heads away, there were rumours and we should have done something about it, in my presidency we changed the law to allow for inquests to be undertaken by a judge as well, and the inquest was reopened and every effort was made in the second phase, therefore, of the new reopened inquest to really get to the truth.

MR GOOSEN: Yes, that's not in dispute Sir. The question really is in terms of your own categories that you put forward where would you place this action on the part of the security forces?

MR DE KLERK: I have clearly stated that it would definitely fall outside, to my mind, the first two categories.

MR GOOSEN: It would therefore be mala fide action, in essence, leading to abuses.

MR DE KLERK: Ja, it is no way a reasonable interpretation and anybody believing that we would have ordered, right from the top that would be wrong in believing that that would be possible. What is possible, you see you are dealing with a chain of people, what is possible that lower down, getting a message or an order from somebody of superior rank might have been told, I don't know, that this is authorised and such a person lower down, the lower down you go the more I have sympathy for the person receiving an instruction from a superior officer if that superior officer creates the impression that don't worry, although this is a very far-reaching order that you're getting I give you the assurance it's been cleared.

MR GOOSEN: Yes.

MR DE KLERK: So there might be people lower down under such similar circumstances, and maybe even here who could be categorised under the bona fides group while others would be classified under the mala fides group.