Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-09

CHAIRPERSON: Let me just ask for my own understanding. Would, and this is because this term has exercised our minds from yesterday to today, at your level which is as I understand police rankings, a level just below that of a general, would you have expected that your understanding of what it meant to eliminate would be the understanding of generals who were your superiors, and if you had any doubt would you have taken the occasion to clarify the concept with them?

UNKNOWN: If I understand the question there was never any lack of clarity about take out or eliminate, it meant that the person had to be killed.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that brings to the end your testimony Mr Oosthuizen.

UNKNOWN: Mr Oosthuizen has asked me to enquire whether it will be possible for him to be excused at the time when he's finished with his evidence today, I think he has a flight to catch Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Well excused.  I have to thank you for your frank answers. I'm not insinuating anything about other witnesses but there is something to be said about the freshness of the kind of testimony that you have given, and it is reflected in the time that we have taken to take your evidence, thank you very much.
 Brigadier Schoon, Willem Schoon.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman may I just warn you that Mr Schoon is even more hard of hearing than I am.  I've attempted to give him an ear ph.., I'm hoping that it's working for him.

UNKNOWN: It's working perfectly thank you.

UNKNOWN: Well there you go.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Brigadier Schoon, don't they have a name tag for you, you appear still as Brigadier A Oosthuizen? Maybe they should remove the name tag you are sitting at. (laughter)
 Brigadier we are now going to take your evidence and before we do so, I will ask Commissioner Lyster to administer the oath.

UNKNOWN: (sworn states)

CHAIRPERSON: I do not know Brigadier if you have any statement and or ...

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman I have a short statement and to save time I'm just going to read paragraph 4.

CHAIRPERSON: It had to be very very short, if it's a short statement.  (laughter)  Which paragraph are you referring to?  It's page 2 paragraph 4.?

UNKNOWN: Page 4 paragraph 4.4.   Regarding the annexures to the notice regarding Section 29 I refer to the following
According to me these documents were circulated on a high level on the National Security Council and its various structures and it was not directly brought under the attention of the members on grassroots level or on the lower levels.
I don't want to be involved in a semantic level regarding the meaning of certain words in this document.  I want to emphasise like words like eliminate and take out for the members on the ground who were in a war situation referred only to killing people.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.   Brigadier I'm going to put my questions in English.  If you have a problem I'll try to translate into Afrikaans.  You can answer in Afrikaans, thank you.
 General thank you very much for the statement, I think it will assist ...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: Brigadier.

MR GOOSEN: I beg your pardon, did I call you General?  I've promoted you...(intervention)

UNKNOWN: Thank you.

MR GOOSEN: I must apologise.   Thank you for the statement, I think it will assist and also render a number of questions that I might have asked, unnecessary.   You were for quite a considerable period in your career the head, from in fact from 1980 through to 1989, the head of C Section, the Security Police headquarters, is that correct?

UNKNOWN: Correct.

MR GOOSEN: Yes.  As head of C Section the Vlakplaas unit and various other Security Police structures would have been directly under your command, is that correct?

UNKNOWN: That is correct.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.   Brigadier you - I'm not going to go into the detail of it in any way, any of the incidents for which you seek amnesty, but on a reading of the amnesty application it's clear that you seek amnesty on the basis of the provision of authorisation to operatives who themselves carried out certain actions, either by providing authorisation or approval to them for those actions or as a conduit for such approval from superiors. Would you agree with that assessment of your amnesty application?

UNKNOWN: Yes I agree with that.

MR GOOSEN: Now you heard a few minutes ago the evidence of Brigadier Oosthuizen where he indicated that in dealing with a particular situation that would confront operatives or would confront commanders who were under pressure to deal with the revolutionary activities of various organisations, that the first option would be to determine whether a legal option to deal with that particular problem was feasible or not and if not, then it was accepted that the operatives could go over to illegal mechanisms to deal with that particular problem.  Would you agree with that, with the thrust of his testimony in that regard?

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman I have no problem with Oosthuizen's submission and I agree wholeheartedly with that.

MR GOOSEN: You were in fact by virtue of your position as head of C Section in the period '83 to 1989, a critical period in the history of the country, you would have come into contact with numerous more senior officers than yourselves, your superiors as well as other members of the security forces both police and military. Is it your understanding that that conception of how to deal with particular problems was one that was generally accepted or understood by the officers in the Security Police with whom you dealt, both those as your equivalent ranks and as well as senior ranks to you?

UNKNOWN: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR GOOSEN: In those, in the light of that would you agree that the authorisation or sanctioning, I think was the word that Brigadier Oosthuizen used, sanctioning, that the sanctioning of illegal activities, where those were judged to be the most appropriate response in the circumstances was fairly widespread within the Security Police at the time.

UNKNOWN: No Mr Chairman, I don't think it was widespread. The illegal activities were the exception and not the rule.

MR GOOSEN: The person to whom you would have reported as head of C Section, that would have been the head of the Security Police at the time, not necessarily directly, but you would clearly have fallen under the authority of the head of the Security Police at the time.

UNKNOWN: That is correct Mr Chairman or then the second in charge or the next officer in line.

MR GOOSEN: And presumably from time to time you would also have dealt with the Commissioner of Police as well or would that not have been something that you would have done regularly?

UNKNOWN: That would have been the exception.

MR GOOSEN: In your assessment, the approach that we've described now, that though not as a general rule, but as an option available to deal with the situation on the ground, would you say that officers at the level of the head of the Security Police and/or the Commissioner would have shared that perspective, the perspective that resorting to illegal means was an option available in particular circumstances?

UNKNOWN: I think so Mr Chairman.  I can't state it as a fact but I presume it was like that.

MR GOOSEN: And that would in fact account for why in certain circumstances you would act as a conduit for authorisation coming from a more senior level than yourself.

UNKNOWN: That is correct.

MR GOOSEN: In any event will it be correct that you at no stage in your career, and particularly when you were head of C Section, you were at no stage rebuked or in any way disciplined for actions carried out by you, authorised by you, actions of an illegal nature?

UNKNOWN: No, at no stage.

MR GOOSEN: Who was the Minister of Law and Order when you headed C Section?