Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

MR VISSER: That's the point Mr Chairman, he says it may have been. That's exactly the difference, it may have been. It's not must have been, it's may have been.

CHAIRPERSON: We are accepting that.  I mean that if it happened as it has happened, it was not because of the instruction, the order and his major contention is that it would be a misunderstanding of the language and the order.

MR VISSER: You're quite correct Mr Chairman, the only difference is in the end the question is, he says it may have been, there by leaving the option that there may have been other grounds as well. That's the point.  I'm not objecting to the question, I just wanted to put it in the right...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I'm saying let him ask his question and you can adjust it by saying it may have been.

MR GOOSEN: Mr Vlok I'm not going to go through the preliminary section which is a summary of the import of your evidence.  The effect of it is simply this, it would have been in order when you use words, you want the Commission to believe that when you use words, certain times when politicians and the senior members of the police in fact used words which meant that people should be dealt with, should be killed, maak 'n plan and so on and so forth, that in order to arrive at a conclusion that those meant kill, they had to be misinterpreted in order to arrive at that conclusion.

ADRIAAN VLOK: Mr Goosen has now used an example of where words used such as should be killed.  I didn't in my submission say that those words were ever used, with respect, I'm saying that that did not take place.  If you would allow me I must get back to Mr Goosen's long question which he in fact didn't put because there he said something which I have to react to if you'll allow me.  When he said that no politician has thus far admitted that the Cabinet or State Security Council ever had the intention and gave it direct instructions to kill people, now I want to say to you that in the State Security Council and the Cabinet, those instructions were never given. I realize you have a problem but you have to realize one thing that is the truth, it was never said, that order was never given, not in the days that I was there, so the Commission must just bear in mind that possibility.  I understand why Mr Goosen is pressurising to try and resolve this, it's his job, I understand that but he has to consider as a possible option that the truth is that it was never said there.
 Now I've actually opened the door for something else which I wanted to add, he asked where did these discussions take place and where did these decisions take place, where were they taken?  There were no such discussions elsewhere as far as I was aware, there was no such thing, there wasn't an inner core in the police or an outer group who took decisions to kill these people. That is simply not the way it was but as Mr Visser said with justification, and bear in mind I don't know what reasons will be advanced by people who apply for amnesty, I simply came to you to say that I'm of a view that these things could have happened as a result of this and that is what I submitted to you in all honesty to help you to try and resolve these problems.

CHAIRPERSON: Let me say as someone coming from the black community.   I didn't have to discuss with anyone in the black community what their views were of the police.  Most people took it as read that they didn't exist to protect you, not us.  They were not your friends.  When you went into a police station, I mean even an archbishop, you went in and the way they dealt with you indicated you were a cypher and so-called ordinary people and in my theory there are no ordinary people, everybody is a special person but the so-called ordinary people, not educated. When you asked them what is your experience of the police, the universal answer was one that gave an image of the police who were trampling on whatever dignity people had, trampled on whatever rights they had, not as an aberration.  You go to Ventersdorp, they do to you in Ventersdorp what they do to you in Newlands near Sophiatown. And what is for us a problem and I mean I'm not, again I've said many times, we're not here taking to pillory anybody, we're just trying to find out if something is universal in a phenomenon, and it isn't ordered from above, how does it become so systematic?  This is what we are asking you.  Can you help us?  These unlawful actions that happened not in one place but in our experience as black people particularly, it was happening all over. If you got int trouble with the police you're going to be clobbered and we took that as part of the natural - this is what is happening in this country.  It was not your policy, it was not the policy of the State Security Council, it was not the policy of the Cabinet, but it was happening and the question that we are trying to find an answer for is, how does an aberration become such a universal phenomenon?  Who is the master mind behind this thing and the effort that is being set out is, what may be you're saying there were misunderstandings of genuine instructions, legitimate instructions, or you say that is one or the possibilities.  If a misunderstanding, how does it come to be so universalised and whatever other cause for this, why is it so universal. It isn't an aberration, clearly where we were told at one time that it was bad eggs in the police force, but you found this as a general thing, and all we are trying to find out is can you help us to determine that if it doesn't come from the top echelons, where does it actually emanate from?

ADRIAAN VLOK: I would like to thank you for what you've just said.  I tried to say something on this regard on page 11 of my submission where I said that the position was untenable.  I don't really know where it came from but for decades, 1948 that's where it started and a policy was introduced, the policy of apartheid and this had many ramifications.  And one of the consequences was that a black man had to carry a pass to just go out an buy bread and the police actually apply that law.  And the police did so and they did so in a way which didn't win them any friends and in the days that I was still involved in politics, that 17 million black people were charged in those years for pass law offences.  17 million people who all had families. So we certainly weren't winning friends as a result of the laws which we had to apply.
 Now how it came about that policemen actually thought that black people were inferior, that I can't explain.  I can only refer and explain about the time that I was there.  I did my best to get the police to accept the fact that they had to protect blacks in a similar and equal footing as whites and that we had to treat them with the same dignity as we treated white people.  Chairperson I don't want to call you as a witness, I think you'll be an excellent witness, but you know what my conduct towards you and other black people was in the past.  In the police I became unpopular because I said, let us rather go in with a smile than with a whip and a sjambok.  I took those sjamboks out of the police, I said no you simply don't beat people like that, you don't beat people if it's not necessary.  So I have sympathy for what you're trying to say and what the Commission is trying to achieve. I know what your task is but isn't it perhaps the fact, isn't it vested in the fact that for many years we had a policy in our country, not only from '48 onwards, but before that too, that we had a policy which stated that certain people were inferior and that this led to all these consequences and ramifications which you are struggling with today.  You are trying to place them in a proper perspective so that reconciliation in our country can be achieved.