Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-24

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Your Honour, I did think of the families, and I am really sorry for them, but I think the human factor always enters into considerations and I think everybody tries to protect himself.

MR PHOSA: So your truth, your coming out openly with the truth is conditional only upon your not running the risk of being prosecuted?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is what I believed or thought at that time.  I could possibly be prosecuted today if I don't get indemnity.

MR PHOSA: Yes, you answer and then you put an explanation that turns to make me doubt if you are saying the same thing.  Are you saying yes, I tell the truth simply because I have an assurance that I shall not be prosecuted?  If there is a danger of being prosecuted, please Mr Booyens, don't shake your head.

MR BOOYENS: No, but my learned friend is putting it wrong Mr Chairman.  I don't know what is being put ...

MR PHOSA: I can't even finish the question.  I can't even finish the question.

CHAIRPERSON: As I understand it, Mr Phosa is going to put an alternative to him, he is going to say this or that and ask the witness to choose.

MR PHOSA: Yes.  If I could just restate that, thank you.  Perhaps let's just start again.  You see, at the time that you were having doubts with regard to the fairness or otherwise of this process, the issue was whether or not disclosure of what had happened, should be made, you remember that?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: So there were the interest of the families who wanted to know after 14 years then maybe, now 15 years, wanted to know what actually had happened to their children, isn't it?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: Now that aspect, did you regard that as being a legitimate concern by these families?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct, Your Honour.

MR PHOSA: Now, did you consider that it is only people like you who could assist them?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: But, it would appear that you did not say to yourself now let me do that, you said, I shall do it only if I don't run the risk of being convicted.

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: I will state again Your Honour.  I admit to my own human factor element, that came into it, that I protected myself and that was a factor.

MR PHOSA: That is now my problem, is your answer yes to what I have asked you, the alternative?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: Right.  It will appear that at all times after you and your colleagues eliminated Mr Mthimkhulu and Mr Madaka, this element of self preservation was always there?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: You did not want anyone that might have caused you to be convicted, to know whether it is your government or the enemy ANC or who else, you did not want anyone that could place you in jeopardy, that is in the sense of being convicted, to know.

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct, Your Honour.

MR PHOSA: Now, just on the question of fairness.   I take it that you and I are agreed that at this stage when this issue was being raised, there was a new government and there was no question of your trying to protect that government, the present government?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: And the other government, the one before, had been so disgraced in many other respects that really you wouldn't be trying to protect that government any longer, isn't it?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

ADV SANDI: That government did not even exist, anyway Mr Phosa.

MR PHOSA: Yes.  No, no, I was just trying to say he wasn't in his mind saying for what they were, I still owe them a duty to protect their integrity as it then was.
	I heard you saying that the idea of elimination at a given stage, was accepted as being one of the alternatives accepted amongst the Security Police?  The Security Branch as a Branch, isn't that so?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: How can you say that?  I know you can speak for yourself, Mr Van Rensburg and later Mr Erasmus and much later Mr Nieuwoudt, but how can you begin to talk even on behalf of the rest of members of the Eastern Cape Branch and say they were accepting elimination?  How do you know that?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: I am talking about myself, sir.

MR PHOSA: You know, you are not.  You said it was accepted amongst the Security Police.  You said it when you were being asked questions, you said it when I asked you.  You said it was accepted.  Don't you remember saying that a few times?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct, but I am talking about myself.

MR PHOSA: Are you now talking the royal we?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: No.

MR PHOSA: Look, just once more.  Am I wrong in saying that you did say that it was accepted amongst the Security Police in the Security Branch, didn't you say that?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.  If I said that, that is what I said.

MR PHOSA: That is precisely, I am giving you what you said.

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Exactly.

MR PHOSA: Yes.  I am asking you then, how can you talk for others other than the four of you as having accepted elimination?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Okay, we can debate this forever, but what I wished to state per se was that I accepted it at such and I did not try to speak on behalf of the Security Branch as a whole.

MR PHOSA: Let me refer to you then.  That is slightly different then.  What you can surely say now is the four of you, the killers of the unfortunate young people, these two, accepted elimination, isn't that so?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: Could you just repeat that please?  Could you please repeat the question?

ADV SANDI: Is it not clear that they accepted what was going to be done from the fact that they got involved in the planning and in the execution as well?

MR PHOSA: No, I think so, but I am not asking about that, I am asking a different question.  That just happens to be one of the questions, I am not dealing with whether there is doubt or not, I am working up to a crescendo regarding a certain aspect.  It would become clear.
	Is it correct then that the position is this, to your knowledge the four of you, the killers of these two young people, accepted elimination, right?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct.

MR PHOSA: But you don't know if the rest of the Security Police in the Eastern Branch did accept elimination?

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: I cannot speak on behalf of them, but what I said by implication was that if one listens to what had been said by politicians as a consequence of pressure exerted upon us, I made the deduction and I would assume that others would have made the same deduction, or could have deduced the same.

MR PHOSA: Yes, you see now ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Phosa, I am perhaps being technical, but you have forgotten the Kondile matter, haven't you?  This wasn't their first one, there were a couple of other people there and that one too.

MR PHOSA: Yes, maybe I made a grave error and perhaps in his favour.  Thank you.  Mr Du Plessis, let me just be accurate then.  The four of you and the others who were involved in the Kondile case, were to your knowledge accepting elimination, isn't it?

MR BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, I think technically the question is not correct.  I don't think there is anything before us that suggests that all four of these were involved in the Kondile matter.  Maybe I misunderstood my learned friend now.

CHAIRPERSON: You did, he said the four of you and the others involved in the Kondile matter.

HERMANUS BAREND DU PLESSIS: That is correct, Your Honour.