Amnesty Hearings — Durban — UNKNOWN

MR BOTHA: I was recruited as a member of the Orde Boerevolk by an AWB training camp at Theunissen in the Orange Free State. I was notified that a meeting would take place of the Financial Committee of the AWB and that I should attend this meeting.
	I went to the training camp premises and there, as I said, I was recruited by the Orde Boerevolk. When I arrived at the camp, I don't think I knew even five people present there, and I think there must have been about between - this past weekend there was a training camp and of the four hundred, five hundred people present I only knew about five people.
I drove there all the way from Richards Bay so it was round about lunch time when the Financial Committee - the Financial Committee meeting hadn't yet taken place then, and I started becoming impatient because I had to return to Richards Bay on the same day. 
	An unknown person came to me and asked me whether I was Kommandant Piet Botha from Richards Bay, and I answered in the affirmative. He then took me into a building and said I had to walk down the passage and enter the second door on the right as there were people there who wanted to see me. I walked down the passage. I thought that maybe this was the start of the meeting. When I got to the door, the door was closed. I knocked, but it was locked.
The question was asked "Who are you?" and I told them. They asked me to wait for a moment. The door was opened and I entered. Two people were sitting inside the room dressed in khaki clothes, not in the uniform of the AWB, they simply wore khaki clothes without any insignia. Both of these persons wore Balaclavas, and when I entered the room they locked the door behind me, and then they told me that they were members of the Orde Boerevolk and that they had been watching me for quite a considerable time, and that they wanted to appoint me as a member of the Orde Boerevolk.  They wanted me to establish a cell of the Orde Boerevolk in Richards Bay.
As I said earlier in my evidence, they then explained all the objectives of the Orde Boerevolk to me. They showed me this oath form and asked me whether I agreed with each point in the statement and whether I was prepared to take the oath. I read it through and said "yes" I told them that I identified with the objectives and I then took the oath. But who these persons were, I don't know.
Whether I had seen them before I could not tell you because I could not identify them as a result of the fact that they were wearing Balaclavas. We also discussed ways of communicating with each other. For instance, code names, telephone numbers etc. I could contact them and they would be able to contact me.
They also said that they were not interested in who I would recruit as members of my cell. They operated, as the English say "on a need to know basis". You only know what you really need to know. That which you don't need to know about you don't ask questions about. And I was sworn in, in that way.

ADV DE JAGER: At that stage, were there no channels of communication you could use to negotiate matters? What was the attitude of the CP, the AWB and the Orde Boerevolk about negotiation?

MR BOTHA: Mr Chairman, I can't say whether the CP or the AWB or whatever, what their attitudes were but within conservative right-wing circles there had been requests or demands, call it what you like directed at the government to demarcate a territory for the Boer nation where we could govern ourselves.  This is a demand which is internationally recognised for any nation, but the then National Party Government refused our demands.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Botha, what I am trying to get at, is, was the AWB prepared to negotiate at Kempton Park?

MR BOTHA: No, they weren't.

ADV DE JAGER: Was the Orde Boerevolk prepared to do that?

MR BOTHA: No, they weren't.

ADV DE JAGER: Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Mr Botha, would you please just explain to us how Mr Marais came to be recruited into your cell?

MR BOTHA: Mr Marais was - I was well aquatinted with Mr Marais, he was a member of the AWB.  He had his own business in Richards Bay. He had recently moved from the Transvaal to Richards Bay - I'm talking about the time that I got to know him. Because he was running his own business, he didn't want it to be generally known that he was a member of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement.
At that stage it suited me to keep it like that and when I founded the cell of the Orde Boerevolk I discussed it with him. Just as I had been recruited, I recruited him and submitted the oath form to him and asked him if he would be able to associate himself with the provisions in the oath and whether he was prepared to take that oath. He answered in the affirmative, and that is how I recruited him as a member of the Orde Boerevolk.

UNKNOWN: Was he not introduced to you by a person who was also a member of the AWB?

MR BOTHA: That is quite correct.

UNKNOWN: And what was the name of that person?

MR BOTHA: It was a Mr van Wyk.

UNKNOWN: And was Mr van Wyk also a member of your cell?

MR BOTHA: No, he wasn't.

UNKNOWN: Did you not think of recruiting him as well?

MR BOTHA: I did, but when I showed him the oath form, he felt that at that stage he wasn't ready to take the oath. And so that is why he wasn't recruited as a member.

UNKNOWN: Now you obviously took your job seriously as a cell leader, that you had to establish a cell?

MR BOTHA: Most definitely.

UNKNOWN: Particularly in view of the fact that you had declared war against the Nationalist Party?

MR BOTHA: Absolutely correct, that is quite right.

UNKNOWN: What recruitment measures did you employ to get more members into your cell?

MR BOTHA: People who were well known to me as members of the AWB, those were the people I approached, people who I felt were just as committed to the struggle as I was.

UNKNOWN: And how many members did you ultimately succeed to recruit?

MR BOTHA: I recruited four members for the Orde Boerevolk.

UNKNOWN: Now why did you choose only Mr Smuts and Mr Marais for the attack in Durban and not the other members?

MR BOTHA: I thought at that stage that those two individuals were the most suitable out of the four members that I had recruited.

UNKNOWN: Why were they more suitable, was it because Mr Marais possessed an AK47?

MR BOTHA: That was one of the main motivating reasons, yes.

UNKNOWN: And how did you know that he owned an AK47?

MR BOTHA: When one is amongst one's own people and belongs to the same organisations, one obviously does discuss the war that perhaps was being waged at a low intensity at that stage - a struggle that was still to come - one would, of course talk about arms, accumulation of weapons, training and so on.  And so, in a discussion, it came out - he admitted that he was in possession of an AK47 rifle, and that's how I knew that he had it. Again here, I made it clear to him that the fact that I knew he had an AK47 was enough for me. I never asked him - I never wanted to find out where he had got it,  because again, what I did not know, I could not tell other people about.

UNKNOWN: What kind of training did your cell members receive?

MR BOTHA: As members of the Orde Boerevolk there wasn't any specific training which the Orde as such offered. Each of us received military training, for instance, when we did our national service - government training - and then at the training camps of the AWB we received further training.

UNKNOWN: Now Mr Botha, you obviously feared that there was going to be an attack from an organisation like the PAC because it had received extensive military training and that was a well known fact.

MR BOTHA: That's quite correct.

UNKNOWN: And training pertaining to automatic weaponry?