Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1998-06-17

MR LE ROUX: That's correct Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: But now the question is why didn't you find out in your first attempt to get people to establish this Boerevolk, why didn't you find out from the beginning, after the first bombing, if it is working, if it is helping in getting a Volkstaat?

MR LE ROUX: My logic would have said that one bomb would not have done it and I thought that a whole operation was needed and the situation at that stage in the country was that the Defence Force would be involved and that more people would be involved in the whole process and that is why I continued with what I was busy with.

CHAIRPERSON: So must I accept then that the whole series of bombings were discussed beforehand?

MR LE ROUX: No, not beforehand but I knew that Clifton Barnard knew about the whole series of bombings.

CHAIRPERSON: The first bomb will not work, it must be a series of bombs?

MR LE ROUX: I assume so, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: That's what I'm asking.  Did you discuss it?

MR LE ROUX: No, it was not directly discussed as such.  At one stage over a period it was discussed.

MR MALAN: If I could just ask regarding the same question.  When you planted the Sunday bomb, the Bree Street bomb, did you then know that there would be a bomb in Germiston and that there are pipe bombs or did you have to complete the tasks one by one?

MR LE ROUX: I completed the tasks one by one.  That afternoon when we returned from the Johannesburg bombing it was the first time I'd heard about the Germiston bombing.

MR MALAN: And the pipe bombs?

MR LE ROUX: I knew about the pipe bombs because I saw that they were delivered and I knew that a lot of bombings will take place but that was on that Saturday evening when I realised it, when I saw the pipe bombs and I saw that they would explode.

CHAIRPERSON: I'm going to put the question to you again, you returned from Johannesburg, why didn't you ask or try to find out if the Johannesburg bomb is working before you attempted to plant a bomb in Germiston?

MR LE ROUX: Mr Chairperson, the broader planning of the bombings I did not do, so I cannot answer regarding that.  I mean we were apart from them, we were busy with the operation.

MR BRACHER: You Mr le Roux, you say at paragraph 37 on page 65
"The motive..."
Your motive.
"...for the deeds through me which I did on behalf of the AWB, it was in order to create a political unrest in order to prevent the then government of the day to continue with the elections"
Is that correct?

MR LE ROUX: Yes.

MR BRACHER: Without even making enquiries you would know that there wasn't a political uprising starting in this country at all, you would have heard from one of the 70 that there was no uprisings whatsoever in this country and you only had three days to get it right, so you were failing already weren't you?

MR LE ROUX: Mr Chairperson, in the circumstances in which I was people gathered food, everybody was ready for things that could happen with the elections.

MR BRACHER: But nothing had happened that you'd planned to happen after your best bomb?

MR LE ROUX: Certain bombs did go off throughout the country.

MR BRACHER: There was no uprising, there was no talk of stopping an election.

MR LE ROUX: No, not a big uprising but we did expect it.

MR BRACHER: Let me come to the last bomb, when you planted a bomb at the airport, that was the day of the election?

MR LE ROUX: That is correct Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: By that time anybody with any contact with anything in the world would have known that people were queuing for miles and miles to go and vote for that election.  They'd walked all night to go and vote in that election.  What's the purpose of that bomb?

MR LE ROUX: Mr Chairperson, I heard that the purpose, and that was from Barnard, and that exactly that we must reach the countries abroad and make them see that we have got these struggles.

MR BRACHER: Now you say that the AWB is para-military, or you say in your application, a military organisation, is that right?

MR LE ROUX: That's correct Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: Wanted to wage war.  And my learned friend next to me here has put it to you: "Well who was the enemy"?  I mean a military organisation doesn't wage war against innocent civilians does it, it's not in the Geneva Convention that that is the way to wage war?

MR LE ROUX: Chairperson, if you go on the Geneva Conference, it can mean something different but in a war civilians are killed.

MR BRACHER: Not as a chosen target before you even declare a war surely?

MR LE ROUX: I will tell you that when you are in a resistance movement like a para-military organisation then there must be terrorists or acts of terror ...[indistinct]

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bracher, you have to accept that this was an unusual war.

MR BRACHER: Are you saying it's a terrorist organisation then?

MR LE ROUX: No, it's not a terrorist organisation.

MR BRACHER: I presume acts of terrorism are committed by terrorists?

MR LE ROUX: Precisely how this country came into the hands of the ANC, it was through these acts of terror.  That is precisely the manner in which we followed or used in this process.

MR BRACHER: You see the one thing that isn't in your written document, and it stands out a mile, there is nothing there that says that anybody in any higher structure had as a policy to kill innocent civilians.  I've read it and I've re-read it and re-read it in case I missed it.  It's simply not there.  Now where did that come from, in your head?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bracher, before we carry on, please correct me if I'm wrong.  I don't think in any of those applications as far as I can remember, there is any allegation of an order as such.  Any inclination that it came from wherever.  I don't know.

MR BRACHER: Yes, they talk about General Prinsloo.

CHAIRPERSON: ...[inaudible]

MR BRACHER: Yes.
	Can you answer the question?

MR LE ROUX: People die in a struggle and like I said an organisation, a resistance organisation or movement sometimes do not admit things like that and usually say: "No, you do not kill innocent people", it's still happens with some of the ANC.

MR BRACHER: No, no, you're missing he point.  In your evidence today you've suggested that it came from above by Cliffie Barnard, that you had to kill innocent civilians.

MR LE ROUX: That's correct.

MR BRACHER: But in your document you don't make that claim.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you're talking about organisational instructions, not above.

MR BRACHER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: As in ...[indistinct]

MR BRACHER: Well, from anybody above you.

CHAIRPERSON: Not spiritually, I'm sure you don't mean that.

MR BRACHER: No, no, not spiritually.  No, I didn't mean that.
	You don't make that claim do you in your document, that anybody told you to kill innocent civilians?

MR LE ROUX: No, not at all.

MR BRACHER: Nor do you make the claim, except in regard to your own motive, that you it was the policy of the AWB to stop the election, you don't make that claim in the written document except in paragraph 37, about your own motive.

MR LE ROUX: It wasn't an official thing but mean that the AWB said from platform to platform that they must stop the election.
MR BRACHER
"It was also said that the day when the ANC take over, the AWB will destroy the country with bombs"
That's after the election.

MR LE ROUX: That was before the election Mr Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: And you say it wasn't official in the AWB that you had to stop the election was it?

MR LE ROUX: Not in their program of principles.

MR BRACHER: You choose sites completely at random don't you?  You drive along and you go like this and if the chap behind you doesn't see you, you go onto some other random site, it doesn't matter who is there.

MR LE ROUX: No, Mr Chairperson.

MR BRACHER: That's what happened though.

MR LE ROUX: Where Chairperson?