Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, we said that at the time and we think we've been confirmed in that view.

MR PRINSLOO: Now Mr Cronin, if the Nationalist Party - their supporters, believed in that, why do you disbelieve the applicants?  If they believe that by taking out a key leader, it will also bring about what the Nationalist Party believed?

JEREMY CRONIN: I accept that they believed that they would - as they have told us, that they would unleash chaos in South Africa by assassinating Chris Hani - I completely believe that and they came damn close to achieving that objective, so I have no reason to doubt that.
	I think that they could not have chosen a better assassination target - if they wanted to plunge our country into a spiral of violence out of which we may not have emerged intact as a country, they could not have chose a better target.  And I have no reason to doubt that that is why they chose Chris Hani, they saw how critical he was to the peace and negotiation process and by taking him out they came very close to destroying that process, so I don't doubt that.

MR PRINSLOO: So, the climate that prevailed at the time Mr Cronin, was created not only by the Conservative Party - what they believed, but also by the Government itself at the time?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, I think - I would imagine - and we need to find our more and I think we are finding out more day by day through the TRC process, but I believe that there were possibly two schools of thought, there were those - and I would imagine that the two applicants and the third person whom I believe was involved in this conspiracy, were of the view that they should try to stop at all costs the negotiated settlement - they should try to shipwreck it.
	I think others were deploying violence into the situation - not in order to stop the negotiations process, but to transform the quality of it and therefore to achieve a settlement but more on their terms, so I think there would have been two schools of thought operating amongst those on the right who were involved in violence. 
	And I would think that the applicants would have belonged to the school of thought that believed that through using violence, they could actually shipwreck the negotiations process and prevent the evil day of non-racial democracy ever dawning on South Africa.

MR PRINSLOO: So those were very turbulent times that prevailed at that stage Mr Cronin?

JEREMY CRONIN: Absolutely, yes.

MR PRINSLOO: And for that reason, if members of the - or let me put it this way, if agents of the then Government - the Nationalist Party, had assassinated Mr Hani, would it have achieved the same purpose or what purpose would they have achieved seeing - in view of the fact that you are saying: "To assassinate key ANC alliance and second and third layer leaders" - if they had succeeded in doing that?

JEREMY CRONIN: Well, if they'd succeeded in doing it the outcome would have been the same, Chris Hani would have been dead, the country would have been brought to the brink of crisis but hopefully we would have succeeded - despite that crisis, in rescuing the country which I think that we have.
	But the assassination of Chris Hani was the assassination of Chris Hani and  the hands that pulled the gun and their motivations are a matter of speculation but we've heard from these applicants what their motivation was and I have no reason to doubt that motivation which was to - as they said quite explicitly, to bring about large scale violence, death and a right-wing coup-de-ta - effectively, in the face of that situation - that was their agenda.

MR PRINSLOO: Mr Cronin, you will bear in mind that that was evidence given by Mr Walus and not Mr Derby-Lewis.

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, Mr Derby-Lewis told us that he wanted to plunge the country into crisis, he didn't put a number - a figure on - a statistic on the number of deaths, that's true.

MR PRINSLOO: Well, likewise, at that stage the ANC was not governing the country, the Nationalist Party was governing the country.

JEREMY CRONIN: Correct.

MR PRINSLOO: And if the Nationalists had that view in mind - as what you set out in this paragraph on page 5, then surely the result would have been the same - it would have served the same cause and same purpose for the Nationalists as well as the Conservative Party?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, I mean - but perhaps that's why the National Party - in this case, shrunk from doing this at that particular time, I don't know - you need to ask them not me, why they were trying at one point to assassinate Chris Hani and why - as far as we're concerned, and why in this particular case.
	And our minds - let me be quite frank, remain open as to the scope of this conspiracy and the depth of it, so I don't want to confine myself to speculating as to ...[intervention]

MR PRINSLOO: So, Mr Cronin, will you concede to what the Nationalist Party had in mind at that stage - to assassinate key ANC alliance and second and third layer leaders, would have been a political motive to do that?

JEREMY CRONIN: Absolutely, it was entirely for political reasons but it was - they've not applied for amnesty as far as I'm aware - the National Party, for Chris Hani's assassination and nor has the Conservative Party as far as I'm aware, applied for amnesty for the assassination of Chris Hani.
	So, if we're talking to political motive, there's no doubt that the applicants had political motive - in my view, and that this low-intensity conflict was politically motivated - the question is, was it part of formal political policy of the CP - since we're talking about the CP.

MR PRINSLOO: I'm not asking for any legal argument on that Mr Cronin.

JEREMY CRONIN: No, I'm telling you.

MR PRINSLOO: Just a moment please Mr Chairman.
	If you look at page 43 of R5 Mr Cronin - the second paragraph:
"John Robby: Chris, the armed struggle, so often it's held up in this referendum debate - the ANC communist alliance, they've still got Umkhonto, they've still got an armed struggle - again in the interest of moving forward, wouldn't it be better to disband to finally declare the armed struggle over"?
Have you got that?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes.

MR PRINSLOO: Now Mr Chris Hani's response to that
"Ultimately the objectives of the ANC and the Communist Party, are to disband Umkhonto weSizwe and I want to proceed by saying that it is a question of time - we must a reach a period in our negotiations where we are satisfied that there will never be a reversal, there will be no going back"
What do you say to that Mr Cronin?