Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — 1997-02-27

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, obviously utterances made at a political platform as far as we, our 
duty arrangements were concerned, did not impact on that but I think it was merely important to the 
perceptions of the persons who heard that, but it had no influence in the course of our duties.

MR VISSER: And in your mind it also created no policy?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: No, not as far as we were concerned. As I said I was in the fortunate position where I 
was in direct liaison with the policy-makers.

HASSAN MALL: We will take a short adjournment at this stage, PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

GAUTENG: 249	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: you will call us as soon as you are ready.

ADV DU PLESSIS: Yes, it will be short, Mr Chairman.

HASSAN MALL: Thank you.

HASSAN MALL: Mr Mpshe, are there any questions you would like to put.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: No, Mr Chairman, there are no questions from me.

JUDGE WILSON: You have been asked about what knowledge the Ministers or the State Security 
Council may have had of incidents that occurred, you said they wouldn't have had, as I understand, but 
there were certain incidents that I think we all knew of that occurred in Lesotho, in Botswana and Maputo, 
where it was accepted by everybody that the South African Armed Forces had been involved, now I take it 
those would have been discussed by the State Security Council?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Yes, that is correct, with cross-border attacks most of them were discussed by the 
State Security Council and approved.

HASSAN MALL: Decisions taken by the State Security Council, you have described how they were 
implemented by a Committee, a sub-Committee would implement its decisions, instructions to members of 
the Security Force or to the Armed Force, who would give those instructions, Security Council decisions 
instructions?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: It would have been by the departmental heads of each department after having being 
conveyed to the members of his department, there were no other channels which were followed. The 
decisions taken by the State Security Council were by the department head and the 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

MR CURRIN: 250	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Minister involved, would be dealt with by the department and executed and where it affected other 
departments and other Ministers, it would be conveyed by the State Security Council to the Minister 
involved. The Committees had no authority over and above the State Security Council itself to issue any 
instructions to any department or as far as it goes to act without or beyond the authorised guidelines.

HASSAN MALL: What would the role of the State President be in conveying instructions to anybody?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, the State President was the Chairman of the State Security Council, 
but it was obvious where there were cases where the State President, during a visit or during a discussions 
went beyond the ambient of the State Security Council, would issue certain instructions to persons present 
there. The State President himself had the authority to instruct any Minister and that Minister in turn would 
instruct the departments to execute such instruction.

HASSAN MALL: While you were Commissioner what was the Cabinet position of Mr Roelf Meyer?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, if I remember correctly he was first the Deputy Minister of 
Constitutional Development and then he became the Minister. Since 1990 of course he also served on the 
State Security Council.

ADV DE JAGER: Did you say that he was also Minister of Defence at some stage?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: He could have been Acting Minister, but I do not think that he was actually Minister. 
He was Chairman of the GVS system, but you could be right, but I cannot confirm that.

HASSAN MALL: What system was it that you were talking about?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Please repeat the question?
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DE JAGER: 251	GEN V/

HASSAN MALL: Of what system?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: The General Management System.

ADV DE JAGER: General, I would just like to clear up several aspects on the report about which you 
testified. You make mention of incidents where the police were victims and you also mention that in the 
years, in those years, for a period of six years from 1973 to 1979 there were 76 to 90, 270 cases and in the 
years 1991 and 1992, 385 cases. That was after negotiations had begun. In that year the ANC was 
unbanned. To what do you attribute this escalation of attacks on police?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, we looked at several possibilities and one factor which played a very 
important role was that the unrest situation in the country deteriorated drastically due to the fact that 
different political parties had begun to form their power bases and this process led to clashes between 
political parties and their supporters and that was what gave rise to escalating violence countrywide and 
this process, in this process unfortunately, all the political parties and mainly the Black political parties took 
a stance at the time because the police tried to remain neutral at the time, that the police were still the other 
ones friend and the police became a target and because at the time we were from different political parties, 
that is why the death rate and the murders of policemen, as far as we could determine, escalated like that. 
The unrest situation also contributed to that because people moved around much easier under those 
circumstances and they killed much more.

ADV DE JAGER: General, in that time you were also Commissioner of Police, if I remember correctly?
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DE JAGER: 251	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: GEN V/

UNKNOWN: That is correct, from January 1990.

ADV DE JAGER: And there was also something you mentioned in your report, an incident where 505 
persons were killed by the necklace method. Were the police - and once again in how many incidents were 
they successful in tracing the perpetrators in such cases and prosecuting them or what was the position?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: There was a very limited amount of incidents due to the fact the intimidation factor 
played a great role. There simply wasn't anyone that was prepared to come forward under those 
circumstances and testify against persons who were involved in necklacing. We considered witness 
protection programmes, but at that stage it was utterly impossible to really protect witnesses due to the fact 
that they - the exceptional situation which existed at the time, so we did not achieve much success in 
tracing those offenders.

ADV DE JAGER: In some of these cases it was testified that people were no longer brought to a Court of 
Law to be prosecuted, what was the reason for that?
GEN V/

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, because especially in Black townships the justice system for the 
persons living there it created problems. The fact that someone was arrested and shortly thereafter was set 
free on bail led to many of the persons around that regarding it as nothing, sending a message out to these 
persons that he was being exposed to the danger which existed yesterday and the day before and which he 
was hoping would have been eliminated by the arrest of this person. Also because the courts brought 
themselves to a standstill and it was very drastic and I think in many cases under those circumstances one 
could say that it was 
PRETORIA HEARING	AMNESTY/

ADV DE JAGER: 252	GEN V/

UNKNOWN: more practical to act according to the opinion that justice should prevail and it also contributed to the fact 
that our justice system which is based as you very well know - all the requirements of the criminal 
procedure and what goes with that were not accepted very well.