Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-07-07

WENDY ORR: I see so you don't feel that you as a doctor had any ethical or moral duty which bound you to certain ways or practice?

DR MIJBURGH: I think doctors are bound in terms of their handling of patients, etc by certain norms.

CHAIRPERSON: No I think the question was more direct than that Mr Mijburgh. I think she was asking if you, as Dr Mijburgh, felt that you did not feel bound to any ethical codes of contact maybe by reason of the account that you never had to take an oath like the Hippocratic Oath or any of those oaths.

DR MIJBURGH: I don't think I am bound in a legal sense by them but I think in a moral sense yes.

WENDY ORR: And if you feel bound in a moral sense did you not have some moral questions or quibbles about the fact that you were the managing director of a company which was producing substances which were dangerous and are certainly liable to abuse and perhaps even potentially lethal?

DR MIJBURGH: I regarded my involvement in the chemical warfare programme and specifically the way in which Delta-G was involved did not cause this moral dilemma. I think that in terms of warfare or crowd control I think it is much more acceptable to use non-lethal methods such as possibly chemical methods. Rather than rubber bullets, etc.

WENDY ORR: When you were in this specific medical detachment of special forces or special operations, I forget the terminology - you say you provided support. Can you give us a bit more detail with that? And I will tell you why I ask this question. It is because Dr Lourens when he gave us his evidence said that when he was with that unit one of his jobs was to develop special equipment for instance guns with collapsible butts that doctors could carry in their bags. And I am obviously very interested to know what it was that doctors were doing that they needed this kind of equipment.

DR MIJBURGH: I cannot comment on that. I am not aware of the work that Dr Lourens did. But I was an ordinary medical officer in the sense that during training we assisted. We did sick-bay duties at the bases that I mentioned. There was a reconnaissance command at Phalaborwa and I worked for 4, 5 months in the sick-bay there where we dealt with the unit or managed the unit.

WENDY ORR: Why was it necessary to create a special division to do this? Could SAMS not have provided that service out of their normal, usual doctors who worked there?

DR MIJBURGH: I think that this had to do with the security aspects thereof. I think that these were doctors who were specially cleared because in the dealing with patients one would hear about certain operations and I think that this is why this was dealt in a special manner. And I must add that one of the services was a medical support assistance for an emergency support assistance for the chemical and biological warfare programme and as a result of the security regarding the project it was of cardinal importance everything that we ever did at Delta-G in terms of chemical warfare programme was measured regarding security.

WENDY ORR: And to your knowledge, and certainly in your own experience, the only thing that these medical people did was to provide medical services to the members of special forces and certainly had no need for guns with collapsible butts?

DR MIJBURGH: No I think that I don't know why a gun with a collapsible butt would be used except in a parachute operation where a small weapon was needed. Each soldier has a weapon with him when he goes to war even if he is a doctor.

WENDY ORR: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera?

DR RANDERA: Dr Mijburgh I want to ask a very general question actually. I know you have been through some very tough questioning today. I suppose there are three questions I would like to ask. One is remember the way we have been posing these questions is about you as a director of a front company and director of many companies but this is all taking place within a context. The context of political conflict in our country. The context of a revolutionary onslaught, Communist onslaught. Which brings me to my first question which is; what was your own understanding of that period and your particular involvement within this whole programme? Because again today we have talked about the defence force but the companies were set up with a specific purpose and that was to develop the chemical and biological warfare programme for South Africa at the time. What are you own understanding and your own involvement?
 My second question is (...intervention)

DR MIJBURGH: Can I reply to the first one or do you want to ask all three?

DR RANDERA: Shall I just pose all three questions?

CHAIRPERSON: Ja ...(inaudible)

DR RANDERA: My second question is what responsibility are you taking actually yourself? Because again today one doesn't - I don't come away feeling that you have done anything wrong, that you saw yourself doing anything wrong at that time. And so what responsibility if any are you taking?
 And the third question is; in retrospect are there any question marks that remain within your mind? I mean the questions have been posed about these capsules that were produced by your company and the possibility that those capsules contained either mandrax or ecstasy. Are these issues that concern you today? That there is a possibility - I am not asking you whether you think it was but are you left with question marks that clearly you haven't been able to give us those questions as the MD of this company? But in retrospect and in looking at the questions that have been posed to you today are there question marks in your own mind as to what was happening in your company?

DR MIJBURGH: In terms of my own involvement in the chemical warfare programme and seen in the light of the time and the period in which it took place it was for me as a member of SAMS and later as a member of Delta-G, the front company, I was brought under the impression that there was a specific threat against the country and more specifically against some of the members of the defence force in terms of chemical warfare. So in that respect I understood it as that we were rendering a service to the defence force.
 And as I said to Dr Orr just now I didn't have a moral problem with what we were doing at Delta-G in a sense that I felt that although it was quite normally there was a major and emotional outcry regarding chemical and biological warfare those aspects with which we dealt with at Delta made possible more humane warfare in terms of incapacitants and crowd control measures, etc. I hope that answers the question about my own involvement.
 Yes I am surely responsible in the sense that we developed certain substances. I always believed and I never had any reason to doubt that it was a well thought-out  plan of action by the defence force. My contact with the defence whether in my capacity as managing director of Delta-G or otherwise I never thought that we were actually engaged in anything underhand or immoral.
 And then yes as far as the third question is concerned, yes there are certain questions in our minds today. We are living in a different era and I would be very glad if these questions could be laid to rest at some time or another. You do have questions but I unfortunately don't have the answers.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Sooka?

YASMINE SOOKA: I think you haven't really in a sense dealt with the last question. And one of the things which I think is probably going to emerge from all of this is that a lot of these things, the Mandrax and the Ecstasy probably landed up on the streets because nobody seems to be able to tell us where it actually went. Do you in any sense I mean when one encapsulates Methaqualone is an expectation that it is going to be taken orally. Do you feel any sense of responsibility for the fact that these things could have landed up on the streets turning probably hundreds of people into drug addicts?