Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-08

MR GOOSEN: Are you being serious that you can't remember, you know very well that those killings were unresolved until we obtained General Joubert's amnesty application a few weeks ago?  Are you seriously suggesting that you don't know whether General Joubert gave evidence at an open public inquest into those killings, you can't remember?

CHAIRPERSON: And those were not ordinary deaths.  They were quite sensational at the time.  Quite sensational, in fact they lingered on until we received the amnesty application and you are under oath.  You are not on trial, but you are under oath.

MR GOOSEN: Please answer the question, are you saying that you cannot remember whether General Joubert gave evidence at a public inquest into this matter?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR GOOSEN: You can't remember?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: I can't remember.

CHAIRPERSON: I have to indicate that General Meiring has been the most patient person today, more patient than (indistinct).  So we really have to get into the job of finishing and so that we can take his evidence.  Richard Lyster?

MR LYSTER: I just want to give you the perspective of another member of Special Forces.  Do you know Colonel Anton Nieuwoudt?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: No, Mr Chairman.

MR LYSTER: Never heard of him?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: I have read about him in the newspapers, Mr Chairman.

MR LYSTER: Okay, well he was a member of Special Forces and he applied for amnesty a few weeks a few weeks ago and he was granted amnesty for activities involving his training or his part in the training of the so-called Caprivi trainees, 200 members of Inkatha who were trained in the Caprivi strip in 1986 by members of the Defence Force, including himself, Colonel Nieuwoudt.
 According to his amnesty application, he was instructed to go to the Caprivi strip to provide training to 200 Inkatha recruits who was being housed at a place called Hippo Base in the Caprivi strip and his job there was to train them inter alia in the use of Eastern Block weapons, rocket propelled grenades, hand-, land mines, plastic explosives, how to conceal evidence, how to avoid arrest and prosecution and such matters.
 And he stated in his amnesty application that he was never in any doubt that the purpose of this training was so that these people could be redeployed in KwaZulu Natal and that they would be deployed to eliminate and by that I mean, kill enemies of Inkatha in KwaZulu Natal.
 And he applied for amnesty arising out of his involvement in that training.  And he was instructed according to his amnesty application, to undertake that training, by the Head of Military Intelligence who was a General in your Defence Force.  Now do you know anything about that?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: Yes, Mr Chairman, what I do know about this is and this is exactly my problem if preconceived ideas are taken too far, and that is that General Tienie Groenewald who was said by Anton Nieuwoudt, to have instructed him vehemently denied the allegation and I believe he has taken it up with the lawyers of the Amnesty Committee and likewise, General Jan Breytenbach whom Nieuwoudt said knew about this, said he never even saw him in the Caprivi.

MR LYSTER: Yes, that is what General Groenewald and Mr Breytenbach have said, but are you aware of these allegations, that this is what Colonel Nieuwoudt has said?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: I am aware of the allegations, as far as I read it in the newspapers and also the counter-allegations.

CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead Mr Lyster, and then Adv Goosen will wind up.

MR LYSTER: So are you suggesting that Colonel Nieuwoudt is not telling the truth or that he acted in an unauthorised way and that he went to the Caprivi strip and trained these people off his own bat, what are you suggesting?

MR VAN DER HOVEN: Excuse me, Mr Chairman, may I just interpose here, I have also been instructed to write a letter on behalf of General Groenewald, sorry for the record, my name is Van der Hoven from (indistinct), and for the purposes of the record here, I have got the letter here which I wrote to the Amnesty Committee in so far as General Groenewald is concerned, and I am prepared to read the letter into the record.  General Groenewald denies what Anton Nieuwoudt says.

MR LYSTER: I think that is sufficient just to place on record that General Groenewald denies what Mr Nieuwoudt has said, it is not necessary to read the letter into the record.

MR VAN DER HOVEN: If I could just put it, he actually put it very strong, he said the information contained in his amnesty application is false.

MR COETZEE: What is the relevance of this question in any way to the purposes of the hearings and the documentation has been made available to us

MR LYSTER: Because Mr Nieuwoudt was a member of Special Forces and he said that that thinking was current at the time, it happened in 1986 that he had no doubt that these people were to be used to eliminate people in a clandestine and covert way.

MR COETZEE: We have never received an application on Nieuwoudt, it has not been provided for purposes of this hearing.

MR LYSTER: Yes, I am giving your client that information and I am asking him how is he reacting to it?

MR COETZEE: Well, there is various information that I hear, besides what you are saying.

CHAIRPERSON: Would your client please reply to the question.  I rule that the question is legitimate, it can be put.
 Can you reply General Geldenhuys, what is your reaction to that whether it is rumour or disinformation or whatever, what is your reaction?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: Well, my reaction is that I would like to wait to see what comes out between this clash of allegations and counter-allegations because I find it very strange that after the training of Inkatha in the Caprivi had been subjected to such a long judicial procedure, that somebody pops up now whose name has never appeared and I am not aware of, I am surprised.  And I am not surprised at the counter-allegations.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that is a fair answer.  Adv Goosen?

MR GOOSEN: Thank you very much, Mr Chairperson.  I just want to go back to the matter that you were dealing with before Commissioner Lyster asked certain questions, and I just want to wrap it up on this basis.

CHAIRPERSON: Don't go beyond five o'clock.

MR GOOSEN: I won't Mr Chairperson.  General Geldenhuys, you deny that you gave express authorisation to General Joubert to activate a plan involving Special Forces members in the killing of targeted persons inside the country?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: That is correct.

MR GOOSEN: Would you agree with me that the fact that you became aware of an operation involving the murder of individuals, that you accepted the information from General Joubert that he was bona fide, he was acting bona fide in that regard, you accepted that it was reasonable, you did not convey that information to the Prosecuting authorities, notwithstanding the fact that there was a Police investigation and that the matters that were under investigation were significant in the public domain, and that the actions were unlawful with the serious implications for the SADF, that all of those factors taken together, suggest that by your lack of action, over many years, that you impliedly authorised a plan which involved the elimination or identified targets involving Special Force individuals inside the country?

JOHANNES JAKOBUS GELDENHUYS: No, Mr Chairman.  There was an inquest and the judgement was negative.  I accepted the judgement of that inquest.

MR GOOSEN: I put it to you that one of the reasons there was a negative result in that inquest, is because you didn't supply the Prosecuting authorities investigating that matter, with the evidence that you had that one of your Officers, a very senior Officer in the South African Defence force, was responsible for these murders, had authorised them.