Amnesty Hearings — Durban — UNKNOWN

MR PURSHOTAM: Well if, if it is true that you were engaged in a Guerrilla war, I put it to you that guerrillas select their targets and select their enemy. Who was your enemy in this case?

MR BOTHA: Our enemies at that stage were the National Party Government and any other organisation which opposed the right of the Boerevolk to their own self-determination.

MR PURSHOTAM: But  the bus wasn't a PAC bus, the people were not wearing PAC badges. The bus wasn't owned by the government. How - how did you select that target if the enemy who you've identified had nothing to do with the people you were about to kill?

MR BOTHA: Mr Chairman I indicated in my evidence that waging war is not like a game of chess.  And I referred to the Second World War in which the Germans bombed London and the Britons bombed Berlin and the Americans bombed the Japanese. And these were soft, civilian targets, people who perhaps had nothing to do with the war, but in hundreds and thousands they were blotted out.
The object of any military action regarding the people who orchestrate or organise an attack, in a counter-attack they have got to be shown that if they sustain this dangerous policy that there is going to be - people are going to hit back. That was our aim. I had nothing against the people in the bus, nothing personal. It was a military strategy.

JUDGE WILSON: Well why didn't you attack your enemy, the Nationalist Government?

MR BOTHA: Mr Chairman, I just have to add, that at the time of the attack I don't think my cell - let me put it to you this way - I only began to recruit my members three weeks before the attack.  It was probably hardly a month before the attack that I had been sworn in. We were still at the stage at which we were getting a cell together.
There was not yet any official communication between the chiefs of staff of the Orde Boerevolk and me at that stage, that apart from the instructions that I received when I was sworn in. Neither do I know what actions the Orde Boerevolk were planning in the future against the government. I was just waiting. I established my cell, I was preparing myself for the eminent war and I was waiting for orders.

JUDGE WILSON: But you got no orders. You have just told us that you regarded your enemy as the Nationalist Government and other organisations which opposed the aims of the Orde Boerevolk, is that correct?

MR BOTHA: Not the Orde Boerevolk, not the Orde Boerevolk, the Boer people - Boerevolk as a whole.

JUDGE WILSON: Boerevolk, sorry. That is what you've just told us.

MR BOTHA: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: Now when I asked you why you didn't lodge an attack against your enemies, the Nationalist Party and the other organisations, you start telling me a story about not having been given instructions. But you did launch an attack on some innocent people, can you explain why?

MR BOTHA: Because when I was sworn in, I did in fact receive instructions in that where a structure perpetrating organised political violence, in such a case ten Blacks had to be killed for every White who died.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr Botha, I get a little bit confused about this piece of your evidence, particularly when you refer to - when you give two examples of Americans and the police and the like. I thought the Americans attacked the Japanese because they regarded the Japanese as their enemy. And the Germans attacked or bombed Britain because they regarded the British as their enemy. Now, who in the bus did you regard as your enemy?

MR BOTHA: Mr Chairman, to make this point clear about these parallels, is that when the Germans bombed London, it wasn't only against Government institutions, but against innocent civilians many of them were children. And the reverse also happened when the British did the same to the Germans and the Americans to the Japanese. It wasn't necessarily always against military targets or strategic key points.  In the same way the attacks by the ANC in the past were not directed only at military staff or security forces. Here I could refer to the Church Street bomb, the Mongoose Bar bomb.... [intervention]

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: We'll still come to that but let us deal with the Durban incident. We must still deal with those incidents, if and should they be here before us. Now I, I would have understood you better if you would have said to us you regarded the Black people as your enemy and you went to the bus, you realised that it had Black people and you, opened fire.
It would make sense, not necessarily that I agree with you, but it would make sense. But what you are trying to say to us etcetera is that you regarded the PAC as your enemy, and the Government, et cetera, et cetera as your enemies and the ANC. But then you attacked a bus which of  - you don't know whether PAC was in there, whoever PAC is. Is it not true that really you simply regarded your enemy as Black people and that is why you looked for a bus with Black people and shoot them.

MR BOTHA: Mr Chairman, I did say in my evidence that I did not hate the Black nation or any nation. Since I gained any consciousness, we, I grew up in this country and we grew up next to one another, why should I suddenly develop hate to the degree that I wanted to attack a bus full of innocent people?
The point I am trying to highlight is that the attack wasn't personal. It wasn't because I felt hatred towards any persons. It was a military strategy to make a point vis-a-vis the National Party Government and the ANC. Remember that at the time of the incident, I also said that I was of the opinion that already there was a civil war in the country, perhaps at a very low intensity ... [intervention]

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr Botha, did you regard the people in the bus as your enemy or did you not?

MR BOTHA: No I didn't. This was to make a military point. I did not attack them purely because they were Black because I hated Blacks. I did attack them because they were Blacks but because the PAC had attacked Whites that morning purely because they were White.

MR PURSHOTAM: Thank you Mr Chairman.   Mr Botha your parallels between what happened in the Second World War and what you were engaged in, are to put it mildly, very far-fetched, because you, by your own admission mentioned that you were involved in a guerrilla war, whereas I put it to you that what happened in the Second World War was conventional warfare. So how can you draw the parallel between what happened then and what you were engaged in a few years ago?

CHAIRPERSON: I think that  - I don't think there's any need for us to go into the differences between a guerrilla war and the conventional war that we all know about. I think I'd rather you directed your questions in the interests of your client to the points or the grounds on which you which to oppose amnesty.

MR PURSHOTAM: Thank you Mr Chairman. You mentioned in your evidence in chief that your enemies were the government, the National Party, the ANC, and PAC and that you did not have enough time on that particular day to select a particular target, but if, if it is true that your enemies were the National Party and the government, surely you should have gone to any Government building and blown it up. Why did you select this group of people who were going home after work as your target?

MR BOTHA: I selected the group all for the same reason that the PAC had selected the Whites on the beach. As I said in my evidence, I did not write the rules, the PAC wrote those rules.
Everybody is asking me why did I do that, no, ask the PAC why they acted as they did. There is an idiom in English, you fight fire with fire, and that's exactly what I did.

MR PURSHOTAM: Why should there be any obligation on you to follow the rules of the PAC?

MR BOTHA: There is no obligation on me to follow any rules.  One wages war as the situation presents itself.

MR PURSHOTAM: Why do you bring the rules of the PAC here?