Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

MR DE KLERK: Absolutely, absolutely. But the ethos - can I give you a few comparative examples, the ethos of our profession, the legal profession, is that you are in a position of trust with regard to your clients, but that doesn't prevent now and then, an attorney from stealing from the trust fund. 
The ethos of the Church is that the Church must give spiritual leadership and must be an example, but that doesn't prevent now and then a priest from having an affair and breaking his marriage vows.
So in each and every profession, whenever you bring together 500 people or 10,000 people or 250,000 people and charge them with something, there will be those who move beyond the rules. 
But what is happening here, and what we should prevent, and what I think the Commission has a special task to prevent is to cast a whole spell of collective guilt upon 50% of our nation or 20% of our nation. That cannot be the foundation of reconciliation.

MR GOOSEN: Mr de Klerk, to move on from there. You were asked in the written questions supplied to you last year, whether you had attended any State Security Council meetings at which a list of politically sensitive people, as it was referred to, was discussed, and your written response was, "not to your knowledge".

MR DE KLERK: Which question was that? Could you just refer to the page of my reply.

MR GOOSEN: I will do so in a moment, I'll come back to it. It related to the question about the so-called list of politically sensitive people. I'll give you the page reference in a moment. 
It does appear though that from the State Security Council minutes that we've subsequently been able to gain access to, they are in the bundle there, I'm not asking you for a specific comment in relation to those documents now, but it does in fact appear that you attended two State Security Council meetings at which steps against so-called politically sensitive persons were discussed, namely the meetings held on the 14th of July 1986 and on the 8th of September 1986. And the reference on the 8th of September is that the list of politically sensitive persons had to be shortened and methods other than detentions must also be considered.
Now I accept the fact that you may not be able to here and now refresh your memory as to that event and you may wish to respond in due course to the question, but the State Security Council documents don't contain the list in question and we've not been able to access it, and it's also silent as to what steps were envisaged in regard to that list of politically sensitive people. Would you be able to supply to supply the TRC with the list or to inform us who was on that list, or what your recollection is of that discussion and what steps were taken against those individuals and what were envisaged?
Now let me again immediately say this, I'm not asking you at this point to answer to that question, we've only just supplied you with those documents and you may wish to refresh your memory and consider that and reply to it at a later point.

MR DE KLERK: I would like to do so but I would like also to just generally reply, if you could just read me the exact quotation again, about the list which had to be shortened?

MR GOOSEN: It's at page 51 of the bundle that's been supplied to you. It's -
"...a list of politically sensitive persons had to be shortened and methods other than detentions must also be considered"
to that effect.

MR DE KLERK: Well can I just say that off-the-cuff I have a strong recollection that we didn't want to have so many people in detention, and that plans had to be made to sort of put people into normal society but somehow prevent them from becoming active in revolutionary activities again. 
I remember one distinct issue, and this is with regard to Goniwe, the then Minister of Black Education, and the deputy minister was also involved was asked, and they came forth with a proposal that he could be placed again in a teaching post but in a different town than the town where he got into trouble and where the problems existed. 
So off-the-cuff I would say that within this framework of my strong recollection, we were asking for strategies with regard to specific people to get them out of detention into a situation where they would have a better situation but where they would not get involved in revolutionary activities again.

MR GOOSEN: Alright, just two aspects in relation to that. I indicated I would refer you to your response. ..(intervention)

MR DE KLERK: Can I just say I don't have any documents, you have on this issue of minutes all the documents that I have I don't have special documents of that kind.

MR GOOSEN: Alright, the reference to where your response is in your submissions at page 38 of your second submission, question 1, where you indicate,
"Not to my knowledge, all intelligence service maintain profiles of people they suspect unlawful activities...."
and so on and so forth, you make the point there.

MR DE KLERK: Ja.

MR GOOSEN: The other point in relation to that which we state but leave there, is that in fact at an earlier meeting there were discussions of a list of people in respect of actions which may be taken regarding detention and restriction of those people. So it appears that this list was something other than detention and restriction.
I don't have much further to go, you'll be pleased to know. 
In South Africa in the periods from 1990 through to 1993, and you've spoken of this in great detail, apparent hit squad activity increased dramatically. We know of approximately 300 people who were killed in train attacks in that period. There were some 50 massacres in which ten or more people died. Violence was the pattern at an unprecedented level in our society. Human rights groups and lawyers were exasperated at the failure of the State to apparently take the most basic steps to curtail the violence, which would have included arrest and prosecution of perpetrators, political figures and elements within the security forces, clamping down on use of all types of weapons and so on. 
When lawyers threatened to take legal steps against the police for failing to enforce the applicable laws relating to the prohibition on the bearing of dangerous weapons, carried at that point almost exclusively by I

<UNKNOWN>: P supporters, you took the extraordinary step, Mr de Klerk, of amending the law in question to permit the carrying of dangerous weapons in accordance with Zulu usages, customs and religions. In setting aside your amendment, Mr Justice Didcott in the Natal Supreme stated as follows,
"It is a notorious fact, a fact which every Judge of this division knows full well from his work in criminal cases, that Black people of Natal have been exposed during the past four years or thereabouts to internecine violence on a scale far exceeding anything else experienced by them in modern times, and that they have suffered atrociously as a result. One finds it hard to understand why in a state of affairs so parlous the exemptions from the prohibitions against carrying dangerous weapons were enlarged, why the prohibition itself was accordingly reduced".
Would you have any comment to make about that situation?

MR DE KLERK: The issue of the carrying of dangerous weapons was a very politically sensitive issue, it was an issue which was placed on the table by especially Chief Minister Buthelezi who was up in arms against the idea that we should infringe upon what was described to us as a very fundamental cultural right and convention of the Zulu people. 
I took the step to appoint a small advisory committee, I can't recall all of the names who served on it, but one of the persons who served on it was Professor, I think, Harriet Ngubane of the University of Cape Town. If I recall correctly, we were advised that it is indeed true that at certain occasions it is a deep-rooted custom that traditional weapons should be allowed.