Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-17

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Yes, regarding the owners of the building, Mr Sonn, as I understand it.  I also saw some of the statements of the people who were injured although the injuries weren't very serious.  The after effects of those injuries is known to me and I apologised to everyone.  I also apologised to those people who are not at the proceedings today, to me it is wider than just the representation today.  It is about the community out there, the Athlone Community, the children who could not go to school the next morning and the disruption that happened as a result of it and I know it is very difficult for the people to understand why we acted in the way that we did but it was in a situation of an undeclared war.  Unfortunately the war was not fair play and it is regrettable that it had to happen like that and I hope that my role in the future in the country and as I could do it for the past couple of years will prove to everyone in the country that I am determined and I'm also committed to make my life and also the new South Africa a success.

MR MARTINI: Mr van Zyl, have you now accepted the new political dispensation which prevails in the Republic of South Africa at present?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: Yes I have, I have no problem with it.

MR MARTINI: Mr van Zyl, finally, as you sit here today, how do you feel and reflect on the deeds you committed approximately eleven years back when you were employed by an institution which was an organ of the State then obviously controlled by the Nationalist Party?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I have often answered that question, Mr Chairperson, or the question had been posed to me quite often in the past and I always said that it is regrettable that the then National Party and the ANC and also other organisations could not sit around a table to solve the problems and that people like myself and other freedom fighters on all sides and soldiers were used in able to reach political goals and score political points.   It is regrettable that this happened, it happened on the other hand, it is part of our history and we cannot change it.  I am today very glad and I hear that as many of you will say and it is often spoken about warfare and I know I was part of a warfare system.  War is not the solution, it is not a solution for any country or for any problem and I am a lot wiser than I was ten years ago, I support what is happening in the country, I support it one hundred percent and naturally there are processes and there are things that happened that one doesn't totally agree with but everyone can have his own opinion but in principle I have not problem and I will never ever again and I am on record as saying this, I will never ever again avail myself for any government organisation or any other organisation whatever the case may be to do what I did ten years ago.

MR MARTINI: Thank you Mr van Zyl.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MARTINI

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Wessels, do you have any questions you would like to put to Mr van Zyl?

MR WESSELS: No questions, Chairperson.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR WESSELS

CHAIRPERSON: Mr P du Plessis?

MR P DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairperson, just one aspect.
	Mr van Zyl, I just want to get some clarity about the events immediately after the CCB was made public.  Mr Joe Verster acted a little bit like a cat on coals and I just want to get some clarity here.  According to your knowledge, your personal experience, were the CCB senior officers prepared to make the CCB public directly after your arrest?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: No, Mr Chairperson, on the contrary it was said to me very clearly that no admittance would be made and that under the circumstances I would have to run the risk on my own to possibly be prosecuted.  So the senior management of the CCB in as far as I understood it in as far as I experienced it, distanced themselves from what I testified at the Harms Commission.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Maybe we can just go a little bit further back and I want to put it, I don't think it came out clearly on the record, you were arrested in accordance with Section 29 of the Internal Security Act in December 1989, in January 1990, am I correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: It was on the 1st February 1990 that I was detained until 28th February 1990, Mr Chairperson, in accordance with Section 29.

MR P DU PLESSIS: There was an application to have you freed, it was not successful, is that correct?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is true, an application was brought by my then spouse, I did not know about this application, I had no contact with anyone outside my cell.

MR P DU PLESSIS: After you were released you did hear about this, is this true?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

MR P DU PLESSIS: There was then an order for cost made out against your wife, the applicant?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct, Mr Chairperson.  There was an order given against me because it failed and the Defence Force distanced themselves from this application and according to me this was due to the fact that I had made statements and I was prepared to testify in front of the Harms Commission and those costs which were about R20 - R25000, I paid them off over a time of four years.

MR P DU PLESSIS: And you personally had to stand in for this and the Defence Force did not help you at all?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is true.

MR P DU PLESSIS: After your release and your decision - well let me put it to you in the following way, your decision to cooperate was amongst others based on the then State President's call to the operators to cooperate and as he put it to disclose the entire matter, do you remember those words of the State President?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I remember it very well, I did that as a result of the request that had been made but I also want to tell you, Mr Chairperson, that for me it was very clear at that stage that myself and possibly of my other colleagues would be set aside and possibly be made scapegoats and there were attempts to connect us to far right organisation which would have been false and I decided that in the interests of my own survival I would have to do what is right and what is true.

MR P DU PLESSIS: And the evidence that you gave here yesterday and also today is exactly what you said ten, eleven years ago?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

MR P DU PLESSIS: Maybe just one aspect, after you were released from detention is it correct that you were even called to meetings with the legal representatives of the senior officers in Pretoria and Adv Burger where Gen Witkop Badenhorst was also present?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is true.

MR P DU PLESSIS: And is it true that the aim of this meeting and also another meeting in Johannesburg where the involved persons were present, what was to convince you to say nothing about the CCB?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is the case, Mr Chairperson, but I have to confirm that the meetings that I had had with Gen Witkop Badenhorst at that time and also with Gen Krappies Engelbrecht of the SACP and Gen Witkop Badenhorst who was from the South African Defence Force, that was before my detention in terms of Section 29.

MR P DU PLESSIS: In any case you confirm, we are limiting ourselves here to Gen Witkop Badenhorst, can you please tell us what his job description was at that time?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: I'm not completely sure, I think he was the Chief Staff of the Intelligence, something to that extent.

MR P DU PLESSIS: But it was a very senior post here in the South African Defence Force?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is correct.

MR P DU PLESSIS: And it was specifically aimed at keeping you quiet so that you would not give the necessary co-operation?

ABRAM VAN ZYL: That is true.

MR P DU PLESSIS: And could I put it in the following way that the other operators that are mentioned here were applying for amnesty, I'm talking about Burger and Maree and Basson, that I am personally representing, also experienced the same pressure according to you?