Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — UNKNOWN

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: You understood the way you were to operate,
2b	irrespective /...
MEMBER OF COMMISSION	36	D J COETZEE
irrespective of whether this person was connected with the ANC or not, as long as those people were in the house they should just be mowed down?

ANSWER: If they came in the way of the main target yes Mr Chairman, that's correct.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: If they didn't?

ANSWER: Well if they ducked under the beds I'm sure we wouldn't have (indistinct) them, although there was incidents later on, not where I was involved in, where it happened that even the children in the house was taken out and in a specific case in  Swaziland a 10 year old child of the target Mowi(?) Nkosi, he was not in the house because it was again said if the Valiant is parked outside my brief was he's in the house, I did not know of anyone else, I was not told that there was anyone else in the house.   I blew up the house, he was not there he went out with friends apparently, and his 10 year old child got killed as a result.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Well Captain in terms of your manuscript, for them to be killed they don't have to be in your way, all they have to do is be in the house because in terms of the instructions as per the manuscript, your instructions was to kill occupants of the house and that includes people who would have been kneeling under the bed.

ANSWER: Mr Chairman yes, my target was Joyce and Rola Dibali, I wouldn't have gone searching in that house, me myself at that stage, for any other persons.   The house was a well-known ANC safe-house, it was apparently a well-known ANC transit house, used by the ANC in those days and I'm sure they would be able to confirm whether that was true or not Mr Chairman.
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MEMBER OF COMMISSION	37	D J COETZEE

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Is there a chance that you would be able to remember exactly what the nature of your instructions were, as per the manuscript or as your application because that may be relevant to your amnesty in respect of the unknown?

ANSWER: Well Mr Chairman, the target was Joyce and Rola Dibali and if anyone else in the house came in the way, they would have been victims too, unfortunately yes.

CHAIRPERSON: This business about if anybody else came in the way are just words you are using.   You went there to kill Joyce and Rola Dibali and whoever else was in the house, whether they got in the way or not.   Is that not what you really did?

ANSWER: Can Mr Chairman just complete please, I couldn't...

CHAIRPERSON: Although your instructions were to eliminate the Dibali's, what you did was to eliminate whoever else was found in the house, whether they got in the way or not.

ANSWER: Mr Chairman as I already said, the main targets were Joyce and Rola Dibali, unfortunately in an incident like that anyone else in the house that came in the way and as a result of the power failure and no lights there, I'm sure that everyone in the house would just have been shot at random, that's correct Mr Chairman.

JUDGE WILSON: You didn't know Joyce and Rola Dibali did you?

ANSWER: I did not know them.

JUDGE WILSON: So you would not have been able to say whether you were shooting at them or not, you would have shot anyone in the house wouldn't you?

ANSWER: Mr Chairman, in a way that's true but that was the reason why Joe Mamasela was to accompany us because he knew
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MEMBER OF COMMISSION	38	D J COETZEE
the two targets, Joyce and Rola Dibali.

UNKNOWN: Mr Coetzee we know that Rola wasn't there.

ANSWER: To us Mr Chairman it was explained as I said, if the bakkie is parked next to the house, which it was, then he was in the house.   That was our brief, that was the information we got.

UNKNOWN: But in fact he wasn't there.

ANSWER: I believe so afterwards yes, I understand that he wasn't there.

UNKNOWN: In fact another woman was mistakenly identified as Joyce by Mamasela?

ANSWER: I can't say what went through his mind when the two women exited the house.   According to what I can remember, Joyce was the woman he shot at point blank, he claimed.

UNKNOWN: Yes he claimed but it proved afterwards not to be the case.

ANSWER: It proved not to be the case, that is correct Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: So he shot another woman instead of Joyce and he was the one to identify Joyce?

ANSWER: That is correct, the other woman that ran back into the house was also shot at which eventually then proved to be Joyce Dibali according to the statement that was handed up to the, Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: She had only light shrapnel wounds.

ANSWER: Yes it's not clear in that statement, bullet wounds are being talking of in the thigh and upper leg, they went to the hospital, the wounds were treated, they were sent back and had to come back the next day so I accept that the specific naming of "bullet wounds" must have been
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MEMBER OF COMMISSION	39	D J COETZEE
shrapnel otherwise the hospital wouldn't have sent them home Mr Chairman.

UNKNOWN: Was Joe Mamasela actually sent to Bophutatswana and did he stay in this very house during his briefing or infiltrating the ANC?

ANSWER: Mr Chairman at the time Joe was still a very sensitive, identified source from the outside, working specifically with Captain Jan Coetzee of Westrand Security Branch, whom together with Major Kruger recruited Joe whilst being a waiting trial prisoner in a criminal case in the Krugersdorp prison in late 1979, I think July.   At that stage Joe was still working closely, he only came to Vlakplaas together with Captain Jan Coetzee permanently in February 1982, two months after I've left the farm and Captain Jan Coetzee took over the farm as Commander.

UNKNOWN: In your manuscript paragraph 5.4.12.1.5 you say
"Captain Jan Coetzee from Westrand Security Branch in Krugersdorp handled Joe Mamasela who used to live in the target house of this mission whilst undergoing ANC crash-course training."

ANSWER: That's correct, that I knew in brief, very in brief.

UNKNOWN: Well that's what I've been asking you, wasn't this the very house that he received training in?

ANSWER: Yes it must have been, I don't have first-hand knowledge thereof but as I say I'd heard that he, that was the house where he was infiltrated and he stayed there.

UNKNOWN: Yes but now you answered and said yes but he was still due to receive training, he was only a youngster brought in then and according to this he'd already completed
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MEMBER OF PANEL	40	D J COETZEE
his training there.

ANSWER: What I actually want to say Mr Chairman, he was not with me at Vlakplaas, I didn't have first-hand knowledge of his collection of information of his details of his training, only that he did stay in that house while undergoing training and whilst he was still under the wing of Captain Jan Coetzee and Westrand Security Branch.

JUDGE WILSON: But you go on to say immediately after the passage my brother has just read to you
"Joe did of course, during my time, join us at Vlakplaas when not needed by Jan Coetzee."

ANSWER: That's correct, when Jan Coetzee couldn't use him he worked with specifically, more specifically with the Western Transvaal group, Captain Koos Vermeulen.

JUDGE WILSON: At Vlakplaas, that's what you say, read it.

ANSWER: I can see it Mr Chairman please bear with me, as I said this manuscript was written in exile, it was written on memory only, if word selection as such is he was not based on the farm, he was based with West Rand Security Branch, he was paid by West Rand Security Branch and when not needed there he would operate with the Western Transvaal group, mainly in Western Transvaal.

MR JANSEN: Mr Chairman if I could possibly just come in here, there seems to be a slight misunderstanding.   Mr Coetzee you refer to the "Western Transvaal group" and Captain Vermeulen, could you just explain how that relates to Vlakplaas?