MR VISSER: Visser on record. I have a few questions in re-examination to Mr Williamson.
CHAIRPERSON: Not quite re-examination.
FURTHER CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Oh well, further examination sorry Mr Chairman. Mr Williamson, having listened to the cross-examination on behalf of various of the applicants and other persons here, one can be forgiven to having come to the conclusion that Gen Coetzee and yourself along the line of thinking of those questions, must have had a hand in the pie in just about everything that went on in this country during the struggle. I want to ask you as far as suggestions were made that you yourself, were guilty of much more that what you admitted to before this Committee, what do you say to that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, any acts that I committed that I regard as illegal, I have applied for amnesty for.
MR VISSER: And so did Gen Coetzee say - now, I don't want to go into every question, suggestion or innuendo that was passed. I am just going to ask you this one omnibus question.
You, yourself, and in your own knowledge, do you know apart from the London bomb, of any illegal act or unlawful act that was performed, committed by Gen Johan Coetzee or that he had knowledge of, you yourself?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: Yes. Lastly, it seems does it not, Mr Williamson, that history has a way of repeating itself if one looks at the newspapers of this morning, and looking at another invasion into Lesotho, not so?
MR WILLIAMSON: It does bring back 1981 Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: I have no further questions Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER
CHAIRPERSON: We finally get to re-examination.
RE-EXAMINATION BY MR LEVINE: Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, I believe my estimate to you given late during the day, was wrong, I think I will be somewhat quicker.
Mr Williamson, my learned friend Mr Du Plessis put a question towards the end last night and he was interrupted by Mr Bizos, who objected and said surely that is within the province of your Attorneys duties. All I would like to know from you in regard to that, what was the objective behind the letter bombs?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, every act that I committed that I am applying for amnesty for, and everything else that I ever did in my service in the Armed Forces, the Security Forces, was aimed against the African National Congress, South African Communist Party alliance and had political motives Mr Chairman, in order to destroy them and to destroy their onslaught against the Republic.
MR LEVINE: You were asked by Mr Chairman in dealing with the London bomb as to the time the bomb was set to explode. You initially answered approximately 06H00?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: It was then put to you that if the evidence will show that the bomb went off at 09H00, having been set for 08H30, what would your attitude be?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I said, I did have the impression that the bomb was supposed to go off earlier than it did, but I knew from discussions, there had been a window of time that had been established and I believe that as I said then, that 08H30 would have been within that window of time Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: How long ago was the London bomb?
MR WILLIAMSON: It is 16 years ago Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Was the positioning of the bomb important?
MR WILLIAMSON: It was very important Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Why?
MR WILLIAMSON: In order to achieve our objective in the way that we had been ordered to achieve the objective, and the way we had been ordered to achieve the objective was to avoid if humanly possible, any injuries or death Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Well, in fact we know that there was only one injury to Mr Mtamba and a lady was sent, went to hospital suffering from shock.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Did you know at the stage of the London bomb, of the planned Sharpeville ceremony later that day?
MR WILLIAMSON: I can't remember that it was specifically Sharpeville, in fact it would have been, I think the 21st of March was the so-called Sharpeville Day and this was the 14th of March and we were aware that there was some gathering planned later in the day for I believe, Trafalgar Square.
CHAIRPERSON: It was a fairly usual meeting place for this sort of gathering wasn't it, it was immediately outside South Africa House?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Mr Bizos sought to depict you as deceitful, being a spy and a good one, would this be normal?
MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry Mr Chairman ...
MR LEVINE: Deceit would be part and parcel of spying?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I lived, I was put into that life from about 1971 and I lived it until I went into politics in 1987, when the type of deceit was a little different, but that was what was going on, it was a clandestine, secret war.
I was in particular involved in the covert, clandestine, secret war against the ANC and the Communist Party.
MR LEVINE: As opposed to politics?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, that was as I said ...
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson, Mr Bizos has sought to suggest that because you were a spy and did things that were deceitful, this Committee can't accept your evidence as being truthful, would you comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I entered into this process at least four years ago knowing full well that a process which I had supported, had meant that there would be an election in this country and that the majority would win that election.
I have been trying for the last four years, and hoping that what we did here would be the final unburdening of the history of what I did in 26 years of covert political warfare basically against the ANC and the Communist Party. Obviously the main objective of this hearing is for me to ask for amnesty.
As I think I mentioned the objective is also wider, it is personal, it is to get this done and to tell what happened. It will be on record, my children can read it in the future.
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson, there were questions by Mr Bizos about the second Gaberone raid, do you have any involvement about that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not the second raid, no Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Had you in fact already left the Defence Force?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I had left the police, I was then in the Defence Force.
MR LEVINE: Police yes.
MR WILLIAMSON: But my role in the Defence Force as I said, was as SO1 in charge of "ander lande" which was, I was dealing with the geopolitical implications of Soviet power, etc Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: A document was put to you, Exhibit W about Sanhedrin, do you have it or can I put one in front of you?
MR WILLIAMSON: I am sure I have it here somewhere.
MR LEVINE: Let me put one in front of you.
MR WILLIAMSON: We have it here Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Did you coin the name Sanhedrin for the meetings?
MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, I am sure that name existed possibly even before I was born Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Mr Bizos sought to suggest that some sort of death sentences were dealt with at these Sanhedrin meetings, what do you say about that?
MR WILLIAMSON: I think as I said Mr Chairman, in my evidence, the Sanhedrin was almost a rapid fire, quick report back meeting Mr Chairman, and there was no discussion or death sentences passed Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Where does the term Sanhedrin come from?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well, I at the time thought it was a Biblical term, but I have now actually seen that it is an old Rabbinical term from what I read here Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: If you read the first paragraph of Sanhedrin, you will see that it is a (indistinct) of the Greek, Synédrion, meaning assembly?
MR WILLIAMSON: I see that Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Yes. Now, do you have any knowledge about the Jewish (indistinct) laws?
MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, but perhaps my legal advisor can assist me in that area Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: It could be a very costly opinion Mr Chairman. Mr Williamson, read the last paragraph please to yourself of Exhibit W. Tell us what that sets out as being the purpose of the Sanhedrin?
MR WILLIAMSON: From in the course of Jewish history?
CHAIRPERSON: Is there any importance to be attached to the Sanhedrin point? The applicant has said that he doesn't know where it came from, and it already existed when he joined the Committee, isn't that an end to it?
MR LEVINE: I would think so. Mr Williamson, did you apply your mind to whom the letter bomb which killed Ruth Slovo was addressed?
MR WILLIAMSON: I have applied my mind over the last four years to that Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Did you apply your mind to whom the letter bomb which killed Jeannette and Katryn Schoon, was addressed?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, I have applied my mind. I know it was addressed to Marius and Jeannette Schoon.
As far as the Ruth First bomb is concerned Mr Chairman, I spent 12 years of my life convinced that that bomb was going to Joe Slovo, and it was only four years ago that I started having doubts about it and that is why I made my application in the way that I made it, encompassing Ruth and Joe Slovo Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: You were questioned by Mr Bizos about your having been best man at Charles Nupen’s wedding.
ADV DE JAGER: I think that has been solved too.
MR LEVINE: It was in fact all I wanted to clarify for the record, Mr Bizos quite properly some five days after that line of questioning, withdrew this assertion, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: What is your comment about the fact that there were only four South Africans in Lobango?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I believe I said I have no personal knowledge that there were only four South Africans in Lobango, but given the nature of Lobango at the time and the military bases around Lobango, as I think, I believe I said, that this would have just served to make people more suspicious Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: What were your suspicions about the Schoon's in Lobango?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, my suspicions and the suspicions of other people in the Security Forces were that they were there as part of continuing their work with the ANC, Communist Party alliance, the revolutionary onslaught against South Africa and in specific Mr Chairman, Lobango, it is well know, was an area that was being used for infiltrations by SWAPO. It was also an area that was being used in the confrontation against UNITA by the ANC and the Angolan and other Forces Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: And you said in Botswana in the ANC, there was a spy v spy situation. Could you explain that please?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, throughout my history as a spy as it were, now I am talking not as a spy master, afterwards running other spies, but actually being the spy undercover, it was common procedure in clandestine organisations and within organisations working with or related to the African National Congress, Communist Party alliance, that there was constant paranoia about South African agents infiltrating and there were constant questions about various people in the organisations, related to the organisation.
I was on many occasions asked about other people, I am sure other people were asked about me. That was part of the Security process that was caused by this paranoia about South African infiltration Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: But it wasn't really a paranoia, was it, it was a well thought out suspicion?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I didn't mean that it was an unbiased paranoia. The fact that the ANC, Communist Party alliance was so well infiltrated had led to the state of paranoia Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Instead of paranoia, would you perhaps consider mindset as being a better description?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, there was a belief that South African agents were around and were dangerous. They were regarded as the enemy Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Why do you believe that Mr Mac Maharaj wanted you to travel to Angola?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, at the time when I was talking to Mr Maharaj about travelling around and meeting, I thought it was to meet, to continue to get instructions from him on what I was doing for the ANC, Communist Party alliance.
I can only now come to the conclusion Mr Chairman, that there may well have been a level of suspicion against me which had meant that they would lure me or order me to go to Angola where I could be detained and possibly killed Mr Chairman, as a South African agent. But that is what I surmise now hearing what I hear now Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson, during your cross-examination you mentioned a man called McGiven. Can you just deal with that quickly?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes. Mr Chairman, Arthur McGiven was the agent of the National Intelligent Service who I referred to in my evidence, and who left South Africa with considerable information relating to the National Intelligence Service and to South Africa's Intelligence activities, which led to various articles in the British press in I believe, January, February 1980 and I had been at University with McGiven.
I had come to know, I had obviously realised that if he was a member of Intelligence and he was sitting on the Student Desk at National Intelligence, he must have known who I was or that I was at least an agent Mr Chairman.
When one of the articles said that there was a specific South African Intelligence operation using the International University Exchange Fund, I realised then and my superiors realised then Mr Chairman, that it didn't take as I think I said, a rocket scientist to go through all the employees of the IUEF and pick out the most likely South African spy Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: What do you say about Mr Bizos' suggestion that you acted with ill will, malice and spite towards the Schoon's because they had exposed you as a police spy?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, I didn't act out of any malice or spite and I really have never heard this theory that they exposed me or they were specifically involved in exposing me until this hearing Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: I would like you to have a look at Exhibit AA, it is a telefax from Mr Alfred Nzo to, who is it to by the way? Do you have AA, let me give it to you.
MR WILLIAMSON: I think this is it, is it the one from the ANC to SWAPO?
MR LEVINE: It is marked "press statement". You say it is from the ANC to SWAPO?
MR WILLIAMSON: I, yes I believe so Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: If you look at the final paragraph, how is Ruth ...
MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, it was identified as a press release. I don't know where it is suggested that it was to SWAPO. Presumably it also went to SWAPO, but it was a press release if I remember correctly, relating to the death of ...
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Bizos, start again.
MR BIZOS: It was a press release Mr Chairman, relating to the death of Jeannette Schoon. That is how I remember it and that is how it was put in. I don't know if the applicant or his Attorney have any other information.
MR LEVINE: No, this is why I asked, I didn't say who it was sent to and it is marked "press statement". My recollection is it was described as a press statement.
If you have a look at the ...
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, you know I have seen a lot of these things and this is an ANC telex, it may well be a press statement, and it is from the ANC to SWAPO. It is in fact, it is from the ANC in Zambia and it is addressed to SWAPO in Angola. The number 3069 is the telex number of SWAPO and AN denotes Angola.
But I mean that is, I accept it is a press statement Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson, how is Jeannette Schoon described in the second line and third line of the final paragraph?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well, as a late dear comrade in arms.
MR LEVINE: Thank you.
MR WILLIAMSON: And who did not struggle in vain.
MR LEVINE: Now, reference was made yesterday to some organisation called E & LC and you had difficulty in recalling it. Have you been able to recall what that was at this stage?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I haven't. As I say the letters mean something to me, but - and I accept what was put to me by Mr Bizos, that it has something to do with Military Ordinance something or other.
MR LEVINE: But you cannot attach ...
MR WILLIAMSON: I don't know what the specific letters stand for Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Now, you also spoke yesterday afternoon of a man called Jaap van Jaarsveld. Do you remember that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Did you know the gentleman?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, at one stage he was on my staff Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: What function did he fulfil?
MR WILLIAMSON: I don't specifically remember Mr Chairman, but I - after having been reminded, I do remember that he came from the Secretariat of the State Security Council. He was well academically qualified.
I believe he had some analyst function and I have some recollection that he was involved, if I am not wrong, in Stratcom, but I don't even know which section. I cannot remember which section of the nine sections that he actually fell under Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Did you send Mr Van Jaarsveld to carry out surveillance on Mr Goniwe?
MR WILLIAMSON: I did not Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Did you ever have any motive or receive any instructions to eliminate I think is the word, Mr Goniwe?
MR WILLIAMSON: I did not Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I trust I have come within my undertakings to you time wise.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LEVINE
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that you have, thank you.
MR SIBANYONI: Mr Williamson, I want to ask you some question in clarifying the letter bomb or the envelope to Ruth First. The way you explained it, it would appear when it came back from Mr Raven, there were two small envelopes in a big envelope, is my analyses correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman. I think there was the original postal envelope and then there was another envelope in which I assume, the IED was Mr Chairman.
MR SIBANYONI: To my mind, I have expected that Mr Raven as an expert, will complete the work, in other words he would put the envelope where there is an IE in the original envelope, in other words he wouldn't leave it to somebody else who didn't have that much experience in explosive to put the envelope in the original envelope? To put the bomb in the original envelope? What do you say about that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I said I - my recollection is, I think it probably was in the original envelope. All I did was to look and see as I said, whether it looked any different and what I meant by that was, you know, I had never seen one of these before Mr Chairman, and I just wanted to see if you know, if there was a big bomb in the packet for example, and I was surprised that it looked so normal Mr Chairman.
MR SIBANYONI: We were also told that the Schoon's had left Botswana because of a threat by the South African agents to attack them? Do you have any knowledge of that threat?
MR WILLIAMSON: I don't have any specific knowledge of a threat that was made. I thought it was more that, not that there was - somebody had threatened them, but that it appeared from information that people had the ANC or we even heard that the British government had advised the ANC that they had Intelligence information that the Schoon's were under threat.
In other words that there was a possibility that the South African Forces were going to try and kill them. That is how I understood it. I didn't understand that somebody had phoned them or sent them a letter, threatening them Mr Chairman.
MR SIBANYONI: Right. You said the instruction or the suggestion to put a bomb in an intercepted letter came from Brigadier Goosen. I want to find out how high was Brigadier Goosen, would we accept that if this idea originated from him, he was highly placed enough to say he was acting on behalf of the police or the Security Police?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that is the assumption I would have made, but because those postal items came from somewhere, they wouldn't have - they weren't manufactured by us. They came from somewhere and they went somewhere, so you know, I assumed that this was an instruction as I said I think several times, that somebody somewhere decided that Brigadier Goosen or Major Williamson's division can take care of this. The instruction was made Mr Chairman.
I didn't question, I just did what I was asked to do Mr Chairman.
MR SIBANYONI: I heard you saying you declined using funds from the Legal Aid, but I didn't get you, what was your reason for declining that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I took a decision during this process to be independent. I didn't want, I was trying to avoid any suggestion that I was involved in a conspiracy of silence by the Security Forces or we were all grouped together and working together and that I was still being funded from the Security Force's side Mr Chairman.
I just made that comment, trying to illustrate that I really tried to say I want to say what I want to say and nobody ... (tape ends)
MR SIBANYONI: ... with you not intending to have anything to do, any assistance from the present government, that is not the reason?
MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, it is that I don't want anybody, it was purely so I could be independent and that no allegation could be made that somebody was holding some type of sword of Damocles over my head, Mr Chairman.
MR SIBANYONI: If what was the main concern was to fight communism, there were two offices in London, the one belonging to the ANC, the other belonging to the Communist Party, South African Communist Party, I have expected that perhaps the one to be attacked, was that one belonging to the South African Communist Party, what do you say about that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well, Mr Chairman, I, as I said from the beginning, from a practical point of view thought that attacking the South African Communist Party, was completely out.
I am talking now purely from a practical point of view in terms of damage and potential threat to life and limb, but secondly from the political point of view Mr Chairman, an attack, I believe also, on the South African Communist Party office wouldn't have had anywhere near the same impact as an attack on the ANC Mr Chairman.
We believed and it is in the documentation that I have given the Committee, it wasn't just my belief, it was an absolutely entrenched belief right through the Intelligence Services of South Africa, but also throughout the western world Mr Chairman, that the African National Congress was very strongly linked to the Soviet Union and the use by the Soviet Union of surrogate international terrorist forces, the belief at that time Mr Chairman, was that the Soviet Union could not risk open confrontation with the western world, because obviously of the dangers of escalation and therefore it was working through the so-called revolutionary movements in many countries in the world Mr Chairman.
As far as we were concerned, the ANC was the focal point, the ANC was the organisation that was doing things. The ANC was the organisation that in fact had to be branded as terrorists.
I think everybody in the world, in the western world regarded the South African Communist Party as just you know, a department or a sub-department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mr Chairman.
MR SIBANYONI: Finally, how would you react to a suggestion, I am just putting it as a suggestion, it doesn't mean this is my belief, to say it would appear what was being fought was not communism, but was to prevent a majority government and to maintain a white rule?
Why I am saying that is because the South African Forces were also involved in Rhodesia and I am not sure whether the liberation movements in Rhodesia would also be viewed as communists?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I will try and give a short answer to that one.
That is that what I believed then and what I believe now, are two different things. I think I also tried to illustrate yesterday in answer to one of the questions that my belief now is that we were all, that the men and women in the Security Forces and in the Armed Forces and revolutionary Forces or whatever one wants to call them of the then revolutionary alliance, were used ultimately as pawns on an international geopolitical chess game.
I have said this before and I have written it, that I think one of the greatest tragedies that has ever struck this country of ours, is that we ended up fighting South African against South African, South African against Angolans, South African against Mozambican, Botswanan, Zimbabwean, that we here in this sub-continent ended up fighting and killing each other as part of a geopolitical war, an east/west struggle.
I accept absolutely that the ANC and the South African Communist Party had their reasons to go across to armed struggle in 1961, and I hope and accept and I expect that there is some understanding from their side that we also had our reasons to go across into meeting violence with violence.
And that we felt threatened, we believed that there was a super power that wanted to destroy us as part of its goal to make like the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, we seriously believed Mr Chairman, that somebody wanted to create a Union of Southern African Republics of Socialist Southern African Republics and it is not only me that believed that Mr Chairman.
I think to go into the whys and wherefore's, that we could write historical books about Mr Chairman, but that is what we believed. At the end of the day, as I said at the Armed Forces hearing, we didn't see the ANC and the Communist Party struggle for freedom and justice and democracy and the vote and human rights as what was really going on Mr Chairman, we saw them as an alien enemy. We treated them as such.
That is the tragedy of what happened in this country, and I think from their side also Mr Chairman, they saw us as only Jack booted monsters, defending white privilege and apartheid Mr Chairman, and I don't think that my view of them then as being Stalin's legions wanting to rampage through Africa and create a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics here, in southern Africa was correct.
But I had that perception, and I don't think that their view of us then and perhaps sometimes their view of us now, is that we were the other side of that coin. The racist storm troopers of apartheid Mr Chairman, I think it was a lot more complicated than that.
MR SIBANYONI: In fact you reminded me, you even said before this Committee, that you do not see them as you used to see them in the past? In other words your view has now changed?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I have had the humbling privilege to in many instances meet people who have been my enemy and to be now working with them. It is something that makes it very difficult to understand what, how what happened, could have happened. But it did Mr Chairman.
MR SIBANYONI: Thank you Mr Chairman, no further questions.
ADV DE JAGER: Exhibit BB and Exhibit DD, that is the photograph and copy of a photo, and a sketch plan.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.
ADV DE JAGER: Perhaps you would know the vicinity better, could you try and give us a reliable layout of the ANC offices?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it is as it is depicted here. If one looks at BB, as far as I remember it, there was one single building that stretched from street to street, to White Lion Street to Penton Road, or one terrace of buildings.
The ANC office itself, as one can see from the photograph and I think in fact the original photograph even shows it better, went back northwards to the back area. I was not, I was many times in this office through this front door Mr Chairman, and I was never personally in the back yard, but I knew from being there, that there was this back yard, that there was a type of a printing press, annexed that stuck out of the building into the back yard.
As far as I remember also, the wall was in fact, I would say a two meter wall and it was a corrugated iron wall, and there was access to the ANC's area at the back, and then in the years that followed and before the bombing Mr Chairman, I saw on many occasions surveillance photographs and I knew for example that there was a school there Mr Chairman, because we in fact used that school to take some surveillance photographs from. Or I believe that certain agents used that school.
But unfortunately after this number of years and all the confusion, all I can say is that in this building that is on BB, that part of it was the ANC office, and I don't think in fact it was an Italian delicatessen next door. I remember it to have been a Greek type of eating restaurant.
The purpose of nearly two weeks of surveillance Mr Chairman, was to make sure that the people involved acquainted themselves in particular, with the back of the building, which I wasn't particularly well acquainted with personally.
There was never ever, not from the first moment of conception of this operation, an idea that the attack would be the front of this building, the photograph we see, because that would not have been possible to attack that side of the building without having a serious possibility of injuring or killing innocent passers by or people living in the buildings next door.
The idea was to take this building which you can see, and especially as I said, if you can look at that original photograph shows it better, that sort of individual structure that is the ANC part of the building, and with a controlled explosion Mr Chairman, and here I can't give evidence because I am not an expert, a controlled explosion which would scoop our almost like a spoon in a cake, scoop out the inside of that building and to focus the explosion into that building and to avoid if humanly possibly, to damage anything else Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: I want to continue a bit for that, can one assume that on the other side of the road, I am talking now about Penton Street, there was a similar row of buildings?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: It was just an ordinary London street?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is right Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: But at the back there was this wider open space?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is right, in a type of a yard Mr Chairman, where the ANC was and it had an L-shape, the yard, which was because of that annex where the printing press was.
So the explosion could be focused into obviously the printing press which also the allegation was, was where the files were being kept. I mean it was I would say one of the more important rooms in the building Mr Chairman, being as Mr Bizos said, the room that was also used by Jill Marcus who was running the office Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Can you estimate and it is probably a grossly unfair question so long afterwards, how many buildings there were along that block? We can see three in the photograph?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not more than ...
CHAIRPERSON: A lot more?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, not more than five I would say.
CHAIRPERSON: Not more than five?
MR WILLIAMSON: Maybe one, two, three, four, five. I would imagine, yes something like that Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: That is enough to give an - and I take it that they would each have, as normally in such buildings, have had an entrance at the back?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, but from how I remember it is that it was, my instructions to the Unit was certainly to use that gate on the side, the corrugated iron fence gate, to get over and get into behind the ANC office to that annex, specifically that annex Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: And that annex would have not been sticking out as shown in Plan B, at the end of the building, it would have been somewhere about the middle of the building, sticking out into the yard?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, a little bit and I thought also my recollection is that it was more long than, it is oblong here, I thought it was a bit longer than that, but I - yes, here is another one that has been amended Mr Chairman.
This one ...
CHAIRPERSON: Is this Mr Visser's second guess?
MR VISSER: Yes.
MR WILLIAMSON: And that is why I also when I was asked I think by you Mr Chairman, if this accorded I said I had a problem with the gate, because that was ...
CHAIRPERSON: It wasn't right up against the gate, it was well away from the gate?
MR WILLIAMSON: No. Yes.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Visser, your guess or on what basis?
MR VISSER: He has just confirmed it.
ADV DE JAGER: Yes, but on what information, inspection?
MR VISSER: No, but we can go on an inspection.
ADV DE JAGER: We have been waiting for a request.
MR VISSER: But speaking for myself, Mr Chairman, I believe this is an extremely important point and that we really should go and look.
ADV DE JAGER: Yes. Mr Visser, like some of your other points, we don't agree with you.
CHAIRPERSON: Now, if we could go onto something else please. You told us that you, when you visited Mozambique, you were shown photographs of the damage caused by the bomb which killed Ruth First?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: And as I understood your evidence, you were amazed at the amount of damage and decided it must have been some other bomb?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I was and I am referring now specifically to the structural damage.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes.
MR WILLIAMSON: I was amazed.
CHAIRPERSON: Did you discuss the matter with Brigadier Goosen and with Mr Raven on your return?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I believe I mentioned it to, because the photographs would have gone through to the file, and I think I did mention to Mr Raven specifically and I could well have even asked, is this possible that this was the device that you manufactured.
CHAIRPERSON: Because it was important, well, I would have thought that it would have been important that they should have been aware of the amount of damage caused by this device if it did cause it?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, it was several years later that we got the photographs, but you know, I just remember when I got them and I looked at them, I was amazed.
CHAIRPERSON: Because I think in one of these many newspaper cuttings we were given, ...
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, there was the allegation made that it ...
CHAIRPERSON: That it couldn't have been a letter bomb?
MR WILLIAMSON: There was an allegation made that there was a bomb in the desk.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. And this, was it in that bundle of ...
MR WILLIAMSON: I think perhaps that Star article, yes, if you look at the second last paragraph of HH. And then also in GG, the second last paragraph. The third last and the second last paragraph on the first column.
CHAIRPERSON: And that was something that may have been taken up by Security authorities, it seems in fact to have been taken up, you advanced the argument well, we couldn't possibly have left something there, they were too suspicious, it must have been Slovo who did it.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: So they were, the Security people were conscious of the degree of damage caused and tried to make use of it?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, and I think not only ours, but I think other Intelligence agencies got involved in the whole what Stratcom for want of a better word, or ...
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. You have been here a long time Mr Williamson, you may leave now.
MR WILLIAMSON: Thank you Mr Chairman.
WITNESS EXCUSED
