Amnesty Hearings

CHAIRPERSON: Can I add a little confusion to the discussion that I understood you have all been holding this morning. My feeling is that if we are likely to finish the hearing by sitting next Friday, that we should do so.

If we are not going to finish, then I am open to the idea that we should sit on Thursday and not the Friday. A factor that may influence you in assessing this, is that I request now that you should be prepared to address us at the end of the hearing. We don't think this is a matter that requires voluminous written argument.

In the event of you having to address us, I have grave doubts that we are likely to finish the hearing by Friday.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, may I just mention one reservation, and that is that our clients, the daughters of Ruth First, have booked to leave on Friday. At least one of them is going to give evidence after the persons that are seeking amnesty for their mother's death, have given evidence.

If we sit on Thursday, the probabilities are quite high that we will finish ...

CHAIRPERSON: That is the idea, we will sit on Thursday. The question that is open for discussion is, do we sit on Friday as well.

MR BIZOS: Yes, if we have finished that evidence on Thursday Mr Chairman, there will be no problem whatsoever, but there is a theoretical possibility that we may not finish it on Thursday, in which event we will ask to finish it because they are booked to go back.

CHAIRPERSON: That is a matter that we can discuss then. We now have four days in which to get through the evidence and as I understand it, the only other applicants involved would be Mr Raven, Mr McPherson and Mr Bosch and ...

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman, and we don't expect them to be...

CHAIRPERSON: I would be surprised if they took a great deal of time, but then I am frequently surprised.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: But once their evidence has been concluded, we can perhaps interpose Ms Slovo.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, may I revert to the contents of Exhibit ...

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I would apologise for interrupting my learned friend, but perhaps what I am going to say, will again surprise you a little Mr Chairman, but I trust that my learned friend will bear with me and that you will give me an opportunity to address you on a very, very important aspect which I believe should be dealt with before my learned friend proceeds with any further cross-examination.

Mr Chairman, I would apologise at the outset for the fact that my voice is somewhat croaky this morning, it may be as result of the fact that we finished the auditioning of the tapes in other matters at approximately two o'clock this morning. Mr Chairman, you will recall that when my learned friend sought to rely on the tapes and hand in the transcripts yesterday, yesterday morning, I asked for the tapes, the actual tapes for purposes of audition. That may have been a little bit at the feeling of being a little bit dramatic at the stage, but Mr Chairman, what I am going to put to you, shows why that was vitally necessary.

One of the cornerstones of litigation is that one can or should be able to rely on representations and statements made by one's colleagues, particularly Mr Chairman, when one's colleague has the reputation and is as esteemed as my learned friend, Mr Bizos.

Let me take you into a little bit of history as to exact times when tapes were handed over, and what was said when the tapes were handed over. You will also remember Mr Chairman, that you were good enough to remind or to draw to the attention of my learned friend, Mr Bizos, when he had mentioned that there was no reference to Mr Jerry Raven that in fact at page 52 of Exhibit X2 which is the first interview, you drew attention to the fact that Mr Raven's name was in fact there mentioned and we got onto a debate at that stage Mr Chairman, where my learned friend said that there was some formal difficulty or mechanical or logistical difficulty with the tape and what appeared after page 50, shouldn't really, if my memory serves me correctly, have been on that tape and he rather off-handedly said, but that is another discussion and Mr Williamson, my client, would be able to recognise and comment on that other discussion.

The transcript goes up to page 58 and as I understood my learned friend to indicate that from, it should have ended really at page 50. Be that as it may, Mr Chairman ...

CHAIRPERSON: My recollection is that he didn't mention a page, but he did indicate that it was a possibility that a tape may have been added and that that would be clarified.

MR LEVINE: Well, not only did he say it would be clarified, but he said that the applicant, Mr Williamson well knew who the other voice was.

Mr Chairman, my position and the position of my client and possibly that of the other applicants, become even more beset with difficulties if I can continue. At about 16H10 after the adjournment yesterday, I was in discussion with Ms Jill Slovo and my learned friend, Mr Bizos came up and joined the discussion.

What I was told Mr Commissioner, is that we were being given four tapes, comprising two tapes of each interview, being two tapes of interview number 1, the transcript of which is X2 and two tapes of interview 2, the transcript whereof is X1.

It was explained to me at that stage by Ms Slovo that one of the sides of the tapes and I am not sure whether it was side 1 or side 2, had been erased, it did not appear on the tapes, but I was then handed tape 5 where I was told that the particular material that has been erased, would be on that particular tape and indeed, to a certain extent, it was but that was only discovered at approximately two o'clock this morning by my assistant, Mr Nel.

Mr Chairman, you will recall that the Jerry Raven episode which I have mentioned to you, and after we got the four tapes, as I said, we got the fifth tape from an assistant in Mr Bizos' Instructing Attorney's offices, but what is even more alarming about the tape itself, or the tapes, is missing material and perhaps even worse, the fact that the tape and the transcript do not correspond in a number of material respects.

What we have done Mr Chairman, is to mark up such portions as we were able to of transcript of the interview of number 1, which is Exhibit X2 and I would like Mr Chairman, we have made copies and I would like to hand them in and that would be, I believe Exhibit Y.

My learned friend, Mr Visser, suggests X3, but whatever you consider to be appropriate Mr Chairman, we will mark.

CHAIRPERSON: We will rather call it X2(a) and X2(b).

MR LEVINE: Well, so what we were given yesterday, will now become X2(a) and what is being handed in now, will be X2(b). Would that be correct Mr Chairman?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR LEVINE: If one looks at X2(b), Mr Chairman, just for purposes of illustration, if you would be good enough to turn to page 36. Page 36, the pages are numbered at the bottom Mr Chairman.

You will see - does Mr Chairman have it? What we have done Mr Chairman, and it was the best way that we believed it could be illustrated, was to take the tape, the transcript hand it in by my learned friend, and then to write the corrections after listening to the tape, in manuscript above that and do you have page 36 Mr Chairman?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR LEVINE: In the middle of the page, you will see Mr Williamson begins with the words "ja, all right". Then I think what I did say to him and the words there are typed in of which, but it really should read in the passage. He is talking about a discussion with Mr Dirk Coetzee and the transcript goes on some six lines down, to say as follows, to reflect as follows: "and I think you know when I came out of the meeting, he was probably you know, he was at the meeting. He was a junior." That Mr Chairman, should read and clearly appears from the tape to be "that he ...

CHAIRPERSON: What is the relevance of all this Mr Levine? I am interested in passages that differ which were put to Mr Williamson, because I do not understand that these tapes were handed in, these transcripts were handed in as an accurate record, or that any reference was to be made to them, other than the passages that were put to Mr Williamson.

MR LEVINE: The passages that were put to Mr Williamson, differ ...

CHAIRPERSON: Well, that is the ones that we ought to see. The fact that page 36 differs, is irrelevant, because page 36 is not before us.

MR LEVINE: Page 36 is not irrelevant Mr Chairman, because the suggestion has been that Mr Coetzee, Dirk Coetzee was or gave evidence to the effect of what Mr Williamson ...

CHAIRPERSON: But we are not relying on passages in this transcript Mr Levine. Nobody has put them.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, the very provenance and authenticity of the tape and the ...

CHAIRPERSON: Your client confirmed that the tapes accurately reflected what he had said. That is all that we relied on, what your client confirmed.

MR LEVINE: You will recall Mr Chairman, that I asked for my client to be given an opportunity to refresh his memory ...

CHAIRPERSON: Which he did not require Mr Levine, we are not going into that now. Tell me what the purpose of this is now.

MR LEVINE: The purpose of this is to tell you Mr Chairman, that absolutely no reliance whatsoever can be placed on what was put to my client.

CHAIRPERSON: We place reliance on what he agreed to Mr Levine.

MR LEVINE: Well, on re-listening to the tapes, it is clear Mr Chairman, that they do not reflect an accurate ...

CHAIRPERSON: I don't place any reliance on what was put to him. I accept your client's evidence when he says, I said that.

MR LEVINE: Let me get to the kernel of it Mr Chairman, and that kernel of it is at page 50.

You will note ten lines from the bottom of page 50, the handwriting appears "beep, end of side 3". It then was necessary to turn to side 4 Mr Chairman and you will note ten lines from the bottom of the page, alongside the words "start side 4", appears "Mr Blake, the problem we spoke to you, you were concerned about the Committee position and anything that you get in your path, unclear, etc, etc."

That is now no longer Ms Slovo speaking, my learned friend yesterday said Mr Williamson would be able to recognise whose voice that was. But if you turn the next page to 51, you will see that it again becomes Ms Slovo. On listening to this tape, one finds and evidence will be led on this, that in fact, Mr Chairman, the person who is speaking to Mr Williamson on this tape, is none other than Mr Robert McBride.

How Mr Chairman, a tape recording of a discussion between Mr Williamson and Mr Robert McBride, finds its way onto a tape which was taken by Ms Jill Slovo and handed in, I really don't know, but Mr Chairman, whilst my learned friend or rather whilst Mr Williamson, gave permission for Ms Slovo to tape him, he certainly did not give Mr McBride permission to tape him, and the quality of the tape is because of the surreptitious taping a little bit defective, but a recorder and a transcriber who has been running for some 50 pages, then continues to run it as Ms Slovo, that Mr Chairman, is something that requires the explanation.

But more importantly ...

CHAIRPERSON: In the same way as has been done on tape X2(b) as I understand it.

MR LEVINE: I don't understand.

CHAIRPERSON: The tape you have just handed to us, the transcript reflects Ms Slovo, Ms Slovo, Ms Slovo, you are now telling me it shouldn't be Ms Slovo, it is somebody else.

MR LEVINE: It should be Mr Robert McBride.

CHAIRPERSON: So this tape, this transcript is as incorrect as the first one?

MR LEVINE: No, it is not incorrect at all.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, is it Ms Slovo or isn't it Mr Levine?

MR LEVINE: It is not Ms Slovo.

CHAIRPERSON: So it is inaccurate where it reflects Ms Slovo?

MR LEVINE: No, it goes further than that Mr Chairman. This was a tape ...

CHAIRPERSON: I am asking you about the transcript you have handed in this morning?

MR LEVINE: The transcript I have handed in this morning ...

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, which reflects Ms Slovo talking on page 51?

MR LEVINE: It is X2(a) Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: X2(b) you handed in Mr Levine.

MR LEVINE: No, I handed in X2(a).

CHAIRPERSON: No. X2(a) was the original.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, bear with me please. X2(b) was where the correct wording has been superimposed on X2(a).

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and X2(b) the one you handed in, reflects Ms Slovo as having done all the talking on the tape.

MR LEVINE: Absolutely, because that is how the tape was handed in to you yesterday.

CHAIRPERSON: But you have changed, I don't understand you Mr Levine. You have referred me to frequent changes on the tape X2(b).

MR LEVINE: I have changed the - absolutely.

CHAIRPERSON: And then suddenly when you come to this one, you haven't bothered to change it?

MR LEVINE: Oh no, Mr Chairman, that is unfair. I have certainly not as you say, not bothered to change it. What I am saying to you is, the names of the participants still remain Ms Slovo and Mr Williamson, when clearly it is not Ms Slovo, but it is Mr Robert McBride.

CHAIRPERSON: It is the point that I am making to you, if it is clearly Mr Robert McBride, why does your transcript reflect Ms Slovo? Why didn't your transcriber correct it?

MR LEVINE: Because it was left in to illustrate to you Mr Chairman, that the transcriber, this is not done by my transcriber, this is done by my learned friend's client's transcriber, but Mr Chairman, how does a tape with a discussion between Mr Williamson and Mr McBride, find its way into this tape which is a discussion ostensibly between Ms Slovo and Mr Williamson?

CHAIRPERSON: That is a matter which should be explained. Do I now understand from what you have told us, that the one tape contains sides 1 and 2?

MR LEVINE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And the second tape contains sides 3 and 4?

MR LEVINE: One of the sides to those tapes, are missing. The whole of 3 is missing, and page 4 ...

CHAIRPERSON: You say the whole of 3 is missing, but you have just - please Mr Levine, at page 50 of the tape you have just handed in, of the transcript you have just handed in ...

MR LEVINE: That is side 4.

CHAIRPERSON: You have hand-written there big, end side 3?

MR LEVINE: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: So isn't the thing above that side 3?

MR LEVINE: That is part of side 3.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, so it isn't all missing?

MR LEVINE: It isn't all missing, but part of it is missing.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. And then on the other half, other side of the same tape, is side 4 which is the complete change?

MR LEVINE: Which is a change to McBride?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that is what I wanted to know. It is the same tape as was used, side 3 was used by Ms Slovo?

MR LEVINE: Yes, and we then get as part of this, Mr McBride and you will recall Mr Chairman, that my learned friend was at pains to say to Mr Williamson that when Mr Williamson said he was taking the lead or had taken the lead in discussions with the ANC in regard to the amnesty process, but these discussions were going on long before, you weren't the person who had these discussions.

Now we have the discussions with Mr McBride. Now Mr Chairman, how does Mr McBride's tape or a tape involving Mr McBride get to be transcribed on a tape which is that between Ms Slovo and Mr Williamson and how does a senior government official's surreptitious tape of Mr Williamson, get to be amongst my learned friend's documents which he hands up?

CHAIRPERSON: I have no idea.

MR LEVINE: Well, Mr Chairman, I am putting to you a question that requires the strongest investigation.

CHAIRPERSON: Have you asked Mr Bizos?

MR LEVINE: I have asked Mr Bizos nothing about this Mr Commissioner.

CHAIRPERSON: Because you will recollect yesterday he, when I was questioning about page 52, he again and again tried to brush it aside by saying oh, there is some transcript, there has been some mistake in the transcript. He wasn't ...

MR LEVINE: Well, you can't ...

CHAIRPERSON: I am just going on if you will let me, he was not relying on these passages. He was then saying there has to be some enquiry. I am now asking you, have you enquired of him?

MR LEVINE: I have not yet enquired of him.

CHAIRPERSON: Because he said he was going to give us an explanation today as to which was a correct version.

MR LEVINE: Well, Mr Chairman, it has in my view, in my respectful view, gone beyond a mere explanation because the tapes themselves will have to be analysed. In the limited time at our disposal, we were only able to edit and mark up some 30 odd pages in total.

There are two full tapes, in other words four sets, four sides and a fifth tape, and the matter would have to be dealt with by an expert on forensic analysis of tapes.

CHAIRPERSON: If you wish to investigate that, you can happily do so over the weekend Mr Levine. As I have indicated to you repeatedly, it is not the intention of this Committee to rely on anything other than what your client has said he said.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, my client cannot allow or cannot proceed with any further cross-examination until proper and full consideration ...

CHAIRPERSON: He never suggested Mr Levine, that he wasn't sure of anything, that he didn't know, that he was relying on the tape, did he? Your client, as he has in other matters, he said yes, I admit, I said that.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, the matter is extremely serious. The matter relates to a consent by my client for Ms Slovo to tape him and affixed to this, from pages 50 onwards, is a completely different tape.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, and Mr Bizos indicated yesterday that he didn't rely on that tape. It was there by mistake, he didn't want me when I kept on saying but that is what is recorded, he said no, no, this is not this. I agree with you, it is extremely serious as to how it came there, but my recollection is that Mr Bizos never suggested that he was relying on these pages that I referred to, did he? He said there was an error.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, when a colleague hands in a document, purporting to be a transcript of a tape recording which is between Mr Williamson and Ms Slovo, discussions, and that turns out not only to be materially incorrect, but also a tape recording of an unpermitted, a non permitted surreptitious recording by Mr McBride of a discussion with Mr Williamson, what reliance can one place on the submissions of a colleague?

Let us assume we accept that this ...

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Levine, could I call upon you, I don't want us to enter into a discussion about what one colleague did and what another didn't do. I think that is something that you should see eye to eye to with your colleagues and speak about it.

We are not a court of law, so whatever might have resulted, we have got no authority to make any verdict on that. We are only entitled to act according to the Act.

But there is a weekend ahead, couldn't we proceed with what other cross-examination there might be, leaving the tapes aside for the moment, don't refer to them, and would you kindly then, I would suggest, try and sort it out over the weekend, and see what is the position and let's continue with the work and see whether we could finish the applications.

MR LEVINE: Sir, Mr De Jager, it appears to me that this issue and it is a very serious issue, appears to be in the process of being glossed over, and it is a matter that goes ...

ADV DE JAGER: I think you are misunderstanding me, I don't think it is our intention to gloss it over or whatever it may be, but what I suggest is that we should continue with the cross-examination or re-examination, whatever may occur next and that we come back to this matter, when everybody had time, you yourself, to really investigate and see what is going on, and seeing that there is a weekend ahead, you have worked up to two o'clock this morning, I presume you couldn't do whatever you wanted to do, but you will have the opportunity then over the weekend, to really go into the matter and make your submissions after the weekend.

But let's see whether we could try and get on with the evidence today.

CHAIRPERSON: I feel it would be proper, with respect to my colleague, to request Mr Bizos to explain how it came about that on tapes which I understood he handed in as being tapes of conversations with Ms Slovo, how it came about that there was an interview with Mr McBride on the tape, because my clear recollection yesterday when these tapes were handed in, they were handed in as tapes of the interview.

There were explanations that the transcripts were not accurate, that the transcriber had had great difficulty and that when I raised the question page 52, Mr Bizos immediately said oh, that seems to be a wrong tape.

But as to how side 4 came to be an interview of Mr McBride, would be of interest.

MR BIZOS: I was ready actually to give that explanation, it would have assisted my learned friend in his investigations. If there are to be any, and also we owe it to you and the Committee, to explain how this happened.

First of all Mr Chairman, the reason why I was not able to give you an explanation yesterday, was because our Attorney was not here at that time, My Lord, and these tapes were transcribed under the - at the request of and partly the supervision of our Attorney.

We had been working on a draft copy Mr Chairman, that stopped, that stopped at about page 50 and this is why we put that there was no mention of Mr Raven. When the question was raised by you, I was informed by my colleague, Mr Berger, who had a fleeting discussion with Ms Slovo that the tape should really have come, or the transcript should have come to an end at page 50.

I did not want Mr Chairman, to place on record anything which was nothing more than a fleeting statement between our clients and my learned junior, whilst the matter was in session, and this is why I asked for an opportunity to deal with the matter later.

Let me start Mr Chairman, and first of all I will ignore Mr Chairman, the insinuations of Mr Levine about my conduct in the matter, and will not respond to it at all, but I will give the facts and he can do whatever he wants with them in his Investigators and I think that his client, with respect, showed much better sense than he is showing in this matter.

CHAIRPERSON: That is respond Mr Bizos.

MR BIZOS: Well, I am sorry, yes, I won't any more Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, the tapes that were made by Ms Slovo were little tapes, of her interviewing Mr Williamson.

For the purposes of transcription Mr Chairman, those original little tapes were transferred, we are talking about the first interview, was on little tapes, they were transferred Mr Chairman, to cassettes for the purposes of, to cassettes, bigger tapes.

It was from those, not necessarily for the purposes of transcription, but it was from those, that the transcript was made. In relation to the first interview Mr Chairman, it was unclear and what we did was that we had a draft on which we worked and then we asked Ms Slovo to look at it and to hear the tape, because her own voice was involved, it was the voice of Mr Williamson involved, with which she was accustomed. She made changes on the tape, in the hope of getting a better tape.

I want to assure you Mr Chairman, that my learned friend Mr Berger and I, when I put to Mr Williamson that there was no mention of him, by him of Mr Raven's name, that on the copies that we had, were up to page 50 and this is the basis upon which we put it to him, and he agreed Mr Chairman, that that was so, and we stand by that.

Now the question arises, how did a tape which apparently was made by Mr McBride, found itself on that tape? Ms Slovo concerned with determining who killed her mother Mr Chairman, knew Mr Chairman, that Mr McBride had interviewed Mr Williamson.

He gave her, he played for her a tape of that portion that dealt with the death of her mother, and somehow that is the tape that got onto the tape on which the first interview was recorded. She copied that part Mr Chairman, of Mr Robert McBride's recorder, on her tape recorder.

CHAIRPERSON: This was not in South Africa? You have told us that she took the interview on small tapes and then she transferred it to a cassette?

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, Ms Slovo is prepared to explain now precisely how she got it and for what purpose. Would you allow her to say so Mr Chairman?

MR LEVINE: I would like to hear the explanation tendered by my learned friend first, because what I do hear Mr Commissioner, is my learned friend is addressing you and he is getting all sorts of interjections at the same time from the lady sitting behind him.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, can we proceed without going off on tangents in this matter? I have given an explanation on the basis that the portion after page 50 is not an interview with Mr Williamson, and that it found itself there by mistake, in good faith, we are not going to rely on it ...

CHAIRPERSON: But what I asked you Mr Bizos, my recollection and it is a vague recollection was that you told us or told me at some stage, that these tapes had come out from England, which is one of the reasons why they were prepared in such a hurry. So I think when we raised the question why they had not been raised at the pre-trial hearing, I think we were then told they had come out from England?

That was the second tape if I may call it that, that was brought out, was the cassettes?

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, could I just take an instruction, because I know ...

CHAIRPERSON: Well, the instruction behind you is nodding.

MR BIZOS: Well, this is the problem Mr Chairman, that usually Mr Chairman, we accept on face value what we are giving as Counsel.

But Mr Chairman, I did hear during the course when we were pressing them, what has happened to the transcripts of the tape, we were told Mr Chairman, that the originals, some of the small tapes, well, the Attorney can explain Mr Chairman, that one or other of the original tapes had to come to South Africa, although some were here, in the hope that they were clearer than what we had here Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: What I am trying to find out is where this tape, is that on a cassette, where it came from? Was that given to your Attorney as a record of the interview with Mr Williamson?

MR BIZOS: Yes. Mr Chairman, because it was transcribed from Mr McBride's tape recorder to Ms Julian Slovo's tape recorder, at the end of the tape, she transcribed it and in checking it, our Attorney overlooked that it had been added to what was not there before. This is how it happened.

CHAIRPERSON: So the answers to my question is, that this tape, the tape in issue, was given to your Attorney by Ms Slovo in the form it is now?

MR BIZOS: Yes. And Mr Chairman, unbeknown to our Attorney that in the final version, this had been added, not knowing that, we handed it in in good faith Mr Chairman, and my learned friend can make whatever he wants about it, and he can do all the investigations.

Mr Chairman, as far as the continuation of the cross-examination is concerned, the witness has already admitted the correctness of the portions that we have put to him. I intend Mr Chairman, if allowed, to put one other small portion of Exhibit X2. If he has any objection, if the witness has any objection Mr Chairman, we can defer the question, but there is no reason for deferring the cross-examination and there is no reason Mr Chairman, to take seriously the innuendo's of Mr Levine.

CHAIRPERSON: You said we weren't going to debate that Mr Bizos.

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: But it appears to me in the light of the fact that Mr Levine has spent a great deal of time, and has shown a number of errors in the transcription, that it would be proper before you put anything to his client, to discuss with him, whether he has any problems with that portion.

MR BIZOS: Yes, Mr Chairman, I will do that during the short adjournment and perhaps he should show that bit to his client and his client can satisfy himself that he actually did say that, which I am reasonably certain that he will Mr Chairman.

ADV DE JAGER: I must say Mr Bizos, I find it very amusing that a transcriber should type a tape, listening to two voices for 50 pages, and not realising that it is not Ms Slovo speaking on the next tape.

MR BIZOS: She did Mr Chairman, she did, because if you have a look, she said "Mr" and then changed. Perhaps my Attorney can give the explanation for that Mr Chairman.

ATTORNEY:: Mr Chairman, if I can explain and it will assist Mr Levine. We gave him the name of the transcriber. At our office, we do not have the facility to transcribe from big tapes, it was given to Abrescript who is in Pretoria. When Abrescript the transcript to me and Ms Slovo had a look at it, it contained a number of errors.

In an effort for us to deal with the errors, we got the disk from Abrescript, it was given to my secretary and with Ms Slovo's corrections, my secretary corrected it. She did not listen to the tapes again.

Mr Levine is welcome to go to Abrescript to try and get the disc from them, and he will probably notice that the original transcription by Abrescript, says Mr and it's just got a blank line, and then Mr Williamson, and then Mr with a blank line, Mr Williamson. It is my secretary who made the error because she was not listening to the tape.

Otherwise we would have had to go back to Abrescript in Pretoria all the time with every correction that Ms Slovo made to the transcript.

ADV DE JAGER: Yes, but I can't understand your secretary changing what the real transcriber typed, without listening to the tape.

ATTORNEY: ....the real transcriber had no name there.

ADV DE JAGER: And the next thing ...

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, if we have to understand this correctly, whoever gave instructions to the typist to amend it, decided to include the words Ms Slovo in the transcript where the transcriber here in Pretoria, apparently indicated according to the version now, that it was somebody else who spoke.

ADV DE JAGER: Let's leave it there, and ...

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I perhaps just place my position on record in respect of this? I have had yesterday my doubts about this transcript and it effects my client in a serious way, certain things Mr Williamson said.

That is why I made the point that I would want to cross-examine Mr Williamson on certain things he said about Jerry Raven, about the making of the bomb, etc. My view on this Mr Chairman, and I want to place that on record, is Mr Williamson was asked about a transcript on the basis, not that we accept that it is correct, but he was asked on a transcript about a conversation that he had.

He had to testify from memory about that conversation, and on that basis, he accepted the correctness and he accepted the correctness of the transcript on the basis of what was said here.

If it appears that the transcript is not correct Mr Chairman, his acceptance of that evidence cannot be correct and it is unfair in my view, and I am placing that on record Mr Chairman, as my view, it is unfair and it would be unfair and I will argue that, to have any regard to Mr Williamson's testimony in that regard. Even if he accepted the question on the basis of the transcript.

It is also unfair towards my client Mr Chairman, where Mr Williamson had to testify about my client. I have a problem that where I want to cross-examine Mr Williamson now on the basis of this transcript, I have to make sure that the transcript is correct before I can request the Committee to cross-examine Mr Williamson on those parts of the transcript where my client is referred to and one specific problem I have is that Mr Williamson speaks about they, he speaks about different technical sections which appears to differ from my client's version.

I don't want to, in all fairness to Mr Williamson and my client, cross-examine him on something that I am not sure is one hundred percent correct. Furthermore Mr Chairman, from the explanations that have come out now, I want to place on record, that my view is that this is a serious matter, it may have prejudiced Mr Williamson, it may have prejudiced my client, and we want time to investigate this.

I have no problem that cross-examination on other issues carry on.

CHAIRPERSON: But that is what has been suggested.

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, but in respect of the transcript Mr Chairman, I am making my view clear here that I would want to cross-examine Mr Williamson on this, if this transcript is correct and I cannot do that before the transcript is found to have been correct.

We would also in the light of these hearings, and in the light of the opposition to our applications, perhaps and I am placing that on record, would want to cross-examine firstly Ms Slovo on the question of the tapes, secondly the Attorney and thirdly the transcriber. It may be important in respect of these hearings, and also perhaps Mr Robert McBride.

I just want to place that now on record Mr Chairman ...

CHAIRPERSON: Well, nothing that Mr McBride asked or said is on record, is it Mr Du Plessis?

MR DU PLESSIS: Well Mr Chairman, that is so but the strange thing in respect of this Mr Chairman, and that is the point, I do not understand how a surreptitious tape that was made by Mr McBride is suddenly as I understand the explanation, taped over. It means that whoever did that, must have taken the tape with the McBride conversation, decided it is something like a blank tape, take the small little tape, tape the conversation with Mr Williamson over that tape and the end of the conversation ...

CHAIRPERSON: That is not being suggested. What I understand is that there was a blank portion on the end of the cassette tape and Ms Slovo then taped onto that Mr McBride's version, not that it was taped over.

MR DU PLESSIS: All right, whatever the situation is Mr Chairman, the question is the tape on which the McBride conversation was, in whose possession was it? How did it come about, where did it come from and we want to explore that Mr Chairman, because we believe that we have an interest in finding out what the opposition to our applications are about.

Is the opposition to our applications, does it only entail opposition by the Slovo family to our applications, or is the fact that this McBride portion on this tape, indicative of the fact that there is some other reason why our applications are opposed? Is it perhaps the question that there is some larger conspiracy in respect of the opposition to our applications, and what is the position in that regard?

That is something Mr Chairman, that I am placing on record now, that we believe that we want investigated and that we would want to cross-examine the various persons involved in that, in respect of that possibility.

MR SIBANYONI: Mr Du Plessis, will your concerns not perhaps be clarified if you can listen to the original tapes, in so far as those positions which refer to your client?

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes Mr Chairman, but it goes further than that because I was informed by Mr Levine this morning, and maybe he didn't make it too clear, is that when you listen to the tape, there are all sorts of sounds, noises, changes and things happening on the tape, which indicate that those tapes have been tampered with, changed, that there may have been, and I am not saying that happened, we want to find out what the position is, that things have been changed on that tape, and we would appreciate if the small little, original tapes could be made available to us as well as the other larger tapes, so that we can subject that to forensic investigations, so that we can determine for ourselves the position in respect of this.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, may I just make one thing clear. I do not and have not suggested the tapes to have been tampered with, as I understand the word tampered, but Mr Chairman, as I mentioned to you, there are beeping sounds for want of a better word, at various places on the tape, at least three that I can recall, there are gaps and of course I've got one, perhaps far more practical suggestion that my learned friend, Mr Bizos, may decide to follow, and that is Mr Chairman, that the transcripts X1, X2(a) be withdrawn totally, the tapes be withdrawn and the cross-examination of Mr Williamson in regard to those issues, be struck from the record.

This may save an enormous amount of time. It is purely a suggestion and an invitation to my learned friend.

MR BIZOS: The invitation is not accepted Mr Chairman, and I want to place on record, that the two of the representatives that have made the suggestions, had better just listen to the tapes Mr Chairman, before they make that sort of suggestion.

The portions that I have put Mr Chairman, have been agreed to by Mr Williamson. If my learned friend for Mr Raven has any problems with it Mr Chairman, he can listen to that portion of the tape and if there is anything wrong with the tape, then he can ask Mr Williamson whether he wants to change any portion of his evidence, effecting his client, having regard to the corrections that there may be made on the tape.

I will most certainly not withdraw them Mr Chairman and I would appeal to my learned friends that enough time has been taken on it, taken advantage of a mistake made by typists Mr Chairman, in order to delay the proceedings.

In so far as a wider conspiracy to oppose the applications Mr Chairman, I find that suggestion absolutely astounding. We are asking Mr Chairman, or opposing amnesty applications on behalf of Mr Schoon where his intention was made clear, some three years ago, in civil proceedings where there were two applications for stay, one unsuccessful and one successful. What is the suggestion of the conspiracy?

What would my learned friend have done Mr Chairman, if one of his relatives was killed and he had information that someone had spoken to Mr Williamson about it? Wouldn't he try and find out from the person who had that information, what is it that Mr Williamson told you about my mother's death? I think that my clients are very upset about this Mr Chairman, the suggestion that they have tampered with the tapes is a completely unfounded allegation and I hope that they will have the decency when they have time to contemplate on it, to withdraw the allegation Mr Chairman.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I just respond.

ADV DE JAGER: Could I only say one thing? The tapes have been presented as Exhibits, not part of the tapes, the whole tapes are Exhibits. The transcript has been handed in as Exhibit X1(a) or (b), not a part of the transcript, the whole transcript.

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes.

ADV DE JAGER: And I think it is time that we find out and the people presenting it, and the people opposing it, to put the correct transcripts before us so that we could really have a look at now it is correct, and it is a genuine thing, and we are not dealing with anything that is not correct.

MR BIZOS: We are indebted to you for that indication Mr Chairman, and that is what we will try and do with the greatest respect, in order to incorporate the sort of amendments that have been found by Mr Levine and his assistants, Mr Chairman. We made that clear.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, I did not understand that you were putting in those tapes as evidence of the contents?

MR BIZOS: No Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: They were there merely to assist us while you were cross-examining on portions of them?

MR BIZOS: That is so Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And we were not to have regard to the other portions that were not put to the witness?

MR BIZOS: Absolutely Mr Chairman, and I was going to object if anyone of my colleagues suggested that look, what Williamson said, unless they put it to him in re-examination Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, I am raising this merely because what I think is vital importance, in the light of what Mr Levine has shown. That is that those portions which have been put to Mr Williamson, should be verified and we should be assured that what was put, is a complete accurate transcript.

I do not think it necessary at this stage, for that to be done to the whole of the tapes, but I think it is only right, and this is going to cause complications, that the tapes should be made available.

MR BIZOS: They been made available Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but you are not going to have them back to prepare the accurate transcripts if somebody else is doing research into them. Mr Du Plessis says he wants to have them investigated forensically, Mr Levine wants to do further investigations into them.

So if the parties can please just arrange between themselves that those passages that have been put, should be accurately transcribed and they can then sort out what they want to do to the rest of the tapes.

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, we would also appreciate to be supplied with the small little tapes, the original tapes if it is at all possible.

MR BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, not hoping to contribute to the already raised temperatures in our immediate vicinity, I would just like to place my position on record.

One of the passages that was put by my learned friend, involve Mr Waal du Toit and I would just like to make my position clear that we also would like to make sure that that passage was correct and reserve our right as to ask questions of Mr Williamson in that regard. Although on what is stated here, it doesn't seem to be too damaging because it is merely speculative.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Mr Chairman, I may indicate that the portion that I intended putting to the witness this morning, has been passed as correct by Mr Levine and his assistant.

May I proceed with the cross-examination Mr Chairman?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I don't want to enter the fray, may I preface what I am going to say right now, because frankly I can't remember off hand that there was anything that effected any of my clients, that arose from that tape.

I must just say this Mr Chairman, and perhaps this is a question of policy for future reference, I have always understood that when a party to these proceedings, hands in an Exhibit, it is handed in as a complete document. Certainly I would be surprised if you would, or my learned friend would object, if I used parts of this Exhibit in order to further some or other point of mine, even though it hadn't been put to the witness.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Visser, nobody has proved this transcript. There has been no attempt, it isn't an Exhibit in that sense. If it had been, as was said yesterday, prepared in the normal way with an affidavit etc, there is no evidence that either Ms Slovo or Mr Williamson said that the portions that they hadn't been asked about, or that they in fact appear on the tape. There is no certificate that the transcript is an accurate record.

MR VISSER: So what you are really saying Mr Chairman, is that they are not Exhibits?

CHAIRPERSON: They are handed to us to assist, they are not put in as Exhibits as to the contents, as the proof of the contents.

There has been to attempt to prove that they are accurate transcripts.

MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on Mr Bizos.

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I understood my learned friend was going to show me what he wished to put.

CHAIRPERSON: That was after the short adjournment Mr Levine. He said he would tell you during the course of the short adjournment.

He has other cross-examination that has nothing to do with the tapes.

MR LEVINE: I understood he was going to put to this witness now a portion of the tapes, which he said he has satisfied himself...

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, did I understand you correctly that you were going to talk to Mr Levine during the short adjournment?

MR BIZOS: I will give him the passage and he can have it now, he can start looking at it, it is on page ...

CHAIRPERSON: You can do it during the short adjournment Mr Bizos. Let's continue now.

CRAIG MICHAEL WILLIAMSON: (still under oath)

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR BIZOS: (cont)

Yes, thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Williamson, if I were to put to you that Jeanette Schoon was not in any aspect involved in military matters, either in Botswana or Angola, as a matter of fact, what would your answer be?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, if it is put to me that she was not directly involved in the military structure, I will accept it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: That you will accept? Either in Botswana or Angola?

MR WILLIAMSON: I will accept it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. And that in so far as Mr Schoon is concerned, that he had approximately two weeks training and that his instruction was, consisted in making leaflets and "bombs" to surreptitiously disperse those leaflets and small arms instruction for self-defence and that it was defined only to that, would you accept that as a fact?

MR WILLIAMSON: Reluctantly Mr Chairman. You know, I really can't, I was not present when Mr Schoon was trained by the ANC militarily, I cannot really comment. I saw Intelligence reports on Mr Schoon about his presence at Vunde Camp in Angola and I am not in a position to blankly deny what he says, but perhaps I can say my, that answer of mine is - there is a touch of scepticism in my answer.

MR BIZOS: Well scepticism or not, you have no personal knowledge and you did not have any specific instruction, I am sorry any specific information to contradict that?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, I said very clearly that there was specific information about the fact that Mr Schoon was militarily trained. I have no further information of the nature of his military training.

MR BIZOS: Yes, so that as a fact you will not be able to deny it and there was no specific information as to the nature and extent of his training?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Thank you. In relation to the senior organ in Botswana, perhaps you and I owe it to His Lordship to explain that the senior organ was the highest controlling body wherever it existed, and there were serious organs in various places?

MR WILLIAMSON: Senior organs Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Senior organs, is that correct?

MR WILLIAMSON: Correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Right. And if I were to put to you as a fact that neither Mr Schoon, nor Jeanette Schoon, never served on the senior organ in Botswana or in Angola as a fact, would you be able to deny that?

MR WILLIAMSON: I thought Mr Chairman, that the ANC themselves had admitted they did.

MR BIZOS: Well, we don't know about this document that you are speaking about and we don't know what they spoke about. What I am asking you to accept or reject as a fact that neither he, nor his wife, were ever members of the senior organ?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, my information was that both Marius Schoon and Jeanette were members of the senior structures of the ANC in Botswana and that included after the closing of the senior organ or the changing of the structures, the local Military Political Committee Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: There is a difference between senior positions and the senior organ. The senior organ was a small secret body ...

MR WILLIAMSON: It would be the type of Executive, yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: It is a small secret body and military or sabotage operations, were the business of the senior organ and I am going to put to you as a fact, that neither Mr Schoon, nor Jeanette Schoon were members ever of the senior organ, either in Botswana or in Angola.

MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, I don't think I ever said they were members of the senior organ in Angola. I said that I believed that they were members of the senior organ in Botswana and at one time, the senior organ and at another time, once the structures changed, the Military Political Committee Mr Chairman.

Now, if I am told from what obviously is the most reliable source, and that is the individuals themselves, that they were not, then I have to say that I cannot say that I know that they were not. I believed at all times that they certainly were, and there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever Mr Chairman, that they were senior ranking members of the ANC in Botswana.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Bizos, in the ANC's further submissions to the TRC dated the 12th of May 1997, on page - I think it is page 43, it is stated Botswana senior organ, 1980/1983: Chairman etc, and amongst the names, Marius and Jenny Schoon as members of the senior organ?

MR BIZOS: This is Exhibit N before you Mr Chairman. It has already been put in and we say that that statement of fact is incorrect Mr Chairman, as a statement of fact.

The fact of the matter will be, and we will prove through Mr Schoon and others if need be, that they were on a sub-committee and that they had contact with the senior organ through Mr Henry Magoti, who also had another name Squires.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Squires.

MR BIZOS: They were not members of the senior organ.

CHAIRPERSON: What Exhibit are you referring to?

MR BIZOS: It is Exhibit N Mr Chairman.

MR WILLIAMSON: Exhibit N, Mr Chairman, there is two references in Exhibit N. It looks like this Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that is an extract from the further submissions document which was handed in by the ANC? So do you say that there is an error on the part of the ANC?

MR BIZOS: In making them members of the senior organ and we will prove Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: You agree that they appear in the ANC record as being members?

MR BIZOS: In the submission and Mr Schoon was not consulted, I don't believe was consulted.

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, Mr Chairman, if I may add, as far as the Security Forces were concerned, I am perfectly willing to accept Mr Schoon's word if he says that he was not actually a member of the senior organ, I am sure he wouldn't come here and lie about it at this stage Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: But he was a member of a sub-committee of that senior organ Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, he will admit that.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, and as far as we would be concerned Mr Chairman, that is part of the senior organ and it would not change my attitude towards him as a target of the Security Forces at all Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, Mr Williamson, let's just carry on. Did you above all others, have very intense Intelligence on Mr Schoon?

MR WILLIAMSON: I think it would be fair to say Mr Chairman, that we had intense coverage of the activities of Mr Schoon and other people connected to the senior organ of the ANC in Botswana at that time.

MR BIZOS: Yes. And did your Intelligence tell you that he also served on the SACTU committee?

MR WILLIAMSON: Jenny served on the SACTU committee.

MR BIZOS: I am sorry, I read J as I. Jenny served on the SACTU committee?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Would you agree that the Schoon's activity in Botswana from your intense surveillance of them, that they were concerned particularly with recruiting people internally, that is in South Africa, and assisting them to go across, to recruit them to the ANC, primarily that was their activity?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I believe I said that yesterday, that their primary responsibility in the sub-structure that they were involved in, was internal reconstruction Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. That will require explanation and I am suggesting to you that it was ...

MR WILLIAMSON: I said it yesterday Mr Chairman, that it was recruitment.

MR BIZOS: Recruitment, that is what you mean by internal reconstruction?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, the ANC structures in South Africa at that time, were basically depleted and they were attempting to build up their underground structures in South Africa, and this was to a large extent, the responsibility of the sub-structure on which Jeanette and Marius Schoon served.

Jeanette also was serving on the SACTU committee Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Now, Jeanette Schoon in particular, was interested in Trade Union affairs before she left the country?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And that interest continued?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And the people that were recruited in Botswana at the time the Schoon's were there, to your knowledge and in according with your Intelligence, were young whites in the main, university graduates who had taken part in the Wages Commission and other activities of NUSAS, who were not prepared to do military service and who were in complete disagreement with the policies of the South African government?

MR WILLIAMSON: Basically white left wing radicals in South Africa at that time, yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: And I may just add that the description of the target group which the Schoon's were then targeting on behalf of the ANC for recruitment, goes a long way to explaining or assisting to explain my evidence that I gave earlier, as to why people like I were active on the campuses of South Africa. It was specifically to combat this type of operation by the ANC Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Were they considered as enemies whilst they were in the country?

MR WILLIAMSON: They were considered as political opponents Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Not enemies?

MR WILLIAMSON: I think that the term enemy, especially when you look at the terminology used by the Security Forces at the time, would only become applied once somebody was an active member or supporter of one of the liberation movements Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Mr Chairman, is it a convenient stage to take the adjournment, I want to show this, I want to make the, identify the passage that I am going to put to the witness Mr Chairman, so that he can consider it during the adjournment and in the hope that we will be able to continue Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: We will take the short adjournment now, and I warned certain of the members that this will be the last adjournment before we adjourn for the day.

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

ON RESUMPTION

CRAIG MICHAEL WILLIAMSON: (still under oath)

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR BIZOS: (cont)

Were you showed pages 21 - 22 of Exhibit X2?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Pages 22 - 23? You were shown that? Are you happy that you were correctly recorded and that the transcript is correct?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, we have not had the opportunity of listening to ... (break in recording)

MR BIZOS: And I may say Mr Chairman, in respect to the applicant's Attorney, this is a portion that was not in any way corrected, they went beyond that Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: What page is that?

MR BIZOS: Page 22 - 23 Mr Chairman. The passage has no corrections by the Attorney's team Mr Chairman.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, my learned friend obviously did not hear me earlier this morning. I said that we were able to make some corrections, but the shortage of time, prevented us from dealing with the transcript in its entirety. We made corrections up to page 18 and from page 35 onwards.

But we did not Mr Chairman, deal with pages 21, 22 and 23 amongst other pages, up to page 35. I am merely placing it on record and with respect, it doesn't avail my learned friend to say we did not correct his pages. But be that as it may Mr Chairman, my client is prepared subject to that understanding, to deal with such questions as Mr Bizos may wish to put.

MR BIZOS: The passage that I want to ask you about Mr Williamson, appears in the third of page 22, where you start off "so that was part of it, but at the same time on the international scene, the most important and dangerous political group as far as we are concerned was the ANC/SACP alliance". So, I am suggesting to you that nothing was left out, but a pause on your part, "and their friends and really quite strong support of the international community. They were the only ones with effective arms struggle. They were at that time re-emerging as a force in the Trade Unions and later on in 1983 and so on, they got into mass mobilisation, but this was years before and that is what one feared, was the mass mobilisation stage. You know, the armed struggle, the legs of the revolution, I mean, you know as well as I do that Trade Unions, the armed struggle, the international community and mass mobilisation, those were the four basic pillars of the revolution.

Now the armed struggle, we really had no problem with. Every now and then there were spectacular things, but you know really, it wasn't a threat to the stability at this stage. Trade Unions were a big potential problem. The international community sanctions and all this was a big problem. We were heading to say chapter 7, sanctions, that was what everybody was working for and we knew it, and at that stage now, we are talking from 1976 on, we didn't get to have mass mobilisation, but 1976 started mass mobilisation. So it was divide and rule, it was divide and rule, was the game and it was very difficult to maintain credibility with all the groups because of course, I also needed information on all as much as possible. You know, we managed to straddle all these forces for a while, but it was very much like a roman ride."

Would you say that that is an accurate rendering of what you said Mr Williamson? You can make any qualification you like?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that is the type of description of the struggle and the role that I was playing at that time, that I said time and time and time again.

MR BIZOS: Yes, so that even though there is any minor transcription error anywhere along the way, this is really a correct expression of your views of the struggle when you were speaking to Ms Slovo?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, this is the type of general answer I could give to this type of general question, that I was - and I could give that same answer again today.

MR BIZOS: Very good. Now you see, if this is correct, if this is correct, the Trade Union part of the work that Jeanette Schoon was involved in, would that make her a terrorist or an enemy?

MR WILLIAMSON: In her case or in the case of people operating in the ANC at her level, organising Trade Union activities, it would Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: A person organising Trade Union activities, would be the enemy and a terrorist?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And is that why you killed her?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, not specifically Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Well, you know I told you earlier and I want to ask you in view of your answer, was the South African Council of Churches an enemy?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, perhaps then if we are going to enter into this debate, we have to go a bit into revolutionary theory.

MR BIZOS: No, please answer my question. Was the South African Council of Churches and those operating in it, enemies? Then you can explain about revolutionary theory?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it is impossible to give an unqualified yes or no answer to that question.

MR BIZOS: Well, then please yourself. I would appeal to you to be as brief as possible, but then give us an answer to the question.

MR WILLIAMSON: I will try and be as brief as I can Mr Chairman, because I realise that we have been going into this revolutionary theory over a number of days.

From the revolutionary strategy of the enemy at the time, which was the ANC and the South African Communist Party, the perspective of the ANC and the South African Communist Party and their strategy against the State at that time, revolution is not based on military struggle alone. The military element of any revolutionary struggle, is regarded broadly by any Security Forces in the world and any theorist involved in counter revolutionary strategy as approximately 20 percent of the overall political struggle.

Mr Chairman, as I went to some pains to explain to the Armed Forces Committee without going into too much detail and without having a seminar on revolutionary warfare and counterinsurgency strategy, the fact is that military action, violence, the use of armed violence by the State is an extension of the political process.

The use of armed violence or violence by the revolutionary enemy in the same way, is an extension of the political process. The political process Mr Chairman, is the broader aspect of the process, and in particular the ANC and the Communist Party alliance had what they called a four pillar policy of revolution.

I have talked here to Ms Slovo about those pillars, one being the Trade Union, one being the Armed Struggle, one being the International Dimension or what I called here the International Community and one being Mass Mobilisation.

Very simply Mr Chairman, this means that in the target community, in the target country, the revolutionaries are aiming at a political mobilisation, so they mobilise the Trade Unions, they mobilise in all other aspects of the State and that would include Mr Chairman, the churches.

They then also mobilise support with the International Community and the final one pillar of the revolution Mr Chairman, is the Armed Struggle, the meeting by force of the forces of the revolutionary side and the target State that they are attempting to overthrow.

So Mr Chairman, in my submission to the Armed Forces Committee and in the Exhibits before this Committee Q and Q1 or Q1 and Q2, I give various documents relating to counter revolutionary strategy and basically, essentially and let's just talk a little bit about the fact that we believed at that time, that there was what was termed a total onslaught.

That means that the onslaught was not only military, there wasn't only some Umkhonto weSizwe guys coming into the country and attacking the Police or the military, that was only one aspect of the onslaught.

The onslaught was across every aspect of human endeavour. And Mr Chairman, therefore I finally come to the point and answer the question with the proviso of what I have said before, yes, the South African Council of Churches inn specific, would have been a target of the revolutionary alliance.

That does not mean that the entire organisation, its upper structure, everybody involved in the South African Council of Churches at that time, would be knowing, witting members of the revolutionary alliance or the conspiracy that was being carried on, but Mr Chairman, there would very likely be people within an organisation such as the South African Council of Churches, who were.

I may mention Mr Chairman, that every single Intelligence agency in this country, had a Church Desk. The churches Mr Chairman, whether we like it or not, I deal in Intelligence with facts, the churches in various revolutionary situations, were used and abused and manipulated by revolutionary forces.

In Latin America Mr Chairman, to a large extent churches and church organisations, served as a vehicle in which revolutionary forces hid. If you are a revolutionary like Mau Tse Tung said, you have to be a fish in the sea and there were cases in Latin America, just to give an example, where Priest by day was guerrilla by night. Priest by day with the robes and the collar and by night with explosives and an AK and that is a fact ... (tape ends) ... it has to be a full answer Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Was Bishop Tutu a tool of the revolutionaries?

MR WILLIAMSON: I have absolutely, I am completely sure in fact Mr Chairman, that Bishop Tutu was not a tool of the revolutionaries.

MR BIZOS: Was Beyers Naude a tool of the revolution?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, in the case of Beyers Naude Mr Chairman, I would have to say and again I would not classify him merely as a tool of the revolutionaries, I would say he was certainly a strong supporter of the revolutionaries.

MR BIZOS: Was Bishop Storey a strong supporter of the revolution?

MR WILLIAMSON: Not to my knowledge Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: You see, because you and Gen Coetzee on the information that you put before Judge Eloff, tried to close the South African Council of Churches down, didn't you?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, you know as usual far too much credit is being given to me.

MR BIZOS: Well you have taken credit for greater things?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, I don't know how to respond to that. Greater things than trying to close down the Council of Churches, I am not sure what that is.

Mr Chairman, I was certainly not giving evidence to close down the South African Council of Churches. I gave evidence at a certain time to a Commission of Inquiry into the South African Council of Churches, I gave evidence on one specific aspect and that was the international funding coming to the South African Council of Churches.

There was numerous and much more evidence given to the Commission, than came from me Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Did you hope to stop the funding? Was that the purpose of your evidence and that of Gen Coetzee?

MR WILLIAMSON: I am not sure whether it was specifically to stop the funding. The funding could have been stopped as I understand it, in terms of the Effected Organisations Act if we had wanted to do so.

I thought that the purpose of the evidence was to try and give, there was a Commission of Inquiry into specifically what I was discussing previously, into the involvement of organisations such as the South African Council of Churches in the revolutionary onslaught Mr Chairman, and part of that would be the funding from international organisations to such an organisation and the use of that funding Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Let us just turn back to the quote. You say now the armed struggle, we really had no problem with. Did you say that?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And reading the extract as a whole, would you say that you elevated the organisation of the Trade Unions and mass mobilisation which I suppose would be part of a concomitant of the mass mobilisation, the Trade Unions, were an even greater threat than the armed struggle with which you say that you had no problem with?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, what I said and what I meant by saying that and I think that it is as clear as crystal, that we did not have a serious problem with the armed struggle, because we had an effective answer to the armed struggle.

MR BIZOS: Right.

MR WILLIAMSON: I said that, I mentioned that previously when we were debating my participation in the Truth and Reconciliation process, where I said the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party alliance, had absolutely no chance of militarily overthrowing the South African State.

We had an effective military answer to their armed struggle. One which I have detailed, a strategy that I have detailed, but when it came to the 80 percent, the political mobilisation and Mr Chairman, if you had read articles that I wrote in newspapers in South Africa, during for example the Weekly Mail, on the - I can't remember which anniversary of Umkhonto weSizwe, probably maybe their 50th anniversary.

MR BIZOS: That will be in 2001.

MR WILLIAMSON: Could it have been 25th, yes, because 1961, 71, 81, 86 yes, it would have been the 25th anniversary of MK struggle, and I wrote an article there Mr Chairman, I was asked to write an article and to say what had MK achieved in 25 years, and what was the problem, and I posed the question at the end of that article and it is there for anybody to see, where I said MK has been a total disaster.

It has not been a success, but when MK as an effort to overthrow the State militarily, where it is seen as a part of a political mobilisation process, we cannot yet say that it has been a failure, and Mr Chairman, I am saying the same thing here, that the political threat of the ANC and the Communist Party in terms of their revolutionary aims and ideals, were 80 percent of the problem, and therefore were to us a big problem.

MR BIZOS: Right. When the Schoon's went to Angola, because of the isolation of the place that they went to, Jeanette Schoon would have been most unlikely to be able to be an effective organiser for SACTU from where they were.

MR WILLIAMSON: I don't believe I ever suggested or ever heard that she was acting as an effective organiser for SACTU from where she was Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: No, no, you didn't say that, but if her main activity in Botswana was mobilisation and Trade Union work and that may have earned her being selected as a target in part or in whole, when she went to Angola, she was completely out of reach to be an effective organiser for mass mobilisation or Trade Unionism.

MR WILLIAMSON: Is that a question or a statement Mr Chairman?

MR BIZOS: Everything that I put, is a question.

MR WILLIAMSON: Right. Mr Chairman, number one, the Schoon's as we have debated already, were members of the senior organ structure in Botswana at a certain time.

They were then as Mr Bizos himself said, redeployed.

MR BIZOS: To teach?

MR WILLIAMSON: Redeployed yes.

MR BIZOS: To teach? Yes, English, please continue.

MR WILLIAMSON: Redeployed to Angola which was as I have said very clearly, the rear base of the ANC, it is where the ANC army, the only army that the ANC ever had, the army that they wished to send to South Africa to overthrow the State, was basically based, trained, armed, equipped and where it collaborated with the international Forces that were involved in supporting the ANC and the Communist Party against, in its revolutionary onslaught against South Africa.

I said that number one, the very fact that they were redeployed to Angola, was regarded by the Security Forces here, as significant. The very fact that they were redeployed to a place called Lobango Mr Chairman, which I again took pains to point out was the Cuban base in Angola at that time, and had something like 30 600 Cuban troops around it and was the most heavily defended town in the entire Angolan area or theatre of war at the time, Mr Chairman, made obviously the South African Security Forces even more suspicious about the Schoon's and the role they were playing in the ANC and its revolutionary onslaught against South Africa Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: What was the question Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, I did try and determine that Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: What was the question? Do you remember or don't you bother to try and answer it?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I am sorry, I remember the question basically as a statement about how, whether this activities of the Schoon's in Botswana and their then transfer to Angola, some or other reason couldn't or needn't have effected us in our decision ...

MR BIZOS: Please listen to the question because obviously you didn't.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I did ask you, I did ask Mr Bizos to clarify the question for me.

MR BIZOS: You didn't ...

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, as I understood it, it wasn't a question, it was a statement.

MR WILLIAMSON: It was a statement Mr Chairman, I am sorry, and then I was asked to comment on the statement, and now apparently I haven't commented adequately on the statement.

MR BIZOS: No, the question was how would Jeanette Schoon have been able to organise for SACTU in the mass mobilisation 2 000 km away from South Africa?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I said, I didn't say that she was organising from SACTU or the mass mobilisation 2 000 km away from South Africa. I said she, and you yourself used the word, had been redeployed within the revolutionary organisation.

The revolutionary organisation, if one's moved from one branch of the revolutionary organisation to another branch, the Security Forces don't suddenly change their assessment of you. And if you in fact are moved from one area to another, that is regarded almost as a promotion and a movement up the ladder, and into a more intense area or phase of the struggle Mr Chairman, the Intelligence Force's perception of you, doesn't get better, it gets worse Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Mr Williamson, why don't you try and come to terms with the gravamen of the question. You have already told us that the main activity of Jeanette Schoon in Botswana was Trade Union organisation and mass mobilisation.

She was redeployed to teach English in southern Angola?

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, the words to teach English or words which my learned friend is seeking to interpolate into the witness' evidence which he has not agreed with, and which he has not put, but continuously the words to teach English are used by my learned friend.

MR BIZOS: No, the witness said that I myself said that they were deployed, and I am entitled to say for what they were deployed Mr Chairman, and this is the basis upon which the question is put.

If they were deployed to southern Angola and the speciality of her work was to organise Trade Unions and to mass mobilise and recruit people within South Africa, could that purpose be served from 2 000 km away?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, theoretically of course it could be served from 2 000 km away, but Mr Chairman, I did not and I have never said that as far as I am concerned, or in fact I even said that I didn't have any Intelligence on her.

I have never, ever intimated or said that as far as I am concerned or that the Intelligence organisations knew that Jeanette Schoon had been sent to Lobango, redeployed to Lobango to teach English and that she no longer was involved in mass mobilisation or the organisation of SACTU in South Africa Mr Chairman.

In fact I said that when she went to Lobango, there was an increased suspicion about what she was involved in. I was actually requested from Military Intelligence sources whether I and my section had any information about what the Schoon's were doing in Lobango and I myself, Mr Chairman, was the first to mention, that it was believed that they were teaching English, but the question from the Intelligence Forces at the time was to whom were they teaching English and what was the purpose of them teaching English and was there any, did we in the Security Police have any supporting evidence for the allegation that the Schoon's were involved in Lobango, involved in a serious way.

I want to be careful with the word serious, I mean well involved with the Cubans in Angola Mr Chairman, and that there was a fear that they had something to do with Cuban Intelligence relating to the South African Air Force Mr Chairman, and I said that I had said that I did not have any such information.

What I said was that the very fact that they had gone to Lobango and that they were in fact teaching English had created this perception and perhaps there were other Military Intelligence reports of them, in Lobango. Well, there definitely were, otherwise I wouldn't have been questioned about them Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: The persons that they were teaching, could very easily have been determined by an inquiry within a day or two?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, we have been this route before.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: Lobango was in a military zone, in a war area Mr Chairman, and I said that I believe, I concede that we could probably had we been requested, have found out precisely what the Schoon's were doing. I said it would have taken a long period of time and it would have been very difficult, and that I doubted, I said Mr Chairman, I doubted that under the priorities of the time, that the resources required for such research from Security Police side, would have been allocated to such an evaluation Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Was there any reason why their planned murder couldn't be postponed for a week or ten days in order to determine?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I have absolutely no knowledge because I was not involved in the time phase planning of the operation Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Williamson, were the Security Forces, the Intelligence Forces, extremely suspicious of people who indulged in teaching? I ask you this because I have had access to your Exhibit Q1, document at page 143 headed Manipulation by Marxist and Radical Elements in the Educational Field in Britain.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, but that is a more general problem.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. But Education wasn't accepted as an entirely innocent field?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, and in particular Education and Mr Bizos himself made the point, that at that time as far as the information that he has got, obviously from his clients and ANC sources, there were only four or five South Africans in Lobango.

I would say Mr Chairman, that - well, I don't even have to say that probably, I know because of the contacts and the queries that had come to me from Military Intelligence, that there was grave and serious suspicion about what type of teaching the Schoon's were doing in Lobango.

MR BIZOS: Did you hear Gen Coetzee's evidence that the killing of Jenny and Katryn was a mistake?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I did not Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: You didn't?

MR WILLIAMSON: No.

MR BIZOS: Well, I can assure you that he said it.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I am sorry, I don't want to interrupt but I, there may be a confusion between Ruth First. As we remember the evidence, that was specifically in regard to Ruth First although I can't say with certainty that it wasn't also in regard to the Schoon's. It may be a mistake.

MR BIZOS: I have a distinct recollection that I asked in relation to both and that the answer was to the affirmative.

On the assumption that Gen Coetzee did say that the death of Jeanette Schoon and Katryn ...

CHAIRPERSON: Can you ask a question on the assumption if it is disputed Mr Bizos? Surely you should check on the version structure used in the notes?

MR BIZOS: If it was said, if it was said, why should the Head of the Security Police have regarded them as non-legitimate targets?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, the only way I can answer that question is equally theoretically.

ADV DE JAGER: Honestly Mr Bizos, if it was said why should he have regarded, if it was not said, if we know it was said, then we could say he regarded it as such.

MR BIZOS: Yes, because ...

ADV DE JAGER: But honestly you are putting a question on two assumptions now. If it was said, he might have said this.

MR BIZOS: Yes, well because the record will show. If the record shows Mr Chairman, that he did not say it, both the question and the answer ...

ADV DE JAGER: Well Mr Bizos, honestly it is your duty to make sure whether it was said before you put it.

MR BIZOS: Yes, I am sure that he has said it Mr Chairman.

ADV DE JAGER: Then you put it to him I am sure it was said.

MR BIZOS: This is what I put to him Mr Chairman, but because of the intervention of the Chairman, I said let us be, let's put it at a lower level in order that we do not have to revisit the question, if in fact Gen Coetzee said it Mr Chairman.

May I proceed please. If Gen Coetzee said so, can you think of any reason why the Head of the Security Police should have a different view about them as targets for murder? Have you any answer?

MR WILLIAMSON: The only answer that I can give Mr Chairman, is first of all he was not the Head of the Security Police at the time, he was the Commissioner of Police.

It would certainly not have been in his specific domain to have known what the Schoon's were doing in Lobango or what type of specific threat they posed to the security of the State Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: On the assumption that your general evidence that these matters were decided at the top, although you do not know that Gen Coetzee had authorised it or not, you would have expected this murder to have come from the top as well, to have been authorised from the top as well?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I said that I would have expected this type of action to be authorised and if we want to go back into the way the structures worked, we can, but I would have in fact been surprised if the specific authority of the Commissioner of the Police had been requested for an operation of this nature in 1984.

MR BIZOS: Right, because I am going to put to you Mr Williamson, that the murder of Jeanette and Katryn Schoon was engineered by you in order to settle old scores.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that is totally and utterly false.

MR BIZOS: Well, let's give you some facts, some of which come from fairly near your sources. Did you know Carl Edwards?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Was he an agent?

MR WILLIAMSON: He was Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: In 1979?

MR WILLIAMSON: I believe so Mr Chairman, yes.

MR BIZOS: In April 1979?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, yes, he was.

MR BIZOS: Did you ask him to take over the Southern African News Agency, known as SANA in Gaberone, Botswana?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, I don't know how, do you mean physically to go to Botswana and take it over or to supervise it or, I don't think so Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Did you suggest to him that he should try and get Heinz Klug to become involved in it?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, Heinz Klug, Patrick Fitzgerald, these people were involved in SANA at that time. Carl Edwards was liaising with them from South Africa. I thought both Klug and Fitzgerald were involved in SANA.

I don't know whether I would have suggested, in fact I think they would have even asked me for a job, I don't know Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Was SANA funded by the International University Exchange Fund at which you were employed?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And obviously infiltrated by Edwards and other agents?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Were you informed by Edwards that Klug after some hesitation, agreed to become involved in SANA?

MR WILLIAMSON: It is possible Mr Chairman, I don't really remember some hesitation or whatever. I remember Klug and Fitzgerald became involved, they used to call them, they had names, they called themselves - I can't remember at the moment Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Did it come to your notice through Carl Edwards that Heinz Klug started making in-depth enquiries as to whether or not Carl Edwards was a Policeman and further to try and ascertain whether or not you were clean or not from the point of view of ...

MR WILLIAMSON: Of being a Policeman, the ANC?

MR BIZOS: Clean from the point of view from the ANC? Was that brought to your notice?

MR WILLIAMSON: I believe so Mr Chairman. As I said at the time, there was a lot of spy v spy going on in the ANC.

MR BIZOS: Yes, because at the time there were allegations that you were either a South African Policeman or at the very least, a member of a Foreign Intelligence Agency?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, there were from time to time in my ten years undercover, there were such allegations.

MR BIZOS: May I just take an instruction?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, may I also just get some documents from my team?

MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson has asked if he could get some documents? We are looking for the documents Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: May we proceed?

MR LEVINE: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Who was Patrick Fitzgerald?

MR WILLIAMSON: Patrick Fitzgerald was a white South African exile who was working with - as being seen from Exhibit N, the ANC as well as he was employed in fact in SANA, the Southern African News Agency.

MR BIZOS: Was he important to you or was he loyal to the ANC?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, I would imagine both Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: He was one of your agents?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I didn't say that, I said he was reporting to me. You know very well that I was at that time the Deputy Director of IUEF.

MR BIZOS: He was reporting to you in your capacity as an ANC member, is that what you are saying, I am sorry.

MR WILLIAMSON: No, in my capacity as Deputy Director of IUEF which was the funder and controller of the project that he was employed by. I was paying his salary Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Oh yes. Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: And I don't mean by that a Police salary.

MR BIZOS: Who was Julian Sturgon?

MR WILLIAMSON: Also white South African exile. I believe the original, one of the original employees of SANA.

MR BIZOS: And was he reporting to you in any capacity?

MR WILLIAMSON: In the same capacity as Mr Fitzgerald Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And Julian Sturgon?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is who you have just asked me about.

MR BIZOS: I beg your pardon, Chris Woods?

MR WILLIAMSON: Chris Woods, the name is familiar, but I didn't have the same relationship with him as with the others.

MR BIZOS: All right. Did it come to your notice that Jeanette and Marius Schoon ...

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, may I place the documents before the witness that he asked for?

MR BIZOS: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR WILLIAMSON: I apologise Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Did you become aware after the involvement of Heinz Klug, did you become aware through Carl Edwards or anyone else that Heinz Klug, Jeanette and Marius Schoon, had set a trap for Edwards in order to determine whether or not he was a Policeman or working with the Police? Did Edwards report that to you?

MR WILLIAMSON: I don't believe that I am aware of what trap this was Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: No, not the specific trap, although I would suggest that he would have told you about it. Did Edwards report to you ... (tape ends) ... said by Jeanette Schoon, Marius Schoon and others in order to determine whether Carl Edwards was a Policeman or working for the Police?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I don't remember any specific report to me about any specific trap. What I can reaffirm again is that there was at the time a lot of spy v spy going on in the ANC in Botswana, and in fact Heinz Klug himself was investigated as a potential spy.

Many people said that he worked for me, and Mr Chairman, I myself had been asked by senior members of the ANC to write reports and to say whether other people were spies.

It was something that was on an ongoing basis Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: This is specific Mr Williamson.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, and that there were specific suspicion about Carl Edwards and there was at times, specific suspicion about me Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Did Jeanette and Marius Schoon feature in the report that you got, as the sources of the supposedly positive information that Carl Edwards was a Police spy?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I have absolutely no recollection, as I have said, of such a specific report to me.

MR BIZOS: Well, for a person ...

MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry Mr Chairman, could I ask perhaps some time frame on this?

MR BIZOS: After 1979, after Heinz Klug joined SANA?

MR WILLIAMSON: Do you mean after 1979 ...

MR BIZOS: Late June 1979.

MR WILLIAMSON: Late June?

MR BIZOS: After late June 1979.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes. Mr Chairman, you know, in June or whatever 1979, I was still undercover, I was travelling all over the world. I was living in Geneva. I had contacts.

My contact with my colleagues in South Africa was done in the same way as the ANC did with their people, DLB's, it was a cumbersome and difficult process. On occasions I came down to southern Africa, I met with people and I got all sorts of reports about rumours and this and that and the next thing.

I certainly then, while I was in - in 1979 I certainly never received a report about, in terms of an Intelligence type of report, about the Schoon's doing such a thing. But as I said, I repeat Mr Chairman, there was at the time this spy v spy paranoia going on.

MR BIZOS: Leaving aside other cases and leaving aside paranoia, I am going to put to you, I am putting to you specific matters which led to your exposure as a Police spy Mr Williamson, but let's proceed.

Did - was it reported to you by Carl Edwards that it appeared that Jeanette and Marius Schoon had set a trap which to their satisfaction convinced them, that Edwards was a Police spy? Did Edwards ever report that to you?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I do not believe so Mr Chairman. I have said that before. Mr Chairman, perhaps if I could let you have a copy of a letter dated October the 5th of 1979, addressed to me from the African National Congress, dealing about an allegation that I had been a spy. It just goes to show that at the time I was perfectly happy that I was not regarded as a spy Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Could we have a copy of that letter and may I continue with more of my cross-examination now Mr Williamson?

Did Edwards report to you that the Schoon's had informed him, Edwards, that the whole of his network was compromised and that everything that it did, was being reported on to the Police?

MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry Mr Chairman, could you repeat?

MR BIZOS: Did Edwards inform you that the Schoon's believed that his whole network had been infiltrated by Security Policemen or informers or spies?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I say, I have no specific recollection of that. I believe and there was suspicion that Carl Edwards, and I don't remember if it was reported to me that his whole network, and by that I assume we mean his whole sort of false ANC network or the ANC supporters that he was working with, had been infiltrated Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: I understand that in your circles network had a distinct meaning?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, but Mr Chairman, in this case the network could have a slightly confusing meaning because there was a network of Intelligence officials who were pretending to be members of the ANC, Communist Party and then there were also people who were genuinely members of the ANC, Communist Party who were involved.

Those networks were slightly different, but anyway ...

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman. Well, and the evidence will be that they deliberately said this to Edwards, believing that this would be reported to you and they were waiting for your reaction. Did you react to any report made by Edwards to you in or about August to October 1979?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I said, it is absolutely possible, it is 1979, it is nearly 20 years ago.

I may well have reacted. As I remember at the time, there were these discussions going on and as I remember at the time Mr Chairman, I believed that I was planning in January/February 1980 to go on an extended tour to the so-called forward areas in southern Africa and I would have then had discussions with the various players and we would have talked about the various problems that existed Mr Chairman, and that would have included spy rumours and potential infiltrations of networks, security matters, financial matters, and everything like that Mr Chairman, but I don't remember that these reports were being sent to me and answers were being expected from me Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Were you making requests in August/October 1979 wanting articles on developments in South Africa to be sent to you supposedly for the SANA newsletter?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that had been going on since 1976.

MR BIZOS: Had you given any instructions to Edwards to give him, or for him to ask to be given new contacts inside the country in order to set up a network of journalists for information, to supply information to SANA?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is quite possible Mr Chairman. That was what SANA was doing. SANA was - the role was the SANA, the Southern African News Agency. I had been involved in SANA since its inception in 1976. SANA was based at this time in Gaberone and SANA was basically a - it served two purposes.

It was supposed to be an independent news agency, but it was in fact a news agency disseminating only information with an ANC and Communist Party slant. And secondly, it was of course a focus point for my Intelligence operations, gathering information Mr Chairman. And obviously I would be interested in recruiting more journalists to work for SANA and to gather more information Mr Chairman, that was the function of SANA.

MR BIZOS: I am going to put to you that you put up to Jeanette and Marius Schoon a very spirited defence of the loyalty of Edwards to the ANC, did you?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well again, Mr Chairman, I don't specifically remember, but it would be very surprising if I hadn't Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And so strong was your loyalty, strongly was your loyalty evidenced as against the positive evidence that the trap had produced, that they came into conclusion that not only were you lying about Edwards, but the only reason why you were lying to them about it, was because you were protecting him, because you yourself, were compromised and that Edwards was working for you rather than the ANC.

Did that happen or didn't it happen?

MR WILLIAMSON: I don't know Mr Chairman, that is something which I am told occurred in their minds, Mr Chairman. Perhaps it did occur in their minds, I have no knowledge.

MR BIZOS: Yes. But they kept, didn't keep quiet about it, they reported their findings, that is of the trap in relation to Edwards, and your defence of him and your behaviour in relation to the whole matter, to Lusaka.

MR WILLIAMSON: Again, I have no knowledge of that Mr Chairman. They didn't report it to me.

MR BIZOS: Well, I am going to put to you that as a result of the manner in which you were treated after the Edwards affair, you must inevitably have come to the conclusion that the knowledge that was gained by the ANC Headquarters and particularly by Mr Mac Maharaj, whose behaviour led to your hasty return to Geneva and the intervention of Gen Coetzee to get you back, I beg your pardon Zurich, to get you back, was at least partly if not the main cause for your exposure as a Policeman to the ANC Headquarters.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, over the last 18 years, I have had to give reasons for why my cover was blown in Europe in 1980 repeatedly, including before this Committee.

The final straw that broke the camel's back Mr Chairman, was the defection of the individual that we discussed in my evidence earlier from the National Intelligence Service. That is why Gen Coetzee came to Europe and I accept that there was suspicion about me in the ANC.

I have no knowledge about this investigation that I am hearing about now. I had and I would have had, in fact I had reason to believe that Mac Maharaj did in fact trust me, he was in Geneva in the last days, if I remember correctly of 1979, where he came and visited me together with Thomas Nkobi, the Treasurer General of the ANC.

And also Mr Chairman, I will send another letter to you, I have a letter to me from Mr Mac Maharaj, dated the 24th of November 1979 in which he gives me various instructions to carry out. It is signed Amandla Mac, a whole lot of instructions, things that I should do and including giving money to Dora Temana in South Africa who was a highly, Mr Bizos will know her, and giving money to another individual in South Africa, and I doubt Mr Chairman, that if I - I mean perhaps he did suspect me, perhaps he was testing me, but on the 24th of November 1979 I was given these types of instructions, and I believe Mr Chairman, that my position with the ANC and with Mr Mac Maharaj, was as it had been for years before Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Well, it may also be possible that Mr Mac Maharaj was a better poker player even than you?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is possible Mr Chairman, yes. And we did touch on the fact that I was supposed to go in January or February 1980 via Moscow to Angola Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Of course Angola at that time was the last place that you would have gone, when you knew that there were suspicions that you were a Policeman?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, my air ticket was issued. I - the day when Gen Coetzee, one of the main reasons why Gen Coetzee came to Europe when he came, was because I had my air ticket, I was already in London, I was going to Moscow and then by (indistinct) to Luanda.

If I had, I probably would have been detained, tortured and murdered in the same way as happened to other South African agents who were caught. But fortunately it didn't occur Mr Chairman, so I know I was aware of the poker and chess game being played, and I was aware of the possibility of check mate and when the defector from NIS hit London and started publishing articles in the newspaper about infiltration in the IUEF by the South African Intelligence Forces, I saw very clear red lights, and that is when I saw them Mr Chairman.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, should those letters perhaps be given Exhibit numbers?

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman, but we would like copies Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Y1 and 2.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman is Y1 Thabo Mbeki and Y2 Mac Maharaj?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR BIZOS: May I proceed Mr Chairman. Was your trip to Angola suggested by Mr Maharaj?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I believe I said earlier in my evidence, there was discussion about a meeting that should take place which would resolve some of the so-called operational difficulties that seemed to be besetting our ANC infrastructures in working from Botswana, into South Africa.

Where would be the most convenient place to meet Mr Chairman, and there were various discussions, suggestions made, including Angola, including Lusaka and I believe Malawi, all sorts of other places.

MR BIZOS: Swaziland?

MR WILLIAMSON: Swaziland.

MR BIZOS: Seychelles?

MR WILLIAMSON: Lesotho. I have never heard the suggestion the Seychelles. That sounds very attractive, but I didn't hear it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, but in any event Mr Mac Maharaj ...

MR WILLIAMSON: We could have gone to San Chiran and Mauritius as well Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, Mr Maharaj insisted that the meeting should be in Angola?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is quite possible and as I say, with the benefit of hindsight Mr Chairman, perhaps my death would have been a subject of the TRC hearing, instead of me being at the TRC hearing, had I gone to Angola Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Was in fact communication between the channel set up by Carl Edwards in relation to SANA, do you recall that?

MR WILLIAMSON: I can't dispute that Mr Chairman, it would have been part of what was happening at the time.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: As I said SANA was a project that went on for a number of years Mr Chairman, and it was only one project that I was in charge of Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Well, let me put to you some details. You seem to be uncertain about matters, but with the details that I put to you, you may refresh your memory.

MR WILLIAMSON: Thank you Mr Chairman, that would be of great assistance.

MR BIZOS: Did you attempt to set up a new Intelligence structure in Botswana when the one that had been set up by Carl Edwards, broke up?

MR WILLIAMSON: At which state would this be Mr Chairman?

MR BIZOS: In 19..

MR WILLIAMSON: Post 1980?

MR BIZOS: No, prior to 1980. Prior to the exposure, did you attempt to set up a new Intelligence structure?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I've got absolutely no recollection of trying to set up a new Intelligence structure. I don't know what is meant by Intelligence structure.

Is this meant as a fake Intelligence structure such as the one that I was running for the ANC or would this have been the genuine South African Security Intelligence structure?

MR BIZOS: Yes, it must have been difficult for you to deal with reality, but what I think Mr Schoon means ...

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it was difficult. It was difficult, I was running one Intelligence structure for the ANC and I was running another one for the South African government, and at times, you know, it became a little interesting.

MR BIZOS: Yes, we can understand your difficulties Mr Williamson. A communication structure?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, we were constantly setting up new communication structures, couriers and as I tried to say, I was not personally involved in running the operations in Gaberone. I was sitting in Europe, I was running all over the world.

Again, to give an example of my trust or the level of trust I had with the ANC, at about that time, I was in New York at the General assembly of the United Nations making a speech to a sub-committee on apartheid Mr Chairman.

So you know, I knew what was going on, that there were couriers being developed, communication strategies being done, all sorts of things being done Mr Chairman, but this was at a distance.

MR BIZOS: Let me try and make it clear. Let me try and make it clear. Had Edwards been sidelined and did you try to put up another communications structure to take place of the structure that Edwards was running?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I can't agree with had Edwards been sidelined and did I. It is possible that I was developing other communications channels, yes.

MR BIZOS: Will you concede to this now that your memory is so badly failing you about this period, that things were not running smoothly in relation to the work that you expected Edwards to do on behalf of your South African Police mask?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I have said that there was a lot of suspicion and also something which I haven't said, that I was constantly attempting to improve the efficiency of what was going on. I also had at times irritation about the slowness of the channels and so on.

I was always attempting to find new and better ways of doing things Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: No, but what I am putting to you Mr Williamson, specifically ...

MR WILLIAMSON: And I do not remember specifically then sidelining Edwards and setting up a new communications structure. But if one can give me the name of the person perhaps, or somebody that I set up, then I could comment on that Mr Chairman.

I reiterate, we are now talking 20 years ago.

MR BIZOS: Yes. You found no difficulty in remembering other things 20 and more years ago, but be that as it may. Let me come to a conclusion in relation to this.

I am going to put to you that it was quite clear that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were substantially responsible for your exposure as a Policeman?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, that is news to me Mr Chairman, I thought Mr Arthur McGiven was substantially responsible, but anyway, that is ...

MR BIZOS: And I am going to put to you that you knew this and that is why Marius Schoon in the early 1980's, was almost murdered on two occasions on the instructions of the Security Police, which you were now serving openly? Was it a coincidence that within a year and a bit of your exposure as a Policeman, two attempts were made to kill Marius Schoon?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Schoon, there is another explanation and that is that during my time with the ANC, it is quite possible that the attitude from the Intelligence Headquarters in South Africa would have been, we don't have to take the type of action against Marius Schoon such as attacking and killing him, or attacking and destroying the offices, because seeing that we are running the organisation for the ANC, and we know everything that is going on and what is happening, this was a much more, less destructive and comfortable way of achieving our goal Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: And Mr Marius Schoon continued with the ANC after my exposure as a spy and my return to South Africa and my appointment as Chief of Intelligence in the South African Police, to rebuild his ANC structures operating out of Botswana Mr Chairman.

The attacks on Mr Marius Schoon, as I think I have said before, number one, I had no specific knowledge of and number two, certainly did not surprise me Mr Chairman, because of the nature of number one, the ANC activities in Gaberone, in Botswana in general and number two, as a result of the general strategy that had been laid down by the State at that time, and that was to drive the terrorists back from our borders where they were concentrating and organising and infiltrating and attempting to overthrow the State Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Why no attempts against Mr Tlomi(?), the grand old man of the struggle, why no attempts against Mr Magoti, why no names against the other senior people to him in Botswana and why attempts on Mr Schoon?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it is the first time now it comes to my knowledge that Mr Schoon is the only ANC person ever in Botswana on whose life an attempt was ever made Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: No, I said at this period, soon after your exposure.

MR WILLIAMSON: Right, but Mr Chairman, I submit that I was involved in one attempt on Mr Marius Schoon's wife and I cannot comment why somebody else didn't try and kill him before or after or whatever Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Who would have known more about Mr Schoon, his movements, what he had done, than you in order (a) to determine whether he was a legitimate target in 1981, what his habits were, where he could be found and how he could best be eliminated than you in the Security Police?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I would imagine there were a number of people who would know better than me Mr Chairman. I would imagine that during the period before I was exposed, I would have perhaps been one of the people with a lot of information about Marius Schoon and the type of activities that he undertook, as well as his own personal habits, etc, where he lived, how he moved, etc, but the fact is Mr Chairman, that as I said previously about Mozambique, firstly even within the South African Police, there was more than one Security Police division involved in monitoring Botswana.

The Western Transvaal division were intensively involved in monitoring Botswana, it was their area. They had main responsibility.

The Military Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Special Forces themselves, also had Intelligence structures working into Botswana because of the level of threat in Botswana coming from the ANC/Communist Party alliance Mr Chairman.

So the fact is that anybody who wanted to know anything about Mr Schoon, could have just gone to anyone of the Intelligence Agencies involved, and got information out of his files or got operational information from people who were actively dealing with Mr Schoon and people like him, Mr Chairman.

I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, I would say the best placed person. I Mr Chairman, had far broader responsibilities than just Mr Schoon Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: How come that you as Chief of Intelligence missed out any knowledge whatsoever, about the two unsuccessful ... (tape ends)

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, we have been across this territory as well, and I didn't say I missed out. I said that I did not know about two attempts. I believe I knew about one attempt, and that I had not been involved in the attempt, but I heard about it. That is what I said Mr Chairman, so I didn't miss out.

And Mr Chairman, as I said before, I know that there is this urban legend about Craig Williamson and he knew absolutely every single thing that ever happened on earth and that he was involved in everything, and especially every assassination from John Kennedy onwards, and Mr Chairman, that is what it is, urban legends.

The fact is that I was not, I was not the best placed person and the only one and the person who would have surely have know, etc, etc Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: We are not talking about John Kennedy, we are not talking about other Prime Ministers, we are not talking about anybody else, we are talking about a person whose wife was admittedly your friend at the university, of a person in whose house you had gone, of a person whose children you had met, of a person that you knew or suspected had blown your cover, of a person whose structures you were manipulating.

So please don't introduce such far fetched irrelevancies into the record. I am asking you that having all this knowledge about Mr Schoon, how is it that you were not consulted whether he was a legitimate target or not?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I have said, I was not consulted. I also thought that with all the far fetched irrelevancies that are going on, I could also have a bit of fun.

Mr Chairman, the fact remains and I just want to make it as an absolute statement of fact, that I was not consulted about these attacks or efforts on Marius Schoon's life, and Mr Chairman, I see absolutely no reason why if I had been, that I would not have told either this amnesty hearing or one of the other TRC investigators and investigations that I have been involved in for a number of years Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Was your previous answer given in jest Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman. Not the entire answer Mr Chairman, part thereof.

MR BIZOS: I didn't hear anybody laughing.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, I am sorry Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Who told you about one of the attempts, and which one did he tell you about?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, we have been across this ground again ...

MR BIZOS: No, please just answer the question.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, we have been across this ground once before, I said I do not specifically remember, it was corridor talk Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Which corridor?

MR WILLIAMSON: Corridors of the Security Branch Headquarters, Pretoria, South Africa Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And who was your colleague that breached the need to know rule?

MR WILLIAMSON: I have absolutely no idea Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: When was that admission made to you?

MR WILLIAMSON: I have also absolutely no idea Mr Chairman, it was a general thing that I heard.

MR BIZOS: Did you ask why did it fail if you thought that this person was an important person to be eliminated?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I did not Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Why not?

MR WILLIAMSON: Because I was not interested Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: What was the relationship between you and the person that you are not able or willing to name, between you and him, what was the relationship?

MR WILLIAMSON: That would be very, very difficult to work out, especially because I don't know who the person was Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And you are not prepared to try and remember whether he was a senior or a junior or what led up to this breach of the need to know rule? You are not prepared to tell us any more?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, again, we are talking about corridor talk in Security Headquarters, 17, 18 years ago. Mr Chairman, I am sorry, I cannot contribute anything more.

MR BIZOS: You were at Security Headquarters, and we are not talking about tea party talk, we are talking about attempted murder and we are talking about one of your friends, or the husband of one of your university friends and we are talking about a breach of a fundamental rule. How is it that you do not remember?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, I have absolutely no idea how it is that I don't remember. I have said now and I said before, I do not remember. I just remember basically some corridor talk and I think Mr Chairman, in all the investigations that have gone into what the Security Branch and other elements of the Security Forces were doing, over the last number of years, if you look at the allegations and revelations that had been made by numerous Officers, either in the TRC process or before that like Dirk Coetzee, I have no recollection that anybody ever said that I was involved in any attempt against Marius Schoon.

MR BIZOS: I am going to put to you that during the - sorry ...

MR WILLIAMSON: And also to add Mr Chairman, that nobody, the first time that I have ever heard the allegation that I was involved in an operation to kill Marius or Jeanette Schoon because they had exposed me as a spy, that this is the first time that I have heard that Mr Chairman.

So, in all the rumour, innuendo, articles, books and the most amazing amount of publicity and publications that had been written about me, this is now the first time that this allegation comes up Mr Chairman, so it is perhaps also why you know, I can't specifically remember anything, because it is not something that I have thought about before.

MR BIZOS: Well, I don't know about books or articles or anyone else, I can only put to you that Mr Marius Schoon has never had any doubt as to why you killed his wife and daughter.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, again, I cannot contest what is in Mr Marius Schoon's mind.

MR BIZOS: Yes, that is what we are concerned with. Your actions and Mr Schoon's beliefs based on the evidence that he has because he for a period, considered you as a friend whom he had in his house, and whose children you had met, until he became convinced that you were a Police spy for certain period prior to your exposure.

MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, it is interesting that he has such bitterness about me having been his friend, and then being involved in the attack on his house in Lobango. But he doesn't consider what has suddenly struck me, and that is that I was also his friend and when he found out that I was an enemy, he was party to a trap that was going to be set for me to go to Angola where I probably would have been killed.

MR BIZOS: No, I didn't say that. No, no, nobody suggested that he was, that he set a trap for you, for Edwards in order to be satisfied that Edwards was a spy.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, and I understood you very clearly to say that this trap went on to a report and Mac Maharaj was involved, and he, Mac Maharaj told me to go to Angola, which I said yes, was correct.

And now it strikes me Mr Chairman, that if he as an ANC member and a soldier could make the distinction that Craig Williamson was now a man that had been a friend, but we have now found out that he is an enemy, so I am involved in the process which is going to end up with him being detained, tortured and killed, that was okay, but I can't make ...

MR BIZOS: Nobody suggested that, you are making that up Mr Williamson.

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I am not. It has just come to my mind Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Well, it has come to your mind without any evidence being put to you at all and you are just being paranoid about it Mr Williamson.

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, I am assimilating the evidence that has been put to me in the last half an hour and certain things have become very clear to me suddenly Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Just listen to me carefully please, it was never suggested to you that there was any step taken by Mr Schoon to get you to Angola.

MR WILLIAMSON: I didn't say that there was specifically any step taken by Mr Schoon. I said it was part of a process. He made a report, the report went to Mac Maharaj, Mac Maharaj gave me the order to go to Angola. Things become to me, Mr Chairman, very clear, I am an Intelligence analyst. I have now analysed the Intelligence that I have been given in the last half an hour, and I have come to a very probable conclusion Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, well you probably came to a lot of incorrect conclusions on the facts of this case, but incidentally I made a mistake, and this is why ...

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Williamson, please refrain from continuing to comment, please answer the questions and I hope then we will show some progress.

MR WILLIAMSON: I apologise Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Mr Schoon corrected me, I assumed apparently wrongly that because you stayed in your house, he considered you his friend. He has asked me to correct it, he never considered you his friend.

That may make you feel happier.

MR WILLIAMSON: No, it doesn't Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, well it certainly clarifies his attitude. Now, Mr Chairman, I know that we are going to go on until two o'clock, but could I ask for a two minute adjournment?

CHAIRPERSON: We will time that Mr Bizos?

MR BIZOS: I will be faithful Mr Chairman.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

CRAIG MICHAEL WILLIAMSON: (still under oath)

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR BIZOS: (cont)

During this period, 1978, 1979, did you take initiative to get a sum of money from the IUEF with which the Farm Daisy was bought?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I said previously when we discussed this, we did, we bought the Farm Daisy with the money from the IUEF. When I say we, ...

MR BIZOS: Just say yes, and I will proceed to my next question Mr Williamson.

MR WILLIAMSON: No, because the question was did I, did you?

MR BIZOS: Yes. So what is the answer to that?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, Mr Chairman, it is that I did not buy the Farm Daisy.

MR BIZOS: Who did?

MR WILLIAMSON: The Security Police in South Africa and I believe, Gen Coetzee bought the Farm Daisy Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Did you take the money out of the IUEF?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I did not.

MR BIZOS: Who did?

MR WILLIAMSON: The money would have been sent down to South Africa as part of the general allocation of funds for the Student Leadership Programmes that the IUEF was funding.

MR BIZOS: On whose instruction was that done, on whose request was that done, on whose plan was that done?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, it would have been on the approval of Mr Larsgun Ericson.

MR BIZOS: On whose suggestion?

MR WILLIAMSON: The instruction would have come from Mr Pertegma, I would imagine who was the Finance Officer at that time, and obviously I would have been the Project Officer who would have been involved in the motivation of the grant, Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: It was held out as a student project?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, a Student Leadership Programme Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, and instead, it was used for the Security Police for people involved with the Security Police?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, the students were Security Policemen Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Would the money have been given if the IUEF was not lied to?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, I am sure if we put up a motivation saying that the Youth Leadership Training Programme was actually for members of the South African Security Forces and in particular members of the Intelligence components, they would not have given the money Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, and was it your idea to defraud your employer of this money?

MR WILLIAMSON: I do not know whether it was my idea Mr Chairman. I believe it was an idea, it was part of the strategy at the time where we were basically in control of all the funds that were coming from IUEF and instead of channelling these into revolutionary activities Mr Chairman, they were channelled into less dangerous activities Mr Chairman, and I was told, I was informed at times, what had been done with the funds.

For example at one time I was told that at the annual Christmas visit to the boys serving on the Angolan border, gifts of biltong were given out and that these had also been purchased with funds coming from the IUEF Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: With the IUEF's knowledge?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, we didn't put up a memo to the IUEF asking to give the South African troops on the Angolan border, biltong, Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: So in 1978, 1979 you and Johan Coetzee committed a fraud on an international organisation?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, I deny that Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Why wasn't it a fraud? To ask somebody to give you money to be abused for a purpose not intended, is not fraud?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, because if you ask somebody who is funding revolutionary activities in South Africa, to give you money for a Youth Leadership Programme which is related to the revolution in South Africa, and you don't go into all sorts, into very many details, you just give some very sketchy conspiratorial details, it is possible that the motivation was in fact correct in general, but in detail, obviously not Mr Chairman.

So perhaps ...

MR BIZOS: In the material respects, it was not, in order to get money?

MR WILLIAMSON: In material respects it was not in order to get money?

MR BIZOS: In material respects, you said that it was true in some respects, but in the material respects, it was false?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, it was ...

MR BIZOS: You can't be pregnant and a little pregnant. It was either fraud or it wasn't.

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, you can be involved in revolutionary activities on one side or the other, perhaps what we didn't do was to say that this facility was being bought for what the IUEF would have regarded as the wrong side of the revolutionary struggle.

MR BIZOS: You know Mr Williamson, we are going to suggest that on the basis of this answer and other answers, that you are either knowingly completely amoral, or you sometimes pretend not to understand what the word morality means.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, please at that time, we are talking now about ...

ADV DE JAGER: Fortunately we haven't got to make moral judgements here.

MR BIZOS: No, but his credibility you will have to judge Mr Chairman, as to whether a person who is prepared to commit a fraud, is not trying to commit a fraud before you Mr Chairman.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, if I may comment, the IUEF was an organisation that was giving millions of rands of funds to various anti or revolutionary organisations, including SWAPO, including the then ZAPO and ZANU in the Rhodesian conflict, including the ANC, including the PAC, including the Tupamaros and the Montenero's which were international terrorist organisations in Latin America Mr Chairman.

This organisation was actively encouraging and funding the revolutionary struggle in South Africa Mr Chairman. As far as I was concerned, and the other members of the Security Forces were concerned Mr Chairman, this was a dangerous organisation.

I was relatively junior in my involvement at that time with my involvement at IUEF. I was not the one, again Mr Chairman, I have to make this clear, who was the mastermind, every decision came through me. Everything happened with me. The money came to South Africa and I am aware Mr Chairman, that Gen Coetzee made sure that all those funds were very, very strictly accounted for.

The fact that some of those funds were used for purposes that the IUEF would not have approved of, Mr Chairman, is another thing, and I can add that the funds that came to us that were not used in the way that the IUEF or the donors would probably have approved of, was not unique.

We also had instructions during that time Mr Chairman ...

ADV DE JAGER: Wait a minute, that may be so, but the fact is you didn't give the full facts to the organisation so that they could judge whether they want to give the money or not?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is so. Yes, and Mr Chairman, I was just coming to the final part, I also didn't give the full facts to the donors when it came to the money that we were giving to the ANC.

The IUEF was supposed to be giving scholarship and educational assistance to the ANC and on many occasions, by the assistance of Larsgun Ericson, cash, cash money was given to the ANC instead, so that they could use it for any purpose that they liked for the revolutionary struggle Mr Chairman, so it wasn't just happening on one side.

MR BIZOS: Mr Williamson, you say that you were just a junior. Were you not the Deputy Director?

MR WILLIAMSON: I said a junior in the South African Intelligence structures Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Oh, I see.

MR WILLIAMSON: I was at that time a Lieutenant and then a Captain.

CHAIRPERSON: Could I interrupt at this stage and ask you another question about money Mr Williamson.

Did you own a yacht or a share in a yacht?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, that was many years later.

CHAIRPERSON: Later?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Wasn't it while Stapleton was in England?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, but that was, we are talking now about the mid to late 1970's, that was in the early 1980's, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: And who paid for the yacht?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, one of the interesting facts about the yacht is that I made a five thousand pound deposit on that yacht, I borrowed the rest of the money and the reason why at the end of the day, I had to sell that yacht, was to repay the loan Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: So the version put by Dirk Coetzee is incorrect?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, and the argument by Mr Castleton that occurred at the time about why I wanted to sell the yacht and that all his money was going, was because that we, and I've got legal documentation that can prove this Mr Chairman, owed a substantial amount of money on that yacht and that there was, Mr Castleton’s idea had been to run it as a charter company with which we would have been able to pay back that loans, and that never happened, so my personal investment in that yacht, was a sum at that time of five thousand pounds, which in those days Mr Chairman, was a lot less than it is today.

MR BIZOS: You say that you were a junior member of the Security Forces?

MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Did you suggest to the Security Forces that the IUEF should be defrauded or was it suggested to you that you should make false representations to the IUEF in order to get money from them? Where did it come from?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I categorically deny that I at any time made suggestions that the IUEF should be defrauded.

If I may just quickly sketch the structures that were in place. The IUEF was funding various internal South African organisations which broadly supported the revolutionary aims, not only of the ANC and the Communist Party, but of many organisations that wished to see the South African government removed.

As part of our infiltration of different revolutionary organisations and structures Mr Chairman, various organisations were either created as security controlled organisations, quasi left wing or revolutionary organisations, or organisations were infiltrated and controlled Mr Chairman.

The funding came to those different organisations so I was not sitting communicating with South Africa, or phoning to the Security Branch Headquarters and saying suggest this and suggest that. I was getting in the normal course of events, the normal type of reports and the normal type of suggestions and funding requests that came through from South Africa.

Some of which Mr Chairman, I knew to be directly related to organisations that were directly under the control of the South African Intelligence Agencies. If I may add Mr Chairman, that in many instances, the organisations that were under control of the South African Intelligence Forces and I can talk about the Environmental Development Agency for example, were organisations that were carrying out substantially the environmental development work that they were supposed to do.

MR BIZOS: We are not talking about those organisations Mr Williamson.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, sir, I am trying to explain sir, what happened was I knew that that organisation was actually really doing the development work that it was supposed to be doing, and was then also being used as a cover for South African Intelligence activities.

On the Daisy Farm issue Mr Chairman, as I mentioned the other day, on more than one occasion I believe at least two occasions, representatives of the donor organisations that had funded Daisy Farm, came from Europe and visited Daisy Farm and were happily under the impression that this was some type of a clandestine training and housing place that had been bought and was being maintained for the type of programmes that they were funding against the South African government, Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Based on lies?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, based on lies and ...

MR BIZOS: Yes, that is what fraud is Mr Williamson.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, but they thought that that organisation, that farm was a farm that was being used for anti-South African activities and they just didn't know in fact, that the people who were at the farm, weren't anti South African, they were pro South African.

MR BIZOS: That is what fraud is, leading people to believe what is not true, is the classic fraud that you and Gen Coetzee jointly took part in Mr Williamson.

MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, I deny categorically that I ever committed fraud in relation to the IUEF Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Perhaps you should ask your Attorney to define fraud for you.

Mr Johan Coetzee during this period, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 and you, had yet another common interest?

MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry Mr Chairman, may I just add on Daisy Farm, that as far as I am ...

MR BIZOS: Just answer my question please.

MR WILLIAMSON: I think Daisy Farm still belongs to the South African government.

MR BIZOS: Well, somebody ought to take some steps about it.

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, perhaps. Then maybe the government can give it back to the IUEF.

MR BIZOS: Just answer my question. Just answer my question, during 1979 to 1981 when the first attempts to murder Mr Schoon took place, you and Gen Coetzee had yet another common interest, even though he was so distant as Commissioner of Police, or as a retired Commissioner of Police?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, in 1979 to 1981 Gen Coetzee was the Commanding Officer of the Security Branch, Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Security Branch?

MR WILLIAMSON: He was not retired or he was not ...

MR BIZOS: Oh, I am sorry, I thought ten years ahead, but you understood the question correctly, during the period 1979 to the early 1980's when attempts were made to murder Mr Schoon, you and Gen Coetzee had yet another cosy personal relationship?

MR WILLIAMSON: I don't know which relationship this is that you are referring to.

MR BIZOS: The cosy relationship of committing fraud on your employer?

MR WILLIAMSON: I am sorry Mr Chairman, I ...

MR BIZOS: What are you sorry about, the fraud?

MR WILLIAMSON: No ...

MR BIZOS: Or the fact that you pretend not to understand the question?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, I don't think there was any yet another cosy relationship relating to fraud of our donor, the IUEF Mr Chairman and it also wasn't ...

MR BIZOS: How often did you see Gen Coetzee?

MR WILLIAMSON: It also wasn't from 1979 to 1981 Mr Chairman. I believe Daisy Farm was bought probably 1977 or 1978.

MR BIZOS: Well, the note that we have that it was 1978 or 1979 and that transfer actually took place in 1981, would that be more or less correct?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, because I think they hired it for a period of time before that Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. So, yes. At the time of your exposure which was precisely when?

MR WILLIAMSON: And I must thank Mr Bizos Mr Chairman, for actually saying that to me, because it has now actually reminded me of another fact, and that is that one of the arguments put up to the IUEF was that instead of you paying rental for the farm, we should just pay a lump sum and buy it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, does that make the fraud better?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I am just giving more details Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: I see.

MR WILLIAMSON: I don't see how having an operational base for our projects in South Africa, funded by the IUEF on a rental basis, would have been fraud Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: It depended if they were paying the rent. If they were paying the rent and you lied to them, the purpose for which it was to be used ...

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I didn't, I said it was the base for the projects Mr Chairman, which it was.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Williamson, we will decide whether it is fraud or not fraud. Not fraud, you may have certain ideas about it, but legally we will decide upon that.

MR WILLIAMSON: Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes, thank you Mr Chairman. Now, could I please turn to Mr Raven's application at page 109.

CHAIRPERSON: Which application?

MR BIZOS: Mr Raven's application, 109 in bundle 2 Mr Chairman. Raven's application, bundle 2 at page 109.

Now I know that you denied the last two sentences on questioning Williamson about the Schoon incident, he said that the letter had been intended for Marius Schoon, but it served them right. He, that is you, alleged that the Schoon's had always used their daughter as their "bomb disposal expert". On requesting clarification he said that whenever they received suspicious parcels, they would throw them into the back yard and let the child play with them until such time as they deemed fit to open them. You denied that portion?

MR WILLIAMSON: I denied the whole portion yes, Mr Chairman, not just the last two lines.

MR BIZOS: Well, the last two sentences, the last two sentences that I read out?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: What you did not deny was it was only after the death of Jeanette Schoon and her child and the congratulations from Williamson, that I realised that they had been the targets for one of the two devices I had manufactured, is that correct?

MR WILLIAMSON: Well, I don't know Mr Chairman, that is a statement by Mr Raven.

MR BIZOS: Yes, I know that. I am asking you that when you did not deny it the first time it was read to you, do you now accept that that sentence is correct or not?

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, as I recollect the evidence when I cross-examined Mr Williamson, I asked him pertinently about the congratulations in both instances, the Ruth First instance and the Jeanette Schoon instance, and he testified that in both instances, it would have been done very informally. I can't remember how he formulated the evidence, but I remember distinctly asking him about two congratulations in both instances, and he said that there was in both instances, a very informal congratulations.

MR BIZOS: Thank you. You hear your co-applicant's Counsel confirming that you did not deny that sentence?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Do you accept then that it was said because you didn't deny it the first time, and one of your co-applicants says that that is what happened?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, are you asking me that there was a congratulations?

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Do you admit that there was a congratulations?

MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, as I said in my evidence.

MR BIZOS: How could you have congratulated the man sincerely then and pretend to shed tears of regret for the death of the child in this Committee, Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I congratulated the man in 1984 Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: For killing a child for whom you pretended to shed tears before the Committee?

MR WILLIAMSON: I didn't pretend to shed tears, I didn't shed tears Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, I - you know ...

MR BIZOS: Take your time.

MR WILLIAMSON: I congratulated Jerry Raven on the fact that his device had worked Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: And his device had killed a child? I would have thought that any person with a drop of humanity within him, would have said "wow is us, we have killed an innocent child", that is what I would have expected from anybody that had any human decency in him Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I believe I said in my evidence, that is what I said to myself and it is what I have said to myself every single day since that day Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: We are talking about the day when you congratulated Raven.

MR WILLIAMSON: That is what I - Mr Chairman, there is a big difference in the middle of a war when this type of thing is happening in 1984, when it occurs, when the mission if you can term in that way, is successfully achieved, to say to the man who constructed the device, well done, your device worked, and being happy about the unintended and total unintentional and tragic and dreadful and every other adjective in the world, death of Katryn Schoon Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: If you had said that to Jerry Raven Mr Williamson, I wouldn't have asked you the question. You didn't say it, you congratulated him.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I have said, I did not congratulate him on the death of a child.

MR BIZOS: I will leave that point there Mr Chairman, I think. Now, in relation to the other two sentences, I am going to ignore for a moment, my learned friend's ifs and buts and maybes.

I want to know ...

MR DU PLESSIS: Whose is that now Mr Chairman?

MR VISSER: Which learned friend?

MR DU PLESSIS: Whose ifs and buts and maybes?

MR BIZOS: Yours.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mine? Can you perhaps specify which ifs and which buts and which maybes?

MR BIZOS: Yes, that perhaps it was not Mr Raven, but it was someone else that said it.

ADV DE JAGER: Gentlemen, we are not in Parliament. Let's proceed with what we are here for.

MR BIZOS: I will repeat the question. Despite the ifs and buts and maybes, such as maybe someone else said it, but this sort of thing was in the newspaper some time later and such other ifs and buts, leave those aside for a moment, let's take it as it stands in the affidavit of Mr Raven and whose memory may not have been refreshed or blurred by anyone from the time that he wrote the affidavit to the time that he gave instructions to his Counsel.

Who would have known in the Security Police of the habits of the Schoon's or the alleged habits of the Schoon's, than you who had actually spent time with them and their children?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I think I had already said that I had no Intelligence information on the Schoon's in Lobango. I had no ever any Intelligence information on whether the Schoon's through suspicious parcels into their backyard and let their children play with it.

MR BIZOS: Well, might you not have said that without special information as some sort of moral justification for the tragic results of the bomb that you had sent?

CHAIRPERSON: But you were asking him to say what member of the Security Police other than himself, would have the knowledge that they did this?

MR BIZOS: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: So equally well, if he could do it with no knowledge, so could any other Security Policeman Mr Bizos?

MR BIZOS: Yes, well Mr Chairman ...

CHAIRPERSON: You were asking him on his specific knowledge.

MR BIZOS: Yes, if you did not have specific knowledge, it was the next question Mr Chairman, if you did not have the specific knowledge, might you not have said it as a supposed moral justification for what you had done?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I know I didn't say it, I know I would never have said it, I know how I feel about Katryn Schoon's death and whether no one other person in this world believes me, how I feel about Katryn Schoon's death, doesn't make any difference to me Mr Chairman, I know how I feel.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Well, if you did say it, it would show malice, wouldn't it?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I don't know what it would show. I would never have said anything like that, I know I did not say it.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Well, we will ask Mr Raven about it as to how he came to attribute it to you and why he is departing from his affidavit.

Now, you also did not deny specifically the portion of the sentence that says he said that the letter had been intended for Marius Schoon. Did you say that?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I have said repeatedly, the letter was intended for Marius and Jeanette Schoon and I know specifically that it was intended for both of them.

When one, or if one is talking loosely about the thing, one may just say for example that it was for the Schoon's or I wish Marius had opened it or something like that Mr Chairman. I do not have any specific recollection of, and I certainly would never have just told him specifically it was only intended for Marius.

MR BIZOS: Do you remember whether when these sentences were read out to you, you specifically dealt with or denied that sentence, the letter had been intended ...

CHAIRPERSON: Didn't he deny the whole of this Mr Bizos, and say I never said that?

MR WILLIAMSON: I denied the whole thing Mr Chairman, I said I did not say it and I said that in the circumstances of the time and the context of the time, it is the type of dehumanising statement that somebody may well have made when such an incident was being discussed Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: You did not confine it to the remark about the child?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I do not believe that I said anything of that Mr Chairman.

I certainly didn't say it served them right Mr Chairman, so I would have denied the entire statement.

MR BIZOS: I have been handed the original Observer article and for the sake of completeness of the 19th of February 1995, and for the sake of completeness I will read from the last paragraph of the fourth column Mr Chairman. Is that before you Mr Chairman, or not yet?

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, we have talked time and again about the necessity of making documents available. The purpose of the pre-trail conference, what is the excuse for producing this one at this stage?

MR BIZOS: I wasn't at the pre-trial conference Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: The Attorney has made no attempt to do anything since.

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman ...

CHAIRPERSON: We do not go in for these surprise things here, we have said that, we said it yesterday. There was no attempt yesterday to say that you had other documents that you were going to produce?

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, I was not going to produce it Mr Chairman if it was not necessary to draw a contradiction in the witness' evidence, and it has only now become relevant Mr Chairman, when he contradicted.

CHAIRPERSON: Why? He has already denied that he made these remarks? He didn't just do it now Mr Bizos, he did it earlier.

MR BIZOS: Well when Mr Chairman, a day or two ago Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR BIZOS: Well, we did not Mr Chairman, apply our mind to it, we did not remember it.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, would you and your Attorney please apply your minds from now on?

MR BIZOS: Yes, Mr Chairman, but it is inevitable when a denial comes up that a document is pertinently brought to my attention Mr Chairman, dealing with the contradiction.

May I proceed and put it to the witness Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on.

MR BIZOS: It is a quotation from him Mr Chairman, it will not take him by surprise.

The killing of activist Jeanette Schoon and her daughter, blown up by a parcel bomb in the Angolan city of Lobango in June 1984 was similar to the first killing. The bomb was intended for her husband Marius Schoon, an ANC operative. That is what the ANC says Mr Chairman. No, I beg your pardon, no, it is part of the narrative Mr Chairman, yes, it is part of the narrative.

A parcel from Gaberone to Angola addressed to Marius, was brought to Williamson's Unit "they said right, here is this parcel from ANC in Gaberone to Marius Schoon in Lobango, doctor it. We doctored it and gave it back to them and that was that". Would you like to see the document where your words are?

MR WILLIAMSON: I remember it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: You remember it? Did you take any steps to correct that statement Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that was based on a generalised interview that I made to a newspaper reporter, a newspaper article followed and I did not then attempt to draw up, you know, something like a full application to the TRC and give it to the newspaper and ask them to print it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Well, because a distinction is made, or rather an explanation Williamson says that the deaths of Schoon and her daughter disillusioned him with Police work, so that a distinction is made between the one paragraph and the other, attempting to show that you deliberately said that it was addressed to Schoon alone?

MR WILLIAMSON: No, I think the death of Schoon means Jeanette Schoon Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: A parcel from Gaberone, Angola addressed to Marius, was brought to Williamson's Unit. They said right, here is this parcel from ANC in Gaberone to Marius Schoon in Lobango, doctor it. We doctored it and gave it back to them and that was that.

Any explanation why you told the Observer reporter Philip van Niekerk that specific version?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I may note that that specific version that I said, was made up of one or two sentences. The entire episode was dealt with in one or two sentences, doctor it and that was that. It was addressed to Marius Schoon in Lobango and it was a cursory comment about what had happened Mr Chairman. It was not an in-depth detail of exactly what I saw, when I saw it Mr Chairman, and that is all that I can say.

MR BIZOS: If you were to count the words that you spoke of in the newspaper and the words in your application for amnesty Mr Williamson, I think that you gave greater detail to the Observer reporter than you did in your written application, but be that as it may, why do you suggest that a responsible journalist like Mr Philip van Niekerk, whom you did not contradict after publication, would have said that it was an item addressed to Marius Schoon if in fact it was addressed to both Mr and Mrs Schoon?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it was addressed to Marius and Jenny.

MR BIZOS: The question was, why did you say otherwise to a senior journalist and you did not correct it after it was published?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, we were dealing in the broadest general detail, it was an incident that had happened. The first time that it was going to be revealed that the South African Intelligence Services had been involved in this death, and it was just the basic revelation that was made Mr Chairman.

There was absolutely - I don't know whether I didn't mention Jenn, I don't know whether he didn't take, I really cannot comment Mr Chairman, that is what was published in the newspaper. I didn't bother to change it or to make any corrections Mr Chairman, because that was the first revelation of what has happened.

It was the beginning of the process which I knew was going to culminate here Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, that is the portion that I want to refer to now. Other portions may become relevant later. Would you receive it as an Exhibit and we will make copies on the adjournment and supply it to everyone Mr Chairman?

CHAIRPERSON: Exhibit Z.

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Let us now go on to something else.

Did you become aware of what Mr Nzo the Secretary General of the African National Congress, said after Jeanette Schoon and her daughter's death Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: Not specifically Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. I ask for leave Mr Chairman, to hand in the - apparently contemporaneous press release. I have the, what purports to be the press release at the time, but photostat copies have been made. I don't know whether you want this press release which takes this form or whether we can accept the more convenient ...

CHAIRPERSON: Exhibit AA.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Do you want the original Mr Chairman, that has come to our possession or can I return it to my client, from whom it comes?

CHAIRPERSON: I don't know if anybody wants to have ...

MR LEVINE: I don't know whether this is in the same format as the original. If it is, I don't need to have sight of the original, but if the original is in a different format, yes, I do wish to see it.

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman, the applicant's Attorney can look at it, I would appreciate it if it could be returned, because it comes from Mr Schoon's file and obviously he has an interest in the document Mr Chairman, beyond these proceedings Mr Chairman.

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I can just mention the obvious and that is that it seems that definitely it has been cut off at the top of the second page, and it might even be the same on the bottom of the first page. I don't know.

CHAIRPERSON: The same line Mr Visser?

MR VISSER: Not mine Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: (Indistinct)

MR VISSER: Well, then I have a different copy from yours Mr Chairman. I don't have that much of an interest, so I will leave it at that.

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman, it was photostatted in this way, but it is a complete document Mr Chairman, it just takes a little scrutiny. It may be that the copy that finished up with my learned friend, wasn't fully square on the machine Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, this purports to come from Mr Nzo. Will he be giving evidence about this?

MR BIZOS: If it is put in issue Mr Chairman, we can ...

CHAIRPERSON: It is not put in issue, the witness says he doesn't know of it, he can't confirm it.

MR BIZOS: Yes, well his legal advisors will advise us in due course whether they require Mr Nzo to come and prove it. Mr Schoon will probably be able to identify it as having been issued by Mr Nzo in the circumstances under which it came to be in his possession Mr Chairman.

It comes from my client's possession. I would have thought that this is a matter that would not present such great difficulty of proof Mr Chairman.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, the original document which I have here is a lengthy one page document. The Exhibit AA is of two pages, to the best of our checking ability, it would appear to be correct and a true copy, so I hand it back to my learned friend.

MR BIZOS: Thank you. Have you read it Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: I have Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: You knew Jeanette Curtis? Is that a fairly accurate picture of her life and work?

MR WILLIAMSON: It is a fairly accurate picture yes Mr Chairman, it doesn't go into details of her work for the ANC, but it does allude to it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Mr Chairman, I will assume that if that is not enough identification, our learned friends will let us know and we will take steps to prove it in one way or another.

CHAIRPERSON: What worries me Mr Bizos, is that you keep on endeavouring to get in admissions that she was merely teaching English, and I hope you don't intend to try to use this document as proof of the fact?

MR BIZOS: Mr Schoon Mr Chairman, will tell you precisely what they did in Angola and what the situation was, vis a vis ...

CHAIRPERSON: Then you will not be using this document to prove that?

MR BIZOS: No, but I will be using the document Mr Chairman, to the witness' knowledge of the sort of person that she was, and what she stood for Mr Chairman, and the other matters that have been, because he says this is the person that he knew Mr Chairman.

It is one of the ways of proving facts Mr Chairman. Might I suggest Mr Williamson to you that the death of Mrs Schoon, Jeanette Schoon, Jeanette Curtis, was considered the low water mark of the activities of the Security Forces against persons that it called its enemies?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I can't - I don't really understand the question. The ANC, to my knowledge, nobody ever talked about the worst atrocity or the lowest water mark or whatever in terms of this Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Well, the Citizen is ... (tape ends) ... 1984, a newspaper which was not inimical to the National Party government and its Security Forces.

MR WILLIAMSON: Was not a supporter?

MR BIZOS: No, no, was not inimical to the policies and actions of the National Party and its Security Forces? Is that correct?

MR WILLIAMSON: Must I comment on the statement? Yes.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Let me just read to you a portion of the editorial, we will make a copy of it available Mr Chair.

Whoever is behind the attack, the Citizen, 2 July 1984 Mr Chairman, whoever is behind this attack and whatever the purpose, we are revolted at the thought of this woman and her child dying in such ghastly circumstances. Mrs Schoon was the first white woman in South Africa to be detained without trial, a statement which is not factually correct, but it is irrelevant to these purposes.

She spent 65 days in detention and married Mr Schoon soon after her release. She had never harmed anyone and did not deserve such a horrible death. It is a tragedy that the ANC uses violence to achieve its objectives and this violence in duplicated, perhaps by others, in this evil way.

Would you accept that as the judgement of a non ANC supporting Editor?

MR WILLIAMSON: I would Mr Chairman, and I would even go so far when we talk about the evil of that violence and the ANC's violence, I would agree with it Mr Chairman. That is exactly ...

MR BIZOS: Do you accept the judgement that this was probably the most evil bit of violence that was committed?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, I can't say this is the most evil bit of violence that has ever been committed, either in the struggle between the ANC and the South African government at the time, or in the world, Mr Chairman, but I say it was a dreadful and evil and terrible act and I have said before, the death of a child can never ever be justified.

The innocent was never deliberately targeted Mr Chairman. I said earlier that that applies to innocent victims of the ANC and Communist Party violence and to the innocent victims of our Security Force violence Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Do you agree with the sentence she had never harmed anyone and did not deserve such a horrible death?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I am sure Jeanette had personally or directly never harmed anybody, but she inescapably was a member of a revolutionary organisation that was seeking to overthrow the South African government by force of arms and was killing people in South Africa Mr Chairman, and some of those people that they were killing, also were innocent children Mr Chairman, but this is - you know, you can't just take one simplistic statement and expect this to sum up the tragedy of either this incident or the whole South African war of the recent past, or the conflict of the recent past Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Judging by your previous evidence, you expected the ANC to retaliate and warned people to expect to be dealt with by the same coin.

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that warning I gave in 1982, 1983 Mr Chairman, which was after the death of Ruth First.

MR BIZOS: And you did it again?

MR WILLIAMSON: I am not sure whether I did it again Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: No, you murdered again?

MR WILLIAMSON: When did I murder again Mr Chairman?

MR BIZOS: Jeanette Schoon after the warning that you gave about killing Ruth First?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, after the death of Ruth First the war continued.

MR BIZOS: You gave a warning that there would be retaliation, there may be retaliation and people must warn themselves, and then you killed again?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I gave a warning that if South Africa did things like this, we would have to beware of retaliation in our same coin, Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Now that is consistent with the school of thought both of the lunatic left and the lunatic right, that you must commit atrocities for the purposes of provoking the other side to commit similar acts in order to escalate a war or a conflict, have you heard of those lunatic positions?

MR WILLIAMSON: I have Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Did you ever have a feeling that you targeting women, may have put you in one of those two categories?

MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, and I am surprised that Mr Bizos keeps drawing a distinction between male and female members of the revolutionary forces Mr Chairman, because in my experience, they were regarded as exactly equal.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Is it a coincidence that you only killed females?

MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, am I supposed to comment on that?

MR BIZOS: Yes or no, maybe, I don't know, it is up to you. It is embarrassing isn't it Mr Williamson?

MR WILLIAMSON: I in fact thought I was going to be accused of killing a lot more people Mr Chairman, so I will just leave it at that.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: Because I was involved in exactly the same way in other strikes on the ANC in which more than just women died Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Well, if you want to admit to them, I would not - you know ...

MR WILLIAMSON: I have admitted to them Mr Chairman, I have admitted my role in the Gaberone raid Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

MR WILLIAMSON: I am talking about the Gaberone raid of 1985 Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Yes. Mr Chairman, there are another three or four topics of short duration that I have with the witness, but it is two o'clock, but I will finish with the witness very early on Monday morning Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I understood you were going to finish with the witness today Mr Bizos, let's see what happens.

MR BIZOS: I tried Mr Chairman, but then we took about three quarters of an hour on matters other than the business of the day Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I know that some people have made reservations and arrangements to depart earlier this afternoon. I don't think it will be right at this stage to sit later disrupt that.

MR BIZOS: I am sorry, I would have ...

CHAIRPERSON: We will adjourn until nine o'clock on Monday morning.

MR BIZOS: Thank you.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, with respect, I have explained my position on Monday, to you. I have been excused, and I take it that relates also to any questions that will be put or would be intended to be put to my client or to any other witnesses in respect of whose evidence, my client has an interest.

CHAIRPERSON: I understood we would continue, that we were merely going to excuse you from attendance, Mr Levine. I think that we had hoped that your client would have been out of the witness, we have in fact understood that your client would have been out of the witness box and I think Mr Bizos, in those circumstances, it will only be fair to let any cross-examination stand over till Tuesday morning, but we can continue with other witnesses.

MR BIZOS: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: There are - none of the others directly implicate this applicant, do they or unexpectedly do so?

MR BIZOS: No Mr Chairman. But may I suggest Mr Chairman, that with respect, the applicant's Attorney Mr Chairman, has a right to re-examine. He has an assistant here, can't I finish the cross-examination on Monday morning and the re-examination by reserved Mr Chairman?

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Bizos, Mr Levine approached us at the beginning of the week, it is for religious reasons.

MR BIZOS: I know that Mr Chairman, I want to accommodate him.

ADV DE JAGER: I think it is unfair that his client is being put under cross-examination while he is not here and I think we could accommodate him, I don't think it would really ...

MR BIZOS: Make any difference?

ADV DE JAGER: Yes.

MR BIZOS: No, I thought that we could finish it if there were no objections to it, but if he wants to be present on Tuesday Mr Chairman, or Tuesday I understand is also a Jewish holiday?

CHAIRPERSON: No, Mr Levine has only ...

MR BIZOS: Intend the first day, I can understand that.

CHAIRPERSON: Only the first day which as I understand, is the most serious, most important day.

MR BIZOS: No, we accept that. I don't want to stand in his way in relation to that Mr Chairman.

MR LEVINE: Perhaps we could establish Mr Chairman, who has to get their planes and at what time, because if not, could we not continue with those short points my learned friend has?

CHAIRPERSON: There are a lot of people shaking their heads Mr Levine.

MR LEVINE: Well Mr Chairman, you know my position and I made it clear.

CHAIRPERSON: No, we can stand over the cross-examination and the re-examination till Tuesday morning.

MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I take it your assistant will be here on Monday, so if there is anything that arises during the course of any other evidence, he is able to tell you about it.

MR LEVINE: He will let me know, he is not a qualified Attorney, but he is able to take notes.

CHAIRPERSON: He is clearly fully alive to what your case is about?

MR BIZOS: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: He will know what you ought to be told about?

MR LEVINE: At least that makes one of us from our side, fully alive to it Mr Chairman.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, we have been given to understand and we will prepare for Mr Raven as the first witness on Monday and we just want confirmation of that Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you consider discussing the question of interposing other witnesses during the course of the week?

MR BIZOS: Yes Mr Chairman, that was the - we have indicated that, I don't know that we have done it to everyone of our colleagues, but those who are, who have clients to be called certainly, that we would ask that at least some of our witnesses or at least one of our witnesses, should be called after the applicants for amnesty for the Ruth First and the Schoon murders have been heard Mr Chairman.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I just point out my position. I have made my client's position clear to the Committee also at the beginning of the week.

He has a problem in that his employer is Jewish, he is the only person who can run the business and that is for Monday and Tuesday. I approached my learned friend Mr Bizos yesterday about that problem. He indicated to me that there was no problem at all, that he agreed to it and I thought that we had come to an agreement in the spirit of reconciliation as we have come to experience in these proceedings.

However, this morning I was approached by my learned friend Mr Chairman, indicating to me that he is not prepared any more to exceed to, or keep to the agreement that we have reached. He indicated to me that he insists that Mr Raven is here on Monday and that I must see to it that Mr Raven is here on Monday.

My client has a problem Mr Chairman and I have raised that problem before, it is also a problem that relates to religious situations of other people, and as far as I am concerned, I have an agreement with my learned friend. If he wants to repudiate it, Mr Chairman, I don't accept the repudiation.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, I am absolutely shocked Mr Chairman. I am absolutely shocked that it is put in that way. My learned friend this morning was told Mr Chairman, that Ms Slovo has to be on a plane on Friday, that she is very concerned, she is very anxious to hear the witnesses who participated, and I apologised for indicating to him that without consulting her, I had said that I did not foresee any problem and that it would be okay.

This morning I told him and he said Mr Chairman, that will be fine, I don't want to call him today, listen please and don't say no, I do not want to call him today because I have not fully prepared him, and I told him that I would probably not have, leave very much time any way and that it would be on Monday and that he said that would be fine and that other arrangements would be made.

The owner of the business is apparently Jewish and has a problem. It would have been convenient if Mr Raven was available to look after the business, selling mattresses and the attitude was Mr Chairman, that if we had to make a choice between the people vitally effected not hearing the evidence that relates to the killing of their mother, and the convenience of a business person Mr Chairman, who can make other arrangements in relation to their shop on the two days, to say that I repudiated the agreement Mr Chairman, is a completely incorrect.

It was the person acting for Mr Raven Mr Chairman, who was asked for an indulgence for the person not to be called today. I have never been in a matter Mr Chairman, where I have this personal attacks of repudiating agreements or putting matters which I was not entitled to in my life for the last 20 or 30 years Mr Chairman.

I would appeal to my learned friend, to stick to the agreement that we had this morning that we would not insist on his client being called today, but that he should be called on Monday. I am really shocked Mr Chairman.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, as you know my Attorney wasn't here this morning. I made it clear to my learned friend Mr Bizos, that I will have to take it up with my Attorney, that I will have to see if there were arrangements, so equally I am shocked.

I don't want to get into a dispute with Mr Bizos, he is a senior colleague, I respect him, and I am not going to get into a dispute. If I put it a little bit harder in respect of the repudiation of the agreement, I apologise to him.

The point I am trying to make Mr Chairman, is that I understood from our discussion yesterday, that we had an agreement. He didn't say to me that he has to take instructions from his client. I thought that we had an agreement.

As far as I am concerned Mr Chairman, and I will make the offer that my travel agent will check if there are other flights later that, if it should happen that we don't finish in time, that the people who come from England who are here, can leave the country at a later stage. I don't believe that there aren't any later flights available.

Mr Chairman, all people in this process, must be accommodated. I raised my point with you, I don't want to get into a dispute with my learned friend. I thought we had an agreement. I said this morning that I would take it up with my Attorney, arrangements would be made, and that is my position.

MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman ...

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I believe that my client may be vitally effected by Mr Raven's evidence from the point of view of cross-examination. My position is clear, I have been released on Monday.

It would appear to be possibly prejudicial to my client, the applicant, if Mr Raven was discharged and couldn't be dealt with in such cross-examination that may well become necessary. I am sure there are other witnesses not vitally effected or related in regard to my client, who could be dealt with on Monday.

MR ROUSSOUW: Sorry Mr Chairman, can I perhaps intercede here. On that point, my client Mr Bosch, might be one of those applicants who might as suggested, come in on Monday, but Mr Chairman, I would like to make it clear right now, that I do not consider it in any way helpful if he were to proceed before Mr Raven. That will not be helpful to the Committee, especially in the way in which his application is formulated.

Mr Chairman, may I then also at this stage indicate to the Committee and beg an indulgence as far as my client, Mr Bosch is concerned, I have been informed that he has an interview for a job, a job interview on Tuesday. He is available ...

ADV DE JAGER: No, we have heard, I think in future we will have to decide when the witnesses is going to be called and if Counsel can't cooperate and help us in this respect, then they should not expect us to be of assistance to them.

We will make a ruling and we will follow that then and you will have to fall in whether it suits you or not. If you can't as legal representatives, come to sensible agreements, we will have to do something about it.

MR CORNELIUS: Mr Chairman, Cornelius, on behalf of McPherson, we are ready, available and we can proceed on Monday if that will resolve the problem.

CHAIRPERSON: You will be how long on Monday?

MR CORNELIUS: I beg your pardon?

CHAIRPERSON: How long will you be on Monday?

MR CORNELIUS: The evidence would be approximately two hours I would suggest.

CHAIRPERSON: That will hardly solve the problem. Which ones are available on Monday?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I suppose I should come in here, Visser on record. Other than my learned friend, Mr Bizos, I understood the position to be that we will deal with Gen Johan Coetzee and Mr Craig Williamson and thereafter we will deal with the Ruth First matter, so that they can get away.

My learned friend apparently understands it that we will deal with both the Schoon and the Ruth First, we didn't understand it that way. But we leave that for you to decide.

We have one witness, Brigadier Schoon of course, which is involved in the attempt on the life of Mr Marius Schoon. He is available, we have consulted. He has been here all week. If needs be, I think it will be highly unsatisfactory but be that as it may, if needs be, he could fill in time.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Visser, we are obliged to you.

MR ROUSSOUW: Mr Chairman, Mr Bosch is also available on Monday, but I don't consider that it would be helpful if his evidence is led before that of Mr Raven.

MR VISSER: Perhaps we should just put in Brigadier Schoon on Monday. I think that will solve the whole problem, and McPherson. Perhaps McPherson should go first and then if time is left over, then Brigadier Schoon or Bosch or Brigadier Schoon can go in Mr Chairman. We will fall in with your arrangements.

We have consulted, we are ready.

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Cornelius, you are appearing for ...

MR CORNELIUS: Vic McPherson.

ADV DE JAGER: Sorry?

MR CORNELIUS: McPherson.

CHAIRPERSON: Schoon, McPherson and Bosch is a possible back stop?

ADV DE JAGER: What about Mr Waal du Toit perhaps?

MR BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, the Chairperson would recall that I also had a problem on Monday. I can call Mr Waal du Toit on Tuesday. I think his evidence in chief will take no longer than half an hour. His cross-examination of course is completely unpredictable factor, that I do not wish to comment about.

I can have Mr Waal du Toit available on Tuesday if you want me to have him available Mr Chairman, but it is not going to make sense. Mr Du Toit is not involved with any of either ...

ADV DE JAGER: No we are looking for witnesses on Monday.

MR BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, no I have discussed it with the Chairman right at the beginning, that I've got unfortunately problems on Monday myself.

MR VISSER: Visser on record Mr Chairman. There is of course another permutation. Mr Bizos can start calling his witnesses on Monday.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR VISSER: Which seems to be ...

MR BIZOS: They want to hear the evidence, because they will respond to that evidence Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: But surely they are not going to respond do technical evidence by Mr Raven?

MR BIZOS: No. Mr Chairman, with the greatest respect Mr Chairman, our clients came here a long way to hear those who participated in the killing of their mother, Mr Chairman, they are entitled to hear them and respond to whatever they may have to say.

CHAIRPERSON: But if they want to hear them, they can stay here and hear the evidence.

MR BIZOS: No Mr Chairman, with the greatest respect Mr Chairman, no Mr Chairman, I believe with the greatest respect, we may have to go to the Committee Member De Jager's situation Mr Chairman.

We have agreed that we would hear the Ruth First matter first, that the applicants will give evidence Mr Chairman, and rebutting evidence is going to be led during the course of next week.

I appeal that whatever arrangements are made of an ad hoc basis, that we should stick to that overall arrangement Mr Chairman, and that as far as Mr Raven is concerned Mr Chairman, we are told by people that the second day is not as important, it is not for Mr Raven's religious considerations that we are really worrying about, but by his employer's.

It may be that his employer would take the same attitude to the matter as Mr Levine, or if possibly, if he could not, then perhaps they can find someone else to look to sell mattresses on Tuesday Mr Chairman, but I think that with the greatest respect, that the business of the Court comes first, and that people should ...

CHAIRPERSON: And that is the hearing of the applications?

MR BIZOS: That is the hearing of the applicants Mr Chairman, and that we should really use the words of the subpoena, putting all other business aside, you come here and speak.

After all Mr Chairman, they are the applicants.

MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I will endeavour to try and have Mr Raven here on Tuesday. I will give you an indication on Monday, but I think that would probably ...

CHAIRPERSON: I am guided largely by Mr Levine, that Monday is the day that will be very difficult for his employer to be away. His employer may be able to come back on Tuesday as Mr Levine is coming back.

MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, I understand that.

MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, both days are extremely important. However, as a non - let me put it this way - I am not as observant of the second day as some other Jewish people may be, we do have in the Jewish religion, a reformed Jewish approach in certain instances where only the first day is regarded as being the most important.

I certainly for one, am observant of the first day and if we are going to sit Mr Chairman, into the following week, we have the most religious Jewish holiday which is the Day of Atonement, and I hadn't raised that with you at the stage we were on Monday, because I didn't know there was an intention to sit, but that I can raise with you in due course.

But certainly Mr Chairman, as an indication the first day is sacred to all Jews. The second day is not uniformly observed across the board.

CHAIRPERSON: We will adjourn till Monday at 9 o'clock.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS