CHAIRPERSON: It's now Tuesday morning. Although this is a formal hearing of the Committee, it seems to me in the light of the hall in which we're sitting and wat might happen today I am not sure, if any of you gentlemen feel you would like to take your coats off during the hearing, please feel free to do so. The ventilation is not that good here and I have been listening to the radio this morning and they don’t seem to make up there mind as to what the temperature in Pretoria is going to be, it’s varying but it may be a hot day and if so please take your coats off.
MR LEVINE: It also depends where on is sitting Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: I would also like to repeat what I said yesterday afternoon, if any members of the audience would like to come and watch what is being shown on these videos, they will have to sit on the floor I’m afraid but they are invited to do so.
It might to possible if the gentlemen would be cooperative in moving bags and things, there are some seats available if you prefer to sit and behind there, there are seats for the ladies, men can sit.
CRAIG MICHAEL WILLIAMSON: (s.u.o.)
EXAMINATION BY MR LEVINE: (Continued) Mr Chairman, before we begin, consideration was given to the most useful remarks by Advocate de Jager, one of the Commissioners, in regard to perhaps shortening the videos. I have some good news and some bad news in as much as the next video deals mainly with General Magnus Malan and what he had to say about the situation and that is twelve minutes, the rest of the twenty-five minutes will be left out. The third video deals generally with the state of emergency with Mr P W Botha and his address regarding violence and I believe that we are looking here, unfortunately at the better part of twenty minutes.
The fourth video again we have some twenty minutes, Mr Chairman, and the fourth video is approximately twenty odd minutes. There is no meaningful way of cutting the actual presentation time and leaving the content intact.
MR VISSER: May I suggest Mr Chairman, for reference purposes that we refer to the videos in that order, Exhibit 1 or Video 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 as we go along? Thank you
MR LEVINE: Yes, now with your permission Mr Chairman, I would like to arrange for Video 2 to be screened.
CHAIRPERSON: What we saw yesterday afternoon, although it appeared to have been two was all one video, that will be Video 1, that was the various interviews. Video 2 will be General Magnus Malan. Video 3 will be the ex-State President, Mr P W Botha and Video 4, is that the last?
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, that is the last but one.
MR LEVINE: Video 4 is the aims and ideology of the ANC and how this can be put into practice.
MR LEVINE: Video 5 is really a most unpleasant video but it deals with the strife and the killings and various matters, such as necklacing.
CHAIRPERSON: Well is Video 5 factual videos taken at the scenes of the commission of crimes?
MR LEVINE: Absolutely Mr Commissioner. That will be the last one.
CHAIRPERSON: Have these videos been transcribed?
MR LEVINE: Not by way of additional copies but it can be done ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: I gather you are handing in copies of these videos as exhibits.
CHAIRPERSON: So they will be available for transcription?
MR LEVINE: Oh yes. May we proceed Mr Chairman,?
MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry, excuse me Mr Chairman, should I comment on the videos at the end or after each video?
CHAIRPERSON: We were told you weren’t required to comment on what we saw yesterday, that we could make our own minds up on that. That was what you said, wasn’t it?
MR LEVINE: Absolutely correct Mr Chairman. It is just that I think they speak for themselves. Of course if Mr Williamson feels there is a specific issue to comment on I’m not going to ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: That is a matter for you and him, you are leading his evidence. If you wish him or he wishes to comment, you can decide on the relevance of it.
MR LEVINE: Thank you Mr Chairman. Are you ready to commence with Video 2?
ON RESUMPTION AFTER WATCHING VIDEO 2
MR LEVINE: Do you have any comment to make on Video 2?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as we’ve said I think it does speak for itself but basically the importance of the video I find is its concentration where he talks about the neighbouring states and that "uiters suksesvolle oorgrense operasies" and basically it just goes to show the attitude at the time and yesterday I said, I talked about the fact that the Security Forces had this goal of pushing the ANC and Communist Party Alliance back from our borders and the General in that video also said that one of the goals of the Security Forces was not to allow the enemy to plan in our neighbouring states. Thank you Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: That bears the date, 22.9.86. Could we with your permission, go on with Video 3 Mr Chairman,? That bears the date, 11.6.87?
MR LEVINE: Possibly we could shorten this one as well. I don’t believe, unless Mr Williamson has a contrary view, that the rest of this tape is necessary?
MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, I think this tape just goes to show according to my evidence yesterday, the what I termed the octopus nature of the Secretariate of the State Security Council and the fact that the decisions went from the top right down to the lowest levels in the country.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, - Is that your comment on that particular video tape?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: With your permission Mr Chairman, we would move onto Video 4.
ADV DE JAGER: If you are going to hand in the videos as exhibits?
ADV DE JAGER: So you are not showing the whole video but I presume if any of the counsel or representatives here would like to see the whole video, they will be entitled to see it?
MR LEVINE: Yes it is available. I am merely trying to short-circuit the time of Commission.
ADV DE JAGER: Yes, no I ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: They are available as exhibits if anybody wants.
MR LEVINE: Are you ready to commence No 4?
MR LEVINE: ...[inaudible] for my learned friends' information, is now in January 1986.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I think that especially the opinions of Gillian Becker who is an international authority in terrorism, shows that a lot of the views that I have expressed in my evidence were not unique to me.
CHAIRPERSON: Do you share her views about the United Nations?
MR WILLIAMSON: At the time Mr Chairman, the United Nations was very much under the influence of the Soviet Union. Obviously it was not an nefarious organisation.
MR LEVINE: With your permission Mr Chairman. I would like to move on to Video 5. Again this is a particularly unsettling video from the point of view of scenes that are depicted.
CHAIRPERSON: Before it starts I would ask everybody here to have regard to what Mr Levine has just said and if they feel they would rather not watch this particular video, to leave now.
MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, if Mr Levine proceeds with this video, we give notice that we will ask you to see photographs of people who were butchered and burnt by the Security Forces, the people that were gunned down in Maseru which led to the Pretoria bomb. We will introduce accounts of people braaiing their food whilst bodies of their victims were burning.
CHAIRPERSON: We’ve heard evidence as to that Mr Bizos at other hearings of this Committee.
MR BIZOS: Well Mr Chairman, I believe with the greatest respect, that Mr Williamson who is apparently in more control than Mr Levine is as to how his case is being presented, is really repeating, Mr Chairman, the information, misinformation, propaganda, the expression of lunatic views. Not for the purposes of any of the matters that have to be decided in this matter but in order to repeat what some people call the creation of a climate that led them.
We will submit Mr Chairman, that this sort of material may have influenced some foot soldier, not the Head of Intelligence and that the showing of these videos, and particularly the one about to be shown, is an abuse of the process but I leave the matter in the Committee’s hands as to whether they will allow its hearings to be used for that purpose.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I don’t know whether you wish me to reply to that. There are a very few brief issues which I would like to deal with, with your permission.
The first is, Mr Chairman, I’m in control, not Mr Williamson, of the case which is being presented but I take instructions from my client as is incumbent upon any legal adviser acting properly in the course and scope of his duties.
Secondly we have heard about these other photographs and I am aware, not in detail, but photographs such as those prefaced by Mr Bizos, have been shown at other inquiries and Amnesty Hearings and I consider that the showing of this video is relevant. That it sets out not only what was in the mind of what Mr Williamson calls the foot soldiers, but in the mind of the higher echelons and indeed the highest eschelons in the South African Defence and police and I believe it proper that it be shown.
CHAIRPERSON: The view of the Committee is that if Mr Levine, having applied to his mind to it, is of the opinion that this is relevant and that he wishes to introduce it in evidence to explain Mr Williamson’s behaviour, he may do so. Mr Bizos will of course be at liberty when he is presenting his evidence to lead such evidence as he feels necessary to counter any such.
MR LEVINE: I am indebted to you Mr Chairman. I unfortunately do not have the date of this particular video but I am sure that can be established.
CHAIRPERSON: As I understood it, this is not the video of one incident, it is a series of incidents, perhaps ranging over some years.
MR LEVINE: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps Mr Williamson could tell us what the various incidents are. If they are incidents that have influenced him, he should be able to give us some idea of when they occurred.
MR BIZOS: Yes, but on the point of relevance Mr Chairman, Mr Williamson committed the murders that he has admitted to in 1982 and 1984. On a simple application of the elementary rules of logic we do not know how his mind was influenced, what might have happened after 1984.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, perhaps I could clear it up by putting one question to Mr Williamson and that is as follows: Mr Williamson, would it be fair to say that all of the videos that have been presented, set out a situation of warfare inside and outside of South Africa, with which the country and the police and the Defence Force were faced with from the late 1970's onwards?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman. I think that the evidence goes to a comment I made or what I tried to say yesterday in my evidence and also the evidence that I gave in front of the Armed Forces Committee in Cape Town, and that is to illustrate not only what was happening, but to try and illustrate the pressure under which the Security Forces were at the time, where incidents were occurring which the Security Forces were regarded by the upper echelons as responsible for stopping. And I think that that is what it goes to, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: As I understand it though, the objection is to the nature of the incidents. If the incidents deal with acts of violence after a change of policy on the part of the ANC, those incidents can’t have affected you, Mr Williamson, in 1984, can they?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, the incidents are over a number of years, as far as I understand the different incidents, and it’s true that obviously something that happened after an event couldn’t have influenced me before the event, but what we are talking about Mr Chairman, I believe is a war situation that was going on and that started before the particular events we are talking about here and went on after the particular events and that there was a commonality of understanding of the pressures and activities that were going on at the time. But I am in the hands of my legal advisor and the Committee, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, perhaps you can clear this up in cross-examination. It may well affect credibility if it appears that the incidents which are alleged to have given rise to certain conclusions could not have done so, but I think in the mean time we will go ahead and see this video.
MR BIZOS: Thank you Mr Chairman.
ADV DE JAGER: I am seeing a man speaking out. I don’t know whether he is talking about an organisation in Russia or wherever, so at least inform us who is the speaker, was he a member of any of the organisations we are dealing with or who were involved in the struggle, so that at least we could see whether it is relevant or not.
MR LEVINE: Mr Commissioner, my caption in this particular regard is marked, "Public Rhetoric". I don’t have any details as to who the speaker is and what organisation he belongs to. If it is considered irrelevant ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: But what is the relevance if this is perhaps a speaker in Abyssinia, talking about matters up there, what relevance is it here?
MR LEVINE: I understand it is a speaker in and/or pertaining to South Africa. Unfortunately the people who made this video have not seen fit to describe ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps Mr Williamson knows who it is, if this is supposed to have had some influence on his ...[indistinct].
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, this is a former member of, or I believe to be a former member of the South African Communist Party, but Mr Chairman, may I consult with my legal advisor for one minute please?
MR WILLIAMSON: No I don’t know his name, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Can’t we go onto something?
MR LEVINE: We could certainly go on to something that is 4 minutes and 38 seconds down the line, Mr Commissioner?
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, we may have an idea who it is, we are just busy determining that.
CHAIRPERSON: ...[inaudible] under the control of anyone. It was a crowd going mad.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, may I perhaps answer that. That was the killing of Maki Skosana of the incident that you have heard evidence about in the zero hand grenade incident where she was the girlfriend of Joe Mamesela and she was actually wrongly identified as his girlfriend and thereafter killed in that way. I agree with the brutality but it is important in that regard and to place it in perspective.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, if you give us the information as to who and what it is concerned with, but merely to show us, go on and on with this. So if we could be told if there are incidents that can be identified.
MR DU PLESSIS: You will remember Mr Chairman, that the evidence was that she was with Joe Mamesela when he went to recruit the people who gave, who were prepared to use the hand grenades against the policeman and afterwards she was identified by the people as having been Mamasela’s girlfriend and she was killed. You will remember that one of the people who was injured, no he wasn’t injured, he gave his hand grenade to Precilla Yana, was called as a witness and you will also recall that I cross-examined him about his role in the killing of Maki Skosana and I was stopped by His Lordship, Mr Justice Mall in that regard, but this is about that incident.
ADV DE JAGER: But Mr du Plessis, we are not re-opening the hearing in that respect. Mr Levine, if the other incidents which you wanted to show us are similar or almost similar to this one, I think we have seen this one and as far as I am concerned if the others are similar, I don’t think it is necessary to show all of them.
MR LEVINE: Well Mr Commissioner, Mr Chairman, I cannot say to you that it is necessary. I prefaced the showing of this tape by indicating the brutality that it depicted. I don’t think I have understated the situation. None of these particular references are of scenes of named people per se but again it gives the general perception of the war which the forces within the country were facing and it indicates what precisely was taking place.
I believe Mr Chairman, that the rest of this tape can be dispensed with, not because it is in any way irrelevant but because it is a follow-up of what was depicted and what we have seen up to now.
MR BIZOS: For the sake of completeness, Mr Chairman, may we place on record that this happened in June 1985, and we rely on it on page 47 of the book of Mr Jaques Paauw. Thank you Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Have you any further questions?
MR LEVINE: Yes, Mr Chairman. May I firstly hand out to you the Videos numbered 1 to 4, as also this last video number 5 of which we have seen the first nine minutes.
CHAIRPERSON: I entrust them immediately to my secretary.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Levine, as I understood it, you, at the beginning said you hand in all the videos. I have previously said that if any of the representatives here or anybody else, well the representatives or the applicants want to see them, it is available to them but we need not see all of it in the public hearing here but it would be available on request.
CHAIRPERSON: Carry on Mr Levine.
Mr Williamson is there anything you would like to add in regard to a commentary on those particular videos?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I just wanted to say, in the absence of doing it in another way, the videos that we showed, if I may refer for example to the State President’s statement in one of the videos where he said that the terrorist movements are going to have to deal with: "die volle mag" of the South African State, where General Liebenberg for example talked about, that these were no idle threats, that we could take out the terrorists wherever they were. The word was used in the video of: "die terroriste is geneutraliseer".
And basically Mr Chairman, as I said in my evidence yesterday, the goal of the Security Forces was to try and drive the ANC and Communist Party Alliance back from our borders. And as Mr du Plessis said on one of those, Dr du Plessis said on one of those videos that the ANC were often trying to hide amongst the local population in the neighbouring states.
And I think also an important point that was made by Professor Hoegh, was that South Africa was prepared to take the international repercussions of these attacks by our Security Forces against the ANC. And I think Mr Chairman, that that, the final video, well as I said having nothing or the parts we saw having nothing to do with the events that the specific amnesty applications that we are dealing with now, just go to illustrate a climate and the development of this very ugly war that we were involved in, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: And who does one blame for that climate, Mr Williamson?
MR WILLIAMSON: I think Mr Chairman, that we - it's something I have thought about a lot and we have to blame everybody who was involved, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Because it was obvious in that last video that the people of this country were extremely violent, were driven to commit these acts and those of us who practised law in those years are aware that they happened all over the country, didn’t they?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, and that’s why I think we were caught up where we believed we were right and the enemy believed they were right and none of us ever bothered to think very much about the other side’s point of view, we were just trying to kill each other.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, thank you.
Mr Williamson, I’d like to now deal with what has been termed "The Gaborone Raid". It was dealt with by General Coetzee in his amnesty application. It was dealt with by my learned friend, Mr Bizos, in dealing with and cross-examining General Coetzee and I would like to deal with your position, vis-a-vis, the Gaborone situation which took place in 1985.
Whilst we were preparing for the amnesty application and this hearing, we received on the 21st August, when I say we, I refer to you attending my offices and in fact at a time when you were present in my office on the 28th August, we received a telefax dated 21st August from one of the Commissioners, Mr Richard Lister, which reads as follows: - and Mr Chairman, copies have been prepared of the correspondence which I beg leave to hand out, the telefax from Mr Lister says as follows,
"In terms of Section 30, subsection 2 of The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No 34 of 1995, we hereby inform you that you have been implicated during an investigation by the Commission, in a manner which is to your detriment. The allegations referred to, referring to you are contained in Annexure X, hereto.
The annexure deals with the Gaborone Raid and it says:
"On 14 June 1998, members of the South African Government’s Security Forces launched an armed attack on a houses"
"and offices in Gaborone, Botswana, killing twelve people and injuring an unknown number of people. Eight of the dead were South African citizens and the remaining four were Botswana, Sotho and Somali nationals. The persons responsible for the planning and or execution or were knowingly associated with the operation were inter alia, Major Craig Williamson and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Roelof Pik Botha".
The letter from Mr Lister which is dated the 21st, but as I state was only sent on 28th, reads as follows: "The Commission is contemplating making a decision which is to your detriment."
I draw the attention of this Commission, Mr Chairman, to the fact that the wording is slightly different from that provided in the statute, but we will come to that shortly.
"Please note that you have a period of 21 days from the date of this letter within which to make representations to the Commission in respect of the allegations. Please note that you have the right to be represented by a legal representative. If you are not financially capable of appointing a legal representative yourself, the Commission may, if it is of the opinion that the matter is in the interest of justice, appoint a legal representative to assist you."
On that same date that the telefax arrived and in your presence, I dictated a letter which complains at the shortage of a period of time afforded, having regard to the 21 days and that letter is dated, 28th August and was telefaxed at 11H52. I don’t think that is the correct date, I think it is the 28th of August. A further letter was written, Mr Williamson, after consultation with you on 1st September 1998, to Mr Lister and I would ask you to read that letter into the record please.
CHAIRPERSON: What is the relevance of all this Mr Levine?
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, there is no doubt that a suggestion is going to be made by my learned friend that that Gaborone Raid was of the same ilk as at least the bombing in London, in respect whereof the witness has sought amnesty, and he is going to be asked why as an applicant for that amnesty, did he not seek the amnesty in regard to the Gaborone Raid? I would rather this evidence was lead from the witness than by way of cross-examination.
I am quite happy, Mr Chairman, for the letter not to be read into the record because it does speak for itself.
CHAIRPERSON: What you want to do as I understand it, is merely to ask Mr Williamson to explain why he didn’t ask amnesty for the Gaborone incident to anticipate possible cross-examination.
CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead and ask him.
MR LEVINE: And Mr Williamson, to round it off, a fax was received on the 1st of September in response to that fax and with your permission, Mr Chairman, I would ask Mr Williamson merely to identify this fax as having come from Mr Lister, the Commissioner, and that can be tabled on the record.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Levine, I think there, to prevent a misunderstanding, I am not a Commissioner. My learned colleagues are not Commissioners, we are members of the Amnesty Committee. This is a letter from the Commission. We’re not dealing with the matters that the Commission are dealing with. We’re dealing with amnesty applications and in this particular case, with three events. We’ve tried to persuade counsel on all sides, not to introduce matters outside the three accounts because then we are rehearsing the whole struggle. In this hearing we’ve asked you please if possible, limit the evidence and the cross-examination to the events as far as possible.
We could appreciate that there could be things relevant, not actually in the narrow limits of these, of the three applications but I again want to request if possible, try and keep the issues as narrow as they should be without prejudicing your clients but we are dealing with the three incidents before us now.
MR LEVINE: I prefaced my remarks, in answer to a question by the learned Chairman, that I did not want my client to be criticized and or prejudiced by not mentioning this. If that is in fact the view of all three of your gentlemen sitting there, I will not proceed with this. I will leave it now to be dealt with, if it is to be dealt with, in the normal course.
May I proceed with something else Mr Chairman,?
MR BIZOS: ...[inaudible] is going to be received as exhibits or not?
MR LEVINE: They will. I would suggest they would become S1, 2, 3 & 4.
MR VISSER: We have only got 3.
MR LEVINE: There is a fourth one now. Sorry could you hand them out first.
ADV DE JAGER: Which one would be S, the one dated - from the Commission?
MR LEVINE: That is correct, the first one dated the 28th of August would be S1. S2 is my reply of the 28th August. S3 is a letter of the 1st September, with an annexure sent to the Commission, Mr Lister in particular. S4 is also dated the 1st September, it is from Mr Lister in response to S3. Thank you Mr Chairman.
Mr Williamson, would you briefly in one or two sentences set out your attitude to the TRC.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, before the conclusion of the CODESA talks and during that time I was of the opinion and in the political circles, I believed that there should have been a general amnesty for all members of the Security Forces and members of the non-statutory forces, Umkhonto weSizwe, etc. Nevertheless once the decisions at CODESA were made that lead to the New Constitution and once the decision was made that there would be a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and that part of that Commission would be an amnesty process, such as this, I decided to fully co-operate, not only in terms of achieving amnesty personally for the events for which I have applied but also in a broader perspective, in order to assist in any way I could, to bring about an understanding by the Commission and then hopefully by the rest of South Africa, of the conflicts of the past.
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson, and pursuant to this spirit of co-operation, you have given evidence at various sittings and at various levels of the Truth Commission.
CHAIRPERSON: I have Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: And would it be an exaggeration to state that in the spirit of co-operation, you’ve spared no effort whatsoever to deal with and reveal information to the TRC at all levels?
CHAIRPERSON: No Mr Chairman, I don’t think that would be an exaggeration. I have made every effort possible to give all information that I have at my disposal to anybody involved in the TRC process, who has asked.
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson, on the aspect of extradition, did you instruct me to address a letter to the Honourable Minister of Justice, Dr Omar, regarding the extradition issue, specifically?
MR WILLIAMSON: I did Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: And was a copy of such letter also sent to the Leader of Evidence, Ms Rumula Patel, at the Truth Commission?
MR WILLIAMSON: It was Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: And are you aware of a receipt by me of a letter of the 18th August from the Minister of Justice, dealing with the letter that I wrote to him regarding extradition?
MR WILLIAMSON: I am Mr Chairman.
ADV DE JAGER: The date of the last letter?
MR LEVINE: 18th of August. The date of the letter both to the Honourable Minister and to Ms Patel, 13th August. May I hand them up marked, T1 would be the letter to Ms Patel, T2 would be the letter to the Honourable Minister and T3 would be the reply. Of course the original of the reply from the Department of Justice's Head of Ministerial Services is available for inspection.
And Mr Williamson, the fact that the Honourable Minister was not able to give you the assurances requested, notwithstanding you elected to give evidence before the amnesty hearing.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I decided at the beginning of this Truth and Reconciliation process to participate and I decided that I will participate right through to the end, Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Now Mr Williamson, I have finished your evidence in chief, is there anything that you feel would be proper for you to add, anything that may not have been specifically dealt with by me?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: I propose to take the adjournment now and you can have an opportunity, because earlier this morning you said you did want to consult your client, your counsel on some matter. If you wish to consider the position to seek any further consultation you can do so during the adjournment and then give your decision when we sit again at 11 o’clock.
CRAIG MICHAEL WILLIAMSON: (s.u.o.)
CHAIRPERSON: One matter I would like to raise with you at this stage. It has been raised with me by certain of the people appearing for the applicants, and that is, if we do not finish by the end of next week, what we are going to do with this hearing? And the view expressed to me, and this is one I agree with heartily, is that we should endeavour to continue on the following week. Now I would ask you gentlemen to all consider what your position would be in that event. If you have problems with the day, we would obviously try to meet you, but I think those of you who have had experience with adjournments in the past, it would be far better to dispose of this matter now, than otherwise adjourn it and find we have got to come back in February or something, by which time everybody's forgotten anything about it. So could you please think about that and we could discuss it perhaps later today.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, while you are raising that issue, next week Thursday is a public holiday. Now speaking for myself, I’ve got no serious objections against working on that public holiday, but perhaps that is something we should address as well.
CHAIRPERSON: If people could consider that, and I could ask that enquiries could be made about the premises. I don’t know whether it would be possible if IDASA is closed down for the holiday, to make use of the premises. That is something I could ask my secretary to enquire about and we could consider that as well, but I should perhaps also mention that Mr Levine approached me earlier in the week because he has a problem, as I think you will anticipate, on Monday and I agreed that we would make arrangements that he be excused from attendance on Monday.
MR LEVINE: Thank you. Mr Chairman, before I carry on, could we just deal with two housekeeping issues. One, Mr Chairman, relates to the index, to the documentation. Indices have been handed out to your good selves and to each of the representatives. Your documents have been numbered, the pages run to some 600 in all and we are handing out, indices for Exhibits Q1 and Q2 to various representatives but it would be virtually an act of physical impossibility to number each of those, Mr Chairman, so I would ask the representatives if they would do their own numbering.
Sorry, Mr Chairman, should I repeat that? Whilst your ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: Mine is, you needn’t tell me about it, it is being done, it is under control.
MR LEVINE: But the representatives are being given indices and if they would merely number theirs themselves. It is a physical impossibility to number 600 pages by twelve or whatever the situation is.
Then the second aspect Mr Chairman, is that of the exhibits. We are preparing an index for the exhibits which will be made available tomorrow. Not only the exhibits which we have handed in but the other exhibits as well.
CHAIRPERSON: Could I add something to the question of numbering. It is convenient if we all have the same numbering. The purpose is to enable you to find what is being referred to and if you can merely flag the separate articles in those two bundles, I’m sure you could then refer to it as annexure whatever it is, page 37 or the page of them, because as you remember yesterday when Mr Levine led this evidence, they are all separately numbered, well I think all of them are separately numbered. It is just a question of finding them in the bundle, so I think we leave it to you, whichever you decide is the most convenient, gentlemen. Mine have been done, Mr Levine’s I think have been done. We have the advantage, but we can also, if you wish to refer to them in cross-examination or an address, use the other method of identifying them.
MR PENZHORN: Mr Chairman, maybe whilst Mr Levine is in his household aspects, could we just ascertain the last two letters which have been handed to us, what their exhibit numbers are, whether they are going to be part of S or whether they would become, T1 & T2?
MR LEVINE: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Mr Williamson, we took the adjournment on the basis that I invited you to add anything you wished to your evidence. Mr Chairman, at that stage said you had indicated you wanted to discuss a matter with me and I’d merely report that the matter which you wanted to discuss with me was something different to the additional statement or any other additional matter which you would like to add. So in conclusion, I would ask you to add anything that you wish to add now and that would conclude my examination in chief.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, there’s no adequate way of saying what I want to say. I just want to say I’m sorry. What I did was wrong. I believed at the time that what I did was justified and I never deliberately targeted the innocent. Thank you, Mr Chairman.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, thank you for affording me the indulgences and the time necessary to put this evidence before you. That concludes my dealing with this witness.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LEVINE
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairman.
Mr Williamson, there are a few matters which I wish to canvass with you. Perhaps you can refer to Vol 3, page 3, that is part of your application, Roman IV, at Vol 3, page 3, contains a sentence which was not repeated in your evidence but as it is here recorded, I wish just to take that up with you. The last sentence of Roman IV reads,
"According to General Coetzee, the operation"
And we are referring, just to refresh your memory, to the London bomb incident,
"was approved at the very ‘top’ and he received his orders via, General M C W Mike Geldenhuys and Minister Louis Le Grange."
Now the evidence of General Coetzee was to the effect that when General Geldenhys first heard of a possible attack in the United Kingdom, he distantiated himself from the idea and he had nothing further to do with the whole project or operation. I am not suggesting to you that you might have had the impression that the orders came to you via General Mike Geldenhys, but what I want to suggest to you is that what you have said here might be based on an inference rather than on factual knowledge. What would your reaction be to that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I have no factual knowledge besides the clear recollection that General Coetzee said that the matter had been discussed with General Geldenhys and Minister Louis Le Grange and the fact that I was then ordered to continue with doing the operation, I made the assumption and I had the impression that this operation had the blessing from the very top, but I was never present at any meeting with General Geldenhys, nor was I told about the discussions that General Coetzee gave evidence about to this Committee.
MR VISSER: Yes that’s fair enough, Mr Williamson. You see because what we are dealing here with is something which occurred some what, 16 years ago and human memory fails one after such a long time. One also sees the same problem in the amnesty application of Mr Taylor, at page 174 of volume 3, which incidently will also be his evidence before this Committee, where he says, in London - incidently he says that he didn’t know, precisely, what the operation was about but I will come back to that in a moment, in London when he was finally briefed as to what precisely the purpose of the operation was, he says that that happened at a meeting in a South Kensington flat, where himself and McPherson were staying and where everybody got together a day or perhaps two before Sunday 14th March 1982. Can you remember at all that such a meeting took place?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, as I said in my evidence in chief, I remember the meeting, I don’t remember which specific day it was, but it was shortly before the go ahead was given.
MR VISSER: According to the recollection of Mr Taylor, at that meeting it was stated by someone, he can’t remember by whom, that the operation had been authorised - I’m reading from the middle of that page 174, Mr Chairman, it is the second last sentence of the middle paragraph, that at that meeting it was stated that the operation had been authorised at the very highest level and he adds,
"which included the then Prime Minister, Mr P W Botha, and the then Minister of Law and Order, Mr Louis Le Grange, and the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Pik Botha."
Now first of all, can you recall that this information was in fact information which was given at that meeting in London? I’m talking about the detail of what I read to you.
MR WILLIAMSON: Not specifically, Mr Chairman, but in general, and I think also if we talk about a meeting it may be slightly misleading in the sense that it might be thought that there was just a formal briefing or meeting, but it was more than that. I remember we got together in the apartment and obviously different members of the team spoke to me and different members of the team also spoke to Brigadier Goosen.
MR WILLIAMSON: And to each other. And that I believe that after everybody in the team, at which ever time every person in the team had been finally briefed on what the target was, whether it was at this occasion or previously, that every member had been assured that this operation was authorised at the very highest level. So I don’t remember the specifics but it accords with the type of information that had been given to me and was given to everybody.
MR VISSER: And what you say then, if I understand you correctly, is that the specific names may just be an inference which he drew from the phrase, "from the very top"?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, and also that if people were discussing what the sort of authorisation meant obviously these were the sort of names that would have been discussed.
CHAIRPERSON: What sort of apartment was this?
MR WILLIAMSON: It was a flat Mr Chairman, a normal residential apartment in London.
CHAIRPERSON: Do you know whose?
MR WILLIAMSON: I believe it was one of these apartments that one can take on short term rentals.
CHAIRPERSON: It wasn’t supplied by the Foreign Affairs in London?
MR WILLIAMSON: No Mr Chairman, it had been hired. I’m not sure which member of the team or buy which structure it had been hired but it was rented or leased by us. Obviously Mr Chairman, via some or other cover.
MR VISSER: By the by Mr Williamson, I didn’t hear you refer to it, it may or may not be important but Mr Taylor told me that he recalls that he was issued with a cannister of some sort which contained a gas or a substance which could be sprayed to incapacitate another person, do you know anything about that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, there were - I’m not sure how many members of the team, but there were a number of the members of the team were issued with a CS gas spray.
MR VISSER: Yes, and he will tell the Committee that the instructions were that those were to be used in the extreme case where during the operation somebody might have happened on the scene which may have endangered the operation, in which event such a person would then be incapacitated without risk of injury to him, in order to save the operation. Would that be more or less correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: Now, you also stated, and I’m still just confining myself to the ANC London bomb attack. You also stated, as I understood your evidence to be, that even before you departed to the United Kingdom, you yourself in your own mind, had no intention to attack the offices of the South African Communist Party and you gave reasons; the proximity of a paint shop, the possibility of danger to passers by etc. Did I understand you correctly?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: Now, from that there are two matters which I wish to clarify. The one is, was it part of your instruction, as it came down through Goosen to you, that the targets or the possible targets would be the ANC offices and the SACP offices? Would I be correct in assuming that or would I be incorrect?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I recollect, the specific target and the most desirable target was to be the ANC office and that consideration was to be given to the South African Communist Party office, and I agreed, obviously receiving such an order, that I would give such consideration but as I said previously, from the very moment I was given that instruction I certainly had more or less mentally ruled the Communist Party Office out. But as I said, I had an advantage over other members of the team in that I had specific knowledge of both of the targets which they did not.
MR VISSER: Alright, well the point is if Taylor and Coetzee both considered that to be part of the operation they would not be incorrect in that impression?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: Now, Mr Taylor tells me that he was given instructions to report to Pretoria that he was taken or went to Daisy Farm and that a preliminary briefing was held, during all of which he was never informed as to precisely what the target was or what the nature of the operation in the United Kingdom was to be.
If you will just allow me, it seems like a long question, but just to bring it together. He says that he never had any doubt, being a Security Branch member himself, that the operation had something to do with the resistance against the onslaught by liberation movements and therefore he went along willingly on this mission. Now, having said that, would that accord with your perception and views and practise of the need to know principle?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, and I think, as I believe, I think I said earlier, I do not remember what every specific member of the team knew and did not know, but I know that not all of them knew what the target was to be or in fact what the whole mission was to be, and the procedure as has been described is according to normal need to know requirements.
MR VISSER: Very well. He will tell the Committee, that in London he got to know what the operation was about and he will say that it was at that meeting, which both you and he cannot remember the day of, that it was decided not to go ahead with any operation against the SACP offices for the very reasons which you mentioned to this Committee. Would that be according to your recollection, possible?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, I can agree with that, Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: Now as far as the ANC offices were concerned, Mr Taylor appears to have been very concerned about the possibility of danger to civilians by an explosion, and he tells me that he was satisfied that the danger to civilians, to people in and around the building were negligible, most importantly because of the fact that the area behind the building where the explosive device was placed was an open parking lot and that fact satisfied him that there would not be any real danger to civilians. Can you comment on that perception of his?
MR VISSER: If you can’t remember then say so.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, in general and also according to what I have said previously, the rear side of the ANC office in London, I will agree with Mr Taylor, was suitable in terms of the instruction we had been given, not only because of the parking lot but because of the way the building was placed, because of the fact that it in fact in a certain part was fenced off and that on a Sunday at the type time that the explosion took place, that this area was a deserted area.
MR VISSER: Mr Williamson, and I put this to you for your comment, Mr Taylor when he gives evidence to this Committee will say that he willingly participated in this operation, particularly in view of the instruction that there should be no injury, serious injury or death to any person and that you had to see to it that that would not happen. And he says that because it was his understanding and perception, and I think you have already given evidence about this, that what happened here in South Africa, to the people of South Africa was a direct result of what was planned and executed from London in the ANC offices. Any comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: I can agree with that, if we say what was, inter alia, what was planned in the London office. But Mr Chairman, I think I have no problems with that statement and I just want to add that we were an unarmed team that was carrying out this operation and I agree with Mr Taylor that probably the strictest instruction we had been given was to avoid injuries or death.
MR VISSER: Yes, that was the last aspect to which I wanted to come. What you were armed with was the explosive device which had to be placed in a confined locality, gas canisters, CD gas or whatever they call it ...[intervention]
MR VISSER: CS gas. What does that stand for?
MR WILLIAMSON: I’ve no idea, Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: Neither do I. And nothing else in the line of weapons or firearms, or anything like that.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, normally a team of this nature would, it was highly unusual for us not to be carrying firearms. We are normally armed and in this case we had an explosive, or one of the elements of the team had an explosive device, certain other elements of the team had some CS gas and the rest of the team were totally unarmed.
MR VISSER: Yes. Mr Williamson, if I may then direct your attention to the case of Mr Marius Schoon, specifically the attempt on his life for which one of the persons for whom I appear, Brigadier Willem Schoon, applies for amnesty for.
I refer you to page 5 of volume 2, that is your application, where in B you stated Marius and Jeanette had played a high profile role in organising the ANC/SACP/SACTU structures in Botswana.
"These structures were responsible for furthering the revolutionary alliances aims and objectives".
I just repeat that, Mr Chairman, it is page 5 of volume 2, paragraph 10.b and I am just going to repeat for the translator, the last sentence which he missed. "These structures were responsible for furthering the revolutionary alliances' aims and objectives of the ANC in the RSA"
And then you went ahead to refer to the presentation of the ANC before the Amnesty Commission, to indicate that they were both regarded a key ANC/SACP operatives. Along those lines of them playing an important role in the ANC/SACP in Botswana, I just want to mention to you what Brigadier Willem Schoon will tell the Committee. Apart from the factual issues revolving around the incident, he says that when the question of Mr Marius Schoon came up, and I am not going to go into detail about that, he drew a file or files in headquarters concerning the Schoon’s. Now my question to you is this, would it accord with your understanding of the intelligence network and situation that there would probably or there was in fact a file or files on Mr Marius Schoon and Jeanette Schoon available in headquarters? I’ll say this was in 1981.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, there were certainly files, Mr Chairman.
MR VISSER: And Brigadier Schoon will say that he was aware that Mr Marius Schoon had been convicted in 1964 or thereabouts, on a count of sabotage which he was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment. Do you know anything about that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I have had no personal knowledge of it but it was common knowledge amongst the Security Branch that that was Mr Schoon’s history.
MR VISSER: That he was released in 1976, and that he left the Republic of South Africa and that it was thereafter learnt that according to the information at his disposal, that in 1978 he received training in Camp Funda, I believe that is in Botswana, is it?
MR VISSER: In Angola, sorry. Camp Funda inter alia in the use of firearms and guerilla warfare. Would you know anything about that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Again, Mr Chairman, I don’t have any personal knowledge of it but I know that as I explained to the Committee, it was the procedure to debrief, interrogate or whatever, the different type of person who had had contact with the ANC about all members of the ANC or Communist Party and in particular people who were in the so-called terrorist album, and I know that Mr Schoon was in the terrorist album as somebody who had received military training.
MR VISSER: Mr Williamson, and then lastly and perhaps most importantly, Brigadier Schoon says that it was his information based on reliable information, gained from sources etc., that Mr and Mrs Schoon, in Botswana, were involved in logistical support to persons, members of the ANC who left the country, left the Republic of South Africa and again when they returned to the Republic of South Africa, mostly to commit acts of terror and sabotage. What would you say to that statement?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, if I can just refer to Exhibit N, which was the exhibit that we handed in, both to pages 43, paragraph 4.6.2, and to page 40, paragraph 3.9.1 and say that during all this time, it was the task of the Security Police to monitor in particular on the western front and Botswana front, the ANC and the revolutionary alliance structures that were there and all the top members of the structure, including Jenny and Marius Schoon, as laid down in this ANC document which is Exhibit N, were targets of intelligence gathering operations and these senior, we are not talking here now about the ANC’s foot soldiers, we are talking about people in command and control positions of the ANC.
Senior organs and the regional, later on the regional political and Military Committee or Council and the senior members of the revolutionary alliance in Botswana at this time, of which both Marius and Jeanette Schoon were members, were responsible for co-ordinating the activities of the ANC which ranged obviously, Mr Chairman, from the completely innocent administrative tasks relating to the ANC, right through to local assistance to ANC operations aimed, or ANC military operations aimed at the Republic of South Africa.
MR VISSER: And lastly perhaps, Mr Williamson, Brigadier Schoon says that it was his view that certainly from early 1980, there was an annual increase in terrorist activities and attacks in the Republic of South Africa, by persons who had come via the route of the western front, as you call it the Botswana route. Would that accord with your recollection?
MR WILLIAMSON: That accords with my recollection, Mr Chairman, and I can add that Botswana was regarded in security circles as a particularly thorny problem because of the fact that there was a such a long and difficult to control border involved.
MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairman.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman.
Mr Williamson, I want to ask you a few general questions because of the fact that certain aspects of your evidence, I believe, didn’t come out as clear as it should have. Can we look at the command structures where you were involved in, and I want you to explain to the Committee where the unit, the Intelligence Unit at Security Force Headquarters, how that fit in with other units at Security Headquarters? Can you just elaborate a little bit.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, what was known as X3O2, Security Headquarters, was the headquarters of the Security Branch of the South African Police. The Commander at different times was General Coetzee and then I believe, General Steenkamp, General Schutte, but the Commanding Officer of the Security Branch sat at Security Headquarters and he had under him headquarters staff. Now headquarters staff were divided up into various groups and the groups went A, B, C, D, right down to G, H, and underneath each group there were sections.
When I first was posted to Security Headquarters, the division of the groups was done I believe, on a racial basis. In other words we had Group A which dealt with white organisations and we had other groups that dealt with black organisations etc., but this was not a satisfactory way of operating and at a certain time the group structure was changed and it focussed on for example, the ANC/South African Communist Party as under one group, the Black Consciousness organisations in another group. Churches, Trade Unions and various other facets of society which were being monitored.
And then certain of the groups also, for example there was a specific group that dealt with terrorism. So as opposed to the group dealing with the ANC or the Communist Party which may have had then more a political approach, there was also a specific group dealing with terrorism, the armed struggle as it were. And then there were other groups that had a technical or other function for example, equipment and supplies, motor vehicles.
Now each of the group heads was normally of the rank of I would imagine, Brigadier or Colonel at least, and then underneath in each group there were different sections and obviously the section heads were usually ranked sometimes, Colonel right down to, they could in fact be non-commissioned officers, depending on the section and the function and the number of people under command in that section.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright and you were, if we can call it that, in the Intelligence Group. Is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman. My - I was, ultimately we became the group that was intelligence, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright now, and there were other commanding officers of some of the other groups who were of higher ranks than you were, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct.
MR DU PLESSIS: Would you have obeyed an order from a commanding officer of another group if you had received an order from such a commanding officer? If he was of a higher rank than you.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes if he was of a higher rank than me but normal procedure and courtesy would mean, I would say that he would in normal circumstances direct an order to me via my immediate superior, because in any military organisation one works in a strict hierarchal, vertical line of command.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, but there must have been situations, Mr Williamson, where this couldn’t happen or where there wasn’t a need for it to happen or where it simply didn’t happen.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman. That is why I used the word, ‘normally’. We were at many times in an abnormal situation and the structures in Security Headquarters were regarded not only, as made up of the individual parts, so they were regarded as one whole and the organisation had one purpose and function and if one section was operating and another section was operating, it wasn’t that there was conflict between the sections or they were trying to do different things. They were trying to do the same thing. If another section needed assistance or information, often there would be cross, working across, between section to section.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright, and Mr Williamson what was your perception about the Security Police’s participation or working in conjunction with the South African Defence Force, Special Forces of the South African Defence Force?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well, Mr Chairman, all I can comment on is what I saw. And as General Coetzee also said in his evidence, there was a standing procedure that the security organs of the State, the armed forces of the State and the intelligence community, all had to co-operate and work against, in specific when it came to the revolutionary onslaught.
And, well I can give a small example. There were in fact military officers in an office right across the passage from me on a permanent basis who were, I’m not sure exactly how it worked, they were certainly not seconded to security headquarters, they were there as military officers and in a type of liaison function.
So as far as I knew when it came to the revolutionary onslaught, the South African Defence Force, in particular those elements of the Defence Force which were tasked with dealing with the revolutionary onslaught. And we who had the same task were working almost as two sides of the same coin, dealing with the same problem, so if I can just say for example, it wouldn’t have been normal for a member of an artillery unit or a tank unit to be working with the Security Police but for a member of Military Intelligence or Special Forces, it would have been for more normal.
MR DU PLESSIS: And you wouldn’t find it strange at all if in certain operations Special Forces would have combined with Security Police members to achieve a certain goal and to execute a certain operation?
MR WILLIAMSON: It wouldn’t have surprised me because I saw it happening, Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: And Mr Williamson, obviously not each and every decision could have been diverted straight up through all the channels to Cabinet to deal with it. There was delegation of powers and certain ranks of officers had jurisdiction to make decisions on their own, isn’t that so?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, I attempted also previously in my evidence to sketch that situation and to say that when it came, we have to take first the line function that we had as part of the South African police and that, part of that line function obviously was focussed, or certain units were focussed specifically on the revolutionary onslaught. And because the revolutionary onslaught was of such preoccupation, not only to ourselves, but to everybody in government, certain special structures as we have discussed, and we saw the video this morning, relating to the National Management System and the National Security Management System and everything were put in place.
And I did give the example, I think yesterday of a time where, if I was sent to a meeting of a sub-Committee of the Secretariate of the State Security Council, that I would be told for example: "There is a problem, go and find out what it is and do whatever you can to solve that problem". Now I assume the reason I had been sent to that meeting is because my chief who had sent me to the meeting had already in brief been told what the problem was, and he had decided that I and or my section could assist in solving this problem. And I said and I repeat, that in a fast moving world and in particular when you are dealing sometimes with the revolutionary situation with activities relating to that, one had to move with speed.
It was standard procedure that we weren’t, I don’t know what word to use, certainly it is not that we were, we were in any way competing with each other or hostile to each other, but once we were working as a team and I say maybe perhaps a member of my unit or the Intelligence Unit of the Security Police and then some military officers or some other National Intelligence officers, or whoever it was working now with the problem that was being dealt with in a different line function, the line function of the State, the Secretariate of the State Security Council. I, and the example I gave, I did not go, once I heard what the problem was I did not go back to my Brigadier and ask him to go through all the structures to find out whether the, finally the whole State Security Council agreed or would give me an order to carry out a certain function.
The decision was for example, surveillance must be carried out on this particular individual now and I then was sent, I was told, this is what needs to be done. I issued the instructions, they were done.
MR DU PLESSIS: And Mr Williamson for instance, let us say that you obtained information about armed insurgents having crossed the border, would it have been necessary to consult Cabinet or the State Security Council to take action before somebody could take action against them or would that decision have been made by lower ranking officers?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, that would in all likely hood have been made by lower ranking officers, because that would have been absolutely in the line function of those officers.
CHAIRPERSON: May I interrupt here for a minute? Mr Williamson, the impression I have gained is that your police duties were almost entirely intelligence.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Spread over many years. And I take it that during that time you would have met people doing the same duties in Military Intelligence, National Intelligence and other things of that nature?
MR WILLIAMSON: Everyday, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: And you'd get to know them and did they get to know you?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct.
CHAIRPERSON: And I take it there would be a lot of cooperation between you, you’d supply one another with information that you thought would help the other ones?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that is what I was trying to convey, that we didn’t see each other because, well the colour of the uniform was different, because it wasn’t even different and on our level we all wore civilian clothes and whether I was actually officially a police officer and he was Military Intelligence, in those structures made no difference, we were part of the same team fighting the same enemy.
CHAIRPERSON: And in the example just given if you heard that armed insurgence were crossing the border somewhere, you might tell somebody you knew in Military Intelligence who could get the military to attend to it immediately?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well, Mr Chairman, at that specific type of example, that would have been absolutely as I said, in the line function of the police and the military and they would have been responsible and their job would have been in fact to have reacted immediately. And obviously at the same time, while reacting, they would have reported through the structures, politically but they wouldn’t have waited first to get orders politically, they would have reacted on the instant.
CHAIRPERSON: So although there was this line going up and down, there was also a great deal of cross-references?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, I think General Coetzee referred to that when he talked about this blurring of the line function and that many of the Directors General or the top structures of the different elements of the civil service were uncomfortable with that, but the fact is that that was a reality.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Williamson, the intelligence reports that you would have received would also have been about the activities of activists within the borders of the country, as well as outside the borders, correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman, because the way Security Headquarters worked was that, and in this instance obviously there was a lot of desk to desk talk but there was also on group head level a constant swopping of information, if I got certain information and I think, in fact on some of the documentation we have got, perhaps it is there, but often one, you would see on top of a document, B1, C2, A3, I would just write on top of it B1, C2, A3 whatever and in our internal post system copies would go around to these different people, whoever I felt I should share this information with.
Now I am talking about information freshly received, as opposed to information that was already in the files. The files, any authorised person could go and do what was called a RN, a "rekord navraag" and would have to go and sign out a file but anybody authorised, could go and sign out the file and see whatever information was in there. I am talking now about current, coming in information as it came in was shared and distributed.
MR DU PLESSIS: Let us take - let us look at the file system, am I correct in saying that reports of informers were filed on a specific file of a specific activist and those files were available at headquarters to anybody who wanted to have a look at them, involved with the Security Police, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I think - was the question records of informers or reports of informers?
MR DU PLESSIS: No I’m talking of reports of informers.
MR WILLIAMSON: Reports. Because the records, informer records was a completely separate issue.
MR DU PLESSIS: Ja, no reports.
MR WILLIAMSON: Reports of informers yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Of what they were involved in.
MR WILLIAMSON: Any information pertaining to a particular person who had what was called an ‘S number’, and you would have either an S1 to an S4 number. Any information relating, and I’ll take it to any person with an S File was filed in that file and that was anything, Mr Chairman.
On a daily basis every single newspaper in the country was read and if anybody with an S File was mentioned in the newspaper, that was underlined, the S number written next to them, the clipping cut and sent to the file. So if a postal item was intercepted, a letter that mentions somebody, any conceivable bit of information that mentioned the person with an S File, was filed in that person’s S File as well as obviously in the file, in the case of a letter if two people with an S File were corresponding it would be in both letters, both files. So, and those files were available to any authorised member of the Security Police. But if I can just add, Mr Chairman, there weren’t only files at head office level, there were also files at divisional level, at whichever division dealt with that particular person.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right, so Mr Williamson, am I then correct in saying, and let’s take a practical example of an incident which we are not dealing with here but which was mentioned here, that files would have been kept on for instance, the activities of Dr Ribero and files of that nature and information about his activities would have been available to anybody of the Security Branch who would have been interested in that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Ja, I don’t believe I have ever seen a file of Dr Ribero, but I have absolutely no doubt there was a file on Dr Ribero. And two files, well, one file at divisional level and one file at head office level.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now, Mr Williamson, do you personally know anything about Trevits?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, Trevits came, and I think I have mentioned this in evidence before, not before this Committee, but Trevits came right at the end of my intelligence career. I don’t think in fact it had been formulated by the time I left. But Trevits was merely giving of formal name and making something that had informally existed previously, more formalised. It was a target identification system, which was part of the State Security Management structures, and so it was an inter-departmental target analysis system.
MR DU PLESSIS: Were you ever personally involved with Trevits?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not with Trevits but with its predecessor Mr Chairman, which didn’t have a name.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, that was a more informal organisation which developed into a formal organisation, if I can put it like that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, I think Mr Chairman, that what happened was that at a certain time, Trevits, and I stand under correction, Trevits would have had staff of its own or personnel of its own. Trevits would have had personnel, people that were now as their specific task conducting Trevits, before that it was called "Teiken identifikasie". "Teiken Identifikasie" was done where necessary, when required and I and other officers in the different Security Forces would be asked at a particular time to contribute a member of our staff to a "Teiken Identifikasie" exercise and they would go and then act as what Trevits later became a permanent operation.
MR DU PLESSIS: And these targets that had to be identified, Mr Williamson, for what purpose would that have been? Would that have been for instance - let me ask you this, would that have been for instance if the London bomb incident had happened in 1984, 1985, later on when Trevits was already in existence, or 1985 and later on, would that have been the kind of target that would have been dealt with at Trevits?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes and No, Mr Chairman, because I think when it came to the London bomb further input would not have been required, so I doubt it would have been the type of attack that would have been put to Trevits because the London attack was a very specific type of attack.
Trevits or "Teiken Identifikasie" before that was related to, I don’t think I am wrong if I say the facilities and individuals of the enemy organisation, of the revolutionary organisations, the ANC etc, which should then be listed and put down for approval for destruction, attack, elimination etc.
MR DU PLESSIS: And Mr Williamson, and I am just asking you to comment if you have personal knowledge of it, evidence previously was led that Trevits was responsible for identification of targets cross-border, meaning in neighbouring countries and it later developed to identification of targets within the borders of South Africa, can you comment on that? Do you have any personal knowledge of that?
MR WILLIAMSON: I have no personal knowledge. My personal knowledge was of its predecessor "Teiken Identifikasie" and in every instance that I was involved with "Teiken Identifikasie" processes it was for targets across the border.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright now, Mr Williamson, when exactly did you leave the force?
MR WILLIAMSON: 31st December 1985.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright, I believe that the evidence previously given was that Trevits developed only after that into an identification centre for purposes of operations within the country. Have you ever had the chance of, or the opportunity of reading the evidence of Brigadier Jack Cronje before his amnesty applications in October 1996, about all the issues I have questioned you now about?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright, I’m going to ask you, I’m going to present you with that evidence and ask you to read it. Mr Chairman, and I will simply ask the indulgence to be able to ask Mr Williamson at a time later, perhaps when he has had the chance of reading it, if he agrees with that evidence or not.
CHAIRPERSON: We are not going to sit and wait while he reads it now?
MR DU PLESSIS: No, Mr Chairman, that is not the idea.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr du Plessis, again, is it relevant for the present three applications or are we having a rehearsal of the Cronje?
MR DU PLESSIS: No Mr Chairman, I am coming to the relevance now and I will indicate to you that some of the evidence given at that hearing supports the evidence of Mr Williamson here and it all leads to one specific deduction one can make about the authorisation of orders and actions from above. That is the reason why I want Mr Williamson to read that evidence, and I will come to that now and you will understand the relevance of that.
Mr Williamson, Annexure O was the structure you handed in in your evidence about the National Management System, the State President, the Cabinet, the State Security Council and the structure in that regard.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: Now, did I understand you correct that it would have been possible according to the structure, for the State President or perhaps a member of the Cabinet, to give an order to the NGBS which order would have been related directly to the Gebesa and to the functionaries who had to execute such an order? If you have regard to Exhibit O, you will see there is a straight line from the President and the Cabinet down to the Ingebe S and another straight line down to the Gebesa and obviously from there an order could have been distributed to whoever was required to take certain action. All I am asking you is, let’s take the State President, according to this structure as I interpret it, it would have been possible for the State President to have related an order straight to the NGBS and then down to the separate NGBS’s?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I think I spoke about something similar when we were dealing with this exhibit. The NGBS was the meeting point, as far as I am concerned, at a lower level than the State security Council of the political command and control and the Security Force structures, as well as the rest of the government structures tasked with combatting the security threat to the State.
So all I can say is that in my time and in my knowledge and in my participation in the system I certainly have no problem with that statement and I am not now talking as a constitutional lawyer or something who tells about what lines of authority there were from the State President and here and there.
As somebody who was on the ground, who was in the system I have no doubt that if the absolute top being the State President or other Member of Cabinet wanted to talk to the NGBS system or to issue an order or an instruction it would have been possible to have been done, but I am speaking out of my experience and theoretically because I never saw it happen.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, well Mr Williamson I am going to put to you - I am coming to the examples that I am going to put to you in practice which are practical examples of exactly how this happened. The same could have been in respect of the Cabinet, am I right? Or a Member of the Cabinet?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, I must agree Mr Chair.
MR DU PLESSIS: And Mr Williamson, may I ask you the following and then I will come back to this line. When people were identified to do certain task, let's take as an example the London bomb incident, is it fair to say that the decision taken to identify the persons who would participate in such an operation would have been identified according to their possible willingness to participate in that. Meaning that somebody who would have had a problem with such an operation would not have been identified to participate in that operation.
MR WILLIAMSON: That would probably have been a consideration. I don't think a very important consideration because I don't think it very likely - well obviously if one had known that a certain person would not have wanted to participate or agree to participate in that type of operation one would not have selected that person. That I agree with. What I am just saying is that in the pool of people who were available for that operation it was very unlikely that we would have had anybody who was known to be somebody who would not have agreed with that type of operation.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, let's take the example of General Geldenhuys, I know that Mr Visser has asked you a few questions about that but as I understand your evidence you understood that General Geldenhuys was not in favour of the London bomb incident and thereafter he was not really included in the planning of the whole operation and he was really excluded from everything pertaining to the operation. Do I understand the evidence correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well as I say I have no personal knowledge of that. I have heard the evidence before this Committee and my interpretation would be that not that General Geldenhuys was against blowing up the ANC office per se but that General Geldenhuys was against the use or advised against the use of serving members of the South African Police to blow up the office of the ANC in London.
CHAIRPERSON: The impression I got from the evidence is that his decision was coloured to a large extent by his fear of the political consequences of doing something, members of the South African Police doing something in London.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is what I thought Mr Chairman, but it is speculation but perhaps if somebody else was going to blow up the office he would have no problem with that but it was the police involvement that he - what was my impression was the police involvement was a problem for him.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright and was he consulted and was he part of any part of the operation in any way whatsoever after the initial discussion?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not to my [intervention]
MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, may I enquire from my learned friend why he is asking these questions. Is he here to build up a case against General Geldenhuys? I mean what, it is not his client. I am acting for General Geldenhuys. I mean what is the basis on which these questions are put and what is its relevance with great respect?
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I will explain it to my learned friend. I thought it would have been clear to him.
MR VISSER: Well it isn't clear to me. It is as clear as mud, Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: I have no problem with Mr Geldenhuys. I am not attacking Mr Visser's client. The only point I am trying to make and it is a fairly easy point to understand Mr Chairman, is that in respect of certain operations people who were not in favour of the operations were simply excluded out of the operations. They were not taken into the people who were involved in the operations' confidence.
Certain people in the line function of orders that came down were excluded specifically because of the fact that they may have caused problems for purposes of such an operation. And I will indicate in respect of practical examples, I will indicate that that was so.
I don't know, I don't understand that I have prejudiced General Geldenhuys, unless he knows more of this incident in respect of the incident. I don't know what I did in respect of [intervention]
MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I really resent this. I really resent this Mr Chairman. Now my learned friend has given you a long explanation without telling you the real issue and that is what is the relevance of this. If he wants to put that certain people were excluded what is the difficulty of just putting it to Mr Williamson for a reply?
CHAIRPERSON: As I understood he had just put it to Mr Williamson. Mr Williamson said that might be the position but he didn't think anybody would be in the pool anyway if they were likely to say no.
MR DU PLESSIS: And Mr Chairman, maybe I will explain the relevance more so that my learned friend could then understand the whole point. The whole point is Mr Chairman, is the question, did Mr Williamson and Brigadier Goosen simply act on their own? Did General Coetzee know about this, or was General Coetzee perhaps excluded from the line of command in the incidents of Joe Slovo and Ruth First because of the fact that he testified himself here that he would not have been in favour of those operations.
I am simply cross-examining this witness to the possibilities of General Coetzee having been excluded from the command line, that it doesn't mean that the orders couldn't have come from above, that it was possible that the orders could still have come from above with the exclusion of General Coetzee, and that is the line I am trying to take and simply as an example I will recap the example of General Geldenhuys, I will come to other examples which I will put to the witness where this exactly happened. So it was simply an example. I am not trying to do anything to General Geldenhuys.
MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I must reply. General Coetzee has given his evidence, we act for him, we really don't need my learned friend's assistance in exculpating General Coetzee for what he thinks he should be exculpated. With great respect, it has no relevance to Mr Raven's application in the London bomb, unless it is going to be suggested that he was excluded which I can't see.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well, Mr Chairman, with reference to the dispute my clients and Mr Visser's client, General Coetzee have in the Ribero matter, I can guarantee you that I will not try and assist General Coetzee in these proceedings. What I am trying to do Mr Chairman, is I am trying to assist my client and to act on behalf of my client because my client acted under orders of Major Williamson. Major Williamson is [intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: Nobody has disputed that so far have they?
MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Chairman. May I proceed? Thank you Mr Chairman.
Now Mr Williamson, let us come to other examples where this happened. In respect of, and I am going to put that to you and I am just going to ask you if that accords with your experience of how the command structure and orders happened, in the zero hand grenade incident evidence was given before the Committee that General Le Grange gave and order to General van der Merwe at that time to execute that operation, which order came down from General van der Merwe to Brigadier Cronje, Colonel de Kock, Colonel Venter, right down to Joe Mamasela. Now General van der Merwe as I understand it was the head of the Security Branch at that time and General Coetzee was Commissioner of Police. In that incident General Coetzee was excluded from the line of command, do you have any comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: I think Mr Chairman, the question related to General Le Grange, I think must be Minister Le Grange. No I don't even think I was in the police at that stage. I have no comment, I cannot comment and it is perfectly possible that General Coetzee was in or out of the chain of command.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well that was in 1985. The same happened in 1985, where Minister Le Grange was involved in a discussion in the Eastern Cape in respect of, or where certain Security Policemen were present; Harold Snyman, Herman du Plessis were present there and as a result of the discussion that took place there, they took action which resulted in the PEBCO incident and the Goniwe incident. In that incident people between the Minister, such as the Head of the Security Police and the Commissioner was not involved in the line of command.
MR WILLIAMSON: Again Mr Chairman, I wasn't involved. I can't comment beyond saying it is possible, but I can make one further comment and that is on at least one occasion I was sent personally to Minister Le Grange's office to deal with this specific matter and neither my group head nor the commanding officer were present, I was sent to deal with the Minister.
ADV DE JAGER: I think in short what Mr du Plessis is trying to say, once a top general or the State President or whoever may call upon you to come to him and he would give you orders, you wouldn't ask whether all the people between you and the top structure would know about it.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I mean absolutely not Sir, and as I say I was on occasion sent to his office and given instructions and I carried them out and I didn't go and ask the commanding officer or my group head whether they thought that I should and so on, I did it.
MR DU PLESSIS: And in certain instances it wouldn't even have been necessary to consult the Cabinet?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well again I don't know Sir but when I spoke, or if the Minister gave us an order I assumed that he was part of the Cabinet and this order was coming from the Cabinet and he was the particular person in the Cabinet responsible for that particular aspect of State policy.
CHAIRPERSON: It was never your function to question the Minister or to go to the Cabinet was it?
MR WILLIAMSON: To question one rank above you would have been dangerous enough, to question the Minister or the President would have been suicide Mr Chair.
MR DU PLESSIS: And Mr Williamson we have heard evidence in the Khotso and Cosatu House incident from Mr Vlok that Mr P W Botha sometimes spoke to some of his Ministers after meetings and gave them individual instructions without those issues having been discussed at Cabinet meetings or at the State Security Council, that resulted for instance in an incident such as the Khotso House incident.
MR WILLIAMSON: Again, Mr Chairman, how I understood the National Management System and in particular the National Security Management System that was part of that was that, we were one team and from the State President down to the lowest foot soldier we were one team relating to the war against the ANC and the revolutionary enemy and that this structure had been invented and refined and developed exactly because it would be too difficult through the formal line function structures to fight this revolutionary war and that we had to have a structure that was aimed specifically at fighting that war.
So in that structure, in this National Management System Structure I saw the political leaders in military terms, in terms of rank and in that structure obviously commands could jump ranks and so particularly the higher the command came from the more ranks down it could jump.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright Mr Williamson and to conclude this, if we look at the possibilities, if we look at the examples that I have given you, if we look at everything that we have dealt with now in respect of this issue, I want to ask you this; you didn't know or were not told by Brigadier Goosen in respect of the Schoon and the Ruth First incident, you were not told where the order came from, from above Brigadier Goosen, is that correct?
MR DU PLESSIS: Would you regard it as a possibility that, and we can't ask Brigadier Goosen because he is deceased, but would you regard it as a possibility that the order to act against the Slovo's and to act against the Schoon's may have come from Minister Le Grange? ...[intervention]
MR DU PLESSIS: Ag please Mr Visser just give me an opportunity.
That the order may have come from Minister Le Grange or may have come directly from President P W Botha?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I ...[intervention]
MR PENZHORN: Mr Chairman, I am sorry to interrupt but I think the question - Penzhorn on record, I think I have a problem with the questions, actually the last two questions. I think the question which my learned friend put to the witness previously in regard to the Khotso and Cosatu House aspect I think that actually went further than the answers that we got in that particular hearing. Now once again this witness is being asked - he had no knowledge, his evidence was that he got no information, now he is being asked whether a possibility exists. Mr Chairman, it is of such a speculative nature there is no evidence to come up with that. I don't know what the purpose of this is. Whether he says yes ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: Isn't it clear that any order in this country at that time might have come from the State President, but there's no more than that. We have just heard evidence that the State President had the power to give orders. Anybody can speculate. It takes the matter no further at all, I agree.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well Mr Chairman, in the same fashion General Coetzee was asked how he perceived certain people and how they would have acted in respect of Minister Le Grange. Now my last question would have been; knowing Brigadier Goosen, would he have received an order from above in respect of such an operation or would he have acted on his own? You knew Brigadier Goosen.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I can only assume Brigadier Goosen was either acting on instruction from above or was acting on a horizontal instruction. It may not have been an instruction, it may have been a request to assist with merely with the manufacturing of a weapon. I have no idea but I certainly don't believe that this order to me just came out of some vacuum somewhere, it must have been part of some structure.
ADV DE JAGER: Could he have decided it on his own, considering the position that he decided: "Well there is an enemy and I will act"?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that is within the range of possibilities that exist. All the way from deciding it on his own right up to that the State President decided it and I have absolutely no knowledge of the specifics that I can give.
CHAIRPERSON: What precisely was his position?
MR WILLIAMSON: He was the group head. In other words as I said under the commanding officer there would have been the deputy commanding officer and then all the different group heads.
CHAIRPERSON: And what group was he head of?
MR WILLIAMSON: I would imagine - well the group I was in, I am not exactly sure whether it was termed at that time A or G, perhaps in the first incident A and I think certainly the time of the Schoon incident G.
CHAIRPERSON: And what would its function have been?
MR WILLIAMSON: G was totally intelligence related, A was a broader section under which the fledgling Intelligence Section of which I was the head at that time was a part but it would in both instances have been as his, he would have been the commander of the intelligence operations section.
CHAIRPERSON: And was the extermination of people a normal function for the intelligence section?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, but the - I certainly with the First incident I regarded the instruction as having come because of the success of the London bomb incident and that there was a person on my staff who was capable of manufacturing a weapon and the instruction was that I should issue an instruction to manufacture the weapon.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that I can understand. You suggested earlier that he may have been asked to provide the bomb.
CHAIRPERSON: I can understand that. But would he have thought - my colleague here put to you that he might have decided to conduct the operation on his own. Would that have been a normal function for the Head of Intelligence?
MR WILLIAMSON: No and that is why I say we have the range of possibilities from that he decided to go on a frolic of his own, right through to that P W Botha issued the instruction and I think those two extremes are the least likely. I think the more likely explanation was somewhere more in the middle of possibilities and that is this was part of an operation and that somebody had said: "Brigadier Goosen se mense ken hoe om hierdie dinge te maak," and he was asked to have the device made.
MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Williamson. Now in respect of cross-border actions by the Security Forces and especially those where the South African Police were involved in, some of them were highly publicised, some of them the South African Government denied involvement such as the First and Schoon incidents. Were such operations - let me just ask you this; were they well-known within the circles you moved? Did you know about the operations? Just in general about operations that you were not involved in. Was it discussed, were there talks about it, especially those that we have seen television footage of now, that it was well-known that it was the South African government involved?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, throughout my career I saw two types of cross-border activity and I was involved in both types of cross-border activity. One which was a very public, overt attack and others which were a very clandestine covert attack and obviously when it came to overt attacks, I and every other single person in South Africa and throughout the world became aware of that attack and when it came to clandestine or covert attacks, I know about those attacks that I had some involvement in.
I also mentioned in my previous evidence that, and I mentioned some of the names that it came to my attention that there were attacks being carried out on the ANC and in fact while I was a member of the Presidents Council I was interviewed about these attacks that were taking place and I said on the interview that you know, I certainly didn't believe that it was the fairies that were carrying out these attacks.
MR DU PLESSIS: Can you remember in respect of such cross-border activities, can you remember one instance that you know of where there were requests from either the State President, Cabinet, State Security Council or the Commissioner of Police about the Security Police's involvement in any of such operations?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well Mr Chairman, if we talk about large scale military attacks across the border we can talk about examples, for example the Maseru raid, both Matola raids, the more than one raid in Gaberone, the attack in Lusaka, the attack in Harare. In a number of these incidents there was South African Police involvement and in particular the involvement was on what I referred to earlier as "teiken identifikasie," target identification, target intelligence and general information required by the particular element of the Security Forces actually carrying out the physical attack, and in a number of these cases to my personal knowledge, I and other members of the Security Police participated in the planning and formulation of these attacks and these attacks were then later, as the entire world knows, carried out.
As far as clandestine attacks are concerned the only ones that I was involved in were ones that we are discussing, the amnesty applications that are being discussed at this Committee but as I said I believe that in the Security Forces at that time there was a general acceptance and acknowledgement that attacks were being carried out and that other elements of the Security Forces must have been involved in carrying out those attacks.
So if one didn't have any particular or specific knowledge, we assumed that it was somebody else that was doing it and in certain instances obviously I more than assumed that even if I hadn't been involved in the attack, certain people who had been involved in such attacks, people that were my colleagues and friends, sometimes in the corridors and on the farm and where we were having private discussions, told me: "Yes we attacked this house. We took out the ANC here or there."
MR DU PLESSIS: Right and we have heard in cross-examination of General Coetzee as well as Minister Pik Botha of the Department of Foreign Affairs being the department that would have been embarrassed every time such an incident took place of which they didn't know about.
Can you remember, do you know or have you any personal knowledge of any enquiries ever having been made by the Department of Foreign Affairs about any cross-border raids, any cross-border operations or any suggested operations which were not acknowledged, such as the Ruth First incident, such as the Schoon incident? Do you know of any enquiries having been made by the Department of Foreign Affairs?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman. You mean enquiries to the security ...[intervention]
MR DU PLESSIS: About the operations and about the question: "Were the Security Police involved in those operations". Were those questions ever asked?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not to my knowledge Mr Chairman. If I may also add, one often wondered why for example sometimes there was a very high level type of attack, a very public attack despite the international objection to this type of thing and I, my opinion and the opinion I believe of my colleagues was always that at certain times in order to demonstrate South Africa's willingness to defend itself and also quite frankly to intimidate the neighbouring states that these types of attacks were necessary but that specifically because of the international opprobrium attached to cross-border raids and activities, this is why in many cases the attacks were done clandestinely. I can just refer to the example of Israel. Israel often used to go across the borders into, for example Lebanon and there would be huge international objection to what they did and in our professional circle and so on when we saw some PLO or Black September guy getting eliminated in Paris orStockholm or somewhere, we all knew that this was the Israeli Secret Service doing this, but that it was done in that way for a reason and I thought, you know we all assumed that the South African reason was the same and that was that we had to avoid to as much an extent as possible the international dimension of this.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright and would I be correct in saying that your answer would be the same pertaining to each and every other Cabinet Minister who were in the Cabinet in 1982 and 1984 when the First and Schoon incidents happened?
MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry, Mr Chairman, I didn't get the question.
MR DU PLESSIS: I am just asking the same question with reference. I asked the question about the Department of Foreign Affairs. I am asking the same question pertaining to each and other Cabinet Minister who was in the Cabinet in 1982 and 1984. Were there any requests from any of those Cabinet Ministers about the possible involvement about the South African Police?
MR DU PLESSIS: Were they concerned, were they worried, did they want to know if we were involved or not?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not that I know of Mr Chairman, and as I said I did in 1982/1983 intelligence review, we did even put in the warning into the intelligence review about the potential danger of retaliation in "eie munt" and never in my entire career did anybody question or was I particularly questioned about South African involvement in covert attacks against the ANC.
CHAIRPERSON: Would you have known if questions had been asked at Cabinet level or at State Security Council level?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I wouldn't have Mr Chairman, unless it had been channelled down to me for answer.
CHAIRPERSON: No, that if the Minister there had dealt with the query it would have died there?
MR WILLIAMSON: Absolutely. At my level no question was ever asked.
MR DU PLESSIS: Now is it correct Mr [intervention]
ADV DE JAGER: The intelligence report you referred to, you can't give us the reference?
MR WILLIAMSON: I will give the reference Mr Chair.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, I have it right here. The report I am referring to or the, it is pages 21 and 22 of my, or the application in bundle 1. In fact the reference on page 21 starts in fact on 20. So if you take pages 20, 21 and 22, there are two references to the death of Ruth First.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now Mr Williamson you have testified and we have seen video footage of cross-border raids, we have heard evidence of General Coetzee about politicians stating that South Africa will hit terrorist basis cross-border, we have heard Minister Pik Botha confirming that in the cross-examination of General Coetzee. In fact Minister Botha said that everybody in the whole country not just himself but everybody in the whole country supported such cross-border raids, they talked about it at braai's, at the rugby and everybody supported that.
Do you agree with that view and that perception? Was that the perception that existed in the time you were there?
MR WILLIAMSON: I would say every white National Party supporter Mr Chairman, I don't think everybody in the country but amongst our - if I could put it that way, our political association, probably the large majority of the white population in South Africa had this point of view.
MR DU PLESSIS: And that would have - am I right in saying that that would have lead to a perception when you received the orders in respect, from Brigadier Goosen in respect of the First and Schoon incidents and when you saw who the targets were, did that perception that existed about cross-border operations, did that add to your belief that such action was justified?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, I think in what I have attempted to show in my evidence and also in the videos that we showed, was not only the belief that there was a structure which authorised such attacks and such attacks were required but also to show the intense political pressure that there was on the Security Forces to perform.
I can just mention one small example from the videos this morning that you know there was, and this is after the time but it is just an example of the mind-set, that when the Security Forces were told at the time of the first state of emergency in 1985; "Get the situation in this country under control", I mean one could only imagine what would have happened to the top structures of the Security Forces if a year later Freek Robinson had come on the television and said: "Well the fires are burning even more brightly and there is even more fires."
The fact is that the revolutionary onslaught, the attack on South Africa was obviously a very visible political effect of the political system that was in place at that time and there was intense pressure on all of us in the Security Forces at that time to find a solution and one of the solutions was to push the enemy back from our borders, to intimidate the so-called "gasheer lande" that were referred to in the videos, to try and in every form frustrate, neutralise, stop, destroy the enemy's assault on South Africa. And within that context, if I was requested to carry out a certain act, to identify targets, to manufacture weapons, to physically take part and lead an attack on an ANC facility, this was my job Mr Chairman and the job of all of us.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Mr Williamson in previous evidence at various other hearings the evidence was that the fact that no actions were taken against those who were involved in such operations and the fact that congratulations were the order of the day after such operations, just fortified operatives' views that they could act illegally, if I can put it like that, and in respect of cross-border operations I presume that would have had the same result, that previous cross-border operations would have fortified your belief that such action is authorised?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I can't just simply say yes. I can say yes, because obviously if we had been able to fight the war purely according to the legal statutes that existed at the time, I am sure the war would have been fought in that way.
As far as I am concerned and as far as I have been advised the raids on Maseru, the raids on Gaberone, the raids on Matola were perfectly proper, legal operations using the rules, departmental rules, the Police Act, the Defence Act, the Constitution of the Republic, these were perfectly, proper, authorised operations in terms of international and South African law.
Now when - but where the problem came was that as we heard from the Minister, or we have seen in previous evidence there was the talk about "Buitelandse sake en die nat broek en so aan," it wasn't, I didn't see it as now Foreign Affairs was now against attacks on the ANC or certain people in the government were against attacks on the ANC per se. Their problem was that the struggle and the South African situation at the time was far more complex than just the military struggle against the ANC.
This was an international, political struggle and the military aspect of the struggle is merely an extension of politics and that the political struggle, the struggle that the State President, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs in particular and other Ministers had to deal with in their discussions, not only inside South Africa but with the neighbouring states, with the international community, was made more difficult by the perception that South Africa was a bully, that it was attacking its neighbours, that it was crossing international borders, etc, etc.
So on the international level, and I can go further, while I was not personally involved in the situation one can also say that where it comes to internal operations there were legal constraints and if one looks at the documentation that I gave to the Armed Forces Committee and some of the documentation that I talked about earlier in my evidence here, there was a debate in the Security Forces, there was a debate in the military and other academic people who were analysing counter-revolutionary struggles and methods and strategies and tactics about the fact that in a State with democratic or semi-democratic systems as General Coetzee called it, but in a State that had rules and regulations, often there were problems with the legality of State action. And as far as - but as far as cross-border raids are concerned go, my perception and my belief was that in many instances the attack on the enemy had to be clandestine, it had to be covert, it had to be deniable, it had to be non-attributable purely because that were it admitted and accepted and attributable to South African Forces, this would in the overall international political structure be of a negative in our overall global situation.
So that you were faced with a situation where it was absolutely vital to militarily confront the enemy on a level, and I am talking about destroying their facilities and killing the people involved, but at the same time doing this often could be counter-productive on the global political scale.
So not - a solution was found and a solution was found in the application of secrecy and of covert action and neither I nor anybody else that I know of involved at the time found this to be something extraordinary or out of the usual. We knew about how this type of struggle was being dealt with by other forces in the world. There wasn't only a terrorist onslaught in South Africa at that time, it was much more widespread. So that is the only way I can answer that question, that yes, but.
MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you Mr Williamson. Mr Chairman, I believe that.
CHAIRPERSON: We'll adjourn till a quarter to two.
CRAIG MICHAEL WILLIAMSON: (s.u.o.)
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS: (cont)
Mr Williamson, if we can focus a little bit on the Ruth First incident. Am I correct in understanding the evidence that there was a raid on Maputo before this incident in which Mr Joe Slovo was the target and which raid was not successful pertaining to that target?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, there were two raids on Matola. The one I believe was before the incident relating to this application and I have no personal knowledge that Mr Joe Slovo was the specific target of that raid but I believe he was one of the targets of that raid because as I remember it that raid was specifically aimed at the, I am not sure what the name was at that time but the specific machinery of the ANC that was conducting so-called special operations against South Africa and Mr Slovo was in command of the people who were in that unit or the machinery that was the specific target. I remember also after the raid that there was intelligence information that Mr Slovo had in fact left one of the targets of that raid a very short while before the attackers arrived at the target.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right, Mr Williamson in respect of the target, if we accept that either Mrs First or Mr Slovo were the targets in respect of the letter bomb, what is your opinion pertaining to the method used? Would you say that, that was the only possible method which could have resulted in success or were there possibly other methods which could have been used to eliminate one or the other?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, obviously there were a range of methods or ways and means that could have been employed and an IED was just one of those methods.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now Mr Williamson we have heard a lot about the ...[intervention]
ADV DE JAGER: Sorry you say an IED?
MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry Mr Chairman, an Improvised Explosive Device.
ADV DE JAGER: So was that a known term at that stage?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman.
ADV DE JAGER: In the Security Forces?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, I think in terms of explosive devices that is a category of explosive devices.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, before you go on. Mr Slovo was - I think I am right in saying this correct me, was a target even before then, wasn't he? Haven't one of the applicants suggested in their application that on the return from London they heard an announcement about Slovo at an airport and thought this might be an opportunity to get rid of him?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman. I read that and in fact I was told about the incident and Mr Slovo, certainly in all the time that I was involved in the Security Forces, to my knowledge was regarded as I would imagine the prime target of the South African Security Forces at that time.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. And if we look at the Schoon's, at that incident would you say that the use of a letter bomb was probably the only way to eliminate the one or the other or would you say there were various different options in respect of that incident?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I think again there would be various different options but obviously in the case of the Schoon's being in Lubango in Angola in 1984, that this would perhaps be a way to get through the curtain of security that was around the area at the time.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now Mr Williamson we have heard a lot of evidence of the use of the word "elimination." I don't want to elaborate too much on that, I have made mention in my cross-examination of General Coetzee of the Kannemeyer Report. I have made copies for the Committee of the 4 pages which is the relevant part of the Kannemeyer Report and I beg leave to hand that up to you Mr Chairman. Mr Williamson I am just going to ask you one question about that.
Mr Chairman, I believe that would be Exhibit R,
MR DU PLESSIS: Sorry, I am far behind.
Now Mr Williamson have you ever heard of the Kannemeyer Report or don't you know anything about it?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I have only heard about it, I don't know anything further about it.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right, I am just going to put to you what I am going to argue and which I have already argued in other matters and which I will argue in this matter as well in respect of the use of the word "elimination" and misunderstanding thereof. In this matter there was an order from the Senior Deputy Commissioner of Police where the word "eliminate" was used, it was interpreted in a specific way and people were killed as a result thereof. I will put it to you that this is an example of the misinterpretation of such a word. Another example is an unreported Cape decision which I have referred to in my heads of argument previously; STATE vs VILLET, where exactly the same misinterpretation about the use of the word "elimination" occurred during the mid-1980's. Does this accord with your evidence in respect of the use of such a word and the interpretation thereof?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I said when the Chairman asked me himself did I just simply understand "eliminate" to mean kill, I reiterate that, that as far as I am concerned at my level the word "eliminate" meant eliminate, get rid of, destroy.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, the date of this is 1985, of this report.
ADV DE JAGER: And what would the word "uitroei" mean? How would you have interpreted the word "uitroei"?
MR WILLIAMSON: Similarly Mr Chairman, but perhaps in the case of "uitroei" it might be slightly less strong than "elimineer."
MR SIBANYONI: Therefore Major Williamson, we don't speak about misinterpretation, it is the original or ordinary meaning of the words, am I correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, as I also said we have to understand that this terminology did not come from the politicians, this was not terminology used by or invented or part of political worth, this was Security Force terminology. If one looks at the writings of counter-revolutionary warfare, counter-insurgency, that is where these words come from and if I am consulting with my legal advisor on a matter and he uses certain legal terminology to me which because I am not an expert, not a lawyer I do not understand I ask him: "Please when you say I am going to do x, y, z, what does that mean?", and if one is a politician and you ask a member of the Security Forces as an expert on counter-revolutionary warfare or on counter-insurgency, to draw up a recommendation which will later become a strategy and that member of the Security Forces or the members of the Security Forces involved use that word and write "die vyand moet ge-elimineer word," I think the people who make that recommendation upwards understand and believe that the people above them understand what that recommendation means.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Mr Williamson lastly I am just going to put to you in argument I will argue that before 1985 and especially after 1985, the politicians obviously must have known how this word was, if we can use the word misinterpreted or how the word was interpreted and there doesn't seem to have been any change in the situation if we look at exhibit A, B and C and I am going to argue that this was the accepted interpretation of the word from the top to the bottom in the government structures, what is your comment?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I must at least say that when it came to internal action where the word or where a particular word was used in conjunction with a particular sub-order that was given, in other words if it was said under "die vyand moet ge-elimineer word, of veilingheidsmag operasies" and then it said, for example as I have seen in some State Security Council documentation, that there must be arrests or detentions or something, then obviously anybody reading that should be able to realise that there is the good possibility that "elimineer" in that sense or under the heading "elimineer" didn't actually mean physically kill. But when - it depends on the context in which the word is used, and if the word is used in the context of a straight confrontation with the enemy and in particular when the enemy is across the border and outside one's legal jurisdiction then it is very difficult to believe that the word could have had any other meaning.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes and lastly - Mr Chairman, I just want to draw your attention to page 95 of this document, it is page 95 of the report.
Page 95 in the middle you will see a copy of the telex which caused this misinterpretation the killing of people was sent to the Minister for his information. General Coetzee gave evidence at the Kannemeyer Inquest about this incident and I will therefore argue that the Commissioner of Police and the Minister must have known about the misinterpretation of this word in this instance. Alright you have already commented, it is not necessary to say anything further.
Now Mr Williamson in respect of the orders that Mr Raven would have received from you in respect of all - ag let's just look at the Schoon and First incident, you never told Mr Raven what the object of the operation was in respect of the First incident and in respect of the Schoon incident?
MR DU PLESSIS: And that illustrates that you worked on the need-to-know basis.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: And do you agree that Mr Raven would have understood what he had to do and the orders that you gave him as having been authorised? Would he have had understood it in that way?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: And would he have understood that the bombs he had to manufacture would have been used for a political purpose and not for a criminal purpose for instance?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, ...[intervention]
MR DU PLESSIS: Let me rephrase it. Would he have understood that it would have been used against an opponent of the State and an opponent of the National Party?
MR WILLIAMSON: That if it were to be used it was going to be used against one of the, against the enemy, one or more of the enemy, yes Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Do you think Mr Raven would have known the name Slovo and the name Schoon?
MR WILLIAMSON: I believe he should have certainly known the name Slovo. He perhaps would have known the name Schoon.
CHAIRPERSON: Because as I understand it, what was given to him was envelopes which had already been posted, which were addressed, had the names of the recipients on and presumably had some messages or contents in them. They had been taken from the post as I understand your evidence.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman, but these envelopes were contained as I said in a large cover envelope, an official ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: When he opened the thing to start making a bomb it would no longer be in a large cover envelope, he would be working on the very envelope itself. Wouldn't he?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, not necessarily Mr Chairman. He may have just looked at the size and then manufactured an IED which would have fitted into that envelope.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I may just draw your attention - I am coming to this point. I will deal with this in detail.
Mr Williamson and you wouldn't have expected of Mr Raven to have asked questions about the instructions he received?
MR WILLIAMSON: Besides to have asked questions, some technical question, no.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright and ...[intervention]
MR WILLIAMSON: Sorry Mr Chairman, if you mean to have questioned the instruction, no.
MR DU PLESSIS: To have questioned the instruction or to have asked questions about the details of the operation, what it was for, what it was meant for, where it was going, to whom it was going.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right. And he was never told to who it was to go to and for what it was supposed to be used, is that right?
MR WILLIAMSON: No. That is correct Mr Chairman. He was merely asked: "Would it be possible, could you manufacture an explosive device which will replace the contents of these envelopes?"
MR DU PLESSIS: Right, because what I have questioned you now about, that is what he is going to testify. He will also testify that bombs were routinely made for training purposes and to teach somebody to make a bomb necessarily meant that you - ag to disassemble a bomb must necessarily meant that you had to make the bomb to show a person how to disassemble it, do you agree with that?
MR WILLIAMSON: I do Mr Chairman, and also in the case of Mr Raven, his specific responsibility related to the technical aspects of intelligence gathering and his job was inter alia to gather information and to do research on the use of amongst other things, explosives and explosive devices by terrorist organisations all over the world.
On several occasions I, in the course of my work received information from for example foreign intelligence organisations about vices which had been used elsewhere in the world and I relayed this information to Mr Raven so that he could as an expert consider it, look at it and decide whether or not there was any information out of that, that should be given out to the security community. So it is a fact that if an explosives expert knows not only how to take bombs apart, he also knows how to make them.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Williamson there is one aspect that I want to canvas with you in rather a lot of detail and that also relates to the questions His Lordship, Mr Justice Wilson asked you and which seems to me to be something that we have to deal with in detail to make it exactly clear what the position was. Let us take the Ruth First incident first. As I understood your evidence and the way I read your amnesty application on page 3 of the bundle, that is volume 3, you say that you received an envelope - ag 1 sorry, you received an envelope through the SAP Security Branch internal mail system. This was a large official envelope.
Sorry Mr Chairman, it is page 3, right at the beginning.
This was a large official envelope which contained what appeared to be an intercepted mail item. Now can you differentiate for us between the large official envelope and the intercepted mail item?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, the large official envelope was the normal envelope used in the civil service, a very big brown envelope with "Official - Amptelik" on it and inside there was what appeared to be, when I say an intercepted mail item it was a mail item and I assumed that it was an intercepted mail item, and that was a smaller envelope approximately of an A4 size and which had some type of logo of some type of international organisation on it and I remember specifically that it very definitely was coming from Lesotho.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now am I right in saying Mr Williamson that the large official envelope you're talking about was simply a police envelope in which this intercepted mail item was placed when you received it?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: So the large official envelope had nothing to do with what was eventually sent off to the Slovo's?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman. The large official envelope was merely the container of this postal item and its contents.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now let us concentrate on the intercepted mail item. You say that it had a logo of an international organisation there on - Mr Chairman, I don't know may I be of assistance with what you are looking for?
CHAIRPERSON: Somewhere in these places I thought there was a diagram of that ...[intervention].
MR DU PLESSIS: Not as far as I recollect Mr Chairman, but we can provide you with one. I can ask Mr Raven to provide you with one. He will explain in his evidence what it looked like, Mr Chairman.
Alright Mr Williamson let us concentrate on the intercepted mail item. That was a normal A4 envelope and you say it had the logo of an international organisation thereon.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, it A4 or larger. It was a, if I can term it a normal envelope in which documents would have been posted.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. And the address on the envelope could you see it by simply looking at the envelope, could you read it?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, one would have had to specifically remove the envelope or the contents from the big envelope to have read it, and the reason why I thought this was an intercepted mail item was because of the fact, and that something, it was being dealt with in a slightly unusual way, is that the item was not open. It hadn't come to me just with an instruction written on top: "Bespreek met my." The contents in the larger envelope were obviously being protected in some or other way and I assumed protected from getting dirty or damaged or fingerprints, etc.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well just to not to confuse it, let us talk about the official envelope and then the intercepted mail item because otherwise we are talking of envelopes and we don't know which one we are talking about. Right then you say on page 3
"I took the envelope"
And thereby you mean the official envelope.
"with the postal item"
That would be the intercepted mail item.
"to Brigadier Goosen."
Am I correct in my deductions?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct Mr Chairman. I said I took it to him. I believe to the best of my recollection he said something to me to the effect that this item "hierdie stuk is op pad Slovo to," or Slovo whoever it was and then said to me could I ask Mr Raven whether he could construct an explosive device which could be used to replace the contents of the envelope and I said, and by that I mean the contents of the postal item in the big envelope, I then recollected I did in fact ask well, because this was outside my normal experience, of what size or how big and he said something like the size of a hand grenade and by that I assumed he didn't mean the size of the metal section of the hand grenade, he meant the explosive force of a hand grenade.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Mr Williamson did I understand your evidence correctly on this intercepted mail item the address was covered, you couldn't read it and I understood your evidence in chief that you with a pen or pencil lifted the sticker or whatever covered that address to try and see to who the intercepted mail item was addressed.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, I looked at the mail item and by that I don't mean that I took it out of the envelope and put it down and had a good look at it. It means that holding the envelope in one hand I peered in and with a pen or something on my desk I scratched, because the postal item and the contents were all separate together in there, I pushed whatever papers were aside, I had a very brief look at it and I saw to the best of my recollection: "Maputo, Eduardo Mundlani University" and I believed that I had enough information to do what I had been requested to do.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now if Mr Raven had not done what you had done in respect of the intercepted mail item namely, trying to peek at the address and to see who it was addressed to, if he had not done that he would not have been able to see who the intercepted mail item was addressed to, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, that is correct Mr Chairman. All Mr Raven needed to know was what size of device would - he had to make the decision as to what could he possibly manufacture an IED which would fit into that original envelope and which would not, and when I mean if it were possible, I mean not only possible, but that would mean that the original envelope still looked probable and in its original condition otherwise obviously it might cause suspicion if suddenly there was an envelope which was very bulky or heavy or etc.
CHAIRPERSON: Doesn't this mean he would have to open the envelope, take out the contents and replace them with the explosive device he had made?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not - that is one way that it could have been done Mr Chairman, the other way is that once he had seen the size of the envelope he could have made a device which would then, could just have been slipped into that envelope.
CHAIRPERSON: Well was it slipped in or wasn't it? It came back to you.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, but when it came back to me it was in the big envelope, the IED was in the big envelope and it was all given back to the Brigadier.
CHAIRPERSON: Well didn't you look to see what he had done?
MR WILLIAMSON: I looked in, I saw everything looked the same. There was then an extra envelope in the big envelope and I gave it back to the Brigadier and I assumed that ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: So there was an extra envelope you now say, he hadn't fitted anything into the original?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, it was not in the original. Everything was separate, even the contents because I even, on the second occasion I even, I recollect wanting copies of the original documents because it was a report from the ANC to the ANC. So everything was separate Mr Chair.
CHAIRPERSON: And what happened to the contents?
MR WILLIAMSON: I believe the contents went into the files Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: So the contents were taken out of the envelope?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, they were replaced with an IED which itself was, and again I believe it was in an envelope itself. So it wasn't a case of the original envelope having something added to it, it was a case of the empty envelope having been emptied and something slipped into it which when it was then closed and sent would mean that it looked more or less original.
CHAIRPERSON: And who would have done this?
MR WILLIAMSON: Who would have done?
CHAIRPERSON: Removed the contents and slipped this other thing into it?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Raven would have made the IED, put it into the big envelope, he gave it to me, I looked at everything, it seemed to be in order, I told the Brigadier: "Jerry has done what he has been asked to do."
CHAIRPERSON: But was the thing now ready to go off? What I find difficult to understand is that an explosives expert should make a bomb and then not put it into the envelope where it is to be but leave it separate where it might be put off by somebody else.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, maybe I must put Mr Raven's version in respect of this and that would make it clear. Mr Williamson, and I think that is what you are trying to explain. Mr Raven will testify Mr Chairman, that when he manufactured the bomb that he placed the bomb within a normal blank envelope, a normal blank envelope that could fit into the intercepted mail item. Now that was placed into the intercepted mail item's envelope.
ADV DE JAGER: Am I correct then in - we had an envelope within an envelope?
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes and the bomb would have exploded if the envelope, the blank envelope with the bomb inside would have been taken out of the intercepted mail item envelope.
MR DU PLESSIS: I am sorry Mr Chairman, I misunderstood it too. My instructions are that - I am sorry I misunderstood it too and I perhaps put it not correctly, the bomb would have exploded if the contents in the blank envelope, somebody would have tried to take out the contents in the blank envelope.
CHAIRPERSON: Or to open the blank envelope?
MR WILLIAMSON: Or to open the blank envelope.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes. I would have had to be more, as I understand Mr Chairman, more than just open, there would have had to have been physical removal.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, and that is the way it was dealt with. Now Mr Williamson you say in the second last paragraph on page 3, you say
"I gave the envelope and its contents to Warrant-Officer Raven."
Now what exactly did you give to him? Did you give the official large envelope together with the intercepted mail item to him or did you just give the intercepted mail item?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, at no time did I give anybody anything different. I gave everybody who I gave this to at any time the entire official envelope with everything inside.
ADV DE JAGER: So you gave him 3 envelopes now?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well when I gave it to Warrant-Officer Raven it was a big envelope with a little envelope.
ADV DE JAGER: Yes, it is 2 envelopes and you received 3 envelopes.
MR WILLIAMSON: And I received - with some documentation and I received an envelope, the big envelope back with the original postal item envelope inside the documentation but now added to the documentation was, if I recollect, just something very, white envelope. It looked like further documentation, that is all.
MR DU PLESSIS: Eventually it would have looked like part of the documentation that fitted into the intercepted mail item.
MR WILLIAMSON: It was replacement of the original contents, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright and then you see you say in the last paragraph you say
"One or two days later Warrant-Officer Raven brought me the official envelope with the postal item inside."
That accords with your evidence now about what you gave him.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct.
MR DU PLESSIS: Is that right? I am just putting that to you Mr Williamson because in the second last paragraph you say;
"I gave the envelope and its contents,"
and it may have been contradictory to the last paragraph.
Then on page 4, the 3rd paragraph you say:
"After delivering the envelope and postal item back to Brigadier Goosen I assumed that the mail item would go to Mozambique."
Did you give it back to Brigadier Goosen?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it is perfectly possible I gave it back to Brigadier Goosen. I also may have sent somebody with it but I believe that I certainly may have taken it back to him.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Because in your evidence in chief I don't think you were quite sure about it. I think you testified that there, I can't remember the words in which you testified but I understood it that you testified that there was a possibility that Mr Raven may have taken it back to Brigadier Goosen and I want to put to you that Mr Raven will testify that he gave it to you and that he didn't give it to Brigadier Goosen. Do you differ from that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I certainly have a recollection that one or other of them was taken by somebody else to Brigadier Goosen but it is perfectly possible that I, all I remember is that I wanted to get that thing out of my office and it went to Brigadier Goosen.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right. Now Mr Williamson I was not responsible for the wording of Mr Raven's application in respect of the Schoon incident and the Ruth First incident. Now I want to put to you Mr Raven's evidence about the instructions that you gave him in respect of the two incidents. Mr Raven will testify ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: Before you go on, my recollection of your evidence is that you said: "Raven does not mention that I asked him to take the IED to Brigadier Goosen."
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, I ...[intervention]
CHAIRPERSON: That is what I have a note of you having said in evidence here.
MR WILLIAMSON: I certainly believe that I asked Mr Raven to take it and I am absolutely certain that on at least one occasion I asked him to take it. Whether it was the first or the second occasion is very difficult.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, as I recollect that evidence, I don't want to dispute with your notes but as I recollect it he didn't testify as if he was hundred percent sure about that.
CHAIRPERSON: But he went on some length. He asked Raven if there was a bomb inside it which could blow up and kill him, Raven said it was, he said he didn't want it and asked Raven to take it to Goosen.
MR DU PLESSIS: Ja, I just - I can't remember exactly Mr Chairman, but I think he testified something in the line of: "As far as I can remember I asked Raven to take it to Brigadier Goosen." And what I am putting to Mr Williamson is that Raven will testify that in both instances, in the First and the Schoon incident he gave the contents back to Mr Williamson and that he never gave it to Goosen.
Alright. Now Mr Williamson did you have any discussion with Mr Raven about the intention of any of the two operations, either the Schoon operation or the First operation when he brought the items back to you?
MR WILLIAMSON: You mean before?
MR DU PLESSIS: No, when he brought it back to you. After he had manufactured the bomb, when he gave it back to you. In both instances, did you have any discussion with him, did you tell him anything about the operations or didn't you?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, nothing about the operation just to the extent that I remember clearly having, asking about the power of this device and whether if it went off in the office it would kill me and probably him and destroy the office.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now Mr Williamson may I come back to the previous question which I was busy formulating. Page 44 of the First incident read together with the Schoon application, the wording used in both applications are exactly the same and it seems to give an intention by Mr Raven that you gave him an instruction to manufacture two explosive devices at the same time.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, I think that is what I said in my evidence, that the main difference that I had on reading Mr Raven's application and mine was that I certainly didn't give one instruction, it was two separate instructions approximately two years apart.
MR DU PLESSIS: Now I want to put it to you that Mr Raven will testify that when these applications were made he was not hundred percent sure of his facts but when he was confronted, during preparation for these applications, with the fact that the two incidents were two years apart and when he was confronted with your version of two instructions having been given and not one instruction but two instructions at different times, he remembered that the two incidents were apart, that he received two instructions from you at different times and that he agrees with your evidence. Do you have any comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No I don't Mr Chairman, and it is not surprising because as I said a few minutes ago Mr Raven was engaged in making or mimicking terrorist explosive devices which were being used for training purposes and its - I accept what has been put to me.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right. Now Mr Williamson, Mr Raven on page 45 of the Ruth First application testifies that he didn't know of the target until afterwards, after congratulations from you. He testifies the same on page 109 in respect of the Schoon incident, that he realised probably that the device was used to kill Jeannette Schoon and her daughter. Can you comment on what he says about congratulations from you?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman. As I said the death of Ruth First was dealt with in a what is termed Sanhedrin meeting and I believe that sometime after that meeting when I had occasion to speak to Warrant-Officer Raven, I either said to him that that report had been made or I showed him some written report that had been made and I just made an oblique comment to him about; "Well done your device worked," or something of that nature.
MR DU PLESSIS: Would that have been in respect of both incidents, the Ruth First incident and the Jeannette Schoon incident?
MR WILLIAMSON: The Schoon incident I believe I probably also indicated to him: "Have you seen the report or heard the news", or whatever and "Your device worked."
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Mr Williamson you say on page 4 of the Ruth First incident, the last paragraph you say there
"When I later"
"... doubts that approximately hundred grammes of explosives could have done the damage caused."
Now I just want to put to you that Mr Raven was shown photographs by Gillian Slovo, I believe two or three years ago, depicting the bomb scene and that Mr Raven is of the view that the letter bomb that he had manufactured could have caused the damage that he saw was caused in the photographs. What is your comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I am not an explosives expert, I was just amazed. I said I was amazed that - it was at the time of the joint security meetings between South Africa and Mozambique, there were some photographs of the scene that came into our possession and all I am saying here is that I was amazed that, if such a small device could have done such big damage. I am speaking specifically about the structural damage that was done.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. And Mr Williamson in the Schoon
incident on page 109, Mr Raven says that he remembers
questioning you about the Schoon incident, that it was said that
the letter had been intended for Marius Schoon but that it served
them right. Sorry, just read that, the middle of that paragraph
"On questioning Williamson about the Schoon incident he said that the letter had been intended for Marius Schoon but that it served them right."
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, this was the paragraph that I referred to in my evidence in chief where I said the other difference that I had with Mr Raven's evidence and that is that I do not believe that I made a comment of this nature but as I said I certainly can believe that a comment of this nature was made by somebody in my section or around my section at the time of finding out or hearing of this incident, because it is the type of comment that could perhaps have been made specifically in the context of this dehumanising the enemy and not seeing them as humans or individuals but just seeing them as an organisation or part of an organisation or as the enemy.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right Mr Williamson and then the next part of that or the last part of that paragraph refers to the allegation that the Schoon's used their daughter as the bomb disposal expert, alleging that they would throw them into the backyard and let the child play with them until such time they deemed fit to open them. Now Mr Raven will testify that it is possible that he may have heard that rumour or allegation, not from you but from somebody else in the Security Force environment.
He will also testify that it may have been a rumour that was also published in the Cape Times of 4 July 1984, where it was reported in the newspaper the following, it was stated - Mr Chairman, I will make copies available if you are interested, I didn't think it was necessary to make copies of this, it was stated in the Cape Times:
"According to relatives the Schoon family used to throw parcels hard into the back garden and let them lie there for a few hours. 'That is the silliest way of dealing with mail bombs I have ever heard of' a security source said."
Do you have any comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, that is the first time I have heard that but I don't think it is a serious way of dealing with potential explosive devices. I think this is just comments that were made after the time by various people.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, just bear with me for a moment.
Am I right in saying that at all relevant times, in respect of all the incidents you apply for amnesty for, that you acted for and on behalf of the National Party and the National Party Government?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I acted on behalf of the State and the ruling party at that time was the National Party and we - I don't think it is any secret it was regarded as the Security Force's duty at the time to maintain the integrity of the South African State, and I think General Coetzee also referred to it that it became wasn't only protecting the State but it was also keeping, the attack was on the government, there was an attempt to overthrow the government. So our job was to stop that attack and to keep the government in power, so in that sense, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright now Mr Williamson we saw this morning the brutality on the video that was shown, was that brutality in existence, according to your experience, already at the time you were at the Security Branch, not in respect of those incidents but in respect of other incidents country-wide in South Africa? What was the position, was the position the same? Were you exposed to such brutality at the time you were there, 1982 to 1984?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, from the mid to late '70's the escalation of the conflict lead to more and more casualties and this went on until, in fact only stopped in the late '90's. So in the '80's there was this perception that the struggle was becoming more and more intense and that there would have to be as I've said several times already, specific and special action taken to drive the ANC out of what was called the forward areas by themselves and what was called by us the "gasheer lande", the host countries and those countries were specifically ...[intervention]
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Williamson you are giving us a long answer about 1970 up to 1994 or whatever. The question only related to the period 1982/1984. What was the position then?
MR WILLIAMSON: It was the position there was a war Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Mr Williamson lastly I just want to put it to you that Mr Raven makes common cause with your evidence on the political motive that you have given with which you have acted, although he will testify that he didn't at that time have the same detailed knowledge that you testified about.
Thank you Mr Chairman, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR DU PLESSIS
MR PENZHORN: Mr Chairman, as before I will fall in behind after the applicants are finished. There is Mr Bizos.
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, then I should have allowed the light to past. Carry on.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR JANSEN: Thank you Mr Chairman, Jansen.
Mr Williamson you heard the evidence of General Coetzee in this hearing, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: Now I want to summarise his evidence as far as it relates to his attitude towards illegal actions of his subordinates and I want to see if you agree with my summary.
The one thing that he said was that in the period 1980 to 1987 when he was the Head of Security and the Commissioner he did not know of all these different illegal actions, other than those that he admits to. You would agree with that summary of mine?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, I agree.
MR JANSEN: Then he made a second point. He said if he had known he would have seen to it that people were disciplined and prosecuted. You heard that evidence?
MR WILLIAMSON: I heard it Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: And then he went further and he made a third point and he said not only would he have done something about it but he was known, it was well known that he took a hard stance against illegal activity, or to put it otherwise that he was a big supporter of the rule of law. You heard that evidence of his?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: Now would you agree that that evidence of his does not accord with your own evidence and the evidence of most other of the operatives in this application, in other applicants. But let's stick to your evidence. It does not accord with your evidence where you state that you would not have done something if you had thought Coetzee would not have approved. Would you agree there is some very strongly arguable discrepancy between your evidence and his?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I really can't say what General Coetzee knew and what he didn't know and what he did and what he wouldn't have done unless I was specifically involved in the incident. What I do know is that where it came to the attacks on the ANC across border, and the London incident being one, I know that General Coetzee approved and allowed us and in fact commanded us to do the operation.
As far as the other incidents that are concerned for which I am applying for amnesty, I did not discuss it at any time either before or after with General Coetzee.
MR JANSEN: Maybe we are drifting away from the - let me reformulate my question this way Mr Williamson. I assume you stick to your evidence that you would not have done something if you had thought that General Coetzee would not approve?
MR WILLIAMSON: I stick to that.
MR JANSEN: Now - and that was your perception at the time, correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: That was my perception, yes.
MR JANSEN: And that perception of yours was based on a knowledge of the Security Police culture and of your colleagues that you had gained over quite some time.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: And you would not regard yourself as a rogue policeman I assume?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: So you would regard that impression of yours as being reasonable?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, but I have to add that General Coetzee was for a lot of the time, or as he became more and more senior he became more and more removed from us and I must also add in all fairness, that General Coetzee was very well known for being absolutely opposed to acts such as, for example led to deaths in detention, etc. So I knew on the one hand that General Coetzee was very much - in fact I was present for example at security headquarters when the report came through of the death of an activist in detention and I saw how angry he was and I know that he was against that type of illegal activity.
But I have to draw a distinction between what we would have then regarded as openly illegal activity and what we would have regarded as actions that were covert or clandestine and that perhaps didn't accord with the laws or the morals or the norms of the society and when it came to those counter-revolutionary acts I believed that these had the approval of everybody above me in the hierarchy.
MR JANSEN: No sure, we will get to the issue whether when he expresses his unhappiness, or when he expressed his unhappiness it dealt with the transgression of the 11th commandment or whether it dealt with a transgression of his sympathies with high values of policing. But for the time being I want to stick to certain incidents where I want to test your impressions because I believe you express it more precisely and eloquently than most of the others of the actions of the generals and the politicians at the time. Now surely shortly after starting to work at the HQ, General Coetzee's involvement in the London bomb must have made a very definite impression on as to what - let's put it colloquially, what goes and what doesn't go in the Security Police.
MR WILLIAMSON: It was one of the acts, Mr Chairman, yes.
MR JANSEN: Yes, and surely inside the country and by the generals and, well we know at least one politician, you were regarded as heros, where you would agree that somebody overseas could quite justifiably have branded you as a State sponsored terrorists?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, I agree and all I can say is, you know we weren't only ordered to carry out London and then carried it out but after we carried it out we were decorated, it is not a medal, it is a decoration, you get letters behind your name. It is something very serious. The State President has to give it to you or has to approve personally that you get given it. So yes, I believed that what we had done had the blessing of the entire top structure.
MR JANSEN: Yes and all the cross-border raids one would assume you - I mean it is quite apparent that politicians in general should have known about them and should have known of the Security Force involvement.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, if we are talking about like the Matola raids, the Maseru raids, the Gaberone raid they had to have known. They issued the orders and it was a technical military and police process after that, but the orders came from the top and in fact reports were on national television and all the newspapers and the affairs were discussed in parliament.
MR JANSEN: Yes, and one of the issues that you mentioned in your evidence in chief were the military personnel present at the Security Police headquarters. Now it was for instance Mr Dirk Coetzee's evidence that the one person there was called the Major Kallie Steyn, do you remember him?
MR WILLIAMSON: I do, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: And they planned, for instance part of the planning of the Matola raid took place in that office which you referred to.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I said and I think General Coetzee also said, the role that the Security Police played in these specific instances was in particular the furnishing of information required by the military for the successful execution of their operation and I believe that a lot of the information for Matola and the rest was in fact worked on in security headquarters, yes.
MR JANSEN: Now the point I am trying to make in this context is that - and I want to know from you whether you would agree that in the minds of your ordinary policemen or persons at Security Police headquarters the functions of what were strictly military functions and what were policing functions became blurred.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, as I think Mr Chairman himself said that we were police officers yes, but that is where it ended. We weren't policemen, we were combatants or we were counter-revolutionary operatives. We were soldiers. We didn't see any difference between our role and perhaps the special force's role of the military. Obviously there was a difference between our role and the Airforce but when it came to Special Forces and Military Intelligence and the Security Police there wasn't a huge difference.
MR JANSEN: Alright. Now another instance that you mentioned in your evidence in chief related to the four Armscor people that were arrested in Britain, you remember that incident?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: You can remember that they were referred to as the Coventry Four?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is right, the Coventry Four, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: Now I assume you as an intelligence person and also having been involved in undercover operations overseas, you must have followed that little incident with a fair amount of interest at the time.
MR WILLIAMSON: I think so Mr Chairman, yes.
MR JANSEN: And so would most of your, or a good deal of your colleagues in the Security Police?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, I think this was something that obviously was of particular interest to us.
MR JANSEN: Yes. Now we know that what happened in the end was that, and I speak under correction but maybe Mr Pik Botha will come and tell us what exactly the facts were, promises were made I imagine by Mr Pik Botha to the British government that the gentlemen would return for their trial to Britain but that they never did so, you remember that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, this is what I read at the time, yes.
MR JANSEN: Yes. And there was some excuse, I don't know if it had any merit or whether it was just a lame excuse, but that the reason for that it was a tit for tat for the British government expelling somebody who worked at the embassy there, Can you remember that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No I don't remember that, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: But in any event ...[intervention]
MR WILLIAMSON: There was a reason I remember, given by the ...[intervention]
MR JANSEN: Yes well we can go as far as my instructions go it related to Joseph Klew but I will check the correctness of that. But in any event would you agree with me that the impression that it must have created to your ordinary policemen was "Don't worry, if you get caught we will cover for you, whether it takes lying to a foreign government or whatever we will cover for you." That is more or less, I put it maybe crudely but that would be the impression.
MR WILLIAMSON: I think Mr Chairman, yes the impression that I probably got at the time from that type of incident was that if one was carrying out an operation which was on behalf of the State and in the counter-revolutionary context as the Coventry Four were in terms of breaking arms sanctions etc., and if a problem arose we would have the backing of the State. I never got the impression that it was like the movies, you see where James Bond or somebody gets called in and the Minister says to him: "I want you to go and kill somebody in the Bahamas but if you are caught we don't know who you are." I had the feeling that we had the backing of the State and that if necessary they would take the necessary pain.
MR JANSEN: Sir, would you agree with me that the general pattern - I mean one can go from incident to incident and I will mention one or two more, but the general pattern simply does not accord with an attitude of saying: "If we had known we would have prosecuted you and what is more is you could not have been under any illusion that we did not approve of these things." Would you agree with that statement of mine?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I certainly thought that everything I ever was involved in had approval.
MR JANSEN: And for instance abductions, abductions for instance could not have been seen as a very big sin, abductions from Swaziland or Lesotho at that stage, in your perception, because it happened on quite a few occasions.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it certainly did happen on a number of occasions. I heard in the corridors as it were of the problems that on occasion had arisen and just to mention also that I don't think it was just the Security Police involved in abductions.
MR JANSEN: Yes, Mr Chairman, I may just place on record that I checked the date of the Ebrahim incident. Although the case was the Appellate Division case was only reported in 1991, the incident itself happened in December 1986, which was while General Coetzee was Commissioner.
In any event Mr Williamson you mentioned General Coetzee making certain statements and being unhappy about certain things, did you believe in your own mind that the controls which the Chief of Security and the Commissioner had in place to check on illegal activities, that it was effective?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I must honestly admit I never really thought about it and I must also say that I think what I would have perceived of as being illegal and perhaps what or wrong or something for which I would be disciplined and what General Coetzee's perception was could have been different, but when it came to for example, the death of a detainee in detention I think there were and I know there were all sorts of rules and regulations and procedures in place. When it came to some or other operational action relating to the revolutionary enemy in a neighbouring State, I was not aware of any specific rules and regulations and inhibitions.
MR JANSEN: Well maybe your work was too much of an academic nature but let me ask you ...[intervention]
ADV DE JAGER: Sorry Mr Jansen on that, but what about killing a person within the country not being detained? You said there is a difference killing outside the borders but what about killing inside the borders?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, General Coetzee on more than one occasion in my life, in the time I served under him, specifically warned me never to get involved in illegal activities inside the country.
MR JANSEN: Why do you think he would have had to warn you? What possibly could have brought him to think that you might even consider being involved in illegal activities?
MR WILLIAMSON: Because as he said Mr Chairman, he didn't want to be like the - I remember his words, he said something to the effect that he didn't want to be like one of the three monkeys that didn't see any evil, hear any evil or say any evil, that he like everybody else knew there was something going on. I would imagine it was in that context.
MR JANSEN: In any event my question was, were your perceptions - I mean you were now involved in some of these things and you heard some of these conversations at your private conversations at the farm or wherever you were, I mean did you ever get the impression that the controls that were in place to control police excesses, that they were effective?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I must say that, you know the question - if we are talking now about the period say for example ...[end of tape] that was debated, I personally, and I think a lot of people know that I personally, I was one of the people who in the mid-80's was worried about where we were going and what was happening and in particular and you mention the word academic, maybe a lot people said I didn't take a practical approach, I took an academic approach but the fact is that at the end of the day I was concerned about exactly what you are saying now and that is the reason why I resigned from the police.
MR JANSEN: Well do you know of any other one instance - I mean okay, we were told about the van As instance and we were old of maybe one other instance or two other instances where some steps were taken but in retrospect we know that there was a lot more going on. The question is do you know of any large scale or effective attempts to clean the Police Force from illegal activity? It relates just to purely your knowledge of any such attempts.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, there was no such action and in fact as the '80's progressed it just became, there were more and more people who believed that the solution to the revolutionary onslaught was a, and now I am using the word in inverted commas, quoting "a military" solution which wasn't only then Defence Force but was an armed, the use of armed force by the State against the revolutionary enemy and that this was the be all and end all and that with that the entire problem could be solved and that as the problem intensified obviously if you have got that approach, what happens is that the State counter-violence or reactive violence or pre-emptive violence or whatever type of violence you would like to call it, also escalated.
And I just had a belief that at the end of the day there was no purely violence based or military as it were solution to the problem, that this had to be an element of a political solution. And I think Mr Chairman, it would be, well it would be impossible to try and tell this Committee that everybody in the Security Forces had exactly the same approach and that all the counter-revolutionary, that there was one specific counter-revolutionary strategy that everybody agreed with and that everybody was applying and this was my concern towards the end of my career in the police, was specifically what has been mentioned, this escalation of the violence which was becoming also more and more, I can't use the word personal but I mean intense between the Security Forces specifically and the revolutionaries.
MR JANSEN: In any event you as a policeman at that time, would it be true to say that you would not find an attitude among a colleague of yours that control mechanisms were not effective, you would not find such an attitude to be unreasonable?
MR WILLIAMSON: Excuse me again, would you just run that by me again?
MR JANSEN: In other words, let me put it to you even simpler, the attitude that "we probably won't get caught," was not an unreasonable attitude at that time.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, ja, I mean: "We probably won't get caught," if they were doing things which related to the counter-revolutionary struggle I don't think there was a question of getting caught. There may have been a question of getting caught if you were doing this outside the jurisdiction of our Security Forces.
MR JANSEN: Yes, outside the culture of what was acceptable at the time.
MR JANSEN: Yes. And I mean the average policeman could also not have experienced the legal system as extremely penetrating at the time because simply, I mean there is a long history of a lack of findings against the police, would you agree with me?
MR WILLIAMSON: I must agree yes, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: And another impression that was created by politicians was - you were aware of the legislation that was made in Namibia which was something to the effect of, that the President of the country or at that stage of South Africa could intervene in decisions made by the Attorney General in prosecutions. Do you remember that legislation?
MR WILLIAMSON: I only remember it Mr Chairman, because I remember the debate that was going on at the time and also inside South Africa between, in the Security Forces but specifically the different elements of the Security Forces and certain members of the police felt that it was unfair, that it seemed that the Defence Force members were getting more legal protection than the Police Force members. I remember the issue which started in Namibia and was also then debated in South Africa.
MR JANSEN: And eventually in the 1990, I think it was the Pretoria or the Groote Schuur minute, there were provisions made for amnesty by the politicians and in the CODESA process it ended in amnesty provision. So again would you agree that that created the impression that: "Well the politicians are more or less covering for us a bit at least"?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well I think Mr Chairman, the belief was that if one was carrying out counter-revolutionary strategies and specific tactics that fell within the basic strategies that had been accepted, that you wouldn't be cast to the wolves.
MR JANSEN: Okay I want to step onto something else now more particularly the Marius Schoon incident. Would it be correct to say that if there were any plans to assassinate Mr Marius Schoon or for that matter any other person, the information on which the operatives would act would have to be information that was, or parts of that information would have to be very recent information?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well there would be two aspects to the information Mr Chairman. One aspect would be the political, for lack of a better term, or security reason for a strike against that particular individual or target.
MR JANSEN: And then the other would be the operational.
MR WILLIAMSON: The second would be operational intelligence, yes, the tactical intelligence required to successfully carry out the attack.
MR JANSEN: And it would be important for any operational information to be fairly recent because at least one wants to know where to look for the person or that the person would be there when one wants to effect or execute the operation?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, because it has in fact happened that the wrong target has been or the wrong house has been attacked because the information given at times was out of date.
MR JANSEN: Yes. Now would it be correct that the most obvious and logical unit or region of the Security Police who would have monitored Mr Marius Schoon at that stage would have been the Western Transvaal unit?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman. I would say the Western Transvaal and of course also the Africa section of the Intelligence Unit which fell under my command.
MR JANSEN: And then there would have been at Intelligence Headquarters because that information would be given through on a daily basis to headquarters, right?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct.
MR JANSEN: And just another thing on the headquarters structures. I know Mr du Plessis asked you some questions about the various sections, but there seems to have been a lot of evidence of one section head requesting service from a junior in another section without going through the section heads. I get the impression there must have been some or other standard or standard ruling or a standard understanding that the sections would almost automatically give their various expertise to the other sections.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes I think I touched on that a bit earlier. I would agree with that. The only proviso I would make would be that, for example when it came to my section there would, which because - sorry, let me just draw a distinction that some of the sections at head office were what one would term operational sections but most of the sections were in fact desks and dealing with head office functions and the collation of information, etc. So obviously where it came to sensitive operational information one section would not have succeeded if they tried to get that information from my section but when it came to information that was now in Security Head Office that was obviously available to everybody and so if one section asked the other it would, yes I agree it would be standard procedure that there would be cooperation.
MR JANSEN: Now the other thing which has been mentioned from time to time and especially General Coetzee was quick at some times to refer to what would be ordinary procedures and he would quite regularly say, "But this would not accord with ordinary procedures." Now my question just relates to this, in your ordinary work as an intelligence officer surely your work would have been of a highly confidential nature and ordinarily very few other people would have had access to what you were working with?
MR WILLIAMSON: I agree and that accords with what my previous answer was, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: Yes and but the need-to-know principle, am I correct in saying it refers to something other than the ordinary procedures, one could almost call it an extra-ordinary procedure?
MR WILLIAMSON: As far as I understand it Mr Chairman, need-to-know is an operational requirement, it is a defensive requirement. It is a defensive tactic which you use in order to prevent the unnecessary leaking of information but it is used more in an operational sense than for example in Security Head Office. If one section asks the other for some information it was highly unlikely, it would not be procedure, to use the word, for the one section to answer back: "Well you don't need to know this", but if somebody, one section came to me and said or came to my section and said: "Please tell us which source in x,y,z organisation gave you this information?", well obviously that is need-to-know and he definitely doesn't need to know that.
MR JANSEN: Yes. Well for the simple reason that operational requirements or in operations the requirement of confidentiality is so much more acute than in the non-operational part of your work, would that be a fair comment of mine?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes as I said the requirement operationally is to defend the operation's integrity, so obviously that is much more acute.
MR JANSEN: And part of the need-to-know principle would also be report back, one would also report back along that very narrow line of knowledge as to what was the outcome or what happened on the operation?
MR WILLIAMSON: In general I would say yes, Mr Chairman.
MR JANSEN: Mr Chairman, if you can just bear with me one moment.
As far as Mr Adams evidence in respect of the London bomb is concerned, I think there is just one aspect that may differ but it is not contentious I think, and that is that he says that he knew what the nature of the operation would be before they departed for Britain. Do you have any comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I said previously certain members knew and certain other members didn't know, I am not sure.
MR JANSEN: That is all I need, unless you want to add something.
MR WILLIAMSON: No, that is all.
MR JANSEN: Thank you Mr Chairman, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR JANSEN
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR CORNELIUS: Mr Chairman, Wim Cornelius. I act on behalf of the third applicant J L McPherson.
Mr Williamson you worked closely together with Mr McPherson for a period of approximately 4 years in the period 1981 to 1985, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: I presume you came to know him as a police officer who religiously carried out his instructions from his superior officers?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, I think - I agree with that Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: I understand he is still at present in the South African Police Service in the rank of Senior Superintendent.
MR WILLIAMSON: I believe so, Mr Chair.
MR CORNELIUS: Now with reference - I am going to draw your attention to two incidents; the London bomb and then separately Lusaka, Zambia bomb. With reference to the London bomb you would agree that McPherson carried out his instructions within the chain of command?
MR WILLIAMSON: I do, Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: You would obviously agree that he carried out his instructions with the same political objective of damaging the ANC offices in London as a symbolic high profile strike to disrupt the ANC and to serve as a warning to the British government not to harbour ANC activists?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, his motivation was the same as the rest of the team, Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: Yes. And at that time the ANC was considered as you testified an enemy of the previous government and he generally concurs with your political viewpoints.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: Now you were present when General Coetzee testified. Regarding the Lusaka, Zambia bomb, would you be surprised if it came to your attention that McPherson, whom you knew very well, took it upon himself to bomb a foreign target in Zambia and a prominent figure like Joe Slovo without authorisation or knowledge of his superior officers?
MR WILLIAMSON: I would have been very surprised, Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: This is the type of thing that would have been authorised, if I listen to your testimony, on a very high level?
MR WILLIAMSON: I am sure that it would have been authorised, Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: My client will testify it was authorised by General Coetzee. You can't comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, at the time of this Lusaka bomb, I believe it was in the middle of 1985, I had already made my intention of resigning from the South African Police known and I was moving out of my position as Head of the Intelligence Section and I was around but I was not specifically involved in this incident.
MR CORNELIUS: I see. My client will testify that at that time you were on leave and he approached, when he received the information, Mr Broon who referred him to General Coetzee for further authorisation. I presume you can't comment on that.
MR WILLIAMSON: I can't Mr Chairman, beyond to say that I have no doubt that it would have been procedure to authorise such a procedure.
MR CORNELIUS: Yes. Did you have knowledge or did you gain knowledge of the Lusaka bomb operation and you say ...[intervention]
MR CORNELIUS: Did you gain knowledge of this operation? In other words after the operation was concluded, did it come to your attention that this operation in fact had been ...[intervention]?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, it did come to my attention, in fact either shortly before or after.
MR WILLIAMSON: And to my recollection, and perhaps I am completely wrong, I certainly remember that there was a Special Forces connection but because of the position that I was in at the time and the principle that we have discussed; the need-to-know, "moet-weet" principle, I in fact didn't need to know, so what I got to know was outside that principle and my impressions at the time were, all I remember was that there was a plan, I thought that the target was the ANC Conference that was later on became known as the Kabwe Conference and that the Special Forces, I remember specifically were involved. I was not sure whether we were assisting or, and when I say we I mean the Security Police, were assisting the military in an operation or whether the military were assisting the police but I remember that there was an idea to have an operation and that the Special Forces would have been involved.
MR CORNELIUS: Yes. I think what is important is that you stated that there was a plan, so it was clear that McPherson wasn't on a little frolic of his own?
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, if I recollect correctly, as I said my recollection is that the idea was an attack on the ANC's so-called Kabwe Conference and this would have been a very high profile attack had it succeeded, and I can't see any possibility that this was, because it couldn't even just have been a frolic on Mr McPherson's own, it would have had to also then involved Special Forces.
MR CORNELIUS: Yes. What's your background knowledge of the ANC, what were the functions of the ANC Headquarters in Lusaka? Is it possible to shortly comment on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: The ANC Headquarters in Lusaka was the Headquarters of the ANC, so that was the head office. It was where the entire organisation was managed and run from, both the political as well as the military element.
MR CORNELIUS: So that would be an obvious target?
MR WILLIAMSON: It would be an obvious target Mr Chairman, not only for practical reasons but also specifically because of the political impact and psychological impact.
MR CORNELIUS: General Coetzee, one could draw the general feeling that he felt it was strange that my client approached the Special Forces of the Military Intelligence to manufacture the bomb that was in the brief case but if I listen to your testimony it wasn't strange for him to do that, there was a very large scale cooperation between the various Intelligence Forces.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I also - that is why I say at the time, from the knowledge I had at the time I wondered, well I must say I didn't wonder too much, I really - it was the Special Forces' involvement that lead me to the conclusion, to my own conclusion that this was more a Special Forces operation because it may have been in fact Mr Chairman, also I thought there was some special type of explosive device or something that they were capable of manufacturing or had but that the Security Police may not have had but obviously taking for example Gaberone raid and the rest, there was cooperation between the military and the police and between Special Forces and the police.
MR CORNELIUS: Yes. Finally, I made a broad statement in cross-examining General Coetzee that he was the father of intelligence, would you agree that he was largely responsible for creating the intelligence service in South Africa?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well, I don't know whether - if we turn the intelligence service, I mean there is also Civilian Intelligence Service and there was at that time, National Intelligence or before that the Bureau of State Security but where it came to the intelligence function of the South African Police, I think that General Coetzee played a pivotal role.
MR CORNELIUS: Yes. Would I be correct to state there was only an open channel to him for communication on any intelligence operation?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well yes, Mr Chairman, but by that I don't mean that you know, it was standard procedure just to go and talk directly to General Coetzee but obviously if in amy instance the input of General Coetzee or it was required to inform General Coetzee or it was felt necessary I believe that it could be done. I don't have any specific knowledge of this particular time.
MR CORNELIUS: Thank you Mr Chairman.
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Cornelius, the witness in his answers related your questions to the Kabwe Conference. In the application itself of your client, nothing is mentioned about the Kabwe Conference.
MR CORNELIUS: My client Mr Commissioner had no knowledge of that, it came to me as quite a surprise as well. We were informed and his instructions were Lusaka, ANC offices.
ADV DE JAGER: Ja, so I don't know whether you and the witness were across purpose about the incident you are asking about.
MR CORNELIUS: I can clear that up if you prefer, Sir.
Mr Williamson, - sorry my colleague. Mr Williamson, can you clear this up for me, my client indicated that his instructions were to plant a bomb in the ANC offices in Lusaka and while furthermore there should be a possibility of injuring Joe Slovo. Do you have comments on that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, I accept that. All I said is that in what little I heard I, and trying to recollect back to that time, I think or I thought and perhaps because I knew that the Kabwe Conference was going to take place and I heard that there was the possibility of an operation in Zambia, I could have also just made the assumption that Kabwe Conference was the target. There was talk in that time, in mid-1985 definitely to my recollection, about a possibility of an attack in Zambia.
MR CORNELIUS: So was that pure speculation on your part, regarding the conference?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR CORNELIUS: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR CORNELIUS
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR HUGO: Thank you Mr Chairman. For the record it is Hugo on behalf of Mr de Kock.
Mr Williamson, I just want to deal with one aspect mentioned in your evidence in chief and that is the video, it is video number one that was tendered as evidence. It dealt with the incursion or the cross-border raid into Botswana, can you recall that?
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct, Mr Chairman.
MR HUGO: I think you testified that this took place in 1986, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: 1985 I believe.
MR HUGO: 1985. Can you just give us the precise date as to when in 1985 did this incident take place?
MR WILLIAMSON: Not offhand Mr Chairman. I believe the Gaberone raid 1985 is somewhere in the middle of the year.
MR HUGO: Be it as it may were you still with the Security Police at the time?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chair. It was probably my last operational task.
MR HUGO: And would it be fair if I put it to you that possibly the main trigger or at least one of the most important triggers for this cross-border raid, according to this video, was the finding of this arms cache on the West Rand?
MR WILLIAMSON: I think if you put it to me that that is what the public were told was the main trigger I will agree with you.
MR HUGO: Ja we are just dealing with the contents of the video shown to us yesterday afternoon.
MR WILLIAMSON: Ja, that is why I am saying if you say that is what the public was told that was the main trigger.
MR HUGO: Yes, and can I just ask you did you have any personal dealings with the planning and the execution of this particular raid?
MR WILLIAMSON: I was involved in the target selection process, yes Mr Chair.
MR HUGO: And the planning before hand?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I believe the planning was mainly done, as far as I know the actual planning of the operation by Special Forces.
MR HUGO: So was this a combined operation between the South African Defence Force and the South African Police?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I think it was purely a South African Defence Force operation with the assistance on various levels by the South African Police.
MR HUGO: In what respect was the South African Police supposed to be involved in this particular operation? I am talking about the planning, the pre-planning.
MR WILLIAMSON: Well as far as I knew it was mainly on target selection but I understand there were or possibly were other police involvement but that my involvement was target selection.
MR HUGO: Well if you say there was possibly other police involvement what are you talking about?
MR WILLIAMSON: Possible other police involvement Mr Chairman, that I would not have been specifically involved in or aware of.
MR HUGO: Well let me try and cut it short. We saw on the video that specifically this arms cache was attributed to the ANC/SACP alliance. Mr de Kock will testify, if it needs be, that this particular cache was not an ANC/SACP cache but was in fact a fake cache, it was a ...[intervention]
MR HUGO: Stratcom. In fact the weapons depicted on the video was put there by the Security Police, more specifically by Mr de Kock and some of the other Vlakplaas operatives on instructions from his officer commanding, were you aware of that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I was not aware of it but I subsequently heard of this possibility and I think what it shows to me is that the raid wasn't just some quick decision by some particular people somewhere, this is obviously a complexed, carefully put together plan that was carried out.
MR HUGO: Yes. And Mr de Kock will also testify, contrary to what was shown in this video, that the weapons and the arms and the ammunition didn't come from the ANC or the PAC or SACP, those weapons were actually supplied by Vlakplaas. They had an arsenal there and the weapons were taken from Vlakplaas to this particular cache or fake cache. Did you have any knowledge of that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No I did not but I have no reason to deny that information.
MR HUGO: But you did however hear about what I am stating to you now, before this video was shown to us yesterday?
MR WILLIAMSON: I heard that there was a possibility that - in fact I think in one of, or some evidence Mr de Kock has given previously that he made this statement. In fact I heard that there was some, that Mr, the former foreign minister, Mr Pik Botha had also alluded to the same thing.
MR HUGO: Yes. And you would agree with me that this is a shiny example of the manipulation of the public's opinion at the time by the Security Forces and most probably by the politicians.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes Mr Chairman, the psychological or Stratcom, I mean if we are going to, you know we can go into what Stratcom was but if I can try and summarise it very briefly, basically this also goes to the difference or the differences that I often wondered about in terms of the openly accepted attacks or the openly ordered and executed attacks which were then afterwards claimed or responsibility was claimed for, as opposed to clandestine, covert attacks made on the ANC. And I think I did previously say that one of the reasons that covert and clandestine attacks were carried out was because of the political or the problem on the political sphere of such attacks and which brought me to the conclusion that if the State and the politicians and the people who give the orders had decided to carry out a very public attack of the nature of the Gaberone raid that this, the purposes of that attack were not only the specific elimination of the specific target at that specific time but had a political purpose, that there was a political purpose behind the attack, which was not only related to the specific targets that were attacked because - and I have got into some trouble before making this type of statement, but I was of the opinion in those years often that what often a more carefully planned clandestine attack could in fact with a lot less trouble achieve the specific objectives which one wanted to achieve.
So there must have been another reason to go into these full military assaults, sending troops across the border with including armour and going and surrounding the Defence Force there and telling them not to come out of their base; "We are busy with a big operation." That obviously to me this meant that there was a different political agenda behind this type of attack. And just finally to comment on what you said, that the fact that the State or the political structures of the State would want an excuse to make that type of attack is also then natural to me. They have to have some reason, they can't then just say: "Look we want to terrify the wits out of the xyz government, just go and attack them", they have to come up with a credible reason.
And then there is another factor that has to be borne in mind and that is that in certain instances one can have information at one's disposal which would give rise to an attack but which one could not possibly publicly reveal. So instead of then making the attack on the basis of the actual information that you have got, you make the attack on the basis of some information that you have made up and which means that you don't jeopardise the security of the information that you have actually got.
So if you get into psychological operations and Stratcom it becomes incredibly complexed, Mr Chairman.
MR HUGO: Yes and would you agree that this is a very good example also of how foot soldiers were abused and used by their commanders to achieve their political ends and purposes?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman. As we have discussed at length, there was this revolutionary war, there was this revolutionary onslaught and we had a counter-revolutionary strategy and this was a very complexed game that was being played and a jigsaw that was being built and lots of the individuals involved and the individual commanders and the foot soldiers and the men that were carrying out and the women that were carrying out specific instructions, especially when they were operating, I don't know in this instance whether they knew why they had been told to create this DLB, but at the end of the day the attitude was that the various members of the Security Forces have to do on a need-to-know basis that which they are ordered to do and that many instances the act which you are ordered to carry out is a part of a jigsaw puzzle picture that is being built that you have no idea what the end result of that picture will be.
MR HUGO: Well let me just put it to you for sake of completeness. Mr de Kock will testify that he had been told beforehand what the reason was. In fact he will testify that he had been told by his officer commanding that the Defence Force wanted a plausible reason to justify the would-be raid into Botswana and Zimbabwe and that is why they had to plant this fake cache. You wouldn't know about it?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, I don't know, and I think we must just make clear which raid, there were two raids into Gaberone.
MR HUGO: We are talking about the - there was one that was depicted in the video shown yesterday, video number one.
MR WILLIAMSON: Ja, but that was the so-called EPG raids and I think if I am not wrong, that was after I was already out of the police.
MR HUGO: I have got further questions, thank you Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR HUGO
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR BOOYENS: Thank you Mr Chairman. Booyens on behalf of the interested party Klew and W A L du Toit, applicant. I just would like to place on record Mr Chairman, there is just one aspect mentioned by my colleague, Mr Jansen and that is whether the British kicked Mr Klew out of Britain for some or other reason that, that was news to us. If relevant we will take instructions on that as soon as we can get hold of him and if relevant I may just ask to put anything if necessary to the witness, otherwise I have got instructions for Mr Klew.
Mr Williamson at page 3 of your application, that is the one in volume 3, you referred to Warrant-Officer Joe Klew as a member of Military Intelligence. It is at the bottom of the page very last paragraph.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes I see that Mr Chairman.
MR BOOYENS: Now Mr Klew has instructed us that firstly, he was a member of the administrative corps of the South African Defence Force, employed as a driver in the office of the Military Attache in London but was in fact not a member of Military Intelligence, are you in a position to dispute that statement or was this just a deduction that you made that he was Military Intelligence or do you have anything to substantiate that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, that is a deduction I made because of the fact that with the assistance of Military Intelligence I had set up a communication channel with Lieutenant Casselton and I was aware that Warrant-Officer Klew was part of that channel and therefore I made the assumption that he was member of Military Intelligence.
MR BOOYENS: So you just thought he was MI.
MR WILLIAMSON: And if he was merely serving in administrative function, I accept that.
MR BOOYENS: I see. He further tells me that he had no knowledge of the contents of the parcels that he had to deliver to Casselton, he was never informed. He didn't know what it was about and that it was also not unique for him to be requested to deliver parcels to Casselton or even other people on occasions, would you have any dispute with that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No dispute with that. In fact on the need-to-know basis I would have been very surprised had he known what was in the packages or any package that he delivered.
MR BOOYENS: Very well, thank you. As far as the position of Mr W A L du Toit is concerned I would just like you to clarify one thing for the Commission at this stage. You referred to the fact and you said Mr Raven was in the Technical Section. Now as I understand it Mr Raven worked with you in the Intelligence Section but in your Technical Section in the Intelligence Section, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, we mustn't confuse ...[intervention]
MR BOOYENS: Then there was a separate Technical Section under command of W A L du Toit.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct.
MR BOOYENS: And they are the people who would be under somebody else's command, it would be a different section.
MR WILLIAMSON: A different group.
MR BOOYENS: Different group, I think they were F section or something like that if I am not mistaken.
MR WILLIAMSON: I don't know the letter of alphabet but they were a separate group.
MR BOOYENS: Very well. Would it further be correct, Mr du Toit instructs me that he knows that he received a request which then was not a unique request, to build containers to resemble electronic apparatus, radio type apparatus or something like that for the, initially he was just told it was for the conveyance of something and he was given a size, how big the container should be. What he is uncertain about, and perhaps you can assist us, is he knew the request came from you but he is uncertain whether it came from you directly or whether somebody else may have conveyed to him that it was a request from you. Can you assist us whether you spoke to Mr du Toit yourself or whether you asked Mr Raven to go and speak to Mr du Toit on your behalf?
MR WILLIAMSON: To the best of my recollection Mr Chairman, I would have asked Mr Raven to have spoken to Mr du Toit on my behalf and to the best of my recollection however, that at a later stage once he had completed his task, I do think I went up to his section and just took a look at the final result. So he would have been absolutely sure that ...[intervention]
MR BOOYENS: Yes that the request came from you.
MR WILLIAMSON: That is correct.
MR BOOYENS: Fine. Mr du Toit further tells me that after he completed the containers, Mr Raven came to him again with some explosives and detonators as well as some tools and that this was packed into the containers and they were sealed, but although he realised at that stage that it was probably to be used for some or other offensive purpose, he was never given detail as to exactly for what purpose he was to build the containers and to pack them with the explosive. Are you in a position to dispute that or would you in fact expect on the need-to-know basis that, that would have been the case?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, Mr Chairman, I would have been, I would have expected that he did not know and I would have been upset had he known.
MR BOOYENS: I see. He furthermore informs me that in the Technical Section the practice was, on the need-to-know principle, that they to a very large extent had to realise on the bona fides of the colleagues but they never had reason to find out anything to the contrary, that on such occasions as their assistance was obtained for clandestine operations or what appeared to be clandestine operations, that these operations were authorised and were in the interest of the country although on many occasions they didn't have the details as to the exact nature of the operations. Are you in a position to dispute that?
MR WILLIAMSON: No, in fact I would agree with that Mr Chairman, and I would also go slightly further and say that I and anybody else working in Security Head Office who asked another section to do something knew that the possibility existed that the person in the section that we asked would mention this request to their superior officer and that at any time their superior officer could then easily have asked my superior officer you know; "Major Williamson asked this, that the next thing, we are busy doing it."
So the like - he is absolutely correct, because the likelihood of him being requested to do something that was unauthorised was I would say infinitesimal.
MR BOOYENS: I see. And perhaps just one further aspect, would it also be correct to say that the culture in the Security Police was that if you got a request like this you would indeed not ask questions. It was a culture that you accepted that: "I get a request. I do not need to know what it is intended for" and you would not ask questions, it would in fact be frowned upon if you do so.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, that is absolutely correct, especially the last phrase "frowned upon." I believe were anybody to have asked questions and specifically were anybody to have asked questions on an ongoing basis that that person would definitely have been moved out of the security headquarters.
MR BOOYENS: That could have meant the termination of his career in Security Police or perhaps ...[intervention]?
MR WILLIAMSON: He would have just been moved sideways or downwards or somewhere because it was an absolutely firm security principle and I am not saying it was never breached, it was often breached because humans are humans but when it came, it was breached more I would say in social context where people were talking and socialising maybe somewhere on the beach and somewhere private but when it came to specific operational instructions nobody would ask questions.
MR BOOYENS: There is just one further aspect that I would like to deal with you broadly. Do I understand your evidence correctly that at the time, and I am more interested in the London bomb that is all that Mr du Toit applied for, in other words 1992, there was already a mind-set in the Security Police that people were already conditioned into believing this is in the absolute interest of the country and it was expected that they would carry out their orders, is that correct?
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, Mr Chairman. And I mean, just out of personal interest, and I mean I don't have any hard facts and figures or information to back it up, but I certainly believe that from 1979 when the take off the gloves sort of orders came through, that from that time this attitude and this culture that you describe developed, so by 1981, 1982 it was well established.
MR BOOYENS: Because what I find interesting as an outsider looking in is that some of the men that were actually taken over to London were taken there and only once they were there they were told the purpose of the operation and what they were going to do. So the possibility to you in your mind as second in command, it never even entered your mind that some of these people may say: "Wait a bit we don't want to get involved", it was just accepted they are Security Policemen and they will do the job.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, funnily enough only recently in reading Mr Taylor's evidence in his application did that actually, it was only then that that crossed my mind. What would have happened, what would I have done if one or two members of my team in London just suddenly said: "You are crazy, I am not going to do this." So you are right, Mr Chairman, the team knew we were going to attack the enemy. They knew there was something of that nature was up but I can't even concede Mr Chairman, when I was given the order, of actually saying.
MR BOOYENS: Vacillating at all?
MR WILLIAMSON: Well I would have had a choice, yes. It didn't cross my mind at the time but my choice would have been the end of my career and out or obey my orders, and I assume that everybody junior to me would have had that same approach.
MR BOOYENS: But there was something more to it wasn't it than just "being the end of my career"? That is not why they did it.
MR WILLIAMSON: Yes, well when I say the end of the career it would have been, we would have regarded it and it would have been regarded by our colleagues as verging, I wouldn't even use the word verging, I would say as treason, as betrayal and cowardice and in fact mutiny comes to mind. It would have been regarded as well, the inconceivable and it would have meant in fact that you were maybe even aligning yourself with the enemy.
MR BOOYENS: And apart from that wouldn't it also have, the fact that it wasn't even considered necessary to even check before people would be interested that isn't that a demonstration as to how successfully members of the Security Branch, and I am more talking about the more junior people, the Majors and the Captains and so on, how successfully they had been brainwashed into believing that it is the cause above everything else by 1982.
MR WILLIAMSON: Mr Chairman, I - obviously we can discuss the term brainwash but yes there was ...[intervention]
MR BOOYENS: That is perhaps the wrong term, I agree.
MR WILLIAMSON: There was an absolute determination to confront the enemy and to attack them in any possible way and I think there was an acceptance that if you were in that job, like if you a soldier and you agree to become a soldier your contract with the organisation and with the state that employs you is that you will when you require you, use force on their behalf and if in using that force on behalf of that state that employs you, you are required to die you must also be prepared to die, so you make that contract before this request is made. So that is something that, that contract has already been made in your mind and when the actual event occurs you don't start then saying: "Well am I committed enough to do this or not", you do it.
MR BOOYENS: Yes, this contract and I think you use it in quotation marks really because in reality your contract as a policeman is of course that you wouldn't do anything unlawful or the State wouldn't expect and we know that, it may be debateable that what was ordered was unlawful in the circumstances but that contract that you are referring to is actually that contract caused by the mind-set and not strictly speaking your service contract, just to above ...intervention]
MR WILLIAMSON: No I am not talking about the service contract, but in the context of the job we were doing, in the context of the time that we were doing it, the acceptance and the reality was that we had to be prepared where necessary to shed blood and we had to be prepared where necessary to have our own blood shed.
MR BOOYENS: Mr Chairman, apart from the one aspect I mentioned to you which I will try to clear up tonight and if I decide it is necessary I will put to the witness, I have got no further questions to this witness, thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR BOOYENS