CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos, we come back to you.
MR BIZOS: Thank you, Mr Chairman. My learned friend, Mr Berger, will call the next witness.
MR BERGER: Chairperson, the next witness is Mr Heinz Klug: H-E-I-N-Z K-L-U-G.
EXAMINATION BY MR BERGER: Thank you, Chairperson.
Mr Klug, could you tell the Committee where you are presently employed and what you do?
PROF KLUG: I'm a Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the United States, and I teach law, I teach Constitutional Law, Property Law and American ...(indistinct).
MR BERGER: Could you speak up a bit as well please?
MR SIBANYONI: Can you repeat the name of the University?
PROF KLUG: The University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the Law School.
MR BERGER: And before that, where were you employed?
PROF KLUG: Before that I worked at, I lectured at the University of Witwatersrand Law School from 1991, and before that I worked for the African National Congress Land Commission.
MR BERGER: You've also been admitted as an advocate of the High Court in South Africa, is that correct?
PROF KLUG: I was admitted in 1995 as an advocate to the High Court in South Africa.
MR BERGER: Mr Klug, let's go back right to the beginning. You were born in Durban in 1957, is that correct?
MR BERGER: After matriculating, you then attended the University of Natal in Durban?
MR BERGER: Where you obtained a BA Honours Degree?
PROF KLUG: A BA Honours Degree, correct.
MR BERGER: During your university career, is it correct that you were a member of the Durban SRC?
PROF KLUG: I was a member of the Durban SRC, that's correct.
MR BERGER: And then in 1978, April, you became President of SASPU, the South African Students Press Union, is that correct?
MR BERGER: You were first vice-president, then you took over as President, am I right?
MR BERGER: In 1979 you then went down to Cape Town where you registered at UCT for a Masters Degree, am I right?
PROF KLUG: I began a Masters in Economic History in January 1979, in Cape Town, correct.
MR BERGER: And at that stage were you still President of SASPU?
PROF KLUG: I'd been re-elected in December of '78 for another one year term as President.
MR BERGER: Now in 1979 whilst you were registered at UCT you had certain problems, or earlier than that you'd had problems, am I correct?
MR BERGER: Very briefly could you tell the Committee what the problems were and what happened as a result?
PROF KLUG: Because I was involved in the Student Press a lot of our publications were banned because we were making allegations about apartheid and about deaths in detention etc., and as a result I was getting a lot of attention from the Security Police in Durban. That is partly the reason why I decided to go to Cape Town, I thought I would avoid that. And in Cape Town my deferment was cancelled from the military. I was on student deferment at the time and I was called up and my call-up was changed from Services School in Lentz to the infantry, as happened to a number of Nusas leaders at the same time, and we at the same time were objecting to military conscription into the apartheid army. I realised that I was either going to have to object publicly and face the consequences which would have been prison, which I incidentally was happy to do, but the Nusas leadership at the time felt that this was not the way to go, some were getting deferment and so I was left with little choice but to leave the country, the combination of Security Police attention and military conscription.
MR BERGER: Now before you left the country you had a conversation with a person in Cape Town, can you tell the Committee how that happened and what was said during that conversation?
PROF KLUG: Sure. I had let very few people know that I was preparing to leave the country, in fact two close friends. And somebody had asked to meet me at a bar in Cape Town one evening and I was there, and I ran into a gentleman by the name of Carl Edwards who was sitting in the bar, and I had known him, I'd met him before in Virac, the Environmental Student Organisation in Durban, and so he greeted me and he beckoned for me to come over to his table, and the person I was due to meet wasn't present, so I walked over and said good-day and he said to me; oh, sit down, I believe you're planning to leave the country, and I was somewhat shocked to hear that because I hadn't let anybody know I thought, and I said; well, I'm not sure, he said; well if you continue with these plans he'd like to speak to me because there was something called the Southern African News Agency, Sana, in Gaberone, Botswana, that needed somebody to run it and he was in contact with the people internationally at the International University Exchange Fund who were funding and running this operation and they would like me to take this over if I was prepared to do that.
MR BERGER: Did he tell you at that stage who his contact was at the IUEF?
PROF KLUG: Yes, he told me that Mr Williamson was at the IUEF.
PROF KLUG: Craig Williamson, that's correct.
MR BERGER: Did you know about Craig Williamson at the time?
PROF KLUG: I did not overlap in the student movement, to my recollection, with Craig Williamson, he was slightly ahead of me, so I only knew him by reputation. There were however many rumours about whether Carl Edwards was necessarily to be relied upon or trusted. So what I did was before I committed myself to this, I went and asked a number of Nusas leaders at the time what I should do about this, what do they think about these two characters. I received contradictory advice. I was told by some that they really didn't trust Edwards, they weren't sure about Williamson, some thought, who knows he may be working for some foreign intelligence agency, they weren't sure whether he was connected to the South Africans, but it was unclear. I had had contact with the African National Congress, and basically the advice I received was to take the position in Botswana, so I accepted.
MR BERGER: You left South Africa on the 26th of June 1979?
MR BERGER: And you then crossed into Botswana?
MR BERGER: Where did you go to?
PROF KLUG: I went directly to the Sana house. There was a house in a suburb of Gaberone called Bontleng, and I've been told where this house was and I went directly there.
MR BERGER: And who did you meet there?
PROF KLUG: When I arrived there, Patrick Fitzgerald was already there. He had left the country a couple of weeks before I did, and he was in the house, and I said to him well I'd arrived supposedly to take over this thing called Sana and he said right, he would immediately put me in contact with Marius and Jeanette Schoon who were the ANC contacts to talk to.
MR BERGER: And were you put in contact with Marius and Jeanette Schoon?
PROF KLUG: Yes. I think within a couple of days we went to Mulepaloli where they were teaching at the time, and made contact with them.
MR BERGER: So they were not in Gaberone at that time?
MR BERGER: As a result of your meeting with Marius and Jeanette Schoon, were you then taken into ANC structures?
PROF KLUG: Well, I had - as I said, I'd had this brief contact in London before, but now I formally was, I wrote out a biography in which I detailed the various contacts I'd had in the country, I detailed the various conversations I had had with various Nusas leaders about the possible problem with both Edwards and Williamson and the different versions that I'd received from that, which as I say at this point was still quite contradictory, and that I gave into them and they passed that on.
MR BERGER: That would then be to Marius ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: To Marius and Jeanette. At that point Marius and Jeanette - I was brought into a structure which was basically Marius and Jeanette and Patrick and I, as this Sana unit if you like, whatever it was called.
MR BERGER: Alright and that structure, was that part of any other structure?
PROF KLUG: That was part of the wider internal political reconstruction work that was going on at the time. So on the one hand our role was to run this Sana operation, to work out what to do with that, and on the other we began making active contact with people inside the country to build ANC political structures.
MR BERGER: Now I'm going to jump ahead slightly and then I'll come back, but you remained in Botswana, leaving from time to time, but primarily in Botswana right up and until 1985, is that correct?
PROF KLUG: I was based by the ANC in Botswana until one week before the raid on June 14th 1985, that's correct.
CHAIRPERSON: And during that time you knew Marius and Jeanette. What structures were they serving on during that period? Now we're talking from - well, they left Botswana in the middle of 1983.
MR BERGER: So from the time that you arrived, '79 to '83, what structures were they serving on?
PROF KLUG: Well, from '79 to '81 they were working, I know in the unit that we were part of. Jeanette was also connected with Sactu and basically with the political reconstruction unit, initially reporting through Henry Makgoti to the senior organ and later after he left Botswana, through a man by the name of Steve who is Shahied Rajee, directly to the senior organ.
After 1981 there was a reorganisation of the structures in Botswana and we were put into area structures. I was no longer working directly with them, but remained a close friend. I used to baby-sit Katryn a great deal and so remained very close to them over the remainder of the period they were in Botswana.
MR BERGER: At any stage in this period from 1979 through to the middle of 1983, was there any stage when either Marius or Jeanette or both of them served on the senior organ?
MR BERGER: Now let's go back again to the middle of 1979. You've now met Patrick Fitzgerald and you're in this Sana unit, you Patrick, Marius and Jeanette, but they're in Malepaloli?
MR BERGER: What were your activities in Sana with Patrick Fitzgerald?
PROF KLUG: Well the Sana operation as we began to understand it, was that, and the way it had in fact been explained to me by Carl Edwards inside the country, was that Carl Edwards was supposed to gather information inside the country that wasn't available in the regular media or whatever, get it to us in Botswana where we were to write up stories and those stories were then to be sent to the IUEF, to Craig Williamson at the IUEF in Geneva, where they would be published in a little Sana bulletin, a little A4 four pages or eight pages bulletin which would then be distributed to anti-apartheid organisations all over the place.
Then there was an occasional publication we put together, a lot of information on a particular subject. The particular one I can recall was about forced removals, and that publication would be put together. Most of the information that we actually worked on was culled directly out of the South African Press, which was available in Gaberone the morning it was published in Johannesburg, so there was easy access. We could listen to the South African radio broadcasts and later there was TV as well, and gather information that way.
The information that was supposedly gathered through Edwards' network was supposed to be information about political organisation, about what was going on in various organisations etc.
What happened was, in these first few months in Botswana, because not only of the information that I brought out, the concerns about Edwards and possibly Williamson, but also the concerns that Marius and Jeanette already had about those two, there was concern about what to do about this internal network and how to find out what in fact was going on.
So what we did was we basically stuck to the media and wrote up little stories and sent them along, which then Craig Williamson published in Geneva, and one or two of those came out in the time that we were there. At the same time we were put under demand, Williamson wanted to know what was going on in Botswana, give us stories about refugees etc., and why weren't wasn't there more information about what was going on inside South Africa.
Edwards at the same time said to us, look we need to give him the names of people in organisations in South African that you could contact on our behalf in order to get information for us. We absolutely refused from the beginning to actually provide names of people in organisations inside South Africa, because we said we just weren't sure about the structure of the whole organisation of what was going on. At the same time we kept on saying to Williamson, look we're supplying the stories you want and that's how it works.
What happened was we, the unit, Marius, Jeanette and the two of us, and we were already working under Marius and Jeanette's guidance, said look we had to come up with some way of working out what was going on. So we started demanding to have a meeting with Edwards, we wanted Edwards to come up and meet with us so we could try and ask him some questions.
MR BERGER: And did he come up?
PROF KLUG: He came to Botswana, but his behaviour was extraordinary. He arrived with a vehicle outside the Sana house, he refused to get out of the vehicle, he said we must come meet him at the Holiday Inn, which was a place that was known to be frequented by many South Africans, including security people, so we were rather reluctant, but no, that's where we had to meet with him, he wouldn't meet anywhere else.
We agreed to meet with him and we said look, how do we get this information that you're supposed to supply us, and he said well the only way he can now do it would be to set up a dead-letterbox on the border as a way for us to actually communicate.
MR BERGER: Okay. Look before we get to the dead-letterbox, you're in Gaberone ...
MR BERGER: Marius and Jeanette, you and Patrick. Marius and Jeanette are in Malepaloli, how was their contact between you and Patrick, on the one hand, Marius and Jeanette? Did they ever come down to Gaberone?
PROF KLUG: They would come down every weekend. They would drive, they would drive directly to the Sana house in Bontleng. So their presence was very visible in Bontleng. We would travel often, once or twice a week up to Malepaloli to meet with them, so our connection with them was extremely visible. And I used to wonder around town with Katryn, who as I say I baby-sat often if they came down during the week etc., so our connection with them was clearly well-known.
MR BERGER: Would Williamson have known about your unit, Marius, Jeanette, you and Patrick?
PROF KLUG: I can only surmise that he would have because you know, we were clearly photographed quite often in the streets of Gaberone by the South African networks, we were clearly being watched at different times, so it would have been extraordinary if they were unaware, and I do not know exactly what was passed onto Williamson in Geneva.
PROF KLUG: What he would have possibly known is that Chris Woods and Julian Sturgeon, my predecessors at Sana, had also had very close contact and friendly relations with Marius and Jeanette and I believe that when he visited Botswana he would have been aware of that as well.
MR BERGER: Now you mentioned that Carl Edwards suggested the setting up of a dead-letterbox.
MR BERGER: Did you discuss that with Marius and Jeanette?
PROF KLUG: Yes, Patrick and I were concerned that because we were clearly not playing ball in the way that was being expected of us, that there was a possibility that if there was a police link here, that the setting up of a dead-letterbox was one way to try and grab us at the border.
MR BERGER: When you say "not playing ball", you mean not ...
PROF KLUG: Well because Edwards was demanding names of people to see in the country, we were refusing to do that, Williamson was asking for stories about what was going on in Botswana, we were declining to do that, so things were getting a little tense and it wasn't clear. You know either we just weren't doing out jobs right as Sana or else there was something else that was wrong, and it was on that basis that we were a little neurotic. We met with the group and Marius and Jeanette said, look there's an opportunity here. We'd been looking for an opportunity to try and, to find out what was going on and there was some potential here.
MR BERGER: Going on in relation to ...
PROF KLUG: Edwards, first of all Edwards. We couldn't -we didn't see Craig Williamson so there was no ways we could work out what was going on there, but at least with Carl Edwards in South Africa this was somebody we were concerned about.
So what we did was we said, the arrangement with Edwards was that we would set up a dead-letterbox by taking photographs of a particular point and by writing a description, those would be mailed to a post-box in Johannesburg and then we'd be able to operate it from there.
We took the opportunity - we were clearly being watched at different times, so the middle of day unexpectedly we took along a camera, went out to what was then the Gaberone Dam ...(intervention)
MR BERGER: This is you and Patrick?
PROF KLUG: Myself and Patrick. ... which is out towards the border, and we made as if we were taking photographs, the camera had no film in it. We returned to Gaberone, I wrote a long description of the various photographs that I supposedly had taken down to what supposedly the dead-letterbox, and we mailed that description to the post-box in Johannesburg and in it said that we had mailed a film under separate cover.
MR BERGER: You were sending this to who?
PROF KLUG: To Carl Edwards in Johannesburg.
PROF KLUG: To a post-box that he had given us. What happened as a result of that is that somebody was sent to us in Botswana, an African man drove to Botswana, and came to the house, again refused to get out of the vehicle, was extremely nervous. You must realise that at the time we were having contact with a lot of people coming in and out of the country in ANC work, where we could gage their nervousness at having contact with people outside, and there was no comparison between how both Edwards and this guy behaved and how the others were behaving. So they immediately raised our suspicions about exactly who they were and why they distrusted us so much in this interaction.
And this man came out and he had a letter from Edwards saying where on earth is the film, he had the description, he wanted to set up the dead-letterbox, what games are we playing. I wrote, well it was a hysterical letter back, according to the plan by Marius and Jeanette, saying well it's clear that the police must have intercepted the film and therefore there's no ways we can go anywhere near this dead-letterbox, we worried that Edwards' network had clearly been uncovered by the police, and in fact we advised that maybe he should leave the country immediately otherwise there's a chance that the Security Police would grab him. And that we sent back with this courier that had been sent to us.
The next communication we got from Edwards was to tell us not to be silly, he was perfectly fine, that there was nothing wrong with the communications, that there was no ways that he could have been infiltrated by the police.
MR BERGER: What did that mean to you?
PROF KLUG: Well to us that meant there was something very, very wrong, there was no ways that the people we were working with in ANC political structures would have responded in any way like that if told that we were concerned that their security had been breached. And his absolute assurances that security had never been breached, we had a little more respect for the South African Security Police than to be believe they could never breach our security. And on that basis we decided that in fact he was possibly linked to the police, that in fact given all the other bits of evidence that had come in over the years, we had to make a decision that in fact he was with the police.
MR BERGER: Now when you say "we", who is that?
PROF KLUG: Marius, Jeanette, Patrick and I. That was immediately in each case communicated through Marius and Jeanette up to the senior organ and on to Lusaka. At this point Mac Maharaj had been down to Botswana on a number of visits, had taken an interest in this matter, and the communications would have gone on to him.
MR BERGER: What time period are we talking about here?
PROF KLUG: We're talking between October, August and October 1979.
MR BERGER: Alright. What was the next step in the plan?
PROF KLUG: Having come to a conclusion that whatever was the reality, we could not trust Edwards. I then phoned Geneva and spoke directly with Craig Williamson and said, look we - this "we" as Patrick and I in Sana, were desperately concerned that there was something wrong with Edwards, that we believed he might very well be a policeman and that we therefore want to both meet with Williamson, we want him to come down to Botswana and meet with us, and we wanted to cut off links with Edwards.
Williamson's response, which is what we were, this was designed to elicit, was that in fact there was absolutely nothing wrong with Edwards, that he doesn't believe there could be any problem whatsoever, that we were just being a bunch of nervous nellies down there in Gaberone, and that really we're being ridiculous.
MR BERGER: You say this was a response, that you had designed to elicit a response from Williamson, who had designed that?
PROF KLUG: This was - Marius and Jeanette and Patrick and I in the unit had discussed that if Williamson was prepared to accept from us that there was something wrong with the Edwards network, then this would tell us nothing about Williamson, but if he'd attempted to protect the Edwards network without taking any concern then exactly the same way that we were concerned that Edwards could be so sure of his security, that if Williamson could be so sure, there must be a link between the two of them.
Now there had been a link in student days that we'd heard about, that they had been friends, that there'd been a connection, but we didn't know that meant they were both policemen. So this was a way for us to try and work out what exactly the nature of that link was.
MR BERGER: And a result of Williamson's response, what was concluded?
PROF KLUG: We were convinced that there was something wrong, with respect to Williamson, and again we communicated that directly to the ANC.
MR BERGER: Now when - again "we" being the four of you?
MR BERGER: When would that have been?
PROF KLUG: That would have been late October or early November of 1979, I cannot recall the dates perfectly.
MR BERGER: Who instructed you to contact Williamson in Geneva?
PROF KLUG: Marius and Jeanette.
MR BERGER: What happened after that?
PROF KLUG: After that the Botswana senior organ at the time decided that there were a number of tasks that were necessary inside South Africa, political tasks, and in addition to the fact that some of, there were people we were concerned about that Edwards may be trying to contact in our name in order to elicit information about internal political organisation, and therefore that I should be sent into the country in order to make contact with some of those people and to do a number of other political tasks for Jeanette and Marius.
MR BERGER: What sort of political tasks?
PROF KLUG: Pass messages. I had to carry a message from Jeanette to a Sactu organiser inside the country, I had to recruit people from political structures into the ANC, to make the links with people.
MR BERGER: Recruit people for what?
PROF KLUG: For political activity.
MR BERGER: Before you - well, I don't know if it was before or after you went into South Africa, what was the reaction of Williamson to your telephone conversation?
PROF KLUG: Well what we noticed, because there was no direct reaction, he just told us that it was fine and that we were being ridiculous. He did promise that he would come down sometime in the future to see us in Botswana, which again we communicated.
We noticed that the funding - we had received a periodic funding from the IUEF from Williamson through the IUEF in Geneva for the Sana operation in Botswana, we noticed that we didn't receive our next set of funding at all. We didn't know at that point exactly what that meant, it showed displeasure.
A second thing, we had a communication with Williamson ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: Myself on the telephone, sorry, but for Patrick as well, the two of us. We didn't have a telephone in the house in Bontleng, I used to have to go to the Holiday Inn and use the public phone to call - it was a very crude operation as you can see. I called Geneva, spoke to Williamson and he said look, he offered us, in the context of this exchange about Edwards, he offered us IUEF bursaries anywhere in the world, to go and study, for Patrick and I. And Marius and Jeanette said oh yes, we've seen this before. A similar thing I believe had possibly happened with both Woods and Sturgeon. When they'd become uncooperative or weren't doing what they should do, Williamson basically offered them bursaries overseas.
So it was clear to us that as far as he was concerned we had no future in Sana and that you know, we should go and study abroad. What he was unaware of at the time is that the Sana had not been set up completely legally, and I had gone into the lawyer's offices in Botswana, in Gaberone and I had discovered that although some of the papers had been drawn up for the establishment of the company, it was registered as a company in Botswana, they'd failed to put in the names of the directors or the managing director and so we proceeded to put our names in there. I in fact had the original letter that Edwards had given me saying that I should take over Sana and I used that letter then to put our names in. So effectively we captured Sana, it became our company.
So subsequently even when the IUEF, after Williamson left there, when the IUEF tried to close it down we could say we're very sorry, but it's not yours, it actually belongs to us and you can't touch it.
MR BERGER: Now this attempt by Williamson to get you and Patrick Fitzgerald out of Botswana, did that take place before you went back into South Africa or after?
MR BERGER: And you turned him down?
PROF KLUG: Yes, we said no thank you, we're quite happy running Sana.
MR BERGER: Alright. And then the stopping of funding by Williamson to Sana, when did that happen, was that before or after you came back to South Africa?
PROF KLUG: As I said, because the funding was fairly erratic there wasn't an exact date. What we'd noticed by the end of November is that what would have been a next amount of money to arrive just did not arrive and we didn't, we couldn't be sure at that point whether it was late or whether we were in fact being cut off. He did not ever actually communicate or say to us that we were being cut off.
MR BERGER: Was there any further funding of Sana by the IUEF after that?
MR BERGER: Now what happened after your return from South Africa? This was now - we're talking ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: I got back into Botswana in, I think just before Xmas 1979, so late December 1979.
MR BERGER: Alright. What happened then?
PROF KLUG: I asked Patrick well, what had happened in my absence, and basically Williamson had cut off all communication with us at that point. So from our perspective we were convinced that there was something very, very wrong and we had notified Lusaka through the senior organ of that.
MR BERGER: It's you and Patrick through Marius and Jeanette?
PROF KLUG: Marius and Jeanette, correct.
MR BERGER: Now at the beginning of 1980, Williamson broke cover, were you aware of that?
PROF KLUG: Well we heard the news when he arrived back, in the South African press, when he arrived back in Johannesburg.
MR BERGER: What did you do as a result of that?
PROF KLUG: We immediately, again in consultation with Marius and Jeanette, but Patrick and I because we were journalists who were running a news agency, we immediately contacted the newspapers in Johannesburg directly by phone and said that we would also like to confirm that Carl Edwards is part of this particular operation.
PROF KLUG: Chairperson, I have a newspaper article which I'd like to hand in. It will be Exhibit DDD, CCC, sorry.
MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, we can't make out the date, is there perhaps an indication from this witness or from my learned as to what the date might be? It looks like 28 June, something.
MR BERGER: No, no, the date is the 29th of January or 28th of January 1980. You'll see, Mr Visser, on the top there is a note under date, it says 80/01/29. That would be the date on which it was filed, but the date of the article seems to be the 28th.
Mr Klug, this is a newspaper article which appeared in the Rand Daily Mail on the 28th of January 1980, under the heading:
"Botswana exiles say blown SA Spies were cahoots."
I want to just read some paragraphs to you, I won't read the whole article, and just ask you a few questions. It starts:
"Security Polices spy, Captain Craig Williamson, and undercover boss agent, Mr Carl Zack Edwards were working in cahoots according to exile sources in Botswana. There is definite evidence they were working in collaboration. - a top source told the Rand Daily Mail yesterday.
He said however, that is was the suspicions of exiles in Gaberone which had eventually led to a situation in which Mr Williamson had been forced to blow his cover. 'there was such a massive of circumstantial evidence that both were spies, that exiles here fed their information on the pair to organisations overseas and Captain Williamson was being put under pressure as a result of the information which was being passed on.' 'At first he tried to make out that he was spreading these stories himself but eventually so much information had built up against him that he had to blow himself' - the source said.
Sources said exiles operating the South African News Agency, Sana in Gaberone, had begun to destroy Mr Edwards' information network operating in South Africa because of their overwhelming suspicion about him.
The sources confirmed that Captain Williamson is in a position to name many people in South Africa whom he provided with funds for projects in his capacity as the Deputy-Director of the International Universities Exchange Fund."
Who are the sources, the Botswana sources that are referred to?
PROF KLUG: The sources of this article were Patrick Fitzgerald and myself.
MR BERGER: Now you continued to work in Sana, which you had now taken over?
PROF KLUG: That's correct, we changed its name to Solidarity News Service.
MR BERGER: That's SNS for short?
MR BERGER: Solidarity News Service, SNS.
And you continued to work in the SNS office now, formally Sana ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: Well no, in fact we set up an office separate from the house, that was the old Sana house. We set up offices in a building that housed a petrol station downstairs and offices upstairs, in Gaberone.
MR BERGER: And when would that have been from?
PROF KLUG: I believe we set that office up in 1982, but I can't be absolutely sure on the date.
MR BERGER: And the work that you were doing in SNS, was that the same as Sana or different?
PROF KLUG: Well we had learnt from the Sana experience that Botswana was a good place to gather the daily news from South Africa and keep people abroad informed both what was going on in South Africa with our particular political slant on it, and we could in addition obtain information from people we were speaking to all the time, who were travelling to and fro and in that way put together what was essentially anti-apartheid news and SNS distributed that in a number of different ways. The first mechanism was we had a telex machine and we would telex daily news briefings both to the ANC in Lusaka and to a number of international anti-apartheid organisations.
In addition to that, every two weeks we put out a little flyer of four to eight pages which wasn't printed as well as the old Sana one because we didn't have that kind of printing capacity, but which was basically again a news briefing which was stories that we wrote both out of the press and other contacts that we had. And eventually we in fact had a number of journalists inside South Africa who would telex us information as well directly. Because we were using the telexes this was all open information that could be very easily monitored by anybody who cared to see what we were doing.
MR BERGER: So you were acting as a news service?
PROF KLUG: We were running it as a news service, correct.
MR BERGER: Do you recall a fake Sana bulletin that was published?
PROF KLUG: That happened in very early, very soon after the whole exposé of Williamson. What happened was ...(intervention)
MR BERGER: It would have been early 1980?
PROF KLUG: Early 1980. A Sana bulletin was suddenly - in fact what happened was I was called in by the Security Police in Botswana, the Botswana Security Police, who then took me to the permanent Secretary to the President of Botswana at the time, and I was led into his office and I was presented with this bulletin. They were very angry because the front page of the bulletin called for revolution in every Southern African country and in Botswana, against the cattle barons.
I can remember him stomping around him going: "cattle barons, cattle barons, you're calling us cattle barons", and I said well, I've never laid my eyes on this document before and he said yes, but this is Sana and you are Sana, is that correct? I said, yes well we run this little thing called Sana and this ... but I was able to point out to him that the printing that was done on that Sana bulletin was not actually available in Botswana and that we could not have printed it in Botswana, and it could not have come from us.
What had happened was it had been printed wherever and had been put into all the various post-boxes in Botswana where the old Sana bulletin used to go, all except ours, which was the old Sana box, so we were unaware of it. It made various outrageous claims and that's, how we understood it was clearly it was an attempt now, because we wouldn't leave voluntarily, to get us to close shop and get out of Botswana, but in fact Botswana recognised that this wasn't us and let it go.
MR BERGER: Now as you continued to work for SNS, there came a time when you left Botswana, when was that?
PROF KLUG: I left Botswana in early June 1985.
MR BERGER: And on the 14th of June 1985 there was a raid on Botswana, on Gaberone.
PROF KLUG: There was an SADF military raid on Gaberone on the 14th of June, that's correct.
MR BERGER: Can you briefly tell the Committee, without going into too much detail, a little bit about that raid?
PROF KLUG: Well I can tell you about the lead-up to the raid. What was happening was that the Botswana authorities had notified the ANC, and in fact because I was Sana, SNS at the time, brought me in separately and said to me that the South African Government was making threats against us and that they could no longer secure our safety in Botswana and they would like me to leave. That had been going on from late 1984.
I negotiated with them and said, look I'm running a news agency here and there seems no reason why this news agency should be a target and they said yes, but my name had been put on some list that had been produced for them by the South Africans, and I said well, they also knew that I was linked with the ANC political machinery and I said yes, but I would consider leaving but I needed to pass the news agency on to other individuals to keep it running because the Botswana were quite friendly to the existence of this anti-apartheid news agency, they were not against it.
I prepared to do precisely that, I was in and out of Botswana over time. I believe on the afternoon of the raid that somebody phoned the office and asked for me, claiming they were family who needed urgently to contact me, seeing as my parents at that time were in Europe and I only have a brother, there's no ways that any member of my family was trying to contact me, and I can only surmise later that in fact they were trying to locate my exact physical presence at the time.
The raid took place that night. The SNS offices were entered. They botched it at first, they went into some neighbouring borehole company's offices and ...(indistinct) all their files, but when they realised it was wrong they found this SNS office. They went in, they shot up the telephone, the telex machine and the printing press that we had in that office, and they ran off with a number of files containing copies of the South African Government Gazette that we had there, and they took a computer, a Sanyo 555, a floppy disk, 128K computer, which I believe later was displayed on South African TV by Mr Williamson as containing all this important information about the ANC underground, which could not have possibly have been the case seeing as it did not have a hard drive.
MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, Visser on record, may I be permitted just to say something. I am not sure in my own mind how this evidence is relevant, to which of the applications it is relevant. In fact it's very difficult to see any relevance here of this evidence at all in regard to what we are supposed to be busy with, but the problem goes a little further. This witness is now giving evidence about the Botswana raid, in regard to which there are some applicants for whom we appear, Mr Chairman, and who will apply for amnesty.
Now we cannot sit by idly and allow this witness to give evidence without, Mr Chairman, taking proper instructions and taking him properly under cross-examination about an issue which is totally irrelevant before you at the present time.
CHAIRPERSON: Why do you want to cross-examine on it at the present time?
MR VISSER: Because, Mr Chairman, we can't be seen to be sitting around idly while this witness is giving evidence about matters which we may very well have disputes with. And the predicament in which we are is that we could never have foreseen this evidence, we could never had taken instructions beforehand, we haven't discussed it with ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: No, but the problem is as I see it, and it is one of our problems, I will concede it, that the Amnesty Committee does not because it hears evidence in one application, have regard to that in another application without the parties concerned being given an opportunity to deal with it. The fact that this witness is now saying things which might, if it was led at your client's application, be relevant. It does not mean that anything he says now will be excepted at such an application. If it is desired to make use of it you will have to be given an opportunity to deal with it then when it is relevant information.
MR VISSER: Yes, Mr Chairman, thank you, but it does not take away the fact that it isn't relevant here either.
MR BERGER: Chairperson, if my learned friend, Mr Visser, would just bear with me for a few more minutes he will see the relevance of this evidence, and he will see that it doesn't in fact effect any of his clients in this application.
MR VISSER: Well I'm very pleased to hear that, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Yes, one of the troubles is, Mr Visser, that having you and Mr Wagener before us we really can't hear anything about anything of what the Security Forces did because you represent all of them.
MR VISSER: That's why, Mr Chairman, if we could only stay with what is relevant in a particular application it would be very, very helpful.
MR BERGER: Thank you. Mr Klug, where were we?
MR BERGER: Yes, yes, thank you very much, Mr Visser.
You were telling us about what happened at the offices. Now those offices, SNS offices, was anyone living there at the time?
PROF KLUG: No, this was a one open-plan office above a petrol station, it was not, there was no accommodations present there at all.
MR BERGER: We know that 12 people were killed in the raid, is that correct?
PROF KLUG: That's correct. In fact from my perspective what happened was I was called in the early hours of the morning where I was at that time, which was in California in the United States, I'd just arrived there, and I was informed that a number of friends of mine had been killed, and that 12 people had been killed and that our offices had been raided.
I was unaware at that time - later in the day we received communications from friends in South Africa who believed because of a newspaper report that was reported, the first edition of the Star of that morning, of the South African Defence Force news conference that was held, some claim that indicated that I might have been killed in the raid and so suddenly we got these messages of condolence, and we had to say, look this is just not the case and our concern was really with the people who actually did get killed.
MR BERGER: I'm going to read to you an extract from that newspaper report. I'm not going to hand it in as an exhibit because the extract is very short. It reads
"General Viljoen said his men believed one of those killed today was a white man, but it had been difficult to be sure of this. Identifying the targets, Brigadier Herman Stadler of the Security Police said one of them was the office of the Solidarity News Service. He gave the name of Mr Heinz Klug as a resident of the building, which he said was a major intelligence gathering centre. Mr Klug was well-known in South African student circles until he fled into exile several years ago."
Was the newspaper report that you were referring to?
PROF KLUG: That was the newspaper report that people were made aware of. It was corrected shortly thereafter in another report which said that I was in California. What was extraordinary to me at the time and has become so since, is if one reads the report of the TRC, the official report on the raid in Botswana, it is now claimed by the evidence that was given to the TRC that that raid was about attacks targeting ANC military targets in Botswana and that somehow the targets that were actually hit was a mistake, which is extraordinary given the actual reportage at the time, the claims by the South African Defence Force at the time and in fact targeting of the houses that they targeted, which were primarily the political structures of the ANC and including the number of people that they killed.
MR BERGER: What were the claims at the time?
PROF KLUG: The claims at the time were as you just read out, that they had attacked this Solidarity News Service which was supposedly this intelligence base for the ANC. There's no question that a number of us who worked in the news agency were at the same time political operatives for the ANC underground, the political structures. There was absolutely no military link between that office and the ANC military structures, and if telexed open information, news information is intelligence then every newspaper in South Africa was also engaged in an intelligence, which I don't believe is the case.
MR BERGER: Was there any military link between Sana and the ANC?
CHAIRPERSON: Do I understand that this, the report we have had read to us and what you have been talking about, comes from a statement made on behalf of the Defence Force?
MR BERGER: Chairperson, I believe it was a news conference held by the Defence Force on the morning of the raid.
MR BERGER: Do you confirm that?
PROF KLUG: That's in the newspaper report, correct.
MR BERGER: You referred to the TRC report on the raid.
MR BERGER: And from that report we know that Mr Craig Williamson was in the command centre during the raid.
PROF KLUG: That's correct. I found it extraordinary that in the report in the TRC, which as I say has only this particular version of what supposedly happened, it was reported that Craig Williamson was in the command centre and therefore it became very clear to me exactly why Solidarity News Service, previously Sana, had been targeted.
MR BERGER: And what is that, what is the reason that you believe SNS was targeted?
PROF KLUG: My belief, and it goes to a number of the incidents that are at issue here, is that Williamson was somehow personally involved with the notion that this entity he had created had been taken away from him, had been turned against him, had been involved in his exposure, and therefore was completing the job of destroying it.
MR BERGER: Where would the information have come from that you were a possible target of the raid, or a possible victim of the raid? - the information that was given up by the police on the morning after the raid.
PROF KLUG: Well I - my only conclusion on that is as they said, they did kill a young white man at the time by the name of Michael Hamlin, who was a draft dodger or a draft resister who had refused to serve in the South African Defence Force. He was living in Gaberone. He was not in any way linked to ANC structures. He was killed at the same house where a Dutch, a guy of Somali descent who was Dutch was killed, and that the returning troops must have reported that. As the newspaper says they reported a white man, and I was the only non-African who was listed on the list that the Botswana had been given, that they were targeting. That's the only conclusion that, I assume on that basis they had decided they could confirm my name.
MR BERGER: Who do you think would have furnished that information to the military?
PROF KLUG: I can believe that Craig Williamson would have done that.
MR BERGER: When you say that it's your belief that you and SNS were targeted by Mr Williamson to finish off that Sana unit, when do you believe he started?
PROF KLUG: I believe that the bomb that was sent to Jeanette and Katryn and Marius was partly his animosity against them for what had happened.
MR BERGER: Thank you, Mr Klug, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR BERGER
CHAIRPERSON: Who will commence the cross-examination, Mr Levine or Mr Visser?
MR LEVINE: I'm quite happy to, but I would remind you ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Well I give you the choice, Mr Levine. It's now eight minutes past eleven, we will be adjourning at the latest at quarter past eleven. Would you prefer to commence after the adjournment so you don't get interrupted after a few minutes, or would you prefer ...(intervention)
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I shall be slightly longer than that.
CHAIRPERSON: So would you prefer to start after?
MR LEVINE: ...(indistinct) most optimistic of thinking, but I'm quite happy. If you say I should start now, I'm very happy to start now.
CHAIRPERSON: Well I'm quite happy to take the adjournment now and let you start thereafter, it gives you a chance to talk to your client if you want to.
MR LEVINE: Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON: Very well, we'll take the short adjournment now and then continue.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR LEVINE: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Mr Klug, have you ever met Mr Williamson?
PROF KLUG: No, I don't believe I have.
MR LEVINE: Never seen him, spoken to him, other than the telephonic occasion you referred to?
MR LEVINE: Now when you were in Botswana, what function did the Schoons play in the affairs of the Botswana organ of the ANC?
PROF KLUG: By Botswana organ, what do you mean?
MR LEVINE: Well they are reflected in the ANC further submissions as being members of the Botswana senior organ. That has however been placed in dispute.
PROF KLUG: I would also say that I do not believe, and from my knowledge they were never members of the senior organ in Botswana.
MR LEVINE: Did they play a major role in the affairs of the ANC in Botswana?
PROF KLUG: They participated in the political structures of the ANC in Botswana and we were broken into separate political structures.
MR LEVINE: Very well. Now you said that you were working for the SNS, you were coming to South Africa from time to time ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: Excuse me, Sir, I never said I was coming to South Africa from time to time, I reported that there was one event that I came to South Africa.
MR LEVINE: What was the purpose of that?
PROF KLUG: The purpose was threefold, it was to warn a number of people that they should not have contact with Edwards, that we'd come to the conclusion that Edwards was somehow linked to the South African State. Secondly, to recruit a number of people to ANC political structures, and thirdly to pass messages on from Jeanette Schoon to trade unionists in the country.
MR LEVINE: And would you say that either or all of those, any or all of those actions would not have justified your being a target of the Defence Force?
PROF KLUG: That's makes the assumption that political activities just, political activities in furtherance of democracy in this country justified elimination and the ANC at least never believed that that would be the case, therefore no political leadership of the National Party was ever targeted for assassination.
MR LEVINE: Whilst the South African Defence Force did believe it to be the case, conversely?
PROF KLUG: I'm not aware of that, but if that's what you say I must believe it.
MR LEVINE: Yes. And were you passing intelligence to the ANC?
PROF KLUG: No, I was not, I was writing news articles that we made available on a daily basis to the ANC by telex in Lusaka, which is an open public medium. Exactly the same articles were made available to anti-apartheid organisations in Sweden, in London and elsewhere.
MR LEVINE: What was your job as part of the ANC structure?
PROF KLUG: As part of the ANC structure my job was political work.
MR LEVINE: What does that entail?
PROF KLUG: Recruitment into the ANC. And that recruitment of people into the ANC was at the time in the late, after 1979, in the early '80's, it was the building of a political network within the country.
MR LEVINE: Is it correct then to assume on your version now, that you never gave any information to the ANC on the basis of it being intelligence?
PROF KLUG: That's correct, I would provide information on a regular basis to the ANC about political structures in the country that we were working with, information on what was going on in political organisations that we were in contact with. If you call that political intelligence, you may call it that, but it was information.
MR LEVINE: Yes, it could well be called intelligence.
PROF KLUG: In which case most newspaper's reports also can be used as intelligence, correct?
MR LEVINE: Now towards the end of your examination by Mr Berger you said that you can only believe that the bomb on the Schoons was partly due to animosity by Mr Williamson.
MR LEVINE: Now on what do you base that belief?
PROF KLUG: I base it on the fact that there were numerous people engaged in political activity for the ANC in Botswana, in Lesotho, in Swaziland, in Europe, and most of those political operatives for the ANC were not targets for assassination and yet there seemed to be a concentration on a group of people who happened to have been involved with Sana at the time that we took it away from Williamson and used it to expose him. That is why I believe that in part what was going on was not merely a political question, but in fact a personal animosity.
MR LEVINE: Now you said it was partly personal animosity, what are the other reasons that you would ascribe to the bomb on Schoon?
PROF KLUG: I assume that if as you said the South African authorities at the time believed that political assassination was part of its attempts to prevent democracy in this country, that that could be a possible reason as well.
MR LEVINE: So you are speculating, making assumptions both in regard to so-called partial animosity and in regard to the issue you've just raised?
PROF KLUG: I can only use circumstantial evidence, I've had no direct contact with the individuals that would have made those decisions.
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson could never have expressed his displeasure to you in regard to what you believe was a cause of the bombing of the Schoons?
PROF KLUG: I'm sorry, I don't ...
MR LEVINE: Mr Williamson never expressed to you his animosity for the Schoons?
MR LEVINE: Where would you have gleaned this from?
PROF KLUG: I can only - as I said to you before, if I look at who was targeted, the targeting of SNS in Gaberone, the targeting of Jeanette and Marius when they were way out of political activity and in Angola years after, sorry, months after their activities in Botswana, what was considered a forward area by the ANC, I can only read into that animosity because I see no justifiable political reason for targeting such people.
MR LEVINE: Mr Klug, can you say as a fact that Marius and Jeanette Schoon were not involved in anything sinister in Angola?
PROF KLUG: From my understanding, from Marius directly and from everybody else that was involved in the ANC at the time who I have spoken to, they were teaching English at the University of Lubango and were not involved in political, even political activity at the time, let alone in anything else.
MR LEVINE: Did you know, and it's admitted, that Marius Schoon travelled once a month to Luanda to advise the ANC?
MR BERGER: That's not correct, Chairperson. He didn't travel once a month to Luanda to advise the ANC, he travelled once a month, alternating with Jeanette Schoon, to Luanda to work on a development project and to buy groceries.
MR LEVINE: To buy groceries. I put the question to you, do you know of that or do you dispute it?
PROF KLUG: I was aware that they travelled once a month to Luanda, but I was not aware that they were either purchasing groceries or doing anything else.
MR LEVINE: I see. Well the purchasing of groceries is a remark which I heard from my left-hand side and wasn't intended by me to be a serious remark, merely a repeat of what was said during the question to you. However, Mr Klug, the animosity you have spoken of was merely an assumption of yours to the effect that there was some animosity by Mr Williamson towards the Schoons.
PROF KLUG: As I said it's an assumption that I'm making based on a pattern of behaviour and that's the only assumption that I could draw.
MR LEVINE: The pattern of behaviour by whom?
PROF KLUG: A pattern of behaviour, the cutting off of the resources to Sana, the acknowledgement in a way that we were engaged in his exposure and the subsequent attack on SNS as this great big intelligence organisation which it wasn't etc.
MR LEVINE: Well it may well have been interpreted as being such.
PROF KLUG: It might have been.
MR LEVINE: You said so yourself.
MR LEVINE: Yes. Now let's talk about the exposure of Mr Williamson which you say which "we" were involved in. Who is the "we" there?
PROF KLUG: Marius and Jeanette Schoon and Patrick Fitzgerald and myself, in the Sana group.
MR LEVINE: Have you ever heard of the name McGivern?
PROF KLUG: I've heard it, it's right here in the newspaper that was presented to us.
MR LEVINE: Yes. And it has been Mr Williamson's submission that he was exposed as a result of McGivern and as a result of no other conduct either by yourself, by the Schoons or by Mr Fitzgerald. How did you bring about the exposure of Mr Williamson? - by "you" I mean the four people that you have mentioned.
PROF KLUG: From our point of view there was two issues at stake, the first was our own position in this relationship between Williamson and Edwards where we were supposedly the conduit between them, and our concern initially that Edwards was compromised or a policemen that we had to deal with.
But secondly, it was that within the ANC structures there were questions about exactly who these two individuals were and so as part of our activities within the ANC we saw it as important to try and clarify who Williamson in fact was working for. That being the case, as far as I am concerned, the way that exposure worked was to supply increasing circumstantial evidence directly to, through Marius and Jeanette through Mac Maharaj who would have had to make the decision whether in fact he was a spy or not.
MR LEVINE: No direct evidence whatsoever, merely circumstantial?
PROF KLUG: Well all we could do was report on his reaction to our information that Edwards was in fact, as far as we're concerned, a policeman because when we told him that we thought his links to us had been exposed by the police he said he could assure that there could be no such thing.
MR LEVINE: And from that you believe you exposed Mr Williamson?
PROF KLUG: We believe that we gave the ANC information that would have allowed the ANC to come to the conclusion that he was a policeman, and that given our, my conversation with him from Botswana where I told him that we were convinced that Edwards was a policeman, that he must have realised that we were very close to coming to the same conclusion about himself.
MR LEVINE: On the strength of one telephone discussion?
PROF KLUG: No, on the strength of a pattern of behaviour where we had refused to comply with his requests for certain, where we had refused to supply Edwards with the names of people in the country, where we were increasingly becoming non-co-operative in their operation and that clearly we were not, we had come under some other influence, not just theirs ...(indistinct) with the ANC's.
MR LEVINE: What about your co-operation in the writing of material for Sana?
PROF KLUG: What about your co-operation in the writing of material for Sana?
PROF KLUG: That was supposedly what Sana was about and we did that straight out of the newspapers, we didn't feel in any way that we were compromising ourselves or anybody else by writing anti-apartheid stories for the news, for Sana.
MR LEVINE: And was this information contained regularly transmitted to Mr Williamson in Geneva?
PROF KLUG: At that time I believe it was mailed to him in Geneva.
MR LEVINE: You believe it was mailed. Did you do the mailing?
PROF KLUG: We mailed it, correct.
PROF KLUG: Patrick Fitzgerald and myself.
MR LEVINE: You mailed it directly to Mr Williamson?
PROF KLUG: Correct, to the IUEF.
MR LEVINE: And you've told us that the printing on the article which was a false article, I think you've termed it ...
MR LEVINE: ... was not available in Botswana?
PROF KLUG: That was our understanding.
MR LEVINE: Did you satisfy yourself unequivocally about that?
PROF KLUG: I managed to satisfy the Botswana authorities about that.
MR LEVINE: Who was responsible for the false bulletin?
PROF KLUG: We don't - I cannot tell you. Certainly we assumed at the time that it was Williamson. He would have had access to that, the typeface etc., that he knew exactly what was used in publishing it because he had published it before.
MR LEVINE: Again an assumption?
PROF KLUG: No, we could not have known.
MR LEVINE: Right. In the newspaper article that was handed in, who were the top sources referred to therein?
PROF KLUG: I believe those sources, the only sources for this article were Patrick Fitzgerald and myself. I don't know if the journalist spoke with Marius Schoon, but it's possible.
MR LEVINE: Again you're assuming that the only two top sources could have been yourself and Mr Fitzgerald, but you do not exclude the possibility of discussions between Marius Schoon and the journalist?
PROF KLUG: That's correct. All I know is that we phoned Johannesburg, spoke with the journalist and gave him our information.
MR LEVINE: Now you've mentioned that Sana was changed to SNS in 1982 ...
MR LEVINE: And it enabled you to put your own political slant, particular political slant on what was emanating from SNS.
MR LEVINE: What was that political slant?
PROF KLUG: It was pro-ANC and democracy in South Africa.
CHAIRPERSON: Was there not a similar slant in Sana?
PROF KLUG: No, in Sana we had no editorial control, we would write the stories, we would send them to Geneva and there they were often changed and reprinted there.
ADV DE JAGER: I think what's being asked is whether in fact Sana was also pro-ANC, or was it sort of neutral.
PROF KLUG: It's hard to tell. At the time I believe that it was running ant-apartheid information, it wasn't being explicitly pro-ANC in its particular perspective. I remember that I covered the funeral of David Sibeko in Gaberone, Botswana and that information would have been sent on and used. That was the PAC leader at the time. It was run more as a direct kind of news operation.
MR LEVINE: You gave evidence about the stopping of funding for Sana by Mr Williamson.
MR LEVINE: Did Mr Williamson ever tell you that funding would be cut off?
MR LEVINE: But you said the funding was erratic.
PROF KLUG: No, I said that I couldn't tell exactly, we didn't know exactly what date it would arrive, and what it would do is every couple of months an amount would arrive by telex to the account in Botswana, by telegraphic transfer to the account in Botswana.
MR LEVINE: You used the word in your evidence "erratic".
PROF KLUG: That's because it didn't come on any particular date, but it was always enough for us to cover the operations of Sana. And what happened at the end of 1979, it stopped coming and we no longer had the money to run Sana.
MR LEVINE: Stopped coming at all?
MR LEVINE: Did you ever query why it had stopped coming?
PROF KLUG: When we - communications after I returned from inside the country in late 1979, Williamson refused to take our calls in IUEF and there was no communication.
MR LEVINE: For how long did this prevail?
PROF KLUG: Well that was from after Xmas 1979 to very early January 1980, because it was early January 1980 that he ...(indistinct) back in Johannesburg.
MR LEVINE: Was it not possible that being the Xmas/New Year period, your evidence is the end of December 1979, that Mr Williamson and IUEF had closed their offices in Geneva?
PROF KLUG: The money, the shortage of money existed from late November 1979. I remember specifically that we had exactly 12 pula in our account in Xmas 1979.
MR LEVINE: Did you ever ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: But that doesn't answer the question. You say he refused to take calls, did anybody at the office take calls or was there just no reply?
PROF KLUG: They just told us that he wasn't available.
CHAIRPERSON: They told you that?
PROF KLUG: All I could do was call from the public box at the Holiday Inn in Gaberone and we also used to call reverse charges or collect, and we would call to the IUEF office and if he wasn't available they wouldn't take our call.
MR LEVINE: How many of such calls do you say you made, you or Fitzgerald?
CHAIRPERSON: If he was not available they would not take your calls?
CHAIRPERSON: And is the position that they did not take your calls in this period?
PROF KLUG: After - in late November.
CHAIRPERSON: In this period, December.
MR LEVINE: Well that's what Mr Levine is putting to you, that perhaps he wasn't available, and you're saying now that if he wasn't available they wouldn't take your calls. Doesn't that merely indicate that he wasn't available, not that he wasn't prepared to communicate with you?
PROF KLUG: Our assumption was that he was refusing to communicate with us.
MR LEVINE: Again an assumption.
PROF KLUG: Because we left messages saying we were trying to get hold of him, and previous to this if we'd left such messages he would get hold of us, and we received no calls.
MR LEVINE: How many such calls can you recollect having made where the office at the IUEF refused to, as you put it, to take your calls?
PROF KLUG: Between July 1979 and December 1979, maybe three, maybe four.
MR LEVINE: And from December 1979 when you got back into Botswana, how many calls?
PROF KLUG: We made I think three calls and then it was decided by Marius and Jeanette and us that we weren't getting any response from him, that we'd wait for a response.
MR LEVINE: Because he wasn't available.
PROF KLUG: Because we had come to the conclusion that there was something very wrong with - and we had communicated to Lusaka that we considered at this point that his protection of Edwards meant that he was possibly a spy for the South Africans.
CHAIRPERSON: But you've said you would make collect calls and if he was not there they would not accept the call.
PROF KLUG: That's correct, Judge Wilson.
CHAIRPERSON: That meant you could not have left messages? If they did not accept the call you wouldn't have spoken to them and couldn't have left messages, could you?
PROF KLUG: No, that's not correct because the person - you can in those calls, they'll put you through to the person to ask who you are ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: So they'd accept the call to that extension?
PROF KLUG: And we would say we're phoning from Botswana, we're Sana and we wish to speak to Craig Williamson, they'd say sorry we can't accept the call, he's not available.
MR LEVINE: I want to put to you, Mr Klug, that all of the evidence you have given is based purely on assumptions and is unsupported by any concrete facts other than what you have yourself described as circumstantial evidence.
PROF KLUG: Sir, I'd have to disagree with you to the extent that my reportage of events, exactly how they happened is absolutely correct, and from that series of events we were in a position to make conclusions, to draw conclusions.
If you want to argue that those conclusions were merely assumptions, they happen to be assumptions that turned out to be true, but yes, they were only assumptions.
MR LEVINE: Only assumptions. Thank you, Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LEVINE
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER: May it please you, Mr Chairman.
Mr Klug, I would like to confine myself to the time in Botswana from approximately 1979 to 1981 when you say that you were in Botswana and Marius and Jeanette Schoon were there also.
MR VISSER: You said during your evidence-in-chief led by Mr Berger that you noticed that, on two occasions that you gave evidence about, that a courier who had arrived at the Sana office with a motorcar was extremely nervous, wouldn't get out of the car and insisted to see you at the Holiday Inn, have I got that correct?
PROF KLUG: That was in the case of Carl Edwards, that's correct.
MR VISSER: Alright. And you then added as motivation or justification why you said or why you were able to say that this person or these persons were extremely nervous, and I wrote down that you said
"We had contact with a lot of ANC people coming out of the country"
.. probably referring to coming out of South Africa, is that what you said?
PROF KLUG: I said that we had contact with people inside South Africa who would come out to see us in our ANC work, in our political reconstruction work, and so we could compare their degree of nervousness where they knew they were potentially at risk with the nervousness that we saw in the case of Edwards and his courier.
MR VISSER: Yes. So you had contact with person who were aligned to the ANC coming out of South Africa to Botswana?
MR VISSER: Did some of them come to Botswana illegally, crossing the border illegally without passports?
MR VISSER: Did this ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: But many of them in fact used their passports.
MR VISSER: And you say there was a lot of that, there was a lot of such persons?
MR VISSER: Did such persons only make contact with you or did they also make contact with Marius and Jeanette Schoon? - as far as your knowledge goes. And please, I don't want you to speculate about anything, if you don't know from your own personal knowledge just feel free to say so.
PROF KLUG: That would have depended on the particular timing. In the period while I worked directly with Marius and Jeanette in the political reconstruction, they would often had contact with Marius and Jeanette as well.
MR VISSER: Yes. Would it be fair to say, Mr Klug, that Marius Schoon was an important cog in the ANC structures in Botswana with special regard to establishing and upholding networks, infiltration networks between South Africa and Botswana, would that be a correct statement to make from your personal point of view?
PROF KLUG: No, it would not be, because you used the word "infiltration networks". We were not engaged in infiltration, we were engaged with meeting with people who part of political organisation inside the country, often legal political organisation who were committed to the ANC, to getting the view of the ANC publicised and available to the people inside South Africa. That is not an infiltration network as you say.
MR VISSER: If you would remove the offending word "infiltration", would you then agree with the balance of the statement which I made?
PROF KLUG: I would agree that Marius Schoon was an important individual working in ANC political structures in Botswana, talking to people about the ANC and getting the ANC's message into the country, yes.
CHAIRPERSON: The country is South Africa?
PROF KLUG: Into South Africa, correct.
CHAIRPERSON: He was an important person getting the ANC measure(?) back into South Africa, a message? ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: ...(indistinct) views, correct.
MR VISSER: And would it be correct to say that Marius Schoon established a sophisticated and professional intelligence network in Botswana as regards information or intelligence between South Africa and Botswana?
PROF KLUG: I don't know what you refer to when you talk about intelligence. If it is information about political organisation, I would agree with you, but there are different forms of intelligence, and I don't believe they were doing anything but providing political information to the ANC.
PROF KLUG: And using that political information to organise for the ANC.
MR VISSER: Well perhaps I should read to you the words. Page 3290 of the record, Mr Chairman, in the cross-examination of my learned friend, Mr du Plessis. That was the evidence of Mr Maharaj whom you might know. He is the Minister of Transport of the present government. At page 3290, Mr du Plessis says to Mr Maharaj
"Well Mr Maharaj, do you agree with Mr Schoon's evidence that he established a very sophisticated professional intelligence network in Botswana, between Botswana and South Africa?
You would not be prepared to make the same concession as Mr Maharaj?
PROF KLUG: Again I would suggest to you that the term "intelligence" is used very loosely there, and to that degree I would not agree.
MR VISSER: And you would like to confine intelligence as relating solely to political intelligence?
MR VISSER: Fair enough. You see before this Committee there serves inter alia an exhibit marked RR. Now I must tell you that this exhibit is an operational analysis of the
"Schoon network"
And it was drafted at the request and for Mr Craig Williamson. If you have regard to page 1 of Exhibit RR. I want to read to you for your comment, from page 8. Well it's marked 8 and 5, Mr Chairman. I'm not sure how - I've forgotten how the pagination works, there are two sets of pagination. You might remember there was confusion, but I'll give both the page numbers, it's 5 and 8. One of the two must be right, Mr Chairman. It starts at the top with paragraph 1 in the initial report.
CHAIRPERSON: On the copy I've got it's marked 5.
MR VISSER: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
MR BERGER: Chairperson, could I hand a copy to the witness?
MR VISSER: It would be very helpful if you would, I've only got one. Thank you very much, Mr Berger.
Perhaps if you will forgive me, I've just been given - just to go back to the previous question relating to intelligence which you qualified, I just want to also tell you that insofar as Mr Maharaj was referred to the evidence given by Mr Marius Schoon, for the sake of clarity that evidence appears at page 2912 and it reads as follows - that is the evidence of Mr Marius Schoon. And again it's Mr du Plessis that is cross-examining him. All I want to tell you for the sake of the record, from page 2912 to 2913, Mr Marius Schoon also did not choose to draw the distinction as far as intelligence gathering is concerned that you chose to draw. I just want to place that on record.
Reverting then to Exhibit RR, the second paragraph in quotation marks and thereof the third sentence, starting with:
"A new ANC committee has been formed"
Can you see that in the document before you?
MR VISSER: It's at page 5. There's a paragraph marked paragraph 1 and then there's another paragraph unnumbered, which is a quotation, and if you'll look at the third sentence of that paragraph. It's a quotation
"I admitted"
"what was revealed"
... and then the third sentence says:
"A new ANC committee has been formed called the Internal Reconstruction and Development Department. People on this committee include the following people: Oliver Thambo, Alfred Nzo, Ray Simmons, Moosa Gee who is the Deputy ANC Treasurer, Indris Naidoo, Thom Gobe etc."
And it goes on, it also refers to Mac Maharaj as well. Then it says:
"This department is charged with the reconstructing and developing of ANC internal networks and includes the creation of intelligence and Sactu organisation structure."
Would you like to comment on the use of those words there? I take it you will again say intelligence is alright as long as it refers to political intelligence?
PROF KLUG: I can't comment on what this document says, all I can say to you is in my experience in Botswana the information that we were handling was political information.
MR VISSER: Yes, but do you agree that in Botswana there was a new, we're talking about 1979, perhaps even late 1978, but '79/1980 there was a new ANC committee which was called the Internal Reconstruction and Development Department.
PROF KLUG: That's correct, that Committee wasn't made up of these people in Botswana however, we were sub-committees thereof.
MR VISSER: Yes. Would you agree that Marius Schoon, and I'm not interested in Jeanette Schoon, Marius Schoon was a member of an internal political committee in Botswana?
MR VISSER: And what he have been doing in that committee?
PROF KLUG: He would have been recruiting individuals in South Africa to set up networks of ANC sympathisers. If I can recall correctly, for instance in 1980 we were very active in publicising the Freedom Charter because that was the 25th anniversary and would give ourselves credit for instance in encouraging the creation of an advert in the newspaper here with the Freedom Charter in it.
It was that kind of political work, to recruit people who were active in, or who we would encourage to create political organisations. Eventually the political organisations in their own right came together as the United Democratic Front. Many of those little organisations would have been encouraged by the political reconstruction process.
MR VISSER: Isn't it a fact, Mr Klug, that the total strategy of the revolution waged by inter alia the ANC, consisted in the main of the political objectives, but also of a military component which was there in support of attaining the objectives which were the political objectives? Would you agree with that statement?
PROF KLUG: My understanding as an active ANC member at the time, was that there were four pillars to the struggle and that that included internal political organisation which is what we were engaged in, it included mass mobilisation which the internal organisations were doing, it included the armed struggle which Umkhonto weSizwe was engaged in, and it included international mobilisation which the international anti-apartheid movement was engaged in. And in that degree yes, this was part of a whole struggle for democracy in South Africa.
MR VISSER: Are you saying that mass mobilisation did not have any military undertones, did not, was not geared at all at any military activity, mass mobilisation?
PROF KLUG: No, I do not believe it was in the early 1980's. At that time it was involved with strikes, with community organisation. That was what we understood as mass mobilisation.
MR VISSER: I see. Did every compatriot soldier only come later, is that what you're saying?
PROF KLUG: I'm sorry, you seen to be referring to a slogan which I'm not aware of.
MR VISSER: Yes. Oh, I see, I thought you might have been aware of the fact that Mr Oliver Thambo said in one of his New Year's messages, that the idea was to be that every factory worker, every worker, every compatriot was a soldier and every soldier a compatriot. I thought you ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: I would not confuse the political rhetoric of a public announcement with strategies to actually engage in struggle.
MR VISSER: Alright. Would you regard Mr Marius Schoon - I think I have asked you this, but if I haven't please forgive me, that he played an important role in Botswana?
PROF KLUG: I believe he played an important role in the political reconstruction programme that he was engaged in, yes.
MR VISSER: I want to read to you what he himself says at page 2911 of the record
"MR DU PLESSIS: But you played an important role in Botswana and Jeanette played an important role in Botswana.
MR SCHOON: I'd like to think so, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. And you were held in quite high esteem by the higher echelons of the organisation it seems to me from listening to Mr Maharaj.
MR SCHOON: I think that is correct, Sir."
I then skip a few lines and I come to another reply given by Mr Schoon, the question is not really that relevant.
"MR SCHOON: Jenny was also part of the political mobilisation work that I was involved in."
Now that certainly confirms what you've just said. And then:
"MR DU PLESSIS: And then practically, what did that involve?
MR SCHOON: That involved recruiting people from home to the ANC to perform a variety of tasks at home."
And he set out four of them from page 2911 to 2912:
"Firstly, to supply ongoing information to us in Botswana. Secondly ..."
I'm not reading all of it to you, I'm just filling you in as to what he said.
"Secondly, there would be the question of being involved in mass mobilisation through the organisations to which people belonged. Thirdly, there would be the question of establishing functional propaganda units for the distribution of leaflets and ANC information at home, which is in South Africa, and fourthly, there would be suggestions about possible other recruits to the ANC."
"Alright. So you were involved in recruiting people to the ANC, Mr Schoon?
MR DU PLESSIS: In establishing a communication channel between Botswana and the people inside South Africa?
"MR SCHOON: We were involved in intelligence gathering, even though we were not an intelligence unit."
And at page 2913, the last portion which I want to read to you:
"MR DU PLESSIS: And that intelligence that you gathered in such a way, would that have been passed on to the higher echelons in the ANC?
MR SCHOON: It would have been passed on to our own structures and from there it would have been passed on to Lusaka."
And then at page 2914, Mr Klug:
"MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. And Mr Schoon, you eventually succeeded in setting up a network of people with whom you had contact and from whom you got information?"
"MR SCHOON: Yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: And as I gathered from your evidence and from this file that I read, is that that, is that that was quite an extensive network?
MR SCHOON: Considerably more extensive than appears from that file."
Referring to Exhibit RR. So what Mr Schoon told this Committee, Mr Klug, is that his network was considerably more extensive than what appears from Exhibit RR. And now I want to read to you what Exhibit RR inter alia says. It says inter alia - page 11, Mr Chairman, under paragraph 3. It's headed:
"Underground Routes into the RSA"
"Underground Routes into the RSA"
"In 1977"
"In 1977, shortly after the arrival of the Schoons in Botswana, Chris Wood reported that the ANC were looking for underground routes into the RSA. This included methods of cross-border (incorrectly spelt) travel such as illegal routes through the fence, the use of aircraft, private yachts etc. The purpose of such routes was for the conveyance of arms, explosives, pamphlets and receiving sets."
And it goes on and on about ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: Excuse me, Sir, I'm not understanding. This is a report written by the police receiving information one Chris Wood, who was at that time the Sana man in Botswana, precisely confirming the role that I said that Williamson was expecting Sana to play in Botswana, gathering local information, but this is not a report from within the ANC. You seem to imply that because this says what it claims to say, that this is the truth and I would query that.
MR VISSER: Well I took great care in leading up to the point where I've arrived at now, in first showing you what Mr Marius Schoon himself said, and Marius Schoon having said rightly or wrongly, that his networks were more sophisticated than what is referred to in this document.
PROF KLUG: And I believe he was referring to his political networks and I think that's absolutely correct, and I believe that it wasn't Marius alone but that many of the ANC's operatives in front line areas and in London and in other parts, had similar types of networks inside the country, political networks, and that was the nature of the political reconstruction. The jump between that and saying that you're setting up an infiltration route for arms explosives, pamphlets and receiving sets, I believe is a jump that has been made by this document and I don't believe that Marius Schoon said that this was the case.
MR BERGER: Chairperson, in all fairness to the witness, my learned friend should have told the witness that Mr Marius Schoon specifically ...(no sound)
MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, if my learned friend would just give me a half a second, I was just busy doing exactly that.
MR BERGER: No, but you put the question first. You put the question first that Marius Schoon said his network was more extensive than that, than that importation of arms, and Marius Schoon specifically denied that there was any importation of explosives and arms.
MR VISSER: Have you quite finished? Is my learned friend finished?
MR BERGER: I'm finished for the time being.
MR VISSER: Mr Klug, before we were interrupted I was going to say to you that this point was put to Mr Marius Schoon, and in fairness to you and to him he also denied, as my learned friend has pointed out and as I was just going to point out to you, that he had anything to do with the infiltration of firearms and ammunition and that kind of thing.
PROF KLUG: Thank you, Sir. From my perspective I believe that what we're about is trying to ascertain the truth.
PROF KLUG: And that's why I'm so insistent on it.
MR VISSER: Okay, I've got no problem with that, Mr Klug, I've got no problem with that. The point however is that what is clear from the evidence is that infiltration routes were set up and were kept up by Mr Marius Schoon, be it for purposes of conveying documentation to dead-letterboxes and from dead-letterboxes or be it for purposes of routes to be used for people who wanted to leave the country illegally or to infiltrate the country illegally. I put it to you that much on the evidence is clear.
PROF KLUG: I'm not disagreeing that we had ways of getting across the border into the country. You would be surprised to hear that in many cases legal means were used, the border-post was used.
MR VISSER: Yes, yes. Would the following statement be correct, that although Mr Marius Schoon was not personally involved in the armed struggle, that he sympathised with the armed struggle?
PROF KLUG: I believe as active members of the ANC at the time we all believed that there was a role for the armed struggle, that's correct.
MR VISSER: Would it be correct that if Mr Schoon, Mr Marius Schoon during 1979/'80/'81 were to disappear in the sense that his influence were to disappear or his availability to the ANC, in whatever capacity he was working at the time, was to disappear, that it would have been something which would have disrupted the ANC, which would have hurt the ANC, would you agree with that?
PROF KLUG: I would agree that the loss of any member of the ANC who was in active duty serving at that time would be a loss to the ANC. However, I must also point out that when Marius and Jeanette left Botswana in 1983, those networks that they had established continued and therefore in that sense it wasn't any immediate break that you seem to suggest.
MR VISSER: And would you agree that because of what Marius Schoon, and I may add Jeanette Schoon, were doing in Botswana would have made them a target for a elimination by, let's call it the Security Forces?
PROF KLUG: What interests me about that statement is, if it's true that political activity made somebody a target for elimination then the system that they were supporting had gone to levels of moral degradation that I'm even surprised at.
MR VISSER: Now I don't know whether you agree with me that it would have made them a target, or whether you conditionally agree, or whether you disagree, would you please just enlighten me?
PROF KLUG: I will enlighten you to the fact that if I look over the history of that time, I don't believe that all political operatives were equally targets that you seem to suggest, because there were many, many political operatives inside the country and out who were active, who clearly were not targeted in the same way. That is why I come to the assumption that there something extra about the targeting of these particular individuals.
MR VISSER: Perhaps because of what they did in Botswana posed considerable difficulties and dangers to the South African Government?
PROF KLUG: What I'm suggesting is that there were many others that the South African Government was also aware of in Botswana, in London, in Lesotho, in Swaziland, who were also engaged in the same activities, who threatened if you like the South African regime in the same way, that were not targeted immediately for assassination. And that is in the political structures I'm talking about. And that is why I wonder why these particular individuals even once they were disengaged from the immediate political engagement remained targets.
MR VISSER: Well again I must ask you, is what you're saying a disagreement that you believe that they would have been targets in Botswana because of what they did, the Schoons?
PROF KLUG: I'm saying I disagree that they were legitimate targets for military activity by the South African Defence Force.
MR VISSER: I wasn't referring to the South African Defence Force, I was referring to the Security Forces.
PROF KLUG: I'm sorry, for the Security Forces in general.
MR VISSER: Okay. Well let me read to you what Mr Marius Schoon himself says at page 2926 of the record. Towards one third of the page my learned friend, Mr du Plessis still cross-examining, and I'm not going to pick it up from the previous page, I'm simply going to read from one third down at 2926
"MR SCHOON: We knew that we were targets in Botswana because of what we were doing. We were not killed in Botswana for whatever reason. As from the point of the Security Police as regards our Botswana activities we could have perhaps have been regarded as legitimate targets."
PROF KLUG: And what I'm saying to you, Sir, is that I disagree with that sentiment. Marius and Jeanette were aware that they were targeted, many people in the front line areas felt they were targeted, but I do not believe they were legitimate targets.
MR VISSER: Mr Marius Schoon continued to say
"I do not think, Sir, that we were in any way legitimate targets in Angola."
So it draws a very clear distinction between the activities of himself and his late wife, Jeanette in Botswana as opposed to those activities of them in Angola. And he says in Botswana he thinks he can understand why they would have been legitimate targets.
PROF KLUG: I can understand why Marius made that distinction, because in Angola they were engaged merely in teaching English, while in Botswana they were engaged in the political struggle against the South African regime. However I must say to you that as a Professor of International Human Rights Law, that I still do not believe that that kind of activity would ever be proportional and therefore justified as a legitimate target.
MR VISSER: I'm sorry, are you now giving evidence as an expert or are you to give factual evidence?
PROF KLUG: I'm giving you my opinion because you asked for it, Sir.
CHAIRPERSON: Shouldn't you read the next line of Mr Schoon's?
MR VISSER: I'm going to do that now, Mr Chairman.
"MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, and we will speak Angola now. And it was because of the fact of what you did in Botswana posed considerable difficulties and dangers to South Africa?"
"And it was because of the fact that what you did in Botswana posed considerable difficulties and dangers to South Africa."
Which I put to you just now, you will recall. And Mr Marius Schoon says:
"MR SCHOON: I agree, Sir."
That's his view, do you disagree?
PROF KLUG: What he's agreeing to is that the South African Security Forces targeted political opponents. That doesn't mean that it is, that he would have considered it a legitimate target.
MR VISSER: Yes, well you're paraphrasing it and you're not using the words that Mr Schoon - I'm not going to argue with you about it.
PROF KLUG: I don't have it in front of me, Sir.
MR VISSER: I'm not going to argue with you about that, Mr Klug, all I'm putting to you is that Mr Schoon was honest enough with this Committee to tell this Committee that he recognised the fact that both him and Jeanette Schoon, because of the work they were doing and because of the effect that it might have on the South African Government, they would have been legitimate targets.
Lastly, Mr Klug, ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: I don't know how relevant it is, Mr Visser, have you got that passage in front of you?
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Now you go on the next couple of lines. Was it in fact in Botswana that he worked for the British Volunteer Service or elsewhere?
PROF KLUG: In Botswana, Sir, Judge Wilson.
CHAIRPERSON: Was it in Botswana?
PROF KLUG: Yes, it was in Botswana.
MR VISSER: ...(indistinct) a bit of it ...(indistinct), Mr Chairman, because Mr du Plessis says
"We will speak Angola now"
... and then he doesn't speak Angola now, but we're used to that from Mr du Plessis, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: You will get your opportunity to reply, Mr du Plessis.
MR VISSER: Lastly, Mr Klug, I just want to put to you that the evidence by Mr Willem Schoon for whom I appear for amnesty for an attempted murder on Mr Marius Schoon, was that he studied a file on Mr Marius Schoon which was kept at Security Head Office in Pretoria. You can't deny that such a file existed?
PROF KLUG: I would not deny such a thing, I wouldn't know.
MR VISSER: And from that file he gathered that they were, the two Schoons were very important cogs to the ANC and that he came to the conclusion that it would upset the ANC, the organisation of the ANC from Botswana and the infiltration into South Africa by trained terrorists if Mr Marius Schoon were to be eliminated. Now is there anything that you know of, even speculation, why you could say that what Mr Willem Schoon said in that regard cannot possibly be true?
MR BERGER: Chairperson with respect, my learned friend did not put the full version of Willem Schoon, Willem Schoon said that the information, reliable information that he got, and I'm reading from page 84 of his amnesty application, was that Mr Marius Schoon was involved in acts of terror. That was his evidence as well.
MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, I chose not to put that. I don't know why my learned friend is objecting.
PROF KLUG: Sir, if I can answer you question?
PROF KLUG: Would you rephrase it please.
MR VISSER: Must I repeat the question?
MR VISSER: The question that I'm putting to you presently is simply this that Mr Willem Schoon who was a Brigadier in the Security Police in Pretoria, at a certain point in time took the file or more than one file on Mr Marius Schoon and studied it and came to the conclusion that Mr Marius Schoon was a very important element in the organisational structure of the ANC in Botswana and that if he could be eliminated, that it would hurt the ANC, that it would upset the ANC organisation and it would probably help to curb infiltration into South Africa by trained terrorists coming into South Africa. That is what I'm putting to you.
PROF KLUG: Well, I find ...(intervention)
MR VISSER: Now the question is ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: I find that very important because in fact by having them removed from Botswana in 1983, because in 1983 Marius and Jeanette were forced to leave Botswana, that aim was in fact achieved that didn't require their elimination and that's precisely my problem. I see them achieving their political aim of removing them from Botswana and therefore hurting the ANC yes, hurting the ANC, but that does not require their elimination which happens later in Angola.
So at that point why couldn't there have been a re-evaluation that these people are not longer as key as they assumed and therefore did not require the murderous act that was committed?
MR VISSER: I would suggest to you as a reply to your answer to me, the obvious reason is because you are speaking with the benefit of hindsight which Mr Willem Schoon didn't have at the time when he considered the proposition. Would you be prepared to accept that?
PROF KLUG: No, because I believe that they were watching us closely in Botswana and were aware over time, and in fact somebody was in the room, I don't see him now, but there was a pattern in Botswana where the Botswana, the South African authorities would put pressure on the Botswana authorities to remove certain people who were ANC people and tell them they must leave Botswana. And over time that pattern was repeated.
Mr Henry Makgoti who I believe is here, was in fact, left Botswana in early '80 under exactly those same conditions, and in fact my departure from Botswana in 1985 was precisely under the conditions where the Botswana authorities said to us we do not want you around anymore, we're under pressure from the South Africans to get you out.
So the South African authorities were completely aware of this pattern of behaviour and therefore once they'd applied it and successfully to Marius and Jeanette, they had achieved their immediate aim of removing them from the political scene. Therefore, the subsequent sending of a parcel bomb to them in Angola I think is grossly disproportionate.
MR VISSER: Yes, but I thought I made it absolutely clear that I was not going to talk to you about Angola, I was only going to talk to you about Botswana. And certainly I haven't given you any indication that I'm talking to you about the Schoons in Angola as opposed to the Schoons in Botswana.
PROF KLUG: I agree, Sir, but you asked me whether I believed that they were legitimate targets, you've asked me that in numerous different ways and I'm explaining to you why I do not believe that that is the case, and that's how come Angola comes into it.
MR VISSER: Can we just make it simple please, Mr Klug, or is it Professor Klug, what ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: I'm Assistant-Professor at the University of Wisconsin.
MR VISSER: Right, Professor, can we make it simple and keep it simple. Would the loss of Marius Schoon in Botswana have disrupted the ANC machinery?
PROF KLUG: What I'm saying to you - the evidence that I gave to you in that regard is that when Marius and Jeanette left Botswana they left their ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: The question was "in Botswana". What he is asking is while they were still in Botswana, not after they had left. Had they been targeted while they were in Botswana is the question as I understand it.
PROF KLUG: That would have been a loss to the ANC, Judge Wilson.
PROF KLUG: That would have been a loss to the ANC ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Had they been targeted while they were in Botswana, that would have been a loss to the ANC.
MR VISSER: I just didn't hear the answer, Mr Chairman.
PROF KLUG: I'm agreeing with Judge Wilson that that would have been a loss to the ANC.
MR VISSER: Well what's so difficult about agreeing with that, because Mr Maharaj agreed with that at page 2582 - 2583.
I've got no further questions, Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Professor Klug, I have not listened for quite a while to your evidence, and before I start asking you questions I want to appeal to you and ask you the following. I am not interested in your views on the legal position pertaining to legitimate targets, I'm not interested in your views about proportionality, I am not interested in your views about any legal question in this matter at all, and I don't think the Committee is. I'm also not interested in deductions, in suppositions, in speculation, I am simply interested in facts.
Now what I want to ask you, you testified that many people were targeted in the front lines, can you remember that?
MR DU PLESSIS: And that would include Mozambique, that would include Swaziland, that would include Botswana, that would include Angola, is that correct?
PROF KLUG: I do not know about Angola, but the others I do.
MR DU PLESSIS: Why not, why not?
PROF KLUG: Because what I'm recalling is specific attacks on ANC people in Lesotho, in Mozambique, in Swaziland and in Botswana, and I do not personally have knowledge of any direct South African military attack on an ANC target in Angola.
MR DU PLESSIS: Why are you here today, Mr Klug?
PROF KLUG: I'm here because I was approached by the lawyers to give evidence that they knew I had.
MR DU PLESSIS: Are you here to give an objective testimony or are you here to make the case against amnesty, the amnesty applications of Mr Williamson and Mr Raven more difficult?
PROF KLUG: I am here to, as far as I am concerned, to tell the truth and to make sure the Committee has access to the truth as I know it.
MR DU PLESSIS: Now you explain to us why is there a difference between the situation in Angola. If we're talking of front line States, ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: But were many people targeted there, Mr du Plessis? The question put was that he said many people were targeted in the front line States. Were many people targeted in Angola to your knowledge?
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, he didn't say that many people weren't targeted in Angola, he was - Mr Chairman, if you'll just give me a chance. There was a whole war going on between Swapo and the South African ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Well just answer my question, were many people targeted in Angola at that time?
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, Mr Chairman.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I have in cross-examination previously referred you to the submission of the ANC to the Truth Commission, of ANC members killed in the conflicts in Angola. We have heard evidence and we have had agreement on that, that the ANC sometimes fought against the South African Forces in Angola.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, later than these time, but there were also battles in Angola in 1978, 1977, 1979 and there were skirmishes all through the 1980's. So my question not specifically relates to targets, Mr Chairman, it relates to what Mr Klug understands as front line States. That was what I was coming to, about the fact that there was a war situation there. That was what I was coming to, Mr Chairman, with respect.
CHAIRPERSON: Well your question related directly to "targeted", you quoted him on "targeted".
MR DU PLESSIS: Then I'll rephrase it, Mr Chairman.
You said many people were targeted in the front line States, now do you exclude Angola?
PROF KLUG: What I was referring to was the political structures of the ANC that were targeted in Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland and Botswana.
MR DU PLESSIS: So you exclude Angola?
PROF KLUG: As I said I'm not aware of whether there was any attacks on political structures of the ANC in Angola.
ADV DE JAGER: Are you aware of any attacks in Zambia for instance?
PROF KLUG: I'm not aware of any attack in Zambia that I'm aware of. There may have been but I can't recall at this point, Sir.
MR DU PLESSIS: Are you aware of any attacks in Tanzania?
PROF KLUG: Not that I can recall at this point.
MR DU PLESSIS: You agree with me that the ANC had a large presence in Tanzania?
PROF KLUG: That's I'm aware of, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Right. Now Mr Klug, let's just come back to the point. You testified that many people were targeted in the front lines, is that correct?
MR DU PLESSIS: So according to you there were lots of people who felt that they were targets of the Security Forces?
MR DU PLESSIS: And we know today that a lot of those people who felt they were targets and who were probably targets were not eliminated, is that correct? Do you agree with me?
MR DU PLESSIS: Right. Now that means, and I'm putting this to you, that means that the deduction that you made in your evidence that there must have been some other reason why the Schoons were eliminated because of the fact that they were eliminated that they were eliminated but not other people were eliminated just doesn't go up, it just doesn't stand. The fact that other people were not eliminated and the Schoons were eliminated doesn't mean that there is any distinguishing factor between different targets.
PROF KLUG: The distinguishing factor that I'm referring to is the numbers of attempts and the clear attention that was placed upon the Schoons as opposed to many others.
MR DU PLESSIS: Now who didn't receive such attention?
PROF KLUG: Myself for instance.
MR DU PLESSIS: But you as an important person as the Schoons?
PROF KLUG: I don't know what their consideration was. Clearly by 1985 they thought so.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright, but surely you wouldn't know what attention you were given, isn't that so? You don't know what attention you were given by the Security Forces.
PROF KLUG: We were aware to the extent that we were being followed or observed or attempts made against us.
MR DU PLESSIS: Now Mr Klug, do you agree with me that Jeanette and Marius Schoon were leading figures of the ANC in Botswana and thereafter?
PROF KLUG: I agree that they were leading figures to the extent particularly that for instance young Afrikaners in this country would have looked up to Marius as somebody who stood for democracy from that community, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well apart from that, would you agree with me - you're putting a rider, I'm asking a simple question. Would you agree with me that they were leading figures in the ANC?
PROF KLUG: They were important members of the ANC, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. Alright. And the elimination or attack in Angola against the Schoons, do you agree with me that that would have served a purpose of intimidation of the Security Forces against the ANC? - because that is what the evidence was.
PROF KLUG: If you're saying to me that the purpose of these attacks on ANC people was to intimidate, then I must take your word for it.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well do you agree with me?
PROF KLUG: I don't believe they actually intimidated anybody in the ANC, no.
MR DU PLESSIS: No, the question is, could it have had an intimidatory effect? That's the question.
PROF KLUG: You're asking me to make the assumptions that you told I shouldn't do, Sir.
MR DU PLESSIS: No, I'm asking you from your knowledge, from your knowledge as a person inside the structures at that time, would it have had an intimidatory effect?
PROF KLUG: And I'm telling you from my knowledge as a person in the structures at that time, that it did not have an intimidatory effect, it angered people.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright, I find that answer quite strange but maybe you're more heroic than I perhaps thought.
MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, the speech made by my learned friend could be criticised, but the function of counsel is to ask questions not to make speeches, nor to pass judgment on the witness, Mr Chairman. If he wants to set down rules for a witness, and I was tempted to object then and say that nobody needed any tutorials from him as to how proceedings should be conducted, he must refrain from commenting himself. And the comment that he has just made is completely unfair, in breach of his own rules and should not have been made.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, this is now the umpteenth time that Mr Bizos is trying to lecture me. If he wants to lecture me he can do that afterwards during lunchtime, with respect Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Well let us now just carry on.
MR BIZOS: ...(indistinct - no microphone) don't look at me.
MR DU PLESSIS: I'm looking at you, Mr Bizos, to stay calm.
Now Mr Klug, the network that the Schoons set up between Botswana and South Africa, that network, there was testimony by Mr Maharaj that if information pertaining to military matters would pass through that network it would have passed through that network to the higher echelons of the ANC. There was also testimony by Mr Maharaj that if they needed to get information quickly to somebody in South Africa, they would have utilised Mr Schoon's information network. Do you agree with that?
PROF KLUG: If Mr Maharaj said that was the case, I cannot disagree.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now can you perhaps just deal with the telephone call you made to Mr Sterling ...(intervention)
MR DU PLESSIS: To Mr Sterling of the newspaper.
MR DU PLESSIS: Can you just tell me again about that?
PROF KLUG: As I said in my evidence that when we were made aware of the fact that Mr Williamson had appeared in Johannesburg as a policeman, that our response to that was to call the papers inside South Africa and to say that we had additional information that Mr Edwards was part of the network with Mr Williamson.
MR DU PLESSIS: And did you ask to speak specifically to Mr Sterling or what was the position?
PROF KLUG: I cannot recall, but I do no believe so, I do not know Mr Sterling.
MR DU PLESSIS: Did you know that Mr Sterling as a journalist was an informant of the Security Forces at that time, did you know that?
MR DU PLESSIS: He's deceased now, but did you know it at that time?
PROF KLUG: No, I did not know it at that time.
MR DU PLESSIS: Because I find it quite strange, Mr Klug, that in this regard - excuse me, Mr Chairman, I have some bug in my throat. Mr Klug, I find it quite strange that you would phone the newspaper and specifically speak to Mr Sterling. I - to me that's something strange. Isn't there some other explanation for that?
MR DU PLESSIS: That you spoke to an informant of the South African Security Forces?
PROF KLUG: As I say I wasn't aware then and in fact I wasn't aware until you now said it, that he ever was. We phoned the newspaper and we asked to speak to a reporter because we had information from Botswana we thought they may be interested in. I'm not even sure that we actually spoke to Mr Sterling. We spoke to reporters there and the story was written by Mr Sterling according to the newspaper, but I do not recall that we actually spoke with him, we might have.
MR DU PLESSIS: And why did you leave Botswana before the raid, a week before the raid?
PROF KLUG: I left Botswana a week before the raid because for some months beforehand the Botswana authorities had told me that my name was on a list that they had been given by the South African authorities that I should not be in Botswana, that they felt they could no longer secure my safety in Botswana and therefore they wanted me to leave. Seeing that I was there as a resident, I was faced with the option that they could possibly just make me a prohibited immigrant and I didn't wish that to happen and so I left.
MR DU PLESSIS: Who left with you?
CHAIRPERSON: Didn't they tell you this some months before?
PROF KLUG: They told me this in late 1984 and I negotiated with them over time because I said I wish to turn over the news agency to new people.
MR DU PLESSIS: Who left with you?
PROF KLUG: I left alone, I caught an aeroplane.
MR DU PLESSIS: Were you the only person of the ANC who left a week before the raid?
PROF KLUG: I do not know who else left of how people's movements, we were all moving quite regularly. I in fact had been out of Botswana on numerous occasions in early 1985 and back in again, so my departure wouldn't have been anything extraordinary.
MR DU PLESSIS: No, but you were the only person who would have been hit in the raid, who left a week before, nobody else was warned, isn't that so?
PROF KLUG: That is not true, we all were warned. The Botswana authorities had actually spoken to the ANC and the ANC had told all of us and we had made the decision that we were not leaving. My position was that over time the Botswana authorities made it clear that unless I left I would be pushed out, and so I made preparations and left.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well Mr Klug, I have no facts to substantiate this, we're just talking about probabilities ...(intervention)
PROF KLUG: But Sir, you cautioned me not to.
MR DU PLESSIS: No, no, no, in all fairness to you I don't want to let this hang in the air. The question arises in my mind as a result of the fact that you left just before that, the fact that you had discussions with Mr Sterling the question arises in my mind, if you didn't have more contact and connections with the Security Forces than you want us to believe today.
PROF KLUG: Sir, that is a very nasty allegation which is absolutely untrue.
MR DU PLESSIS: I'm giving you the chance to respond to that. If you say that's untrue, I accept that.
MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you, Mr Chairman, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR DU PLESSIS
MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, for counsel with the greatest respect, to say that he has no basis for this and to make an accusation against a witness is an abuse of the procedure and I would ask for the protection of a witness, Mr Chairman, from such a disgraceful allegation.
CHAIRPERSON: It was a question, Mr Bizos, and counsel indicated he accepted the answer with no reservations.
MR BIZOS: ...(indistinct) of the probabilities were made, Mr Chairman. And having regard to the reputation that people that worked with the Security Forces have in this country, one could never think of a greater insult to a witness from a member of the Bar who starts off by saying that he has no basis for saying it.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, I'm not going to react to my learned friend's defamatory remarks.
MR BERGER: I'm going to report him to the Bar Counsel.
CHAIRPERSON: We'll take the adjournment now till 2 o'clock.
CHAIRPERSON: Gentlemen, I know how much pressure you are all under working here, but I hope that this afternoon we can all be a little more patient, and I include myself in that, and just try to get ahead with what we have to do.
PROF KLUG: Excuse me, Judge Wilson, may I say something before we go further? I came to this hearing in the belief that the TRC and its Committees' task are to discover the truth, and for that purpose I've done my best to present the truth as I know it, and I am appalled that a member of the profession, the profession of which I'm part of should use it in an attempt to defame a witness particularly, or anybody else for that matter. Thank you.
MR DU PLESSIS: I'm not going to react, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Had you any more questions?
MR DU PLESSIS: No further questions, Mr Chairman.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR JANSEN: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Jansen for the record, on behalf of Dirk Coetzee.
Professor Klug, you must excuse me but I wish to ask you some questions that do relate to perceptions and opinions because they are important for this exercise of the Amnesty Committee.
Do you accept the statement that political work and political work that you were involved in, encompasses or is closely related to political education?
PROF KLUG: It definitely included political education, yes.
MR JANSEN: And it would be true to say that without political education one would not have masses mobilising, without political education one would not have had the international community mobilising?
PROF KLUG: I believe that many people, whether in the masses or in the international community, could look at the apartheid system in their own right and come to their own conclusions without specific political education.
MR JANSEN: Well you would agree that they would have to understand at least one thing, that a change in the political system can change the lives of the people?
PROF KLUG: I believe most people understand that.
MR JANSEN: So - well without having any formal qualification or education we all have a certain political education, we all have a certain amount of political understanding, correct?
MR JANSEN: Yes. And would you go with the notion that separating the activities of political education and separating the activities of an armed struggle is to some extent possible but it's very interrelated activities in the liberation struggle?
PROF KLUG: They're all interrelated facets of a struggle, however the participants involved in the different aspects are involved in very different and specific things.
MR JANSEN: Yes. Thank you, Mr Chairman, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR JANSEN
CHAIRPERSON: On the question of political education, I have read an article in the last few days which suggests that in some ways a situation very similar to apartheid is still in existence in certain countries without any suggestion of an armed struggle there, but that it is still something that people have to be educated to to work against. Do you agree with that?
PROF KLUG: I would agree that in international human rights work there are situations all over the world that people have to work to to expose, correct.
CHAIRPERSON: Anymore questions?
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR CORNELIUS: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Cornelius on behalf of Vic McPherson.
Professor Klug, you would consider Mr Joe Slovo, the deceased Joe Slovo, as a target of the ANC.
PROF KLUG: As a target of the ANC, you mean as a target of the government?
MR CORNELIUS: Let me rephrase it. He was a leading political figure of the ANC.
MR CORNELIUS: You knew that he was a target of the then Security Forces?
PROF KLUG: I believe from press reports and that, I had no firsthand knowledge that he was a target.
MR CORNELIUS: Yes. Obviously his death would have disrupted ANC activities if they were successful?
PROF KLUG: That would have hurt the ANC, I accept that.
MR CORNELIUS: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR CORNELIUS
MS PATEL: Thank you, Honourable Chairperson, I have no questions for the witness.
RE-EXAMINATION BY MR BERGER: Thank you, Chairperson.
Mr Klug, why did you leave Botswana at the time that you did, what was the cause of the timing of your departure?
PROF KLUG: As I said before I had from late 1984 been informed by the Botswana authorities that the South Africans had indicated to them that they'd wanted me out of Botswana and as a result I had consulted with people in the ANC and it had been agreed that over time I should slowly withdraw from Botswana. The specific timing was related to two factors.
The first was that I had planned to get married in California and was travelling for that purpose. The second was that Mac Maharaj actually arrived in Botswana in early June I believe it was, and came to where I was staying at the time and said look, you're being clever hanging around here, they're going to kill you, you should get out. It was in that context that I made plans to actually leave. The exact day was just when I managed to get a flight and finish my business. Thank you.
MR BERGER: Chairperson, I have no further questions, thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR BERGER
CHAIRPERSON: So it was really Mac Maharaj's instructions and advice to you and the fact that you had a very pleasant alternative?
PROF KLUG: Quite correct, Judge Wilson.
ADV DE JAGER: When did you get married?
PROF KLUG: I got married on June 26, 1985.
ADV DE JAGER: And you left in the beginning of June?
PROF KLUG: Very early June, that's correct.
CHAIRPERSON: Once again I would like to thank you on behalf of all those of us present for having come here to give evidence and to lay what information you could before us, we are grateful to you for that. Thank you.
PROF KLUG: Thank you, Judge Wilson.
CHAIRPERSON: I take it nobody has any objection to this witness being excused if he wishes to leave.
If you wish to leave you're at liberty to do so.
PROF KLUG: Thank you very much.
MR BIZOS: My learned friend ...
MR BERGER: It's me, Judge. The next witness is ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: You mean he's nice to some people.
The next witness, Judge is Mr Puso Tladi. That's P-U-S-O T-L-A-D-I.
MR SIBANYONI: Mr Tladi, what are your full names?
MR SIBANYONI: Do you have any objection to taking the prescribed oath?
PUSO LEONARD TLADI: (sworn states)
EXAMINATION BY MR BERGER: Mr Tladi, where are you presently employed?
MR TLADI: I'm working for the Minister of Defence as his spokesperson.
MR BERGER: You're employed in Pretoria?
MR TLADI: I'm in Pretoria and Cape Town, but most of the time Pretoria.
MR BERGER: You were born in Sharpeville in 1951, is that correct?
MR BERGER: And in the early '70's you were involved in activist politics, you were the Secretary of the Vaal branch of the BPC, is that correct?
MR BERGER: And you were also a founder member of the National Youth Organisation?
MR BERGER: In the early '70's you were the Vice-President of the Transvaal Youth Organisation?
MR BERGER: In the early '70's would it be fair to say that you had several run-ins with the Security Police?
MR BERGER: And you were interrogated many times?
MR TLADI: A couple of times and detained.
MR BERGER: Then at a time you were charged, is that right?
MR BERGER: You were trying to remember the exact name, nature of the charge, do you remember what it was?
MR TLADI: The charge was, I was charged as a "vreemde Bantu", also as "werkloos".
MR BERGER: The word you gave me was "loferskap".
MR BERGER: I don't know what that means.
MR LEVINE: Idle and ...(indistinct)
MR BERGER: Idle and undesirable, yes.
And then whilst you were charged you left the country, is that correct?
MR TLADI: Yes, I jumped the bail, I gave my lawyer the undertaking that I will not, because he came to my cell and he really wanted to know if I do get the bail whether I'm going to skip the country and I said I'll never do that and it's part of my political conviction that if there's anything to be changed one has got to be here and I'm not a coward, I will not do that, but I knew that I'm going to skip as soon as he did so. So I was given conditions to and report at the Sharpeville Police Station I think about twice a day or something, and one of the days, the last time I reported I left immediately and I skipped the country.
MR BERGER: Why did you lie to your lawyer at the time?
MR TLADI: Well because I suspected very strongly that he was not asking for himself, I thought he was part and parcel of the system. In fact I thought he was sent by the Security Branch as to sort of get whether I'm going to skip the bail or not.
MR BERGER: Now after you skipped bail you left South Africa and you went to Botswana, is that correct?
MR BERGER: Now what was your position in Botswana from 1975 through to 1979?
MR TLADI: Well I belonged to what they called "non-aligned" because the strong feeling in the Black Consciousness Movement then was, we had the ANC and the PAC who were banned in 1960, but indeed we don't see any indication of their presence in the country.
Of course I've got to add that among other activities inside the country I only knew with a bit of hindsight that I've actually been involved with a unit of the ANC.
MR BERGER: But you didn't know that at the time?
MR TLADI: I didn't know that at the time.
MR BERGER: So when you were in Botswana during those years '75 to '79, you were non-aligned?
MR BERGER: How did you survive at that time?
MR TLADI: Well we were - as a refugee, we got some money from UN offices, and clothes, and that is what all the refugees did.
MR BERGER: In that time '75 to '79, did you have any contact with any ANC structures that you knew of?
MR TLADI: No, not that I know of. Of course I knew later that George Paghle who was my greatest friend and comrade there, who was also like non-aligned, was actually an ANC activist and some such people, but not belonging to any structure that I knew of.
MR BERGER: And during that period '75 to '79 did you know of the existence of Marius and Jeanette Schoon?
MR BERGER: Then in 1979 you left Botswana for Angola, is that right?
MR BERGER: And you went to the main camp in Northern Angola, is that correct?
MR BERGER: Was that an ANC camp?
MR BERGER: And there you received your basic training?
MR TLADI: I received my basic training, and soon thereafter I became also an instructor. I was also given training in instructing and finally I became an instructor, political instructor.
MR BERGER: A political instructor?
MR TLADI: Political instructor.
MR BERGER: What did that encompass?
MR TLADI: Well the soldiers of the ANC, MK, essentially they've got to understand the vision of the ANC to know why they've got to fight, why they are doing what they are doing and armed struggle is merely a tactic of achieving what we want to achieve, and that's a political objective and it can be abandoned any moment.
MR BERGER: So you were instructing MK soldiers in politics in the camps?
MR BERGER: You also went to the GDR for specialised training, is that right?
MR TLADI: Yes, I went to GDR for specialised training in ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: Again in politics and general politics so to say.
MR BERGER: Right. When did you return to Angola?
MR TLADI: I then returned to Angola, it could have been the end of 1980 or the beginning of '81.
MR BERGER: And from 1981 right through to 1983, what were you doing?
MR TLADI: Well I've been instructing. I was the Chief Political Instructor finally and also the Commissar of Instructors or Deputy Commander of Instructors.
MR BERGER: Now at the end of 1983 you changed your position, is that right?
MR TLADI: At the end of '83 I changed my position, I was given another task and that task was to be the office of the African National Congress in Luanda, which was the diplomatic mission of the ANC in Angola.
MR BERGER: And what was your position in the diplomatic mission there?
MR TLADI: I was the number two person in the sense that I was Chief Administrator and my chief was the Chief Representative, Comrade Uria Mokeba.
MR BERGER: Mokeba, M-O-K-E-B-A?
MR BERGER: What was the nature of your function from the time that you moved into the diplomatic mission?
MR TLADI: Our major - the core business of the office was diplomatic work of the ANC, so we were representing the NEC, the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress in Angola and hence we had easy access to the President's office, the President.
MR BERGER: The President of Angola?
MR TLADI: The President of Angola.
MR BERGER: Would it be fair to say that at that time you were no longer a soldier and you had become a diplomat?
MR TLADI: Yes, I think that will be correct. You - now my task had totally changed, I was now in a different ball game altogether.
MR BERGER: Were there times when you took over from Mr Mokeba?
MR TLADI: Yes, from time to time I would be acting Chief Representative of the mission when Mr Mokeba is not available and he had to from time to time had to travel abroad.
MR BERGER: And that would have been end '83 onwards?
MR BERGER: In your capacity as second-in-command or as acting chief of mission, did you attend embassy parties and things like that?
MR TLADI: Yes, that was a core business, being a member of, because we were accredited diplomats, or our office was that kind of office that was accredited by the Angolans as a diplomatic mission so we were to participate fully into the lives of what diplomats do.
MR BERGER: When was the first time that you met Marius or Jeanette Schoon?
MR TLADI: It must have been January of 1984 when they pitched in Angola, in Luanda.
MR BERGER: Before that you had not known of them?
MR BERGER: Now this was in Luanda that you met them?
MR BERGER: How did it come about that - who did you meet first?
MR TLADI: Well the first person I met was Jenny. Jenny had come to the office and I had to attend to - I must say that problems such as that of Marius Schoon and Jenny was the primary task also of the office of the ANC such as the one that we had there, because they had come there to go to Lubango and in Lubango they were attached to a university, they were to teach at the University of Angola and that was then our mission because that request had come through us that we passed to the NEC of the ANC that it was the request of the Angolans to have people such as the Schoons who could assist them in the teaching of English.
MR BERGER: Let's just stand back from that a minute. When did this request come through, do you remember?
MR TLADI: Well I wouldn't know when the request came through, but when I came to the office there was that request.
MR BERGER: And it was a request for people?
MR TLADI: To teach Angolans English at the University of Angola, and the campus was the Lubango campus.
MR BERGER: So it was your office then that passed on that request to the NEC of the ANC?
MR TLADI: That's the only route that I can imagine. I wasn't there by then when the request came but definitely I had to process the request. And when Marius Schoon came it was that kind of response of the NEC of the ANC, to the request of the Angolan MPLA party or the Government of Angola.
MR BERGER: Why was the ANC providing its members to teach in an MPLA institution?
MR TLADI: I think this was really a very modest way of responding to a request of people who have sacrificed everything, and a government that was sacrificing everything to assist us with the armed struggle when no any other government that I know of could have done so in the fact of South Africa saying it can ruin anyone into the stone age if they do so.
MR BERGER: So it was a thank you to the MPLA Government?
MR BERGER: When you met Jeanette Schoon in the office in Luanda, what did she come for?
MR TLADI: Jeanette and the family as a whole which included family I must mention, there was Katryn and Fritz, little Katryn and little Fritz, they had come to the office among other things for us to facilitate their going to Lubango but secondly, also the whole question that has to do with their welfare.
MR BERGER: What sort of problems did they have?
MR TLADI: Well Angola what we eat there are kind of soldiers' food if you like, some biscuits of the second world war given to us by the Dutch people and these are called soldiers' biscuits, and those kinds of things. Also for instance Italians, Italian people who would send tinned stuff and things, and this from time to time might not be available and also if they are available they might no be really as good for kids as they are for adults.
MR BERGER: So they had basic domestic problems?
MR TLADI: We've got to answer those needs.
MR BERGER: Then they were sent, or you arranged for them to go down to Lubango, is that correct?
MR TLADI: Yes, we did. It was the task of the office.
MR BERGER: And while they were in Lubango did you hear from them at all?
MR TLADI: Yes, they would come there almost all, if it was not Jenny then it would be Marius coming to the office.
MR BERGER: This is coming up from Lubango to Luanda?
MR TLADI: Well two basic things, one is the one that I've just mentioned, it has to do with welfare which again it didn't help being in Lubango and secondly, it was the developmental problem that they were involved in. They took interest in a little facility, a vocational facility that was just outside Luanda and that was again what they wanted to contribute to.
MR BERGER: What sort of a facility was this?
MR TLADI: This is a vocational facility which was funded by Norad(?) and some other donor countries.
MR BERGER: Is that a Norwegian group?
MR BERGER: There's been a lot of talk about why Marius and Jeanette were sent to Lubango, Lubango being a garrison town I think it's been described by some, in the middle of a war, a war zone and it's been suggested that the ANC was fighting alongside the MPLA in Lubango, what's your comment on that?
MR BERGER: Where was the fighting, where was the ANC fighting alongside the MPLA?
MR TLADI: Well the fighting was in the eastern front, that's what we call the eastern front. It was in fact in the east of Angola, and Lubango is in, not just the south but deep south towards Namibia.
MR BERGER: When you say east, would that be up towards ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: In Malange Province.
MR BERGER: That's the north-eastern side of Angola?
MR TLADI: North-eastern side of Angola, hundred percent.
MR BERGER: Were there ever any MK soldiers in Lubango?
MR TLADI: Never ever that I know of, and the office would have known. In fact it would have been the responsibility of the office to raise this political problem where we could take our soldiers to a place such as the south. Uwambo is in fact north of Lubango and Uwambo was Savimbi's headquarters.
MR TLADI: Which would mean South Africa, SADF and Pretoria connection.
MR BERGER: So there could not have been any MK soldiers down there?
MR TLADI: Not MK soldiers, not to fight there.
MR BERGER: To whom according to you were Marius and Jeanette teaching English?
MR TLADI: The Angolan students at the university.
MR BERGER: Did you have an opportunity to go down to Lubango?
MR TLADI: Yes, I did, I went to Lubango.
MR TLADI: It was important - I was sent by the office to go to Lubango to make the local inspection and really assess the situation as Marius and Jenny had been sending reports verbally to the office on the, on their welfare in Lubango. So it was important for the office to really have the feeling of this kind of conditions that were kind of serious, especially in the light of the kids.
MR BERGER: What issues were they raising in their reports from Lubango?
MR TLADI: Well the issue of food, and they were getting a little salary there. I don't know, it was kind of stipend you know, from the university, but I think it was not sufficient. But not only that but also just availability of commodities in Lubango was a big problem, no different from Luanda.
MR BERGER: So you were sent down by the mission to investigate their domestic problems in Lubango?
MR BERGER: Can you tell the Committee what happened that weekend?
MR TLADI: Well it could have been a weekend, but it could have a couple of days really before the weekend, and I spent the whole day with the, the whole period of time with the family and at the end of that visit I then planned with Marius to leave for Lusaka, for Luanda as just one of the other things that Marius would have done to come down.
MR BERGER: Was this for his monthly visit?
MR TLADI: That was almost that kind of visit that would relate to the vocational facility as well. So as I was about to leave - as I was about to - well, maybe we should just go back a bit and say we celebrated Marius' birthday as a family, but little Katryn felt strong that I shouldn't actually leave as planned the following day and I appealed to Marius that we should actually just concede to that because it wouldn't really make any big difference, but it would really be a nice thing to sort of satisfy that kind of little need of the little girl, but Marius just felt no, he ruled it out so we left. Before we left I went to Lubango University to get some flowers.
MR BERGER: The witness is upset, Mr de Jager.
MR TLADI: So I went to the university to get some flowers for Katryn ...(intervention)
MR BERGER: Do you want some time, Mr Tladi?
MR TLADI: No. ... which I left on her bed. Then a few days later, after we left with Marius the following day, a few days later the Chief of Mission again gave me the news that Jenny and Katryn have died and I had to go and inform Marius about this. So that's it.
MR BERGER: Mr Tladi, besides Marius and Jeanette and the two little kids, were there any other South Africans in Lubango?
MR TLADI: Yes, there were two, there were two other South Africans, Jammy and Pro Magashula.
MR TLADI: They were ANC members.
MR BERGER: And what were they doing there?
MR TLADI: They were also doing the teaching in Angola, in Lubango.
MR TLADI: They were teaching Angolans English.
MR BERGER: Thank you, Mr Tladi. I have no further questions, Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR BERGER
MR VISSER: To avoid a problem, Mr Chairman, Visser on record, I have no questions.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR LEVINE: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Mr Tladi, if you are at any stage upset, discomforted, please say so and of course we can give you time if you wish. Do you understand that offer?
Mr Tladi, when you were in Botswana, what function did the Schoons, Jeanette and Marius perform?
MR TLADI: Well if you're asking what they came to Luanda for ...(intervention)
MR LEVINE: No, would you answer the question. I said when you were in Botswana, what function did the Schoons, Marius and Jeanette perform?
MR LEVINE: You knew nothing about their involvement with ANC affairs?
MR LEVINE: Whether politically, militarily ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: I don't know, I don't know.
MR LEVINE: Are you aware that they were described by Mr Mac Maharaj amongst others, as very important cogs in the ANC operations?
MR LEVINE: When did you learn of that?
MR TLADI: When I was here attending the, when Mr Mac Maharaj was giving evidence.
MR LEVINE: Oh. Towards the end of November?
MR TLADI: I don't remember the time, but when Mac Maharaj was here.
MR LEVINE: You heard him give that evidence, you did?
MR LEVINE: Sorry that I press you but you're nodding in the machine and it's not going to pick up your nodding.
Mr Tladi, what would you describe your function as in the Angolan side of the ANC?
MR TLADI: Well it depends on the time frame.
MR LEVINE: Yes, let's take it from the time you got to Angola.
MR TLADI: I was a trainee, I was being trained as a military man.
MR LEVINE: ANC. And as times progressed?
MR TLADI: I became an instructor, political instructor.
MR LEVINE: Was there any overlapping between political and military functions?
MR TLADI: Well the work that I was doing as a political instructor, I was instructing soldiers, MK soldiers.
MR LEVINE: Yes. Men of the military?
MR TLADI: MK soldiers are military people.
MR LEVINE: And what were you instructing them in?
MR TLADI: I was a political instructor. I was a political instructor.
MR LEVINE: What did this avenue of being a political instructor include?
MR TLADI: It included nothing but it meant you've got to imbue those men and woman with the vision of the African National Congress.
MR LEVINE: And that would also include the freedom struggle, would it not?
MR TLADI: To include freedom struggle?
MR TLADI: Unless you explain what you mean by "it would include freedom struggle", the whole effort was about that.
MR LEVINE: Yes, so the political ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: That's the objective. Freedom struggle is the objective, it doesn't include it.
MR LEVINE: Political and military overlapped to a large extent?
MR TLADI: I wouldn't understand how it overlapped. These were two elements.
MR LEVINE: You say they were ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: People who are military - we've got military instructors, I was a political instructor. ...(intervention)
MR LEVINE: You say that they were totally divorced from one another?
MR TLADI: I don't know what divorce would mean. They ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: Yes, if you are a political instructor you are a political instructor, you are not a firearms instructor or a military instructor so to say.
MR LEVINE: My recollection is Mr Maharaj amongst others, did not agree with that but we'll leave that. ...(intervention)
MR BERGER: Chairperson, Mr Levine is talking at completely cross-purposes. Mr Maharaj was giving evidence on a completely different basis.
MR LEVINE: I don't know, Mr Chairman, why it is alleged that I am dealing with something completely at cross-purposes. My understanding was that Mr Maharaj freely and openly conceded the connection between political and military functions.
CHAIRPERSON: This man is being asked about what he did at a military camp. He is explaining that his function was limited to political instruction, other people gave military instructions. There may have been others who taught them how to make food. They were all separate instructions. He is not being asked of the global figure which is what Mac Maharaj was.
MR LEVINE: And when did you first - you met the Schoons you said again when they came to Luanda ...(intervention)
MR BERGER: No, Chairperson, he did not say that, he said he met them for the first time in Luanda, not again.
MR LEVINE: I'll rephrase that. You met the Schoons for the first time when they came to Luanda.
MR LEVINE: They came to your offices?
MR TLADI: To the Mission of the ANC, which is where I was working.
MR LEVINE: Yes. Were they interviewed by you or by someone else?
MR TLADI: Well I met - the first person I met was Jenny Schoon and it was myself who met her.
MR LEVINE: On her arrival at the offices?
MR TLADI: She had come there to the offices.
MR LEVINE: Now you answered my learned friend, Mr Berger in regard to a question of the monthly visits of Marius Schoon to Luanda, is that correct?
MR LEVINE: You responded when my learned friend, Mr Berger put to you the fact that Mr Marius Schoon had undertaken monthly visits to Luanda.
MR LEVINE: Are you sure these visits by Mr Marius Schoon were on a monthly basis?
MR TLADI: Yes, they were. Not only monthly, maybe they were bi-monthly by Marius Schoon because they would alternate with Jenny. So if you say Marius it would be bi-monthly.
MR LEVINE: So one month would be Jeanette and one month would be Marius?
MR LEVINE: Your evidence was there were no MK soldiers ever in Lubango?
MR LEVINE: They were situated I think you said, well to the north?
MR TLADI: North East and the north also of Luanda, which would be places like Kashito.
MR LEVINE: And how often during the period that the Schoons were in Angola did you meet them?
MR TLADI: Every time they were there because I've got to report to the office every morning. So when they come they wouldn't go the same day, they would go after some time, so I would meet them there.
MR LEVINE: No, my question was, how often when the Schoons were in Angola did you meet them?
MR TLADI: Well every time they had come to office I will meet them.
MR LEVINE: On a bi-monthly basis?
MR TLADI: Monthly basis. If you say the Schoons it's monthly.
MR TLADI: If you say Marius it's bi-monthly.
MR LEVINE: Marius or Jeanette it would be once every month over ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: But if you say the Schoons its monthly.
CHAIRPERSON: And if it was Marius or Jeanette it would be every second month because they alternated?
ADV DE JAGER: Did they stay there for a weekend, a few days?
MR TLADI: Well they would be there for a few days really, a couple of days.
MR LEVINE: Mr Tladi, you don't know what either Marius or Jeanette Schoon were busying themselves with in the time that they were not, either of them, in Luanda?
MR TLADI: I did not know. You're saying did I know?
MR LEVINE: I'm putting it to you that you did not know, or let me put it to you ...(end of tape)
MR TLADI: ... (start of tape) ... preparing, looking after the kids.
MR LEVINE: Preparing children?
MR TLADI: No, preparing their lessons, to go and teach.
MR LEVINE: Oh, preparing their lessons so that they might go and teach?
MR TLADI: That's what teaching entails.
MR LEVINE: And how often did they teach?
MR TLADI: Well, I wouldn't be precise about how often. I can't remember now.
MR LEVINE: Was it once a week, every day?
MR TLADI: No, I think it must have been daily.
MR LEVINE: Are you sure of that?
MR TLADI: Well I don't remember now, especially after that traumatic event.
MR LEVINE: What was the security situation in Lubango while the Schoons were there?
MR TLADI: Well remember that it was really after Operation Protea, South, SADF operation, and Lubango had been, was already part and parcel of Fapla, so it was taken by Fapla. But indeed you would, when I was there occasionally you would get some shootings going on somewhere in the mountains in the background of Lubango and elsewhere.
MR LEVINE: Because my recollection of Mr Marius Schoon's evidence is that he spoke of gunfire at night in the streets of Lubango, were you aware of that?
MR TLADI: I won't dispute that.
MR LEVINE: And he spoke of Cuban helicopters flying by at building level, would you dispute that?
MR LEVINE: So what military presence was there at that stage in Lubango?
MR TLADI: Military presence of?
MR LEVINE: Any military presence.
MR TLADI: Well I - well there was definitely - Lubango was that kind of time with lots of soldiers in the streets all the time and in the background of Lubango you would not miss to see that presence, but the same can be said about Luanda.
MR LEVINE: Would there have been any MK soldiers?
MR TLADI: You're asking about Lubango again?
MR LEVINE: How do you exclude that?
MR LEVINE: How do you exclude that?
MR TLADI: Well we had no business to be there.
MR LEVINE: But can you exclude it categorically?
MR TLADI: Categorically yes. I was working in the office of the Chief Representative, if there was to be a presence in that deep south, it would have been a political decision taken.
MR TLADI: It wouldn't have just been some commander just deciding to take soldiers to the south, it would have been a political decision taken and that kind of decision would have been a matter that the office would have known.
MR LEVINE: Would that not have been a military decision?
MR TLADI: Well as ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: To take soldiers to areas such as ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: To Lubango. I'm saying it would have been a political decision. Yes, the NEC of the ANC would have known that we now want to deploy our soldiers in the south, deep south, not just south.
MR LEVINE: And would that not have been a military decision although ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: Well military decision will follow, but the first decision would have been a political decision.
MR LEVINE: So at a certain stage in the scheme of things there would have been both a political and a military decision?
MR TLADI: Well maybe one has got to explain that the ANC or MK was a political wing of the ANC, therefore decisions are actually being made at the highest level and decisions such as those to move to the deep south of a country such as Angola, not far from Uwambo, the headquarters of Savimbi who was a big brother of Pretoria.
MR LEVINE: You've just said that the MK was apolitical division of the ANC.
MR TLADI: MK was a political division?
MR TLADI: MK was a political division ...(intervention)
MR LEVINE: Political wing. Do you not mean a military wing?
MR TLADI: Military wing. It was ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: No. I was saying MK, the decisions of MK are being taken as, decisions such as those would be taken at the highest level and that highest level will be the mother body, the ANC, its NEC of the ANC would take such a decision.
MR LEVINE: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LEVINE
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR DU PLESSIS: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Mr Tladi, just on the last-mentioned evidence, may I read to from page 86 of the ANC's first submission to the Truth Commission, and I just want to know how you reconcile that with your evidence. It says:
"Umkhonto weSizwe is the fighting arm of the ANC and its allies. Our armed struggle is a continuation of our political struggle by means that include armed force. The political leadership has primacy of the military. Our military line(?) derives from our political line. Every commander, commissioner, instructor and combatant must therefore be clearly acquainted with the policy with regard to all combat tasks and missions. All of must know clearly who the enemy is and for what we are fighting. The MK cadres are not only military units they are also organisers of our people."
"This combination of political and military functions is characteristic of all popular revolutionary armies, especially in the phase of guerrilla warfare."
That differs from your evidence as I understand it. Do you want to comment on that?
CHAIRPERSON: It says there that the political have primacy over the military, doesn't it?
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, it does, but it doesn't accord with his evidence where he draws a clear distinction between military functions and political functions. I'm just putting this to him, Mr Chairman, if he wants to react ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Mr du Plessis, in any army you have military functions, you have a government that decides what the army is going to do. What he has been telling us is that the ANC employed similar tactics, that political decisions were taken as to what military steps should then be taken. Do we want to waste any more time on this?
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, what he has also told us is that a political instructor is not a military instructor, a political instructor has got nothing to do with the military, and it doesn't seem to me to accord with this but I will bow to your views, Mr Chairman, and then I will not ask further questions about this.
Mr Tladi, the ANC showed solidarity with the MPLA, with Fapla and with Swapo, is that correct?
MR TLADI: And Fapla is ...(intervention)
MR DU PLESSIS: Ja, Fapla is just a military force of the MPLA.
MR TLADI: Swapo, maybe you can add plan because you have said ...(indistinct)
MR DU PLESSIS: And really, if one looks broadly at the picture the South African Defence Force, the South West Africa Territory Force and Unit were really fighting alongside each other at various stages during the 1980's against Swapo, against the MPLA, is that correct?
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now the sending of Jeanette Schoon and Marius Schoon to Lubango you testified was an act of solidarity. Now do I understand you correctly, does that mean that the ANC wanted to show that they support the fight of the MPLA against Unita and therefore that they support them to such an extent that they are willing send, in this case teachers, to assist the MPLA with their struggle?
MR TLADI: Well the act of solidarity could be your words, we said it was, we were responding, the African National Congress was responding to a request.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, I think the act of solidarity were the words that were used by Mr Marius Schoon when he testified.
MR TLADI: Could well be his words, but I'm saying, I'm telling you what it was. I'm saying it was a response.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes, in support of the MPLA struggle against Unita, isn't that right?
MR TLADI: Well not against Unita.
MR TLADI: I don't know whether you can talk about MPLA only being against Unita, MPLA as a government.
MR TLADI: And the people of Angola, not against Unita. The support they gave us we don't want to describe it in ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: Yes, but at that stage the MPLA was waging a war against Unita, or the other way around.
MR TLADI: Well maybe from the beginning it has been fighting against Unita and ...(indistinct), but we were, it was an act of solidarity.
MR TLADI: No, it was responding to the request.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, you didn't send people to assist Unita, you sent people to assist the MPLA.
MR TLADI: So whether that was posing difficulties for Unita, that's a different question altogether.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. No, no, I'm not talking about that, I'm just saying that was to show, that was really a symbolic gesture, am I right?
MR TLADI: Not symbolic, it was a contribution.
CHAIRPERSON: What he is not liking is your continual reference to "against Unita". As I understand the witness he is saying; we were keen to support the MPLA Government who had supported us in the past.
Isn't that what you're saying?
MR DU PLESSIS: Well what was your view pertaining to Unita, was the ANC totally neutral towards Unita?
MR DU PLESSIS: Was the ANC totally neutral towards Unita, is that what you are testifying?
MR TLADI: No, it will - the ANC has never been neutral towards Unita.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, the ANC was always on the side of the MPLA in that conflict, isn't that so?
MR TLADI: Yes, physically as well.
MR DU PLESSIS: Physically. In a military way?
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes. So that would mean that the ANC and the MPLA had connection with each other in a military way, if I can put it like that.
MR TLADI: I don't understand that.
MR DU PLESSIS: Did you get weapons from the MPLA?
MR DU PLESSIS: Did you co-operate together with them on military matters?
MR TLADI: In one from called the eastern front, yes.
MR DU PLESSIS: On the eastern front?
MR TLADI: On the eastern front, yes. And also in the northern front against FNLA, but in fact it was not even, Fapla was not there, it was just MK cleaning up there because we were to be based there and we had to sort of ...
MR DU PLESSIS: And it is also true that in the 1970's the middle 1970's that the South African Government supported the FNLA, isn't that so?
MR TLADI: Could have been. I don't - I think Mabuto has always been very close to the South African Government as well.
MR DU PLESSIS: You remember that the South African Government went straight up into Angola close to Luanda at that time, 1976 I think.
MR TLADI: And they suffered a devastating blow just close to Luanda.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. I'm not going to get into that with you, Mr Tladi, definitely not. I think the Chairman is going to stop me in any event. We agree - ag, we disagree on that, you realise that?
MR TLADI: Well everybody disagrees and they ...
MR DU PLESSIS: Now Mr Tladi, that's long past, those times. The point I'm trying to make is, at the end of the day wasn't the sending of Marius and Jeanette Schoon, and I'm trying to come back to the word "symbolic", perhaps you don't agree with the use of the word, but it was an act to say to the people; here we are, we are with you in the struggle, we are with you in this fight against Unita, against the people who are fighting in this war against us, and against the people with them, that means the South African Defence Force, isn't that so?
MR TLADI: Well it was not really that whole long thing, it was just a simple request of MPLA Government that was processed by the office, given to the NEC, National Executive Committee of the ANC, and we were responding to that.
CHAIRPERSON: It was a request to help them educate their children.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Do you agree with me that Lubango, a large part of Lubango consisted of military places, military bases, etc?
MR DU PLESSIS: Is that correct?
MR DU PLESSIS: It was really a military town, wasn't it?
MR TLADI: Well I don't know, maybe Angola is a military country also.
MR DU PLESSIS: At that time it was really a military country, but you agree with me it was a military orientated town?
MR TLADI: Lots of soldiers there you mean?
MR TLADI: Ja, there were lots of soldiers in Lubango.
MR DU PLESSIS: And who were they teaching, were they teaching the children of MPLA ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: When you say ...(indistinct) you mean Marius?
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, yes. Do you know who they were teaching?
MR TLADI: Yes, they were teaching Angolans.
MR DU PLESSIS: That in all probability would have been the children of soldiers based there, isn't that so?
MR TLADI: Well I wouldn't know really.
MR DU PLESSIS: You don't know.
MR TLADI: Normally I wouldn't know whether, when children come I ask them whether your father is a soldier or what.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. Did they ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: Were these university students, were they teaching at a university?
CHAIRPERSON: So they were 18 years old.
MR DU PLESSIS: I'm just waiting for the laughing to stop, Mr Chairman.
Mr Tladi, and were they teaching Cubans?
MR TLADI: No, the request was MPLA request and the request was to teach Angolans at the university and that's what they did.
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. Now if somebody had phoned you and asked you who of the ANC can we speak to in Lubango, what would you have said?
MR TLADI: There's no phone that goes to Lubango, sorry Sir.
MR DU PLESSIS: Well if they had to go there, if they wanted to speak to somebody there.
MR TLADI: To speak to somebody? They've got to speak to the office.
MR DU PLESSIS: Mr Chairman, really, I have put up with this laughing in these proceedings now for a long enough, Mr Chairman. If it's not my learned friend, Mr Bizos who is laughing it's the people in the audience who is laughing, and really it doesn't befit the dignity of these proceedings for people to keep on laughing. If I'm funny I will speak to them afterwards then they can laugh at me afterwards, but really, please, Mr Chairman, I have had enough of this.
Mr Tladi, who would they have spoken to in Lubango?
MR TLADI: Who would they have spoken to?
MR TLADI: Well they would have to speak to the office., that's how things worked.
MR DU PLESSIS: No, if somebody had to ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: Someone must speak to the office.
MR DU PLESSIS: ... wanted to speak to somebody of the ANC in Lubango, who would they have spoken to?
MR TLADI: No, they've got to speak to the office about the matter first.
CHAIRPERSON: The question as I understand it is if someone had come to your office and said I'm going there to Lubango, I want to talk to someone, who should I talk to? Who would you have told them to talk to?
MR TLADI: Well there are ANC people there. It depends what they want to speak to them about, because otherwise we would actually be very sensitive as to what is it that you want to talk to the ANC people in Lubango. That's the point I'm trying to make. We don't just say okay, you can go to Lubango, you will find some ANC people there, we want to know what is it that you want to discuss with the ANC people, because that's the mission of the ...(indistinct)
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright, alright, the facts speak for itself. I won't go further with this question.
ADV DE JAGER: As I understood it there were only four ANC people in Lubango.
ADV DE JAGER: So you would have referred him to one of the four if they want to speak to an ANC person?
MR TLADI: About what exactly, anything?
ADV DE JAGER: About anything they want to speak to an ANC person about because there's only four people there. ...(intervention)
MR TLADI: Well if - there were four people ...(intervention)
ADV DE JAGER: It should be one of them.
MR TLADI: Ja, there were ANC people. If they want to speak to Jammy, Jameson or Pro or Jenny or Marius, those are ANC members.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, thank you, that wasn't so difficult.
Mr Tladi, now you see Mr Marius Schoon also testified, and I want to know from you if you agree with that:
"There were occasions where MK units went into action with Fapla units."
" ... when MK units went into action with Fapla units."
That's on page 2942 of the record.
MR DU PLESSIS: Do you agree with that?
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. And further than that, in the ANC submission, the first submission to the Truth Commission, on page 94 there are lists of deaths of ANC members due to Unita ambushes.
MR DU PLESSIS: Do you agree with that?
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. And the names - the dates when they died are included there and there are 15 people, I counted quickly, 15 people who died before or during 1984.
MR TLADI: I wouldn't disagree with that.
MR DU PLESSIS: You wouldn't agree with that?
MR TLADI: I wouldn't disagree with that.
MR DU PLESSIS: You wouldn't disagree with that. Alright. So it is clear that the ANC operated in a certain way in a military way with the MPLA against Unita, you don't disagree with that? You don't disagree with that?
MR TLADI: Yes, MK in that, like I've said earlier on, in the north and the eastern front did engage first northern front, FNLA and the eastern front, Unita.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes. And it was the decision of the ANC itself to send the Schoons to Lubango?
MR TLADI: Yes, it was the decision of the ANC.
MR DU PLESSIS: And they had to obey that decision as members, loyal members of the ANC, isn't that so?
MR DU PLESSIS: Alright. No further questions, Mr Chairman, thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR DU PLESSIS
MR JANSEN: Mr Chairman, Jansen, no questions.
MR CORNELIUS: Cornelius on behalf of McPherson, no questions, Mr Chairman.
MS PATEL: The same applies to me, thank you Honourable Chairperson.
MR BERGER: No re-examination, thank you Chairperson.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MR BERGER
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. ...(indistinct)
MR BIZOS: The next witness, Mr Chairman, will be Mr Henry Makgoti.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, not even in the letter of the 19th of February was there any reference to this particular witness being called or to what he would be giving evidence on.
CHAIRPERSON: I had another letter which now seems to have disappeared, which I had yesterday.
MR DU PLESSIS: Yes, that was a two-page letters from Di Simms(?) dated I believe the 19th of February.
CHAIRPERSON: The 15th of February. The letter dated the 15th of February you didn't list this gentleman either.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, I'm mindful of what you've had to say from inception, and that is it is difficult enough to prepare under the circumstances that have presently, up to now prevailed, but to call a witness who hasn't even been listed would seem to accord with your dissatisfaction as previously expressed and that as previously expressed by the other legal representatives. There is not a tittle of detail in regard to the present witness and I must make it clear, Mr Chairman, that from my part I would want to if necessary, consider my position before embarking on any cross-examination. Obviously it will be done if there's something of relevance that attaches to the evidence of this witness, but one cannot run any form of procedure on this basis. As you've made clear yourself from time to time, this becomes unfortunately a trial as it were by ambush and it's a most unfortunate situation to find oneself in. One would have expected if this gentleman was going to give evidence, that the least one would have been told was this morning by our learned friends, well by the way we are going to call Mr X.
CHAIRPERSON: Has any notice been given of this witness?
MR BIZOS: Mr Chairman, apparently not, and I would like to give the reason why. We were not certain in our own minds whether to call Mr Makgoti or not, it depended to a very large extent of what was put by our learned friends. Also I must be quite frank as to how we were doing with time, Mr Chairman.
We decided during the lunch hour in view of what has happened here, that we would call him. I should perhaps just before we assembled, have informed our learned friends of our decision but we had other matters to attend to. I am likely to be the better part of the ordinary time, Mr Chairman, in evidence-in-chief. That his presence here and the evidence-in-chief will enable counsel for, attorney for Mr Williamson to take instructions.
The position of Mr Makgoti cannot be unknown to Mr Williamson. He was on the - you recall, Mr Chairman, the person when it was put was the chairman of the senior organ in Botswana. He was referred to by Mr Maharaj, Mr Schoon on a number of occasions and also his name is in the document that our learned friends make use of.
CHAIRPERSON: Are you suggesting we should lead his evidence now and we will then take the adjournment to enable ...(intervention)
MR BIZOS: They would be in a better position than they would have been if we had mentioned his name in the letter, Mr Chairman. May I proceed, Mr Chairman?
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Bizos, I'm not objecting to you calling the witness, but really, let's try and keep to the rules. We've made a rule and it's no use making rules and nobody would seem to keep to any of our rules. It makes us very difficult for us to proceed in this way.
MR BIZOS: ...(indistinct) Mr Chairman, I have given an explanation. We had no reason to keep the name back or to call a surprise witness to take anyone by ambush, he has been on the stage throughout these proceedings, Mr Chairman.
ADV DE JAGER: Your full names please.
HENRY GORDON MAKGOTI: (sworn states)
MR BIZOS: Mr Makgoti, I noticed that you put your jacket on in deference to the Committee to no doubt. Before you came there you had it off whilst you were at the back. I'm sure that if you feel more comfortable without a jacket, the Chairman and Members of the Committee will not object, so it's up to you how you feel comfortable.
EXAMINATION BY MR BIZOS: What is your present position, Mr Makgoti?
MR MAKGOTI: I am a member of the South African Parliament in the National Council of Provinces.
MR BIZOS: Let's go back a long time ago that you and I met. What were you trained as?
MR MAKGOTI: I was trained at the University College of Fort Hare as it was called then. I took the Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1950, and I trained as a teacher at the same college, but this time I took a UED Diploma, University Education Diploma under the University of Rhodes.
MR BIZOS: And you became a duly qualified teacher?
MR BIZOS: Did you have any political affiliations either at university or in, after you qualified as a teacher?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, actually I joined the African National Congress, the youth section of the African National Congress when I was still at high school, and I was a member of the ANC when I was at Fort Hare, and even subsequently when I left Fort Hare and I came to work as a teacher I continued to be a member of the ANC.
MR BIZOS: How long did your teaching post last, Mr Makgoti?
MR MAKGOTI: Well I taught in 1952 at Pimville in Johannesburg, but I only lasted there on year.
MR BIZOS: Did you leave of your own free accord or were you dismissed?
MR MAKGOTI: No, I was dismissed by the Department of Education at that time for my involvement in political ...(intervention)
MR BIZOS: Activities in the African National Congress?
MR BIZOS: Did you become an office bearer of the African National Congress in the '50's?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, by virtue of my position as the President of the African National Youth League I got onto the National Executive of the ANC and subsequently in 19, it must have been around 1961 or '62 I was also formally co-opted into the National Executive of the ANC.
MR BIZOS: Were you arrested in the 60's, were you tried, convicted and sent to Robben Island?
MR MAKGOTI: Well I spent two years at Leeuwkop Jail in Johannesburg and I spent six years on Robben Island.
MR MAKGOTI: Eight years in all.
MR BIZOS: What did you do when you came out of prison?
MR MAKGOTI: Well when I came out of prison I was served with, immediately on my, when I finished my sentence I was served with banishment orders. In fact I was served with two orders, one was a banishment order and the other one was a restriction order.
MR BIZOS: Where were you banished to?
MR MAKGOTI: I was banished to Mabopane which is a, I don't know, some 50 kilometres out of Pretoria city I think.
MR BIZOS: Where was your home?
MR MAKGOTI: My home was in Johannesburg, I lived in what you call Soweto. That is where my family was.
MR BIZOS: Did you serve out your banishment and your banning?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, the initial order of my banning was for two years but then I was not allowed to go back to Johannesburg to my home in you to call it, because under, the Security Police explained to me that there was some other law which prohibited, under which I could not go back to Soweto. I was now a person who belonged to a homeland.
So I was virtually confined to Pretoria, to the Pretoria district, Mabopane until I left, I escaped in 19, it must have been the end of '76 or the beginning of '77 I think.
MR BIZOS: And where did you go to?
MR MAKGOTI: I went to Botswana.
MR BIZOS: Did you meet up with ANC people in Botswana?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, I reported my presence on my arrival to the Chief Representative of the ANC, Mr Makopo and subsequently I met many other people who were there, refugees. And in the course of time I also met Marius and Jenny.
MR BIZOS: Did you become a member of any formal structure of the African National Congress in Botswana?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, almost immediately on my arrival I became a member of a formal structure in Botswana. In any case I had been active here, even during my banishment I was active in an underground way, so on my arrival there I was integrated into the structures of the ANC.
MR BIZOS: What was the senior organ in Botswana?
MR MAKGOTI: The senior organ was, it was an ANC structure which integrated the work which was done by the various committees of the ANC which were operating in Botswana.
We had for instance a Political Committee and I was, shortly after I arrived I was appointed Head of the Political Committee. Then we had also people who were doing security and intelligence. A the time well we did not make, security was intelligence, and also there were people who were doing military work amongst the ...
MR BIZOS: Were you in any sub-committee of the senior organ, together with Marius and Jeanette Schoon?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, Marius and Jeanette served on the Political Committee as I've indicated, so I worked with them. I was chairman of that Committee.
MR BIZOS: And who represented that Committee on the ...(intervention)
MR MAKGOTI: On the ...(indistinct), and I ...(intervention)
MR BIZOS: On the senior organ.
MR MAKGOTI: On the senior organ, yes.
MR BIZOS: You were probably in years and experience one of the most senior people in the ANC in Botswana at that time?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, I should say I had been a member of the NEC and to that extent I was regarded as a senior person in Botswana by my colleagues, yes.
MR BIZOS: How old are you now, Mr Makgoti?
MR MAKGOTI: I'm over 70, Mr Chairperson.
MR BIZOS: It's enough for our purposes, thank you. Did either one or other or both of them ever serve on the senior organ?
MR MAKGOTI: No, neither served on the senior organ.
MR BIZOS: What did they do on the Political Committee that were on?
MR MAKGOTI: Well there was quite a lot of work to be done. There were a lot of students for instance in Botswana at the time, lots of students, and there was work to be done there amongst the students, giving guidance to the students, their political guidance. That is to students who had elected to come under the ANC, and also to teach them something about the ANC, the policies of the ANC.
Of course this was a function which was really carried out by the office of the Chief Representative there, and I think he had given the task to a gentleman called Bernard Molewa but we all assisted in that task.
Then there was also the work of what we call the internal work, which meant trying to revive or to recruit people into the ANC in South Africa here.
MR BIZOS: Where they in any way involved in the planning of sabotage, infiltration or any other MK activities?
MR MAKGOTI: No, no, they were not militarily involved when they were in Botswana so they were not doing that kind of work.
MR BIZOS: Did you leave Botswana?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, I left Botswana, it must have been in, it must have been the winter of 1980 I think. I left and I ...(intervention)
MR BIZOS: Why did you leave Botswana?
MR MAKGOTI: I left Botswana because the, as I was told by the Chief Representative and also by somebody, I think it was the Secretary in the Office of the President. While we were refugees in Botswana we really came under the direct supervision of the Office of the President. And they told me or they told the Chief Representative in my presence that the South African Government had told them that unless they got rid of me, well they would act themselves and get rid of me, eliminate me ...(indistinct).
MR BIZOS: What did you understand when they told you that they would act themselves?
MR MAKGOTI: Well I understood that they will kill me.
MR BIZOS: Where did you go to after you left?
MR MAKGOTI: I went to Lusaka and in Lusaka I, there I was assigned a new, I was given a new assignment to start the ANC school in Tanzania.
MR BIZOS: Do you know who succeeded you in Botswana?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, as far as I know I was succeeded by one called Lambert Moloi, as head of the senior organ.
MR BIZOS: And for how long did you stay in Lusaka?
MR MAKGOTI: Shortly after my arrival there as I say, I was sent to Tanzania because there was an urgent matter there, we had to build a school for South African children who were refugees. I couldn't have stayed long, I think it was, towards the end of 1980 I was already on my way to Tanzania.
MR BIZOS: As an old teacher and a person interested in education, were you ever asked to make any recommendation for any person or persons to take, connected with the ANC, to take a position in Angola to teach?
MR MAKGOTI: Yes. By 1983 I was back in Orlando, in ...(intervention)
MR MAKGOTI: Yes, I was now Head of Education in the ANC, and I got this request that the Angolans had a, there was this part of the University of Angola in Lubango and they were appealing to the ANC to assist them with people who could teach English at the university. And I did recommend that Marius Schoon should be asked to take on the assignment.
MR BIZOS: Why did you recommend them?
MR MAKGOTI: Well I knew Marius, I'd known Marius for a very long time, I've know Marius since 19 ... we were very close. And Marius was a person, he was, I thought he was the right kind of person, he had the academic qualifications when one thinks of teaching university students, and he was a committed person insofar as the ANC's work is concerned. I'd worked with him over a fairly long period, even when I was in Botswana and I had no doubt that Marius would be a very suitable person for such an undertaking.
MR BIZOS: Thank you, Mr Chairman, we have no further questions.
HAIRPERSON: Gentlemen, do you wish to adjourn the matter now or are you prepared to continue?
MR VISSER: Well Mr Chairman, perhaps it is better if we took an adjournment to make sure that we're going to cover or not cover matters.
CHAIRPERSON: What time do you suggest for tomorrow morning?
MR MAKGOTI: 10 o'clock works fine for me, Mr Chairman, but I'll have to abide by what you order.
CHAIRPERSON: Let's first confirm.
CHAIRPERSON: Is anybody else calling witnesses? Very well, 10 o'clock. We will adjourn now till 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
MR LEVINE: Mr Chairman, before we adjourn, could you give us perhaps an indication of how you propose matters will be dealt with after this witness has given evidence?
CHAIRPERSON: You may remember that I was requested the other day, and I spoke to all of you about it, whether we should adjourn for the day after we'd completed the evidence, to enable everybody to prepare their arguments and we would then carry on with argument the next day. Those of you who have written arguments could present them and amplify them as you wish if you wish to do so with oral argument. We have as you know this week and the whole of next week, so we should have ample time even if you give full vent to your views.
If we continue on that basis, I don't think we'll be very long tomorrow morning, you'll have the whole of tomorrow to prepare and then we'll start on Thursday.
MR LEVINE: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
MR BERGER: Chairperson, at the risk of being bold, would it be possible for us to start on Friday?
CHAIRPERSON: Is there any real reason why you need to? Why can't you start on Thursday?
MR BERGER: Well my learned friends are going to start on Thursday, so they should really be making the request, they'll go first.
MR VISSER: I hasten to support Mr Berger, Mr Chairman, in this matter. May I perhaps in supporting him, place before you the consideration, Mr Chairman, that we have had a number of days of hearing here, we've got a record of over 3 000 pages ...(intervention)
ADV DE JAGER: Mr Visser, you had a number of days to prepare it and we've warned you in December, and we've only had two days of hearing now with a few witnesses, and honestly, we can't, Mr Visser we're pressed to finish this work by the end of June and it's impossible ...(no microphone). Please help us and let's do as much as we can. It's not - we're available next week but we're also booked in Cape Town to proceed with decisions we've got to write, with paperwork we've got to do there, paper decisions. So we're really pressed as far as time is concerned.
MR VISSER: Yes, Mr Chairman, we certainly do have a very keen understanding of the problem which Mr de Jager is putting. The only point that I was going to make in supporting my learned friend, Mr Berger, is this Mr Chairman, it may very well be that allowing us a day extra may give us the opportunity of preparing written argument which will in fact shorten the oral proceedings, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: No, Mr Visser, we want a chance of appreciating your argument and questioning you on it if we have questions, not of merely being handed written argument, adjourning the matter and then finding that there's all sorts of matters we would like to raise with you. The written argument is merely an amplification, we want to hear argument.
MR VISSER: No, I appreciate that too, Mr Chairman, I do appreciate that as well. Well we're in your hands, Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: I think we'll adjourn till Thursday conscious of the fact that one of us has indicated from the commencement that he has problems on Friday which may shorten his argument considerably.
MR VISSER: Yes, Mr Chairman, that's referring to me, but you can't adjourn now until Thursday because we're first got to ...(intervention)
CHAIRPERSON: No, it's not referring to you.
MR VISSER: Oh, I see. But we'll have to hear the cross-examination of this witness tomorrow before we adjourn till Thursday.
CHAIRPERSON: We'll now adjourn till 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.