MS BURTON:

Our first witness is Kobus Pienaar who is an attorney who worked in this area, he works in Cape Town now, but he worked in this area during the 1980’s and Dr Ramashala will facilitate his evidence - Mr Pienaar please come and take your place.

Before you begin, may we ask you to take the oath and for you to stand please.

KOBUS PIENAAR Duly sworn states

DR RAMASHALA:

Thank you Mr Chairperson - good morning Mr Pienaar. Before you begin, I’d like to just make a few statements, Oudtshoorn experienced a traumatic political upheaval during 1985 that continued into 1986. Resistance became even more resolved by newly emerged organisations such as the Bhongolethu Young Organisation and the Bhongolethu Civic Association. In particular resistance was sparked off by Security Forces - Security Force actions taken against residents who participated in commemoration service on June 16^th 1985 after which three children were killed.

During 1987 sixteen kitskonstabels were sent to Bhongolethu to police the area after their six weeks of training. The kitskonstabels proved to be a law unto themselves - between September 1987 and January 1988 less than six months, at least six activist were injured by kitskonstabels a remarkable series of incidents, involving the kitskonstabels was recorded by the police themselves in the Bhongolethu police station incident book.

Mr Chairperson Mr Pienaar will give us a context - that will give us a good appreciation of the subsequent cases we will hear this morning. And to that I welcome Mr Pienaar and ask that he describe for us not only the establishment, the history and the activities of the kitskonstabels but to give us a context against - which in a bad round against, which we will get a good understanding of the cases that come in before us, thank you.

MR PIENAAR:

Thank you doctor, I - I hope not to speak for too long, because this is just a background statement of somebody speaking who use to speak for people during the times of dark depression when often the only way people had to have their messages here heard, was through lawyers. So I’ll try to be quite brief as I understand it this is the time for people themselves to tell their stories.

But just as a matter of background I worked in the Knysna, George, Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn area during 1986/87/88 when I moved to Port Elizabeth and continued to work on some cases in the area. But some - something that stood out as quite horrific from this area, apart from many cases of police torture that were reported in some cases, Supreme Court action was instituted - the large scale, the tensions without trial that took place in small places even like Plettenberg Bay, was the presence of the kitskonstabels.

And they were from what I understood speaking to people living in Bhongolethu which was also received it’s share of kitskonstabels just like Mossel Bay and other towns, were often people from the area who were poor, and who actually were recruited by advertisement or so and went for a short period of training at Koeberg at the time.

And a statement that has always struck me was for me somehow to understand the need for kitskonstabels at that very time in our history and I am talking about largely untrained people who were merely given six weeks training and then issued with a lethal shotgun with SSG shot - double - it was a semi automatic shotgun with live ammunition. A tear gas canister, handcuffs, a rubber baton and a aerosol can of tear gas. With hardly any training these people were sent into the townships and the statement that seem to capture it for me was statement in Die Burger of 28 September 1986, which reported that Minister Louis le Grange the then Minister of Law and Order was reported to have said that the Transvaal Nationalist Party Congress that Minister Le Grange to have said that 1,000 special constables that had a instant course of three weeks to learn how to become policeman, law officers, were going to be sent into the townships with fire arms and sjamboks in the black townships in the struggle against the comrades.

And what happened to me as an attorney in practising Knysna was - I started working in Oudtshoorn and apart from doing bail applications and defending people on charges at the time and public violence, arson, and other unrest related charges, was an increase in complaints and incidents about problems with kitskonstabels assaults, tension, harassment, confiscation of - of goods and documents, entry into people’s homes without good reason.

And these complaints during early 1987 just increased and increased when the members of Bhongolethu community came to see me and I also spoke to them and asked what - what in the world could we do to try and quell the - the unlawful actions that they were suffering from - kitskonstabels.

The Bhongolethu inhabitants at the time were particularly fearful that the presence of the kitskonstabels this was now during mid 1987 would - their presence and their actions would cause - would cause tension to rise in the township and would cause them to spiral down into the violence which was experienced in Bhongolethu during the 1985’s - the time when I was not present or in the area.

Community members also complained that one of their problems was that the area was - hardly had any legal assistance, it was halfway between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and local attorneys refused to represent people who were arrested for unrest related charges.

Another peculiar or not peculiar but common complaint was - and I just read from the statement - affidavit that was made by Mr Skosana who at the time was the field worker for the Council of Churches based in Bhongolethu, Mr Skosana had to say:

And he said he made these observations from all his experiences and from reading and helping and taking a number of statements. So during this mid July 1987 a whole range of affidavits were taken of alleged unlawful activities by kitskonstabels and on the 24^th of July.

A urgent Supreme Court application was lodged in the Cape Town Supreme Court, asking the Court to give a order interdicting the police from acting unlawfully - it’s a strange country where one goes to the Supreme Court to ask the Court to stop the police from unlawfully arresting, detaining, assaulting, seizing of possessions, entering into people’s homes, threatening and insulting and intimidating.

And this order was asked to be granted against the police so deployed in Bhongolethu and specifically against the sixteen kitskonstabels who were mentioned by name in the application. Unfortunately the Court did not grant an interim order but by agreement the matter was postponed and the police gave an undertaking that the members of the police force in Bhongolethu will not without lawful reason, arrest, detain, take documents, papers etcetera.

But despite those undertakings and as Doctor said in the police’s own records, just to give you a few examples, the state of play with regard to the kitskonstabels were - this was reported in the Bhongolethu police station incident book.

This is just in the space of May, June, July to August - and these were the types of incidents and actions that were going on, this was after - some of them after the police gives the guarantee and one further incident which we will all remember was the Saamstaan reporter Patric Nyuka who was shot by a kitskonstabel on the 19^th of September 1987 and seriously injured.

And these incidents just went on from week to week, the Supreme Court matter was postponed for trial on the 20^th of February and on the 16^th of January 1988, one of the worst incidents happened and this was when three persons died after kitskonstabels went on a shooting spree and then others were injured.

One of the people who was seriously injured died some months later and was a dear person called Moses Mvimbi who was a teacher from Bhongolethu, who died as a result of the wounds from that shooting spree.

And so this shooting spree then erupted and we then drafted another Supreme Court application through the night and had it lodged in the Cape Town court the following morning, and then only finally only managed to get an interim order in terms of which the Supreme Court interdicted the kitskonstabels from any unlawful actions against the inhabitants in Bhongolethu.

At this time kitskonstabel complaints and court actions were also lodged in Molteno and Aberdeen for instance in the Eastern Cape on the 14^th of - on the 12^th of January a final court order was granted interdicting kitskonstabels from acting in any unlawful matter towards inhabitants in the Aberdeen township.

So the presence of kitskonstabels and the problems around them was something that was pervasive throughout small towns in the area.

The final and I’ll shortly stop run down of the Bhongolethu supreme court application was that on the 18^th of February 1988 an undertaking was given by the Minister of Law and Order - Mr Adriaan Vlok that the kitskonstabels for the Southern Cape districts and the kitskonstabel [indistinct] in the Supreme Court application would not unlawfully, arrest, detain, assault, seize possession etcetera. And this undertaking was then made a final court order.

The agreement of settlement further stated that the respondents, the Minister of Law and Order agreed to the final order without admitting liability and without admitting directly or indirectly the correctness of the allegations that were contained in the affidavits.

And also said that if the trial was to proceed it would be of a lengthy nature involving large costs with concomitant withdrawal of a large portion of the available Police Force from the area as well as the acknowledgement by both parties that the relationships in the area should be improved.

So without admitting much the - the application brought a great deal of publicity about what was going on in Bhongolethu but did not really see to police officers being charged or suspended from duty. In fact just on the day before the case was finally settle, Pumulelo Vena on the 17^th of February was allegedly assaulted by kitskonstabels and beaten up with the kitskonstabels reiterating to him that they were the law in the township.

So that is just a little bit of background if you’d like to ask any further questions to some of the issues that - that were at play during that time in Bhongolethu.

DR RAMASHALA:

Thank you Mr Pienaar, I have one question and then I will proceed to my colleagues. Much has been said about the brilliant strategy of black on black violence. In your opinion do you think that the kitskonstabels were one of that strategy especially since they could move around in the townships and they could gather information in very unique ways.

Is, was this one of the strategies of black on black violence?

MR PIENAAR:

Well if one probably - if one sees it as black people being employed in a way with - without being trained with shotguns, with tear gas canisters, with sjamboks and batons, and literally let loose to walk a ground as a group as they did in - in Bhongolethu and what came out of that.

I would think it definitely helped or pushed violence from black people to black people - especially in Bhongolethu where many of the - of the kitskonstabels of the time as I understood, subject to being corrected, but I understood that a number of them actually came from the area and were then re-deployed.

But often it also seemed to be that they were people who without employment in any event and they would then earn a salary of R400-00 a month - get a place to stay, be given power. So they were in some way maybe also victims of circumstance there. But I would think the thinking behind taking in the kitskonstabels that one needs to call Adriaan Vlok to come and answer and find out exactly how these arrangements were made and how the decisions were taken.

DR RAMASHALA:

Chairperson [indistinct]

CHAIRPERSON:

Any - no - well thank you very much I - I just one or two observations - the first is to comment you because it could not have been easy to have taken on the role that you did take on of being willing to represent legally people who were generally regarded as distractible and I want to say on behalf of all of them and of ourselves, thank you that you did take on that.

And it is not insignificant given where we are in this country, that you are Afrikaner, and it is important for our country - for this part of our truth to be known - where we could show very easily say the wrong was done - I mean largely done by Afrikaans speaking people. It is - it is an important point to stress. But there were very many too such as yourself, Afrikaans speaking who stood out when it was not easy, in fact it was often certainly unprofitable if not dangerous.

The second is and speaking about an arm of the Police Force that was being used in this way, very characteristic I think of how often the police were politicised in the period that we are bidden to look into. And it is - it is good ... end of Tape 1, side A ... where do you come from, now we are seeing the Police Force being turned into the friends of the people and we have them here and now providing us with security and we - we want to give thanks for that development as well, thank you.

MR PIENAAR:

Thank you.

DR RAMASHALA:

I just want to ask Mr Pienaar, and this may be incorrect, but you yourself were arrested and assaulted at one time, is that correct?

MR PIENAAR:

No I - there has been some threats of arrest, but that never took place. I - I have been assaulted but it wasn’t by a policeman, it was by somebody who kicked us out of a municipal caravan park for not being all white.

But I did receive some - I did received a threat and had my car slashed in about - it must have been August 1987 - during this time where I was living in Knysna.

DR RAMASHALA:

Thank you anyway.

MR PIENAAR:

Thanks - and thank you Mr Chairman for your kind - kind words.

CHAIRPERSON:

Thank you.

MS BURTON:

Thank you Mr Pienaar.