TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 8

Subsection 10

■ CONCLUSIONS

Destruction in terms of the Archives Act

84 No state has the resources to preserve permanently all the records generated by it. The information ‘explosion’ of the second half of the twentieth century has made it essential that rigorous selection policies be applied to records which have served their shorter term functional and accountability purposes. In the United States, for example, between 1950 and 1985, the authorised destruction of 120 million cubic metres of federal records took place.²³ The selection policies of some countries’ national archives secure for archival preservation as little as 1 per cent of all state records²⁴; the SAS estimates that the policies implemented in South Africa between 1960 and 1994 secured the preservation of approximately 15 per cent of state records.

85 In this period, huge volumes of state records were destroyed with the authorisation of either the Archives Commission (until 1979) or SAS (under the signature of the Director of Archives). While there is evidence that SAS attempted to secure a degree of professional autonomy, it is highly improbable that apartheid imperatives did not mould selection decisions. Indeed, numerous instances of this can be cited: for instance, in 1968 Military Intelligence was given authorisation (SV-35) to destroy classified records on a ‘read and destroy’ basis; it took the post-February 1990 winds of change to stimulate a review of an earlier decision not to preserve even a sample of Group Areas Act case files; and, as is recounted earlier in this chapter, the Director of Archives colluded with NIS in 1992 in securing authorisation for the quick destruction of financial and related records.

86 Clearly, a comprehensive account of state record destruction requires a thorough analysis of archival selection policies and practices. However, the over 4 000 record disposal authorities issued to state offices in the period under review placed such an analysis beyond the capacity of the Commission. This is another important story that remains to be told elsewhere.

Destruction outside the operation of the Archives Act

87 In the period 1960 - 1989, the SAS investigated numerous cases of alleged or actual destruction of state records, which had occurred without archival authorisation. Most cases of such destruction involved disasters such as fires and flooding, or resulted from negligence in the management of records. In not a single instance was the SAS able to identify sinister motivation – for example, the deliberate destruction of documentary evidence. This does not mean, of course, that such destruction never took place.

88 The evidence recounted earlier in this chapter demonstrates that the security establishment did, in fact, routinely destroy documentation without archival authorisation in the pre-1990 era. With the exception of the Department of Prison Services and the SADF, the SAS chose to avoid exercising its managerial responsibility in relation to these bodies’ records systems. There is, indeed, no evidence of pre-1990 professional liaison between the SAS and other components of the security establishment. The reasons for this abrogation of responsibility are not clear. What is clear is that the State Archives Service was not in a position to detect the unauthorised destruction that was taking place.

89 It is also of significant interest that, when the Department of Justice transferred the Rivonia Treason Trial records into the custody of the SAS in 1995, it was discovered that most of the records were missing – although, again there is no evidence which suggests these records were in fact destroyed. An intensive investigation by the SAS failed to reveal what had happened to them.²⁵

90 After February 1990, security establishment structures became increasingly apprehensive about certain state records passing out of their control at some future date. This resulted in a marked shift towards a more systematic and vigorous attempt to destroy state records. The NIS began a systematic destruction programme in 1991, the Security Branch of the SAP in 1992 and the SADF in 1993. At the same time operatives apparently began removing state records as ‘insurance policies’ for the future. This was done, for instance, by several CCB operatives. The Harms Commission of Enquiry revealed that the remaining CCB records had been systematically destroyed.²⁶

91 In the course of its routine work in 1997, the NIA discovered several trunks of classified documents on South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) programme and apparent hit-squad activities. These had been placed in the premises of a former colleague by Brigadier Wouter Basson, previously head of the SADF’s CBW programme. This documentation, which had been removed from the custody of the state, highlights the extent to which ‘state sensitive’ employees of the state appropriated documentation for their own purposes. In this instance, the documentation was returned to and scrutinised by the NIA as well as Commission personnel as a basis for their enquiry into the nature and extent of the CBW programme.

92 In November 1991, the NIS instructed all government departments to collect documentation of the State Security Council Secretariat in their custody and to transfer it to the NIS. As argued earlier, the purpose of the exercise appears to have been the systematic selective destruction of such documentation. In 1993, it was revealed that all Koevoet records had disappeared while in transit between Windhoek and Pretoria.²⁷

93 By May 1994, a massive deletion of state documentary memory within the security establishment had been achieved. To what extent the systematic destruction was co-ordinated, and the question of whether or not it was sanctioned by Cabinet in its preliminary phase, is unclear. However, as recounted earlier, by 1993 Cabinet was both aware of the phenomenon and had authorised its expansion to involve all state offices. The motivation for this purging of official memory was clearly to prevent certain categories of record falling into the hands of the incoming government. The apartheid state was determined in this way to sanitise its image and protect its intelligence sources. It was also apparently intent on eliminating evidence of gross human rights violations. In this regard, the security establishment had most cause to destroy records.