TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 8

Subsection 8

South African Defence Force

66 In June 1997, the Commission began trying to set up the joint investigative team. It was hoped, at that stage, to conduct a broad investigation of record destruction by SADF structures. However, the team was only finally constituted in December 1997, after several unsuccessful attempts by the Commission to initiate the enquiry. As indicated earlier, by the time the SANDF finally offered its co-operation, much time had been lost and it became necessary to adopt objectives that were more modest. These included:

a the securing of an overview of SADF records management practice; and

b focused probes into record keeping by Military Intelligence and other particularly sensitive structures and operations.

67 The investigation was completed in March 1998 and received good support from the SANDF personnel involved.

68 Throughout the period under review (1960 - 1994), the SADF was fully subject to both the Archives Act and the professional supervision of SAS. However, the SADF enjoyed a special status within this framework. It managed its own archival repository (the SADF Archives) and, from the late 1960s, provided its own records management service (through the SADF Archives) to SADF structures. Both functions were supervised by SAS. Standing orders required that records be destroyed only in terms of authorisations signed by the Director of Archives, and that destruction certificates be submitted to the SADF Archives.

69 However, from at least 1971, conflicting standing orders authorised the routine destruction of classified records without reference to the SADF Archives, the Director of Archives or the Archives Act. The evidence provided by extant internal destruction certificates suggests that substantial volumes of records were destroyed in this way without any archival intervention. Neither the SADF Archives nor the Director of Archives appears to have been aware of the existence of these orders.

70 In November 1991, the SADF received the instruction from the NIS, referred to earlier, requiring it to collect and transfer to that body all records in its custody related to the State Security Council Secretariat. The instruction was interpreted to embrace all NSMS records, which were systematically secured and prepared for transfer to NIS. While the joint investigative team could find no documentary evidence of the transfer, an executive plan was identified which, according to strong verbal evidence, had been put into effect by 1993.

71 In 1992 Lieutenant-General Steyn, the then SADF Chief of Staff, was appointed to investigate SADF intelligence activities. On 23 November 1992, all SADF structures were informed that from then on records were only to be destroyed with the express approval of Steyn.

72 However, in mid-1993, the Cabinet-approved guidelines for the disposal of ‘state sensitive documentation’ were received. The Chief of the SADF ordered their immediate implementation, thus effectively repealing General Steyn’s instruction. Two joint teams, consisting of inspector general and counter intelligence personnel, were appointed to visit all units and to identify records for destruction. A countrywide destruction exercise followed. This exercise failed, by and large, to produce the required destruction certificates, making analysis of its impact extremely difficult.

73 Several processes sustained the disposal of SADF records outside the ambit of archival legislation. Not mentioned above, and impossible to quantify, were the unauthorised ad hoc removals and destruction undertaken by individuals. Assessing the overall impact of these processes was beyond the joint investigative team’s capacity. However, several probes sought to arrive at a general sense of their impact.

a Although subjected to close scrutiny during the 1993 destruction exercise, a large volume of Military Intelligence files survived. The joint investigative team identified three discrete file groups at the SANDF Archives: group number 14, comprising 299 boxes of files covering the period 1977 - 1987; group number 21, comprising 254 files covering the period 1975 - 1987; and group number 30, comprising 529 boxes of files covering the period 1976 - 1996. However, significant gaps were identified. For instance, no record accumulations of the Directorate Special Tasks or the Directorate Covert Collection could be found, and only a small accumulation of Contra-mobilisation Projects (COMOPS).

b No record accumulation relating to the CCB could be found.

c Spot checks revealed that not all personnel files could be made available, raising the question as to whether or not such files had been destroyed.

d Spot checks suggested that substantial documentation of cross border operations in neighbouring countries had survived.

e Very little NSMS documentation managed by the SADF had survived. The only significant accumulation comprised fifty-four boxes of files (now in the SANDF Archives), generated in the Eastern Cape and preserved for use in the Goniwe Inquest. However, some other NSMS documentation was identified in each of the three military intelligence file groups described above.

74 The joint team also conducted two supplementary probes:

a A task group authorised by the Chief of the SANDF in June 1994 managed the acquisition by the SANDF Archives of all extant records of the former defence forces of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei. These forces had been amalgamated with the SADF and non-statutory forces to form the SANDF in April 1994. Apart from the 1 544 boxes of files secured from the former Bophuthatswana Defence Force, relatively insignificant documentary traces were secured: eighty boxes of files from the Transkei, 115 from the Ciskei and 331 from Venda. Personnel files have been excluded from these figures, as they were integrated with the SANDF’s personnel file series.

b The records of the South West Africa Territory Force were subjected to systematic appraisal in an exercise initiated in December 1988. Decisions about which records were to be destroyed were authorised by the commanding officer. There was no consultation with the civilian archives repository in Windhoek, the SADF Archives, or the State Archives Service. Records that survived this exercise were placed in the custody of the SADF Archives.