TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 6

Subsection 9

90 This rhetoric made no distinction between persons engaged in military operations or acts of terrorism and those who opposed apartheid by lawful or peaceful means. The word ‘terrorist’ was used constantly, but never defined. Nor was a distinction drawn between activists and those who only supported or associated with them. All were lumped together as one target – a single category of persons to be killed. Whether one carried a gun, or only shared a bed or offered food and shelter to the combatant, seems to have been a matter of indifference to the total strategists. In the opinion of the Commission, the kind of rhetoric employed by politicians and SSC functionaries was reckless, inflammatory and an incitement to unlawful acts.

91 This led to a blurred distinction in the minds of the security forces between persons who posed a real danger to public safety and those who simply opposed the policies of the government, and consequently between those who might be legitimate targets of military action and those who were not. The sheer scale of resistance, the time-consuming and resource-intensive nature of prosecutions and the widespread reluctance of ordinary people to testify in courts of law resulted in a shift to unlawful methods of combating resistance. This shift was conceded by numerous high-ranking security force members, including former police commissioner Johan van der Merwe (see above quotation).

92 At the Commission’s hearings on the SSC, senior politicians and some senior military and intelligence heads argued emphatically that although what they referred to as “ambiguous language” might or could have been interpreted as authorising illegal conduct, it was not the intention of the SSC or the cabinet that any illegal acts or actions should be undertaken.

93 This view was in sharp contrast to that of security force operatives who said that the word ‘eliminate’ could, in certain circumstances, mean ‘kill’, or that they interpreted it as meaning ‘kill’. General Johan van der Merwe, himself a member of the SSC during his period of office as police commissioner, testified thus:

If you tell a soldier “eliminate your enemy”, depending on the circumstances he will understand that means killing. It is not the only meaning, but it is specifically one meaning. (Armed forces hearing , transcript, p. 32.)

94 He said that the use of this language at the SSC did cause security forces to take actions that resulted in the death of activists:

Commission: … I am saying would you agree that that unfortunate use of that language, "vernietig", "uitroei", "uit te wis", "elimineer" [destroy, eradicate, to wipe out, eliminate] and so on, … resulted in deaths, would you agree with that?

General van der Merwe: Yes Mr Chairman. (Ibid, p. 34.)

95 It is in this context that one must evaluate the use by the SSC of words such as ‘elimineer’, ‘neutraliseer’, ‘uitwis’, ‘verwyder’ in relation to steps to be taken against members of the ANC and their sympathisers.

96 Consequently, the Commission cannot accept that members of the security forces serving on the SSC, and ministers in charge of security portfolios, did not reasonably foresee that such words could be interpreted by members of the security forces as authorisation under certain circumstances to kill persons involved in resistance.

97 The Commission makes this assertion for a number of reasons:

a If the decisions or recommendations of the SSC and its plans were intended to authorise only lawful steps, as alleged by members like Mr de Klerk, General Magnus Malan and Dr LD (Niel) Barnard, these should have been explicitly spelt out. If the intention was to detain, restrict, arrest, ban or deport, it is incomprehensible that such words were not used rather than words such as ‘elimineer’ and ‘verwyder’. It is also incomprehensible that senior politicians and other members of the SSC did not, where they considered the instructions vague or imprecise, alter any of the documents submitted to them and replace them with words whose meaning was perfectly clear.

b Words such as ‘elimineer’ and ‘neutraliseer’ are used in earlier SSC documents with the unambiguous meaning of ‘kill’ or ‘assassinate’.

c All military and police structures operate on a basis of clear and precise instructions and have conventions of service writing that stress the necessity of operatives knowing and understanding exactly what is required and expected of them.¹ Given that the SSC was central to an essentially militarily driven strategy, one must conclude that these words were intended to mean exactly what they said.

d The Commission does not believe it possible that senior politicians and generals in charge of the security forces could be so out of touch with the mindsets and discourses of the period that they did not anticipate, understand and foresee the consequences of the decisions they took in the SSC. The Commission’s view is that they must have foreseen that security police and SADF operatives would interpret expressions as ‘take out’, ‘wipe out’, ‘eradicate’ and ‘eliminate’ as meaning ‘kill’. Indeed, it is the Commission’s view that SSC documents represent a perfect illustration of the notion of plausible deniability. The Commission rejects attempts by politicians to phrase instructions in a way that causes their subordinates to take responsibility for acts of which the politicians are the intellectual authors.

e A further basis for concluding that members of the SSC did foresee that the use of words such as ‘eliminate’ would result in deaths is that there is no evidence of any attempt by the SSC to set in motion any substantive or comprehensive investigation into the killing of political opponents once this began to happen. Although there were police investigations after each killing, these were often manifestly inadequate and often took the form of cover-ups. Neither did the SSC at any stage issue any statement or directive clarifying its orders and strategies to the effect that they should under no circumstances be interpreted as authorisation for illegal activities. This failure is aggravated by the fact that Dr Niel Barnard, former head of NIS and a member of the SSC, did draw to the attention of the chairperson of the SSC, Mr PW Botha, that he had received information that there were ‘misunderstandings’ by the security forces and that he was concerned that they might be engaged in unlawful activities.

98 There was extensive coverage of the deaths of prominent anti-apartheid activists in both the international and local media and, in many instances, strong suspicion was directed at the security forces. Despite this, there was a consistent failure to devote sufficient attention to this information or to heed the protests of persons drawing attention to abuses by the security forces. This is summed up in the words of a former Minister of Law and Order, Mr Leon Wessels, to the effect that ‘we did not wish to know’.

99 It is on these grounds that the Commission finds in relation to members of the SSC, that:

CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE SSC (THE STATE PRESIDENT, MINISTER OF DEFENCE, MINISTER OF LAW AND ORDER, AND HEADS OF SECURITY FORCES) DID FORESEE THAT THE USE OF WORDS SUCH AS ‘TAKE OUT’, ‘WIPE OUT’, ‘ERADICATE’, AND ‘ELIMINATE’ WOULD RESULT IN THE KILLING OF POLITICAL OPPONENTS. THEY ARE THEREFORE RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIBERATE PLANNING WHICH CAUSED GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS [IN TERMS OF SECTION 4(A)(IV) OF THE ACT].

THE COMMISSION THEREFORE FINDS THEM TO BE PERSONS INVOLVED IN THE GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS WHICH DID OCCUR AND, FURTHERMORE, THAT THE SSC WAS AN INSTITUTION INVOLVED IN GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS [IN TERMS OF SECTION 4(A)(III) OF THE ACT].

CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE SSC (PARTICULARLY THOSE NOT DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN SECURITY MATTERS) DID NOT FORESEE THAT THE USE OF THESE WORDS WOULD RESULT IN KILLINGS, BUT NEVERTHELESS REMAIN POLITICALLY AND MORALLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE DEATHS THAT OCCURRED [IN TERMS OF SECTION 4(A)(V) OF THE ACT] FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS. THEY FAILED TO EXERCISE PROPER CARE IN THE WORDS THEY USED; THEY FAILED PROPERLY TO INVESTIGATE KILLINGS THAT OCCURRED AND THEY FAILED TO HEED COMPLAINTS ABOUT ABUSE. THROUGH THEIR USE OF MILITANT RHETORIC, THEY ALSO CREATED A CLIMATE WHERE VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS WERE POSSIBLE. THEY ARE THEREFORE GUILTY OF ‘OFFICIAL TOLERANCE’ OF VIOLATIONS AND ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR SUCH VIOLATIONS.