TRUTH COMMISSION: re: Major General B. Mortimer concludes submission SEVERE CRITICISM FROM COMMISSIONERS

Record ID: 893653

  • Title: TRUTH COMMISSION: re: Major General B. Mortimer concludes submission SEVERE CRITICISM FROM COMMISSIONERS
  • Date: 21st October 1996
  • Summary: TRUTH COMMISSION: re: Major General B. Mortimer concludes submission SEVERE CRITICISM FROM COMMISSIONERS
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  • City: CAPE TOWN
  • Country: South Africa
  • Reuters ID: 96OCT21R11
  • Story Text:TRUTH COMMISSION HEARING IN CAPE TOWN: re: Major General B. Mortimer continues & concludes submission of former SADF

    03.10.44 KHAN COMMISSION
    03.10.57 CONCLUSION
    03.11.14 ...although we cannot speak on behalf of the old SADF it became abundantly clear that there is a deep regret for the death, pain & suffering that was caused on all sides by the conflict of the past and also a firm resolve to contribute to a better future for all...
    03.11.41 ...that answers to questions of what happened in the past are not readily available in files and documentation at the press of a button. Information is spread over the country....the Nodal Point...is a facilitating body at the service of the TRC and will do our utmost to ensure access to the information needed to carry out your mandate. END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    03.12.28 COMMISSIONER ALEX BORAINE THANKING MORTIMER
    03.14.05 MORTIMER LISTENING TO BORAINE
    03.14.18 ...this submission is breathtaking in its one-sidedness. I find it almost unbelievable that in 80 pages there can be no acknowledgement or acceptance that the SADF in implementing a policy of Apartheid, could bear no responsibility for a single death.
    03.14.49 I find it impossible to believe that those who were involved did not know of the death of women & children & innocent civilians in the conduct of it as you described it, a war.
    03.15.06 MORTIMER LISTENING I find it impossible to believe that those who compiled this report did not know that for eg. that the Goniwe Inquest found that the SADF as an institution was responsible for the deaths of Goniwe and the other 3...don't know why that wasn't included...
    03.15.35 ...and an acknowledgment that there is no-one in this country that is not part of the problem and part of the solution. Am I to understand that the compilers of this report and those whom you consulted, believe that at no single time in any act or ommission by the SADF, that was nothing of an unlawful nature throughout its work?
    03.16.12 In all its cross-border raids was there no mistake made, was there no unnecessary taking of life? We have had to listen over many months to many who have spoken to us as victims and told us of offences committed by both the SADF & the SAP - am I to understand that throughout this whole period that there was no-one in the chain-of-command who ever questioned the policy of the then government?
    03.16.59 That there was no opposition that there was no disagreement, that it simply blindly carried out its orders no matter what those orders may lead to?
    03.17.19 Am I...are we to understand...that there was not a single moment where people in high command, the level of generals for example, never asked the question as to why there was such deep-seated opposition to the system of Apartheid in SA over and above the fact that it was a communist plot to overtake SA & destroy our civilisation?
    03.18.23 PRESENTATION GOES INTO GREAT DETAIL ABOUT THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY ANC, PAC, RIGHTWING but the army is a knight in shining armour, simply doing its job...
    03.19.20 ...I must express my deep disappointment that this was not done...
    03.19.51 ...sometimes said that the messanger gets blamed for the bad news. I'm not attributing any blame to you personally whatsoever. You are here on behalf of an organisation, thank God, no longer exists...
    03.20.15 ...but I thought that somewhere there would be serious acknowledgement of some of the pain, tears and heartache that had been caused in the conflict not only by one side but by all sides...
    03.20.59 COMMISSIONER...in this presentation I see a litany of self-righteouness and self-justification...
    03.22.40 ..I am ver disappointed about it...in the Chronology of Operations there is nothing said more. I see statistics...
    03.24.02 ...in the Black on Black Violence there must have been the operation of the Third Force...
    03.24.27 RE: PARAMILITARY ASSISTANCE TO BUTHELEZI - OPERATION MARION Should I believe that in all these conflicts in the back areas...in these conflicts we have heard the hand of the Third Force and I know that the government had all along been denying that...
    03.25.08 ...but now it omes out clear here...indeed the Third Force was involved...was there any Third Force in the Black on Black Violence?
    03.25.26 MORTIMER: To the best of my knowledge, no.
    03.25.40 COMMENTS & QUESTIONS FROM COMMISSIONER POTGIETER RE: CCB & AVAILABLE RECORDS...and you made the point that no documentation other than that contained in the records of the Harms Commission is believed to exist. Is that in fact the case?
    03.26.37 Are there no records of the CCB apart from those few documents that were handed in at the Harms Commission? MORTIMER: In the preparation of this paper, we failed to find any records.
    03.26.58 If there were records, would you have expected to have found it?
    03.27.09 MORTIMER: We looked for other records which would I think indicate that one would expect to find records and we have failed to to that.
    03.27.28 Would that imply that those records have been destroyed?
    03.27.34 MORTIMER: Or they have all been handed over to the Harms Commission. The possibility does exist that things have been destroyed, yes.
    03.28.37 REGARDING CCB - would you be able as the Nodal Point to facilitate further particulars, some more info about this organisation...?
    03.29.05 GENERAL KLOPPER: As far as we have ascertained there have been no documents available other than documents that have been referred to in the Harms Commission...there is a reference to documents that have been destroyed or that have vanished. Yes the Nodal Point will further assist as far it is humanly possible to see if there are any documents available...there might be documents with people that I don't know of.
    03.30.51 CCB SEEMED TO HAVE CONTINUED TO EXIST AFTER THE HARMS COMMISSION - THERE MUST HAVE BEEN SOME OFFICIAL RECORD OF THAT?
    03.32.03 2SHOT OF KLOPPER & MORTIMER LOOKING THROUGH SUBMISSION DOCUMENT
    03.32.40 MORE SPECIFICS ABOUT OPERATIONS INSIDE THE COUNTRY BY SADF?
    03.32.51 MORTIMER: Cross-border pro-active steps are those ones that we have listed here...those are examples we have found by studying existing documentation. At this stage from studying existing documentation we have not identified such operations internally. However...the documentation is not necessarily all available at a central point at this stage...
    03.35.56 COMMISSIONER - COULD YOU TELL US WHY THE NODAL POINT & THE PERSONS INVOLVED IN THE COLLATION OF THIS INFO DECIDED OR GOT TO THE POINT THAT THIS SUBMISSION WOULD BE PURELY DESCRIPTIVE? WITHOUT SOME INTERPRETATION AT LEAST?
    03.41.05 HAS THERE EVER BEEN BIOLOGICAL OR CHEMICAL WARFARE?
    03.42.23 ...the SADF did pursue studies into chemical & biological warfare from a defensive point of view...
    03.44.11 BORAINE ASKING QUESTIONS RE COVERT COLLECTIONS
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