Twelve former security policemen appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's amnesty committee on Monday to ask for pardon for their role in the killing of 14 people in a raid on suspected African National Congress targets in Botswana in June 1985.
The hearing, at the Methodist Church in Johannesburg's city centre, had been postponed in July to allow survivor Livingston Pahle to attend. He now lives in New York.
One of the 12 policemen, Brigadier Wikus Loots, testified that he was not present when the attack took place. At the time he was second-in-command of the Western Transvaal branch of the security police, and his brief was to gather and co-ordinate information about ANC and Pan Africanist Congress activities in Botswana during the 1980s.
Loots said South Africa had been infiltrated from Botswana on a regular basis since the 1970s.
When attempts to persuade Botswana to intervene had failed, the police and the South African Defence Force decided to identify prominent Umkhonto weSizwe operatives in Botswana and kill them.
Loots said a list of names was compiled during several meetings of the various regional branches of the security police. A list of 39 names was submitted to a panel at police headquarters in Pretoria.
SADF head General Constand Viljoen, police commissioner General Johann Coetzee and General Kat Liebenberg of the SADF special forces were present.
From the list of 39, a shorter list of 10 was compiled.
Loots said the order was very clear: if children were found near the targets, the place and people were to be removed from the list. He said the police provided information about the targets and the defence force carried out the attacks.
The targets identified in Gaborone were attacked on the morning of June 14 1985.
Loots testified that he did not know the names of the victims who died in the attack. He could not say if any of them, as identified in newspaper reports and by the ANC, were on the list submitted to the panel in Pretoria. He conceded that innocent people might have been killed.
Loots added that he regretted the role he had played in the Botswana raid. "The June 14 raid is part of our history, but if you look back, you cannot but regret that it had to happen." he said.
The 12 who are applying for amnesty are Lodewyk de Jager, Johannes Meyer, Anton Pretorius, Willem Coetzee, Manuel Antonio Olifant, Philip Rudolf Crause, Stanley Schutte, Christoffel Johannes Smit, Petrus Johannes Coetzee, John Louis McPherson, Johannes Albertus Steyn, and Loots.
The hearing continues. - Sapa