Investigations into struggle ‘crimes’ may affect Pretoria bomb suspect Helene Passtoors and others, reports Stefaans Brmmer
TRANSVAAL Attorney General Jan D’Oliveira’s investigation of ”crimes” committed in the course of the struggle against apartheid may catch up with high-profile foreigners who fought with South Africa’s liberation armies – notably former husband-and-wife team Helene Passtoors and Klaas de Jonge.
D’Oliveira’s office has confirmed that the 1983 Church Street bombing in Pretoria – in which some say that Passtoors was involved – is among a number of dockets requested from police and being considered afresh.
It is widely believed that the attorney general’s office, responsible for the prosecution of Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock, reopened investigations involving members of the liberation armies – stopped by FW de Klerk in the early 1990s to pave the way for negotiations – to restore its reputation for neutrality.
Passtoors’s has been repeatedly accused of smuggling the Church Street bomb across the border from Swaziland for the African National Congress armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe.
The powerful car bomb was targeted at an Air Force building but claimed civilian casualties among the 19 people killed and more than 100 injured.
The Belgian national was given a 10-year jail sentence in 1986 for ”treason”, arms smuggling and related charges, but was never charged for her alleged role in the Pretoria bombing.
Passtoors’s lawyer at the time, Cathy Satchwell – now a Supreme Court judge – told the Mail & Guardian that the police did try to link Passtoors to the bomb while she was in detention, but that it never came up in her subsequent trial. ”That could say something about the quality of the evidence they had,” she said.
Recently, the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport published what it claimed were excerpts of two letters written by Passtoors, while in detention in October 1985, to unnamed relatives of Church Street victims. In the letters she allegedly said she had driven a white Colt with Belgian registration plates across the border and left it at the Pretoria township of Mamelodi, where it was collected by the bombers. If she did indeed write the letters it is not known why the police did not use them in evidence against her.
In one of the letters she is said to have written: ”Strictly speaking, I also knew nothing of the car I was driving, but I think you could say I should have known, since I knew car bombs were among the possibilities and that I must have asked questions.”
After the explosion – the first Umkhonto initiative to take such a heavy civilian toll – there had been a feeling of ”shock” in the ANC, she reportedly wrote. ”Some, myself included, never expected it to be done in an urban area, but rather far away from civilians, such as defence force bases or barracks.”
Passtoors, who was deported from South Africa in 1989 after serving three years of her sentence, could not be reached for comment this week, and is said to be resident in Chile.
Human rights lawyer Brian Currin, who has represented victims before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and has acted for potential amnesty seekers, this week said it was technically possible that, should D’Oliveira find sufficient evidence against someone like Passtoors, application could be made to extradite her so she could be charged in South Africa.
While the chances of another country agreeing to extradition were slim when there was a political element to the crime, he would advise ”anyone to go for amnesty [before the Truth Commission] if there is a risk of being prosecuted”.
Currin said there was ”probably a general acceptance” that amnesty would not be necessary where acts were of a purely military nature, but the ”difficult” cases were those where civilians came to harm.
Passtoors’s former husband, Klaas de Jonge, this week said from the Netherlands that he had not considered the need for amnesty before – but that the prospect of prosecution by D’Oliveira meant he would now have to ”seek the support of the ANC” and discuss it with lawyers.
De Jonge, who also smuggled arms and reconnoitred for Umkhonto, managed to escape police after his arrest in 1985 and took refuge in the Dutch embassy in Pretoria, where he remained for more than two years before being allowed to leave South Africa.
He was allowed to visit South Africa in 1993 after signing an admission of guilt for ”treason” and arms smuggling, but it is not clear whether this gave him only temporary indemnity or full indemnity under earlier indemnity laws.
De Jonge said he was ”linked to a special unit that looked at military, and sometimes economic, targets” – and that while civilians were not targeted, some could have been killed. He would be ”amazed” if it were necessary to ask amnesty for purely military operations. ”[But] if mistakes were made, there is a certain responsibility, I agree.”
Mpumalanga Premier Matthews Phosa, who heads the ANC committee dealing with Truth Commission matters, this week said Passtoors, De Jonge and others could count on the organisation. ”If there were risks, these were equal risks, and we’ll share the risks,” he said.
But he refused to be drawn on whether he thought it necessary for those involved in the Church Street bombing to apply for amnesty, saying matters would not be approached ”on the basis of a single operation”.
Earlier remarks attributed to Phosa – that amnesty would not be necessary for Church Street because it was a military operation – led to threats from Truth Commission chair Archbishop Desmond Tutu to resign as ”the ANC cannot give itself amnesty”.
A truce was reached when the party told Tutu that while its struggle was just, ”where during the course of that struggle violations of human rights did occur, these must be acknowledged”.
Tutu’s representative, John Allen, this week said the rule remained: ”If you have been involved in something that would render you liable for criminal prosecution or civil action for damages, you should apply for amnesty.”