Stefaans Brmmer
DEFENCE Secretary Pierre Steyn came under intense pressure from the defence establishment after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s public release of details from the “third force” report which Steyn made in 1992.
After the truth commission bombshell last week, vultures gathered to pick De Klerk’s political bones – how else could it be when the commission’s deputy chair, Alex Boraine, accused De Klerk of entrusting action on Steyn’s report to three generals who had been implicated themselves?
But this week a National Party official remarked that the saga had turned out “quite well for us”. De Klerk and the NP had a flurry of denials and counter denials – including statements by Steyn appearing to contradict the commission’s – to thank.
Some speculate that Steyn’s statements – in which he claimed his report had not contained allegations against current South African National Defence Force chief George Meiring and two former generals – could have come due to pressure.
One Defence Secretariat official this week confirmed there had been “a lot of unpleasantness in the department … Everyone in the department thought he [Steyn] was against the chief of the defence force”. But the official claimed it was “not true at all” that Steyn had anything against Meiring.
Steyn, as civilian counterpart to Meiring, is theoretically the SANDF chief’s equal. But as head of the relatively recently established Defence Secretariat, Steyn will find it hard to perform his duties without the co-operation of Meiring and the senior officer corps of the SANDF, still dominated by personnel from the old dispensation.
Another official said Steyn had been treated “like an outcast” in the military establishment after the truth commission release. While he said Steyn had been right to point out that the evidence contained in his report had been based on untested intelligence, he felt Steyn had overreacted and denied too much.
In the end, Boraine released a statement saying the commission stood by the basics of its original release, and that it saw no “fundamental conflicts” between that basic position and that of a written statement Steyn had released on Friday last week. In fact, there were differences between what Steyn was reported to have said in media interviews, and Boraine’s position.
Boraine maintained in his later statement “the fact was that three generals whose names appeared in the report … were asked by … De Klerk to recommend the names of those against whom action should take place”. Steyn reportedly said at the weekend that his report had not recommended action against Meiring, then still army chief, General Kat Liebenberg, then defence force chief and General Joffel van der Westhuizen, then chief of military intelligence.
But the Mail & Guardian has it on good authority that Steyn’s report did, in fact, urge that the generals be investigated for their alleged neglect to take action where earlier investigations had implicated defence force members. Steyn’s report also raised specific allegations against all three generals.
Meiring said in a statement: “It would appear that to date no substantiation for the allegations in the [Steyn] report could be found.”
Steyn was not available for further comment this week.
Meanwhile, NP secretary general Roelf Meyer this week confirmed as “reasonable” an interpretation that De Klerk’s action on the Steyn report had been tempered by fears that excessive action could have led to a military revolt.
Meyer said: “At that stage there had been no agreement yet over the constitutional way ahead … Codesa II had collapsed by then, and there were no official negotiations. There was probably the potential that people in military circles would have said, `There is no certainty, let’s take matters into our own hands.’ I am not saying that they had that in mind, but there was the potential.”
President Nelson Mandela has also been in possession of Steyn’s report since some time after the elections.