staff
Rehana Rossouw
IN an attempt to build a case against two outspoken soldiers in his command, a colonel in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) made use of a classified Military Intelligence (MI) document, a court-martial in the Western Cape has revealed.
Staff Sergeant Herman Pheiffer and Corporal Dawid Booysen, both based at Group 31 in Paarl, are being court-martialled on a number of charges including that they had falsely alleged that their commanding officer and others in their group were racist and did not support the integration of the armed forces.
The two are also charged with discussing a sensitive military operation with SANDF members outside Group 31, and attempting to make copies of classified documents. The charges stem from the two soldiers’ conduct while helping out with an MI investigation into arms smuggling.
Colonel George McLoughlin admitted on the stand last week that he charged the two soldiers after receiving a classified document that detailed their complaints about him. It is irregular for a commanding officer not in MI to be privy to the contents of classified documents.
McLoughlin said he had received the document from the head of MI in the Western Cape, Lieutenant Colonel Gouws. Both McLoughlin and Gouws have been transferred from their posts since the start of the court-martial.
Pheiffer and Booysen have already appeared twice at a court-martial. The hearing was resumed last week then postponed again until April 7. It is being held in camera. The SANDF has not responded to requests by the Mail & Guardian for details of the hearing.
But it has been established that McLoughlin, who was on the stand for four days last week, admitted that he had charged Booysen and Pheiffer only after seeing the classified intelligence report. The report has since been declassified for the purposes of the court-martial.
The report came out of an investigation conducted by MI in which Booysen and Pheiffer had assisted. The M&G reported in January that the two men had been approached by a MI officer in April 1996 and asked if they had any information about the disappearance of weapons in their unit’s area of responsibility.
Some of Group 31’s soldiers had reported to McLoughlin in November 1995 that they had discovered a distribution point for weapons allegedly smuggled from Angola to South Africa. They provided MI with this information.
Booysen and Pheiffer agreed to assist with the investigation and became MI sources.
In the course of reporting to the MI officer, they also complained about McLoughlin’s alleged racism and alleged intolerance towards former members of Umkhonto weSizwe and the Azanian People’s Liberation Army who had been integrated into the SANDF.
Booysen and Pheiffer were informed in December last year that they were being transferred from Paarl on the grounds that they had interfered with state witnesses. Although no evidence was presented that they had done so, both were given a few hours’ notice of the transfer – Booysen to Oudtshoorn and Pheiffer to 9 South African Infantry Battalion in Kuilsriver. Both have ignored the instruction and remained in Paarl.
Last week, the head of Western Province Command, General Dan Lamprecht signed orders that the two report to their new units on detached duty on the grounds that they had threatened witnesses to their court-martial with physical violence.
Requests for more information about the alleged threats have been refused. The SANDF has also refused to grant a hearing about the matter.
Booysen has told relatives that if he is detained for refusing to carry out Lamprecht’s instruction, he would embark on a hunger strike.
An SANDF representative said the detached duty was a precautionary measure in the interest of justice.