MARIUS OELSCHIG
Mr Chairman, I regret if such an impression has been created in my submission, that was not in fact how I felt.  I reject completely and absolutely any suggestion that I supported the maintenance of any of the previous political orders that existed in this country.  I was and I am today, a professional soldier.  My allegiance is to the Constitution of this country, not to political parties.  When I am given an order I accept that order as a soldier.  I always have and I always will.  I was sent to the Ciskei, not in order to maintain any given political situation.  The instructions which I received, having been withdrawn from the Joint Staff Course as a student, the most senior course that one can do in your military career and I accepted that withdrawal without complaint.  
 I was sent to the Ciskei to try and bring order to a force that was in the process of disintegrating.  There had been coups, there had been attempted coups.  Almost the entire military leadership of the Ciskei Defence Force had been dismissed before my arrival.  I was sent to the Ciskei to prepare that force for integration eventually into what is today the South African National Defence Force.  I spent my days and nights involved in trying to get good management, good leadership, good training, back to the Ciskei Defence Force.  I did not for a single moment involve myself in politics, I rejected it entirely and I dedicated myself to the military application of my job.  Everybody believed that because I was sent to the Ciskei, I must somehow have been involved politically.  Mr Chairman, I reject that.  I was never ever politically involved in Ciskei or any other politics.