ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL
Thank you Commissioner.  I think the question you have put to me is a fair one and that is, if I understood you correctly, and that is whether there were any changes in methods to deal with situations.  I can say to you that certainly at the time when the ANC were unbanned and other parties - when the negotiating process started and when I came to the Police the whole attitude of the Police was to use minimum force to handle situations.  But it must also be remembered that at that very crucial time in the history of our country it was essential that we have a climate in which negotiations could take place.  So we also had a duty to try and maintain order in our country.
 Coming back closer to what happened at Bisho, I can say to you if you think that on that day we should have taken away all the weapons, there was no way that bar creating a war that we could take the weapons away from the Brigadier's army.  I also want to say to you that there was no way in which the Police could search 18,000 people, I think that's the number they say that were there that day, to find and confiscate weapons.  There are certain situations that it's just not possible to do that and that was one of them. You couldn't, with the number of policemen available and policewomen do that, it's just not possible.
 We must also say to each other that at that stage it was not only the defence force in possession of firearms, but many of the people, not part of the old regime, were also in possession of firearms.  I mean AK47's was a daily 
EAST LONDON HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
44 H KRIEL
thing for us to see.  So it would not have been possible for us to do that on that specific day.