ANDRIES STEPHANUS KRIEL
For those of us here who did not live with the AWB for a number of years it would be difficult to understand exactly how things functioned there.  I do not wish to take up too much of the Committee's time but I would just like to sketch a picture for you.  Over the years there was a number of increasingly confusing statements made by the AWB.  At one stage, Mr Terre'blanche would say "destroy all the blacks" and the next day he would say something completely different and we reached the stage in approximately 1988/89 when the Aquillos were established and I was a Commander of a region and we encouraged people to establish cells and to devolve from other organisations because we had security problems in the AWB.  Pardon me for speaking too long but I must indicate that the Commanders of that time saw the ANC as a complete enemy, it was the order of the day within the AWB that the ANC was regarded as an enemy and we all had consensus with one another that the ANC members should be killed.  We had no doubts about that, that was what the AWB was about, there was an enemy, the enemy had to be eliminated.  I must say that I am grateful that we could attend the Amnesty Committee meeting today because I myself have a conscience which I must cleanse and the Amnesty Committee is granting us the opportunity to do this.  If it was not for this Committee we would still be involved in a struggle and I would like to say that there are young men who have ended up in prison as a result of people such as me and Mr Terre'blanche who gave orders and the true people who are behind these matters, we encouraged people from platforms at that time.  We encouraged them, we told them that there was an enemy out there who had to be eliminated and I must say to you today that I regret it.  We expected that the day that the ANC took over government that there would be a great witch hunt on our nation.  It did not happen, in other words we were part of a big mistake.  In fact the government of the day established a Volkstaat's Council which the former regime never granted us and we realised that we were wrong and that what we did was wrong.  I had much to do with Mr Lottering in prison, we visited him, Dr Rubin Riches was with me, Professor Piet Meiring also accompanied me.  Professor Meiring pertinently asked the question, would these people be willing to participate in a reconciliation programme and Mr Lottering was one of the first who said yes, that he would participate in a reconciliation programme.  But today we have a different context in a different time context - if it wasn't for this Amnesty Committee, there would definitely have been an even further loss of blood.  I would just like to request today as a former Commander of that time, I feel that those who ended up in prison, I would like to offer my apologies for the trauma which I caused as a Commander and a Commanding Officer of the AWB.