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Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
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Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
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Special Report
Transcripts for Section 2 of Episode 42
| Time | Summary | | | 01:14 | Dumisa Ntsebeza, let me ask you the first question. We’ve had a lot of policemen in front of the Amnesty Committee, we’ve heard a lot of evidence in the human rights violations hearings about the police and security police, where is the military in all this? Why haven’t we made a breakthrough into the military? // Well, there are several reasons why we haven’t. I think one of the reasons is that we don’t have the capacity to investigate as much as we would want to. // Is that a flaw? Can’t you correct that? // Well, as I’ve said previously to other people who ask that question if I had 60 more investigators, I would still need investigators. Just to give you an indication of what the problems are. There was an occasion when we wanted certain specific documents from the military, we were not exactly sure what documents they are but we knew that they are between a certain time period and a certain time period. And what we were told is that if the documents were to be put ...more | Full Transcript | | 03:26 | Alright, thank you, let’s go to the first question, Adri. // Adri Coetzee from Beeld. Mr. Ntsebeza, to follow up on that, are we ever going to know what happened in neighbouring states? Is that being investigated? // Yes it is being investigated. In fact, I have been in discussions with high commissioners of the neighbouring states. In fact, I’ve run across very important evidence regarding the operations of the South African Defence Force in Namibia with photographs and everything and I think within the next foreseeable future we’ll be making disclosures about what we are investigating as far as that goes. We are in touch with Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana and all those countries are indicating cooperation. Certainly as far as investigations go, also as far as clearance go. // Thank you. | Full Transcript | | 04:23 | I want to know, you’ve been flaunting the idea that you will now go … // Antjie Samuel of the SABC Radio. // Sorry, I’m Antjie Samuel of the SABC Radio. You are flaunting the idea that you are now going also to investigate ANC atrocities. What exactly are you doing at this stage? Do you have say, for instance a person in every region, or do you have a group that look after them? Are you going to focus as well on high profile cases like you are doing with the police? // Yes, I must correct the view that we have not been doing any investigations of those human rights violations cases that have been brought to our attention relevant to ANC people. There have been ongoing investigations. In fact, as you possibly know, one of the major showcases, which would have shown ANC activists involved in human rights violations against IFP people, has had to be cancelled because I am told there hasn’t been much cooperation from the IFP side. But besides that, the section 29 inquiries which ...more | Full Transcript | | 06:59 | Can I ask a quick question to Dr Fazel Randera. You’re working on the ground in Gauteng, so you should get the feeling from the people. There’s been a lot of criticism, especially from the National Party, that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is not contributing to reconciliation, it’s concentrating on one side and the reconciling is not happening. Is your experience that there is a measure of reconciliation coming through the last year of hearings? // Max, certainly as we go through the small towns and townships of the area that we’re covering, and recently we’ve also started targeting schools, the impression that I’m coming away with is that it’s a very mixed bag at the moment. There’s anger on the one side and one particularly feels that in the small towns, the small towns in the western Transvaal that we visited last year and also in this year. The Afrikaner community, one gets the impression, is feeling particularly targeted and it’s understandable. If ...more | Full Transcript | | 11:34 | OK Gail Reagon. // Reparation, exactly that. Increasingly there is an impression from people that for them a major part of reparation would be full disclosure, right. And if you listen to some of the comments that the National Party for instance has made around the Truth Commission process. I’m wondering, how are you as a Commission going to go beyond confirmation of what is known? How are you going to satisfy the very real need out there to hear from the people who were handling the former government, that they were responsible for some of these atrocities? You’ve had a second resubmission from some of the political parties. Is that taking us any closer towards the full picture? // The tension that exists between victims and perpetrators is a tension that will be held in place for some time. You need other stakeholders like the Afrikaner churches creating a climate for disclosure because unless you have all those groups pushing and assisting people to kind of say that ...more | Full Transcript | | 14:21 | Some crucial moments have passed. In the beginning of last year when you got to know the legislation you realized that it was unfairly weighed towards the perpetrators. No one did anything. You didn’t request to ask that the legislation be changed. After the first six weeks of hearings people were upset in this country about what had happened. There was not one request to the Afrikaans churches to ask them, won’t you come on Sunday and bring money if you want to. So that moment has passed. Now, tomorrow, this week, you want to compile a policy but you also don’t have the reports. Say for instance you say children whose parents have been killed should get bursaries. By next year you see that there’s 10 million. How can you make a recommendation this week if you don’t have the report? So it seems as if there’s a disjunction between what is an urgent need and the R & R Committee’s capacity to deal with that on time. // Of course work has been going on in terms of, when a ...more | Full Transcript | | 16:13 | Will there be a breakdown at the end of this year when the Truth Commission ends its activities? Will the R & R, the reparation and rehabilitation process, be able to go one beyond that? Or if you haven’t helped somebody by Christmas 1997, there’s no help? // No, we have said that our recommendation is that after the cut off period there may have been people who have missed coming to the Truth Commission, either because they come from an area which may not permit them to do so or either they were too young and therefore they were staying with parents or they were orphaned and suddenly they realize that they would have earned something from reparations. And we are saying that there should be a door kept ajar for that possibility and that takes it away from our responsibility. We are saying the president should keep the door ajar for such an assessment. | Full Transcript | | 17:06 | Dr Randera. // Can I add two points, one to Antjie’s question of did we actually go to the Afrikaans churches right from the beginning. And let me say, we have. In every hearing that has taken place, in our build up to a hearing, we go out into the community and always try and involve all the churches, whether it is Afrikaans churches or other churches. So they have been part of the process right from the beginning. I want to add another part to what the Reverend was saying to your question, which is, besides people who haven’t actually been part of the process, let’s just take the example of Soweto ’76. We make a finding on the statements that have come in and let me be honest I think we have about 15 statements from parents, relatives of young people who died during that uprising. Now we know that there were hundreds of children that were killed and when we make a finding, are we only saying that it’s only those 15 that can come forward, and get whether it’s urgent ...more | Full Transcript and References | | 18:46 | Alright, Benedict you wanted to come in? // Benedict from Special Report, SABC. Why have people like PW Botha not been subpoenaed to come to the TRC? // Well they don’t have to be subpoenaed. You see, I think the whole idea of subpoenaing people is only for purposes of investigating and information gathering. And the view is that if you can gather the information other than calling people by way of a subpoena, I mean the end result is the same. There is a sense in which, and I will be open about it, there is a sense in which the leadership of the Commission, and we were carried along with it, felt that we should take into account the age of the person. It’s like the same position that I have taken into account and other people have been saying why have you not subpoenaed KD Matanzima? // Are you then not neglecting the victims of that era? // No I don’t think so, because the intention and especially if you look at the other side of what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is ...more | Full Transcript | | 21:07 | Why aren’t you making it public? This … // All in time, all in good time. // On whose decision? This is meant to be a transparent process, it’s meant to be for the people who have been oppressed and deprived. // This whole thing about transparency, there’s nothing about transparency that doesn’t take into account the processes. | Full Transcript | | 21:27 | Sophie. // Commissioner Ntsebeza, still on the issue of transparency, will the Commission reveal the name of the spy that the five policemen spoke about, because that is in the public interest, the right to know also has to be respected and the constitution. // Now, the first thing that I must ask is why is this information suddenly important? I’m not saying we won’t reveal but where did this thing arise? It arose in the context of an amnesty application and the names were mentioned by the Cronje five in that context and the ruling was made by the Amnesty Committee, and they stand by that ruling, because the Committee made it very clear that for present purposes, for their purposes, it was irrelevant. And you don’t admit evidence that is irrelevant. What we have now done is we are going to investigate - which lies in my domain - we are going to follow up the question of who the names are. But can you imagine? If those people say for instance we heard from somebody and somebody ...more | Full Transcript | | 22:40 | The headline of the Pretoria news today is that these people are actually probably going to refuse. They are feeling that they don’t want to give the names and we may well get to a situation, even if they are subpoenaed, according to the lawyer who represents them, that they don’t want to release the names because of the very reasons that have been mentioned previously. // Who then tells the truth? // Now, of course, the end result in them contravening the very Act that we are functioning under. // Full disclosure, what does that suggest? Full disclosure? | Full Transcript | | 23:16 | Mashikane said the townships are sitting full of informers that want to be integrated into the communities and we don’t provide them with the opportunity. // In this proper context, can I just indicate the process that we possibly will follow? One, we will subpoena these people, because there’s public outcry. Speaking for myself, I think it is totally relevant for purposes of that amnesty application. But there’s another public outcry, we’re a public institution, we must respond to the demands of the public. We’ll subpoena these people. They’ll come in. Let’s say they say we are not going to disclose those names. Then we are going to invoke section 21 of the Act, compelling them. That’s also very dicey, incidentally, but I am not going into the logistics of that. We’ll compel them and assuming they say six of the names are so and so, so and so, that will not be the end of the story. I will then have to say. If you say Mandela was your informer, just tell me the date ...more | Full Transcript | | 24:42 | Alright, can I have a question from Robert Brand first, from The Star? // Our country’s full of people like PW Botha and Adriaan Vlok and Johan van der Merwe who are going to apply for amnesty. If these people get amnesty, and a lot of people remain in public positions, government jobs, get state pensions. What are you going to do about that? Is there going to be a recommendation about that? // Robert, we are going to be totally honest with you there, we haven’t got round to actually discussing what recommendations go through to government. I think if one can learn from other countries, and certainly the Chilean Truth Commission, they took the position that the recommendations that went forward was that people should not hold public positions where they were involved in gross human rights violations. // Even if they were fighting a just war? // I don’t have an answer to that particular one. | Full Transcript | | 25:43 | Right, final question, Gail. // The bottom line is that people need material reparation out of this process. OK, every time you go into dusty dorpies you see that people don’t have work, they don’t have homes, they’re not getting decent education. There’s major tension in your Commission about commissioners earning judges’ salaries, going the gravy train route, going off to Norway. Ultimately, Reverend Xundu and Dr Randera, what are you going to recommend to government to reconstruct, to make better people’s lives? | Full Transcript | | 26:16 | Alright, we have about a minute. // We have the policy which we’ve just come out with which we are going to present to the president, which actually deals with issues of material reparation, which deals with issues of restitution, on areas where there’s urgent need. And once that document has been finished it’s going to be presented and out of that you are going to come out with specific people being addressed. We have also said that there should be for accessing what are provided by the state, like pensions and so forth, there’s an amount of money which should be given to people that they should be able to travel to access those things. | Full Transcript |
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