Special Report Transcript Episode 76, Section 2, Time 47:41

I think one of the difficulties, if we must say this quite openly, is that at that point I really did not believe that Mrs. Mandela acknowledged or accepted the UDF leadership, the MDM leadership at that point. I did not believe that she would … I mean for example you would hear that Mrs. Mandela say I take my instructions from Lusaka. You know I think that as we begin to build our democracy one of the things we have to do is to assert accountability and responsibility and it may be unfortunate that some people through no fault of their own miss the cut-off date, through no fault of their own do not apply for amnesty, but at some point in our history we are going to have to say that people have a sense of responsibility for what happened. Because if we don’t say that, then I think as we go forward there are going to be many who say, well I can do these things because comrade x or comrade y did it and got away with it. And in finalising this Commission’s, in finalising its recommendations, I think it should very seriously consider making a recommendation to the effect that anyone who has been convicted of having committed a criminal offence, which amounts to a gross violation of a person’s human rights, should not be regarded as fit to hold public office.

Notes: Azhar Cachalia

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