N’WA-MUKANSI, (first names not given)

National Statistics Introduction 11 The Human Rights Violations Committee gathered 21 296 statements during the course of its work. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the Commission) asked all South Africans who had suffered in the political conflicts of the past to come to the Commission ...

Legal challenges 44 The Commission also faced a number of legal challenges, which it met successfully – with the exception of the matter brought against it by two former members of the security police (see further Volume One). In April 1996, Brigadier du Preez and Major General Nic van ...

11 The working group also proposed that an adaptation of the Norgaard Principles2 be used in making the relevant decisions. These took into account aspects such as motive, context, the nature of the political ojective, the legal and factual nature of the offence (for example, rape could never be ...

Volume THREE Chapter ONE Introduction to Regional Profiles 1 The regional profiles provide an overview of gross violations of human rights as they were reported to the Commission, in both chronological and thematic narrative. It was not possible to include every case brought to the Commission; ...

Lack of full disclosure Attack on Sophia and Gabriel Rossouw 268. Although APLA policy authorised robbery as a means of raising money, amnesty was denied to Mr Sithembiso Vanana [AM6540/97] for a robbery in which money was used for the personal benefit of the applicants and not the organisation. ...

Torture 189 The Commission accumulated data from human rights violations statements, amnesty statements and statements made to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) regarding the assault and torture of detainees prior to the state of emergency, under the emergency and under section 29. Cape ...

The Decision of the Amnesty Committee 1 6 1 . In arriving at a decision, the Committee had to isolate several issues for consideration. a Were the applicants acting bona fide on behalf of or in support of the CP in furtherance of a political struggle by the CP against the ANC/SACP alliance, as ...

The Testimony of Janusz Walus 144. The Committee found that Mr Janusz Walus was a member of both the CP and the AWB at the time of the incident. He was born in Poland and emigrated to South Africa in 1982 to escape the Communist regime in Poland. He chose South Africa because he believed that the ...

26 It was even more difficult for those who were directly involved in the security forces to reconcile themselves with the decriminalisation of their former enemies. This difficulty was articulated by Ms Trudy de Ridder, a psychologist who had recently worked with a number of ex-SADF conscripts ...

Failure to make use of the Commission’s database 77. The Johannesburg unit did not appear to have used the Commission’s database to cross - reference its work, nor did it access the HRV statements in the possession of the Commission, many of which contained valuable corroborative ...

The case of Dikgope ‘Magic Bones’ Madi 46. The difficulties attending the identification process before an exhumation are illustrated by the case of Dikgope ‘Magic Bones’ Madi, one of the cases dealt with by the Johannesburg unit. 47. The case involved three MK combatants who had been ...

Ambushes 74. The Amnesty Committee received amnesty applications for seven ambushes. Five ambushes took place between 1986 and 1988. Informers and/or agents played a role in five cases. In the remaining two, captive MK personnel were used to lure targets to the place where the ambush took place. ...

KwaNdebele: Inkatha 478 In Labohang township, adjoining Leandra in the eastern Transvaal, attempts to move residents to the homeland of KwaNdebele led to violent confrontations with the police. In spite of a 1983 ruling of the Supreme Court that Leandra residents should not be moved, the ...

Khutsong 718 From 1989–91, there were at least seventeen extra-judicial executions in Khutsong, a small township outside Carletonville on the West Rand. The victims were all members of the Khutsong Youth Congress (KYC). The KYC split into two factions – the ‘Zim-Zims’ and the ...

147 The evidence of the CCB’s intelligence head, Christoffel Nel, is regarded by the Commission as important corroborating evidence of the CCB’s role. 148 It is well established that the CCB was set up as a covert grouping with the purpose, among others, of killing political opponents. So, ...

■ POLICE AND MILITARY COUNTERINSURGENCY OPERATIONS IN ZAMBIA 158 Operation Plathond involved training by the SADF of a surrogate force for operations in Zambia in the early 1970s. At the Commonwealth heads of state meeting in 1981, the Zambian Foreign Minister claimed that between 500 and 600 ...

■ CRITICISMS AND CHALLENGES33 It would have been odd in the extreme if something as radical as this Commissionhad met with universal approval and acceptance. It would have been even moreodd had we been infallible and made no mistakes as we undertook the delicatetask of seeking to help heal ...

300 In Alexandra, an attempt by police to disperse a funeral sparked conflict that continued unabated for a week and fundamentally altered the political landscape of the township. The conflict became known as the Six Day War. 301 On 15 February 1986, over 11 000 people attended the funeral of ...

Volume ONE Chapter THREE Setting up the Commission ■ SETTING UP 1 The President appointed the following persons as commissioners of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and their names were published in the Government Gazette (No. 16885) on 15 December 1995. They were Archbishop Desmond ...

Regional pre-findings 25 The information taken from the statements, the corroborative material gathered by the investigators and the background research material provided by the researchers were presented on a regular basis to the Human Rights Violations Committee, which would then make ...