OPENING STATEMENT
REV E MAART
DR ORR
Rev Maart I’d like to bid you a very warm welcome, thank you for coming here to be with you - with us today. You’re going to make a context statement for us to tell us - to set the scene as it were, as to what life was like and what events happened during the period 1960 to 1993 in the Berg River Valley. Because what you say is going to be part of a record I must ask you to first stand and take the oath, so could you please stand.
REV MAART Duly sworn states
DR ORR
Rev Maart I would like to hand over to you now, you have - have prepared a statement for us and the stage is yours.
REV MAART
Good morning, I welcome you the commissioners of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on behalf of the Paarl community. We are grateful to you for the important work that you are doing and for all that are doing to promote the cause of peace and reconciliation within this country. We believe this process is absolutely necessary in the healing of our land that had been subjected to so much that was destructive.
We of the Paarl community, are committed to the process for healing and peace that have been set up, but we are deeply aware of the tremendous pain, bitterness and suffering that our people have had to endure, over recent decades. We have an historical legacy, that has negatively impinged upon us in our common life together. It is the whole of our community that has suffered.
On the one hand there were those who belonged to the so-called white sector, who had inherited a complex historical process and legacy, which consisted of indelicate and unwise policies, which had led to racial separation, alienation and economic exploitation. On the other hand there were those people who on the - who were on the wrong side of the divide, and who bore the brunt of the ill-effects of the repressive policies that have been persuade. The legacy which we inherited as a town is one that caused much pain and suffering, which both communities suffered.
The consequences of the legacy was that it engendered two political opposites who had in the process become sworn enemies. A system was engineered, which consisted of a grotesquely lop-sided socioeconomic construct with an unjust political dispensation, undemocratically imposed on the majority of the population. It was this failed socio-economic construct and unjust system that was vigorously perpetuated by state apparatus, that led to unrest, resistance and justifiable revolt, which after all is a long history in this country.
The struggle in Paarl has various phases. In Paarl the story of resistance in the 60’s was one marked by the imposition of the passed laws and the arbitrary - arbitrary withdrawal of civil rights of ordinary citizens. The POQU revolt has been documented, as a courageous stand by people, who had been severally wronged. In this event many people lost their lives. The white community suffered as well.
A young school girl was killed in Paarl - white young girl - and a white couple who were in Mbekweni were killed. They were accused of being informers. This is a period of increased suppression of political expression. The decade of the 70’s is marked by a - the greater militarization of the State and the brutal enforcement of segregationist policies.
The Group Areas Act, further exacerbated the alienation of people from one another in our town. Progressive religious response and all political activity were severally curtailed. Then came the Soweto Revolt, which impacted profoundly on student activism in Paarl. Black consciousness mobilized them, and the state responded by unleashing heavy state violence against them.
During this time many students and innocent people died, students were shot at randomly. An innocent woman in a taxi was killed by indiscriminate shooting, a young man playing football on a football field, was killed. Youngsters fleeing police were shot at and one or two killed. On the other side of the - of the divide, young men were sent - young white men were sent to the border, where some also died, like Pellow Parlight, Wallace McGregor, who believe he was defending his country, but this was against fellow countrymen. The decade of the 60’s, of the 80’s, I beg your - I beg your pardon, so greater resistance mounting in Paarl.
Mobilization of the masses became more successful, [indistinct] The basis laid for the emergence of the United Democratic Front, also in Paarl - as in other areas.
A whole spectrum of community organizations, political organizations, trade unions were organized and immobilized into an effective force. More young people were recruited in this period for the liberation forces and Umkhonto we Sizwe.
One cannot adequately - adequately begin to describe the retaliatory response by the State that was perceived by them to be the total onslaught. The riot and security police were most effectively used to combat mass gatherings and to intimidate ordinary citizens. People who were afraid off a knock on the door. It could mean death or arrest, many of us were arbitrarily incarcerated under the emergency laws of 1985. The presents of informers was rife.
You could trust no one. Archers provocateurs were used to infiltrate community organizations, churches, sports clubs, the aim being to identify anyone who is - who was regarded as a subversives. The aim was to destabilize in line with the policy of destabilization of countries outside South Africa.
Many ministers were hesitant to preach the truth of the gospel and preferred a quietest approach. Telephone-tapping was rife. It was the arbitrary tear gassing of people - just ask the people of Mbekweni about tear gassing, they will tell you. A lady was busy working in the kitchen preparing supper and somebody arbitrarily threw a tear gas canister into the house. Old people died as result, children’s lives have been wrecked - some of them for live.
I want to ask this morning who were the person in the blue bakkie which drove through Mbekweni shooting randomly at people, innocent people sitting on a - on a stoep. Who was it? Who caused the death of so many people, torturing them? Who are responsible for the death of Ronnie Robinson?
Who are responsible for Philemon Maxam’s desperate act, to go and kill on a farm, a white farmer and a servant in order to get arms to defend himself in a situation where he was defenseless. Who was behind the persecution, the blackmail and extortion against certain people? Some people were abducted and have disappeared mysteriously, we don’t know today still where they are.
This accumulation of pain and hatred and suffering, inequality, injustice left a terrible blemish on the Berg River Valley. But we here I’m sure speak for all of us although I am an inkommer - as they you when you come in from outside, I’m from Johannesburg - we in the Valley are confident that a new future has opened for us all. Nelson Mandela can never be put back in prison, never.
And the processes of change and transformation cannot be undone. We in the valley are hopeful of our future, there are signs of change. Wonderful signs, and we confirm Allister Sparks and his book THE MIND OF SOUTH AFRICA. That South Africa will as of now cease to be a symbol of racism and division. In stead, it is bound to become a symbol instead of national - symbol instead of national reconciliation and racial harmony. Of co-existence between black and white, a bridge between the [indistinct] of the first world and the have-not’s of the third world. This is our dream of the dawning of a new millennium.
May the TRC be a formidable vehicle to forge towards that end. We want to express our thanks to:
Mr Tommy Matthee chairman of the local ANC Paarl branch.
Mr Lloyd Fortuin
Ms Marietjie Victor for some last minute help with regard to the Statement.
However, we accept full responsibility - myself - for any inaccuracies and misstatements and other views in this statement that I’m making. Requests on behalf of the Paarl community to the TRC:
1. That you help those of our people who are entitled to reparation
for losses that had been sustained to receive such.
2. That there be investigations instituted into unsolved political
cases of gross human rights violations and that calls for amnesty
by political prisoners still incarcerated be looked into for possible
validation.
3. That the Paarl community be assisted to erect a worthy
monument in memory of those who died for the struggle or who
have suffered persecution and gross human rights violations in
the furtherance of peace, justice and freedom. I thank you.
DR ORR
Thank you very much Rev Maart, I have no questions to ask. But I like to hand you over to the chairperson. Thank you very much, thank you. Anyone here who would like questions for clarification, Denzil.
ADV POTGIETER
Yes.
CHAIRPERSON
Denzil Potgieter.
ADV POTGIETER
Thank you chairperson. Rev Maart in regard to the decade of the 80’s which saw the mobilization for the masses and the establishment of various community organizations and structures.
Now in that era what was the situation in regard to inter-organizational strive and conflict. Was that one of the strategies that was adopted by the authorities to deal with this growing phenomenon of community organizations and structures?
REV MAART
Ja, I believe that the state had embarked upon a strategy of a - of bringing people against one another. What do you call it again - divide and rule - words run away from you when you sit here. Divide and rule, and I think this was basically the strategy that was employed by the state. And they were very successfully in doing this because at the moment as a result divide and rule strategies we are still divided. Many organizations within the townships are still at log a heads with one another. Is that true?
ADV POTGIETER
Thank you, that - that might be one of the challenges that’s facing the community in terms of reconciliation, I should imagine.
REV MAART
Yes, I think so. How we do it, I don’t know where we start. For one thing the group aria a act has been responsible for further - you know - furthering this thing of division, but we certainly have to - will have to work at ways and means of getting together our town.
The mayor who was speaking at a function over the weekend and he was appealing to us all that we put our heads together, put our hands together to work to bring our town together. I think lots is been done in the recent past, in the municipal elections where co-operation and working together has been become more and more real, yes.
ADV POTGIETER
Thank you Reverend, thank you Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON
Thank you very much.
REV MAART
Thank you.
UNKNOWN COMMISSIONER
Rev Maart I just want to, first of all, say that there seems to be a common pattern what ever there was conflict in so-called townships. That the police almost took the side of other radical groups like CASEY or AZAPO in confronting so-called UDF and this caused a lot of pain and cause those groups [indistinct] themselves.
What processes of reconciliation which were both specially in those arias where Mbekweni there was conflict between AZAPO, AZANU against UDF with police collaborating with those groups. Are there any suggestions that you far made, that you want to make to the Commission?
REV MAART
That’s a very difficult one because it is clear that the regime had infiltrated townships, had infiltrated community organizations and have been responsible for conflict of this nature that you described. I wouldn’t want to venture this morning how we going to overcome this problem but I think there’s a certain amount of co-operation has been established already.
People are beginning to forgive and to forget, to work together towards bringing healing. I believe that Mbekweni, today, they’re actually coming back to the period where they used to be - one undivided community. I believe that there is a greater co-operation between people than - than where was during the time of the infiltration of the regime into their area.
CHAIRPERSON
Thank you very-very much, I [indistinct] very well. Your particular roll as a committee leader when it was not popular. When churches were about the only places or mosques and so one where our people has space to be able to express themselves and we want to give thanks to God for the leadership that people like yourselves gave in a time and we are glad that you are continuing in the posed freedom period, to go on with your people so that you consolidate that freedom, thank you.
REV MAART
Can I just thank you to, Arch Bishop, for the time when you came in the townships and [indistinct] of burning. Yourself and Allen Boesak and other - others like yourself came to Paarl in the heat of things. When the church was surrounded by Caspers, that you came and you spoke to us and you there [indistinct] us out, thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON
Yes, we should be a mutual admiration society.
