hrvtrans HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, SUBMISSIONS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 1997-05-23 BALFOUR 1 MARTIN J COETZER KZN0BL 01 https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=54944&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/hrvtrans/balfour/2balcoet.htm DR ALLY MR COETZER That is correct. DR ALLY I saw that you had your wife present with you. Would you like her to accompany you ? She is most welcome to accompany you. She can come and sit here if you want to. MR COETZER She would rather not do so since our small son has come with us and he will take over everything here if we allow him on the stage. DR ALLY MR COETZER No. DR ALLY If you would raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony which you are about to give, will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. MR COETZER (sworn states) DR ALLY Thank you very much. Tom ? MR MANTHATA You are welcome, Mr Coetzer. Feel at home. MR COETZER Thank you very much. MR MANTHATA Can you please tell us what happened to you on that day when the bomb exploded. MR COETZER On the Tuesday morning of the tenth of June, I was the first person to use the farm road, this is a small entry into our house, about eighty meters away from the Main Road. I was the first person to cross that and the landmine was placed in a very narrow gateway. Only a single vehicle would be able to pass through the gateway at the time. The landmine was planted in a hole which had previously been made by the vehicles and because of the rain the vehicles kept on making this hole deeper and deeper. About two weeks prior to the incident I approached one of the farm workers and asked him to level the road so that we will not always be driving through this hole. It was that particular hole which was then used for planting the landmine. Upon my return home, it was a very uncomfortable atmosphere on the farm. I returned home and did not know what to expect on my arrival at home. I did not realize how the vehicle in which I had driven had been damaged. I was under the impression that the vehicle would be able to be repaired. Upon my return to the farm there was these very tense moments. The atmosphere was entirely different from before. There was tension on the farm. There was tension amongst the members of my family because one did not realize whether such an event would occur again. Apart from that I want to continue to say what my intention is here this morning. I am not here this morning to, and I must say that I have personally seen the people who had planted the landmine. I know what they look like. There were three persons involved. I am not here to-day to blame these people for anything or to say anything about them in a negative way. My intention here this morning is to see whether I cannot make a contribution towards Truth and Reconciliation in this country. In addition the consequences of this incident for me as a human person was the following. The first thought that one had was that of disappointment. I was disappointed that other people of this country, other South Africans felt free to do something like this. It is a terrifying thought to think that we as people in South Africa are not able to live together in the love and the peace that Jesus Christ has bought for us two thousand years ago on the Cross. The question which I ask myself is, why did this happen to me ? What would the purpose be of all of this for me ? I quickly came to the realization that this is not the kind of question that one should ask but rather that one should ask, how one can use that which has happened to you to serve God and how you can use the experience to mean something to other people. Everything that happened to me, I want to say to-day to everyone that hears me, to the whole world and it is good that everyone in South Africa wants to co-operate to bring about Peace and Reconciliation in our nation. However, there are pre-requisites to such peace and reconciliation and the first such pre-requisites which I want to share with you is that one gets the idea that there are people who have no feeling of remorse. If everyone who is responsible for loss of life or loss of property or whatever other loss has occurred, if all of these people want to experience true remorse, that already would be a great gain towards peace and reconciliation. I want to quote from Philippines Three, Verse Fourteen which reads, I am able to do everything because of Jesus Christ who gives me strength. If in the process of reconciliation, we want to recognize Jesus Christ as our Saviour then the process of reconciliation will be far easier to achieve. I also want to refer to Philippines Four, Verses Six to Seven which reads, do not be concerned for anything but rather in every case, bring your needs and desires to God through prayer and with pleading and with gratitude. I therefore conclude. Despite everything that has happened, I am not at all sad about what has happened anymore. I am grateful to God for both the suffering which I experienced and the strength which God has given me and will give me. In the past eleven years God has given me strength. I want to thank God for the strength which he had given me to accept that which has happened to me and that he has helped to forgive those who perpetrated this act. It is my prayer and the prayer of my heart this morning that the Holy Spirit will work in every South African so that we will be bound together in true peace and true reconciliation and I want to emphasize this, true reconciliation must be through Jesus Christ who made this possible on the cross. I thank you very much. MR MANTHATA Mr Coetzer, can I ask you whether the sentiments you have expressed here are shared by you, your family, that is the wife and children and your family, father, mother and brothers ? MR COETZER My response to this would be the following. It is a very clear yes, I cannot involve my parents in this since both of my parents have since died. My mother in 1988 and my father in 1993. My wife is present here to-day and she will be able to testify that what I say is true, that they agree with me that no reconciliation is possible except in and through Jesus Christ. MR MANTHATA At that time you were still a student. Do you recall the impact that the explosion could have made to your fellow students at the time, that is your school mates ? MR COETZER MR MANTHATA And thereafter you have never had the opportunity to meet some of your fellow ex-students ? I understand the immediate chaos but in the process of your healing and in the process of what was attained in the country, you have never got to know what impact the whole incident could have made on them ? MR COETZER MR MANTHATA MR COETZER MR MANTHATA Thank you, Mr Coetzer. I hand you back to the Chairperson. MR LEWIN Mnr Coetzer, baie dankie. Could I just ask one brief question which I also asked the previous witness and probably unnecessary. Could you just tell us what is your reaction to the action by the South African Government to ban altogether the use of landmines ? MR COETZER I will wholeheartedly support this suggestion or recommendation. My personal feeling is that this is a cowardly act, a most extreme cowardly act which any person can perpetrate against another. To entirely ban this in our country would be one of the most valuable contributions towards peace and reconciliation. Thank you. DR RANDERA MR COETZER DR RANDERA MR COETZER At that time, as you have said the circumstances in our country, the circumstances of our lives were entirely different from those of to-day. This is a difficult question. A very difficult question. From the very beginning I grew up in a home where conflict and things like conflict was not allowed. I grew up in a Christian home with Christian values. To speak very specifically about our family, if you saw the video material of the SABC, if you could see the words of my father, his very clear words at that time was that we bear no hatred against those who committed this act. We do however feel hatred against the act itself. That is what my parents themselves said. The attitude of the community however, that would be difficult. I have some difficulty. I was a very young person at that time. I could not think about these events in the same way as I do to-day. So you are asking me a very difficult question. DR RANDERA Reading through your statement again what comes across so clearly is the difficulty that your family went through. Initially I understand your parents had a medical aid and that covered some of the expenses but later on that medical aid ran out and your father lost his farm. You went insolvent. What surprises me is how little support the then Government gave to you and your family. Would you like to comment on that ? MR COETZER DR RANDERA MR COETZER DR ALLY Mr Coetzer, you say that you actually had the opportunity to meet those who planted this landmine. Can you tell us a little about that. How did that happen ? What was the circumstances of you meeting them ? MR COETZER DR ALLY You also in your statement seem to suggest something happened to them subsequently. Do you want to comment on that, make some comments about what happened to them after this incident ? MR COETZER DR ALLY Is this something that you would like to know ? MR COETZER For interests sake I would, I assume be interested but this not the Alpha and the Omega to know this. In my heart I believe that if this is part of the reconciliation process, for them to be released I would have no difficulty with this. If all of us wants to achieve reconciliation in our nation and if they are willing to turn themselves towards reconciliation, I would have no difficulty with them being out and free. DR ALLY Mr Coetzer, did you follow or read about the recall of the political parties that took place last week ? Did you follow any of that ? MR COETZER No, I did not follow the media in any way last week. DR ALLY Just more generally then, you made the point that an important condition, maybe the most important condition for reconciliation is genuine remorse. Just generally do you think that the political parties, organizations or any other actors party to this conflict of the past, do you feel that there has been genuine remorse ? With regard to those who became victims of the conflict ? MR COETZER This is once again a difficult question. I do not think that every single person actually has shown true remorse and I want to repeat, if you only go as far, if people can only bring themselves so far as to show remorse and if people want to also continue to forgive because remorse and forgiveness must go hand in hand. If you show remorse then this automatically almost brings about forgiveness. It is my prayer that those people who were victims and those people who were perpetrators, that there will be true remorse to take a part in the process of reconciliation. DR ALLY MR COETZER Thank you very much. DR ALLY