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people's warExplanation Before we go let’s look at a few other developments the last week. We have been confronted by a lot of evil deeds while reporting on the Truth Commission the last year. Sometimes one tries to understand the mindset of the perpetrators caught in the conflict between repression and liberation. But ... But we start tonight’s programme with some of the most difficult images of the Truth Commission process. In most cultures the bodily remains of a person are seen as more than just a collection of bones. It is important to most people that the person you loved should have a decent funeral. More ... ... that they realised that the net is closing on them. Now they’re going to go back on that. I can tell you those generals are not going to come forward. And all of them, the security police are going to move back and say that the courts are still on their side. ... ... - there must have been people travelling on the road. We have no independent witnesses. We’ve got absolutely nobody who can really come forward and say ‘we were involved, we did this and this and this.’ ... ... And we hope to bring you some straight answers in our programme next Sunday. Our team will also be in Upington and Thohoyandouthis week. We look forward to your company next Sunday evening. Good ... But maybe the most useful to the Truth Commission’s search for truth was the ANC’s list of more than a 1000 ANC members who died in exile. This included the names of 34 people executed by order of the ANC’s military tribunal. But questions around the mysterious death of MK commander Thami ... I’d like to emphasise that we’ll always listen and try as much as possible to meet the needs of the people. But what we are going to do is to translate those needs in a way that’s going to be viable for the government and in a way that’s going to help the national healing of the ... In GaMatlala in 1979, the former government people came there to come and take our animals. They took donkeys and goats and cattle. After that only after two weeks, they came back to burn our huts. They burned our huts, and all our property inside. Everything that was inside the house was burned, ... Mister Mitchell, are you now desirous of making amends? // Yes I am. Although it may be impossible to do it, but I am desirous of that. // You’ve become a Christian and understand the value of forgiveness. Will you let us have your thoughts on that? // Yes I understand that forgiveness does not ... I think part of healing ourselves will be to admit what we did to each other. And that’s not only what we did to the ANC, it’s what the ANC did to other people. At quarter to three in the morning my wife and I were asleep in a big double bed at the front of the house when somebody fired over the gate with an assault rifle, firing fully automatic. And it’s a dreadful sound you know, the rat-tat-tat. And there was the smell of explosive and the sound of ... But this week for the first time, Adriaan Vlok and the top commander of the police force admitted our men may have murdered, killed, tortured and bombed in the line of duty. // This highly confidential letter was delivered to the Truth Commission this week. // 22 former and serving policemen want ... On our arrival there people were actually singing freedom songs. I was standing there looking at the people. As I was looking there up front, it was my first time to see such a big gun. // It was already late, then we found this place full with those who came in before. Then the police have already ... Well it certainly seems as if the Truth Commission process is gaining momentum. A lot of people who felt that the Truth Commission concentrated too much on the sad stories of victims and was not getting to the real story of our sordid past must be changing their minds. The Inkatha Freedom Party was ... Bram Fischer was born in 1908 on a farm near Bloemfontein. He came from a well known legal family. His father, Peter Ulrich Fischer was Judge President of the Free State and his grandfather Abram Fischer had been a Cabinet Minister in the Union of South Africa. Bram went to Grey College and then ... May 1993, a year before the democratic elections in South Africa in Kimberley in the Northern Cape was the scene for an event that seems strangely out of step with the rest of the country. An ANC protest march, a hand grenade explosion, one dead, more than 40 people injured. The grenade was aimed ... Well, I’d been a sport mad young South African, fanatically into sport: rugby, soccer, cricket, motor racing the lot. And I knew how vital sport was to the maintenance of the white South African psyche and mystique and morale. And so what I came up with as a young political activist getting ... You mustn’t run and if the front people sit down we all sit down and we let them do the violence and expose the violence of the system and let it be a symbol of the nature of this regime. They were laid to rest here in Mlungisi graveyard on a warm summer’s day during a typical Eastern Cape mass funeral. The funeral party was surrounded by caspirs and they were watched by the very same people who had killed them. Today, 11 years later, 17 November is still commemorated as the day ... Those convicted on the basis of common purpose and sent to death row say their lives will never be the same. // The death sentence does not only hurt the person who is to hang. Firstly it hurts your family. It kills you twice, it kills you psychologically. By the time they hang you, you are no ... |