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people's warExplanation Joe Mamasela was not at the amnesty hearing and he’s not scheduled to appear before the Commission. We asked Amnesty Committee spokesman Cocky Mpshe, why not? // Joe Mamasela is not here and Joe Mamasela may not be here because he is presently what we call a section 204 witness. That simply means ... Komape Molapo is a survivor of another grenade attack at the hotel in the Namakgale township in the same month. He believes that soldiers from the same unit were responsible. // Three shots were fired and after that hand grenade, hand grenade, hand grenades were thrown in. It got me on the soldier ... Look your position if I understand it correctly is that Vlakplaas is an aberration like a lot of these other things that were debated this morning. And the explanation, as I understand it, that you were proffering was that it must have been an officer or two or whatever, lower down the hierarchy, ... The South American state of Chile has a history very similar to ours. It suffered for years under a dictatorship and after democracy was restored it also had a Truth Commission to help it cope with its past. One of Chile’s most important writers and playwrights, who’s also something of a ... Maybe the last words in the harrowing week of testimony belong to Joyce Mtimkulu, a mother whose son was broken by apartheid and then removed from the face of the earth. // I have not forgiven them. Why must I forgive them, when they don’t want to tell the truth? And the beauty part of this, they ... This week, for the first time ever in the life of the Truth Commission a policeman voluntarily took the stand to give supporting evidence. Capt Peter John Clayton had been on duty the night Adri Faas was shot. He told the Truth Commission what had happened that evening. // I cannot remember ... This cocktail of God and fatherland was backed up at home with medal parades and military manoeuvres. The news was clinical and heroic. To keep the machine rolling and white South Africa’s morale up, the blood and guts, the dying and killing was not shown. Those who came back from the killing ... Vendaland was ideal guerrilla territory, close to the border countries friendly to the ANC and PAC. Mountainous and clustered with orchards of bananas and avocadoes. But it was the support of Vendaland’s people that made the difference for liberation armies. Willie Mudau, a former black ... Ja, Kabasa I think was formed by the police when they saw the youth and the people around those townships so united behind the UDF, behind LOYOMO, behind the ANC. And the system thought of a way how to destabilize. It really terrorized this township, it brought about divisions where people never ... ... 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 ... I don’t sleep much, I want to read more. I love philosophy, theology, myths, everything to do with the understanding of life. I believe very firmly that different people think differently, not just over the content of their thinking, but also to do with the manner in which they approach things. ... ... whole thing. They’ve dumped us. They’ve dumped us. Now the same people in many instances were getting medals, were getting praised, getting rewarded for the good work that they had done. We questioned the politicians again and the generals and what they’re really saying and what you seem ... Our policy has five components to it and we really would like people to see it within the context of those five components and not focus simply on the money, which I think what has been happening over the last eighteen months. // ‘Urgent Interim Relief’ // This is for people who can’t wait ... And this is exactly what many black people did. The passport out of the hardship of being black was trying to be Coloured. Many took on a Coloured identity or an Afrikaans sounding surname, usually both. // Yes, they called it turning your jacket inside out. You put the inside outside and the ... You were told by your commander that the reason why you had to infiltrate this group is because they were heavily trained and they were dangerous and they were destabilizing the area in and around in Cape Town. // That’s correct sir. I was instructed to train these people and when I reported that ... Forgiveness does not come cheaply. It is something that comes deeply from the heart. And I can just ask the people that were involved directly or indirectly and who have been affected by this case to consider forgiving me. Mtimkulu spent months in hospital recovering. In April 1992 he sued the minister of police for torturing and poisoning him. Two weeks later Siphiwo Mtimkulu and a friend, Topsy Madaka disappeared, they were never seen again. Mtimkulu must be dead, but he left something behind: a set of diaries. // ... ‘My deepest regret is that I failed Stompie that I was unable to protect him from the anarchy of those times and he was taken from my house and killed…’ // Who killed him? You are the one who killed Stompie. // ‘I am astounded that political loyalties could not stand a single test, that it ... By early 1987 brutality of a different kind faced the Bongulethu community. // Something that stood out as quite horrific from this area, apart from many cases of police torture that were reported - in some cases, Supreme Court action was instituted; the large scale detentions without trial that ... For three months the little people, the ordinary citizens, have been showing their pain in public. It seemed for a while as if the Truth Commission was little more than group therapy for victims. It is becoming a new ball game now. Cynicism and mockery are making way for a realisation that the ... |
