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people's warExplanation When all the ANC and Xhosa residents had left the hostel Vusimuzi turned its attention to the larger Tembisa community. More and more people started looking for their loved ones in mortuaries. But when the interrogation started, Benzien and Nortje were present. They were the only other people in the room with me and when they started interrogating me the intimidation had already taken effect. This intimidation of me had already started when I was in this room and the security policeman ... No wonder National Party crown prince Hernus Kriel this week said the National Party should start boycotting the Truth Commission. We stay in KwaZulu-Natal, but we move on the human rights violations hearings in Empangeni this week. After almost six months of testimony before the Truth Commission ... The 1950s saw wide spread resistance against the carrying of passes, a document which severely restricted the movement of Africans in the country of their birth. Hundreds of thousands of people were jailed for not carrying a valid passport. In 1952 the ANC launched a deliberate campaign of civil ... What we are really looking at is to make sure that we plant a seed. We know what is the goal of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It’s basically to establish partly a culture of human rights, to promote national healing and reconciliation. So obviously if you give people handouts, ... The Truth Commission is getting tough at last and for a change this programme’s timing was perfect, because within a day of our asking some tough questions of the Truth Commission in last week’s programme we saw a new spirit of determination from the Truth Commission. // This velvet glove does ... People don’t have houses. People must get houses, they must get back their houses; they must get compensation. Then that would be an indication that something is being done and I think maybe, maybe in the long run people will forgive and forget. It was a white person wearing balaclavas. Round the eyes I could see and the nose was a sharp nose and it wasn’t that of our black people. If I think about that I feel my heart inside and my brains is like water, boiling. // And now was trying to make the people refugees of South Africa. // Sorry to say it but when I try to think about us, I want to cry. Alright, we have about a minute. // We have the policy which we’ve just come out with which we are going to present to the president, which actually deals with issues of material reparation, which deals with issues of restitution, on areas where there’s urgent need. And once that document has ... I do not suggest that people on both sides did not overstep the bounds of the authority. To keep harping on so-called apartheid crimes, conveniently ignoring the fact that atrocities were also committed by the opponents of apartheid is not conducive to reconciliation and amounts to an attempt to ... I would like the people who are in prison to be released because it is not their offence. They weren’t responsible. When we got there, the petitions were handed over, the first petition, the second petition, and the third petition. When it was time to hand over the third petition then there was a ... ... we’ve come from that I think that if we had to reverse the roles and would have asked members of the former organisations like the ANC to come forward during the era when Minister De Klerk was in power, none of the ANC people would have come forward to come and ask the then National Party. And ... The seven are still serving prison sentences in the Mdantsane Prison in East London. They explained why they killed her and apologized to her family. // Because we did not know who ADM would kill next. We then acted in self defence against ADM. We can’t go on. The action we then took was to act ... We sat at this table over here, and later on there was, when we actually arrived here there were three black people sitting at the table. And they sat here for quite a while; the one chap actually was staring at my sister. I had my back at them unfortunately. He was staring so hard at my sister ... If anybody had for a moment forgotten why South Africa needed a Commission for truth and reconciliation, four days of stories of harrowing cruelty and human suffering before the Commission’s hearing in Nelspruit this week was a sober reminder. Tonight we let survivors and family of victims of ... ‘Report by Anneliese Burgess.’ // Claire Stewart lived here in the beautiful but remote extreme north of KwaZulu-Natal. For four years she worked here on a project aimed at improving the Nguni cattle herds of the local people. She lived quietly in the little village of Manguzi with her two ... Some preferred to stay behind. And this week they told the Commission of torture, of killings and of the pain that is so hard to forget. // He removed those electric wires from my neck and then they turned me on the other side. He opened my trousers at the back and then they took these electric ... Thereafter, what was done with the bodies of the deceased? // The wood was placed in a large pile in the backyard, the people were carried to the wood, put on top of it, // All three of them? // Yes. And it was set alight and diesel was poured over. If people are assisted financially over time with counselling and guidance it gives them an opportunity to improve their lot so to say, in a variety of ways. But I mean as I’ve said to you really we are there as advocates for victims. At the end of the day the government of the day has got to ... |