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people's warExplanation Showing 241 to 260 of 1000 First Page•Previous Page 9 •10 •11 •12 •13 •14 •15 •16 •17 Next Page•Last PageBut throughout the time of the pass laws there was always fierce resistance. It reached a peak in the Defiance Campaign of 1952 when people deliberately destroyed their passes and when a huge protest march of women took place to the Union Buildings in Pretoria. In the sixties it was again an ... We were over 60 in number I don’t remember exactly however, we grouped into two. The others had to attack one of the homesteads nearby. // We started… we hit the door, there was a hew in the door and we used it to hack the door. The door opened and we shot at the people and we also stabbed them ... Du Plessis and Van Rensburg presented a plan to General Erasmus to have the two activists eliminated. // And what is the ultimate conclusion which the three of you reached? // Our final conclusion was that there was no other way, detention or any other thing than to eliminate this people. // And ... Look, I myself have been involved in different bombings. I myself was in command of a region and I gave many orders to sabotage. I established cells, I spoke from platforms … so I do feel responsible co-responsible for the people who are in the prisons. Because I was part of it I feel that I must ... ‘Maseru Lesotho December 1985’ // Nine people died in this attack. Among the dead was Jackie Quinn whose family testified at the TRC in 1996. // I feel that as long as the people up top who gave the order are exposed, that it’s going to help a lot. If we can find out, it must be somebody in ... But Donald Woods, talk to me what you feel so far, perception wise has it been one sided. What is your feeling about this? // I’ve had the impression of it being pretty fair, but you know they were in a no win situation in the sense that when you undertake something which is really a very ... When I came onto the Commission one of the things that shocked us was the fact that there is no requirement in the Act for the applicant to express remorse. It is not a requirement and we were bald over actually and some people had almost a traumatic experience. ... to address those of you, especially the victims and survivors, who have come to the Commission. We want to thank all of you who have come forward to make statements about your experiences and those of others in your community. Thank you for telling your story so that the country could know ... Can a Truth Commission be an effective instrument to extract the truth about the past? // That depends on what powers the commission is given. In some cases there’s great frustration, you can have a commission that’s very effective but in the end it really only has the powers to speak to ... People who must have an opportunity to register their regret at not preventing human rights violations and also to give them an opportunity to register their commitment to reconciliation. ... explained to them what the problem was that we were faced with. I can just mention that Mr. Niewoudt and Mr. Van Zyl at that stage were completely aware of the activities of Pebco. // Is it your evidence that these three people, the so-called Pebco Three, that they were extremely dangerous? // ... With the birth of the Truth Commission last year a voice was finally given to the thousands of South Africans who’d been brutalized during the conflict of the apartheid years. For months people from every part of the country poured their hearts out before the TRC’s Human Rights Violations ... ... him from near and he fell down. What precisely happened there I can’t remember. At that stage I thought my life was in danger. // It’s a bit awkward but just give us the details. When you shot this man, what did you see, where did you shoot him? // I shot him on the side of his head; that is ... Apart from the moral repugnance with which some of us recoiled at the activities of what people in the township tended to generally regard as ‘Winnie’s boys,’ one of our major concerns at a political level, was the extent to which the activities of these ‘boys’ were beginning to detract ... I gave the instruction for them to flatten the huts with a casper and that we would open fire at the same time. It’s the overkill situation that was typically Koevoet. We would shoot as much as concentrated fire into a space as possible. We didn’t know how many people might be in there with ... 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 ... We are looking for measures which will restore people’s dignity which has been lost. We felt, we are looking for measures which will somehow assist people to more or less be able to live a life they would have lived was it not for the violation. There is a perception amongst NGO’s and amongst certain members of the legal fraternity that a large degree of impunity exists in KwaZulu-Natal in terms of the lack of prosecutions and a lack of convictions. What’s your response to that? // I would like an opportunity to discuss that with the ... You have to see the state’s relation with the media as a macro continuum. It goes right from the owners of the media, the people that own the newspaper, the editors who control the policy of the newspaper, right down to the chap who can clean the dustbin at night and stuff it all in an envelope ... The policy of apartheid has made South Africa much poorer than the country and its people could otherwise have been. Lost and unutilized human potential, wasted resources, people and capital that left the country, growth that did not occur and jobs that were not created; all these, and many more ... |
