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people's warExplanation It was a brutal and chaotic war that lasted for nearly five years and many of its battles were fought in and around the hostel compounds of the South African townships. Many people have told the Truth Commission about the terror associated with these fortresses and their inhabitants. ... about his freedom than he was about a sense of justice. He wants South Africans to accept that people like him had played a necessary part in the war that had engulfed the ... …because people wanted to make war, they’re fighting us. We were only SRC students, students speaking out, and now they were fighting us. So we had to retaliate. BMW was the Youth League of MK; we were the ones who did the fighting in Bonteheuwel. A former medic in the SA Medical Service this week broke his silence about his involvement in the war. // The first time I ever put a stitch into a person or the first time I ever gave anybody an injection was at Tembisa hospital. As medics we were sent there on Friday and Saturday evenings to ... ... the eighties the small township of Bruntville here outside Mooiriver in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands was a relatively peaceful place, but in 1990 the war that has ripped this province apart came to Bruntville. In November 1990 the first so-called Bruntville massacre took place when 15 people were ... ... to kill my own people, the people that I devoted my life into liberating. // We believed in what we were doing as killers, we were seeing it as a war situation. // Our job was to hunt cadres, whether PAC or ANC, and we kill them. If we think they are useless, we kill them, but if we think we ... Shaun and John who fought this war were told they were protecting their country and their people against the threat of communism. The church and its chaplain said they were fighting for the Christian faith. The politicians said they were killing and dying on foreign soil because their country ... ... the guerrillas, the booby trapping of portable radios given to black Zimbabweans and brutal executions. More than 55 000 people died in that dirty war. A real pity there wasn’t a truth commission in Zimbabwe after their liberation. This coming week there will be two days of hearings about ... It was a brutal and chaotic war that lasted for nearly five years and many of its battles were fought in and around the hostel compounds of the South African townships. Many people have told the Truth Commission about the terror associated with these fortresses and their inhabitants. ... die, could be tortured, could be abducted, could be buried and many of them; and people like yourself and others just didn’t know, weren’t aware of that these people were acting unlawfully or illegally or misunderstood. Help us, I mean how is it possible for that to take place? // I think ... I would like to express my unqualified regret towards any person and or organisation which was innocently disadvantaged or prejudiced by my actions. In the cruel struggle for survival it was often the case that there was no mercy shown and unacceptable things were done and mistakes made. I also ... ... What is your personal feeling? // I am sorry for the victims and the family of the victims. Because at the end of the day they did not fight in the war. So in that regard I am sorry. I am sorry for them, for the people who had to suffer. And I apologise. // If you look back, was it worth it? // ... one we need to learn a lot about in our country because the parallels are very dramatic. Some things do seem to make it worse, being in an unpopular war, an unpopular conflict is a problem. Our men had a problem even worse in some ways than Vietnam in that I’ve seen a number of people who talk ... Church street, Pretoria 1983. Amanzimtoti, 1985. ANC bombs remind ordinary white South Africans there is war. // The bomb that caused the biggest emotional outcry exploded in Church Street, Pretoria, in the late afternoon of May 20. 1983. 19 People were killed and 219 injured. The ANC claimed ... 1990. Ezikhawini outside Empangeni, a war zone. // It was terrible. People were dying like flies. People were dying. It was terrible. We were just sleeping in the passages, not in our beds, not at all. There was the sound of bullets all over. From six o’clock you must close the gate, close the ... ... of ideology, of power structure, almost every one of us could become to some extent a perpetrator. Aspsychologists, especially we became aware with the years that this need to create a character which is a typical perpetrator is too simple an assumption and we have to think about that ... on SABC news that a group of about 30 black people clad in PAC T-shirts had attacked whites on the Durban beach front. Since we’d already declared war against the National Party and as a result of this attack I as cell leader felt that we should launch a counter attack to prove to the government ... ... thousands of people in the street in a matter of minutes. They took seven hours in what could only be described as declaring a residential area a war zone. I am convinced that if the will was there Anton could have been gassed out, starved out if it took seven days. The impressions created by ... …because people wanted to make war, they’re fighting us. We were only SRC students, students speaking out, and now they were fighting us. So we had to retaliate. BMW was the Youth League of MK; we were the ones who did the fighting in Bonteheuwel. The green valley of Willowfontein situated on the other side of Pietermaritzburg is also home to many internal refugees. // After the seven days war, after the death of my mother, my child and my fiancé in March 1990, when Ntombela attacked, burning houses in the Mnayandu, Shange and Ashdown areas ... |
