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people's warExplanation There was still a war between them and us. There’s no reconciliation in fact yet, but I hope there would be next time. // People do not have energy of fighting daily. You can’t have that energy. Fighting is not a sweet thing you know, it’s not Bar One, because we lose friends, we lose ... ... 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 ... ... section 29 to subpoena people but bring them to a public hearing. // You have worked well with the Attorneys-General in pushing people to come forward and apply for amnesty in the case of the police and you are also working with the Defence Force. You don’t get that idea, that there is a ... …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. 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 ... In 1986 a bloody civil war erupted in KwaNdebele and neighbouring Moutse. To make the small poor homeland of KwaNdebele viable for independence the South African government planned to incorporate two non Ndebele regions. One of them was predominantly Pedi speaking Moutse. But the people of Moutse ... ... AK47, hand grenades, landmines, anti-personal mines, explosives, different explosives, TNT, plastic explosives? I’m mentioning now weapons of war, not police weapons. It was military training, that’s all I can say. If the Defence Force can say there was no secret, it was an open thing, no ... ... place and shoot the people, whether they were students or not was not the criteria, whether they were black or white. We were not fighting a racial war. Nobody was written on the forehead whether he was a white oppressor or black oppressor, an oppressor has no colour, no ... ... about the conflict between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal. More than 10 000 people have died in this war since the early 1980s. During the past few weeks the Truth Commission has paid special attention to KwaZulu-Natal with two amnesty hearings and a ... 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 certain words in this document. I want to emphasise words like ‘eliminate’ and ‘take out’ for the members on the ground who were in a war situation referred only to killing ... That the whole of South Africa and the people of Natal can see that there was a war against the ANC. That there really was a third force… there was a third force. Senior officers can deny it but those of us who were involved in it can testify. There is no other word for it. // People who still ... 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 ... ... if one can learn from other countries, and certainly the Chilean Truth Commission, they took the position that the recommendations that went forward was that people should not hold public positions where they were involved in gross human rights violations. // Even if they were fighting a just ... ... who took part in the KwaMakhutha killing were not members of the VIP unit, they were members of the offensive unit and they were not involved in a war situation as you earlier described. They attacked a house and they killed 13 people, most of whom were women and children. // Therefore they were ... ... was almost inevitable. The word ‘amnesty’ is derived from the Greek word ‘amnesia’ which means to forget. Well, we cannot forget. A just war is understandable, but granting amnesty to people who killed indiscriminately will be condoning the actions of every single individual worldwide ... ... 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 ... 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. …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 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 ... |