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people's warExplanation ... ‘Year of Great Storms.’ During the early nineties when most political players were sitting at the World Trade Centre negotiating their way towards change the Pan Africanist Congress was playing a different sort of game. While liberation armies like Umkhonto we Sizwe laid down arms, the PAC ... that many South Africans haven’t taken proper notice of, the tens of thousands of young white men who were forced by military conscription to wage war in neighbouring states and against their fellow citizens in the townships. Until then, good ... 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 ... Some of the saddest stories in history are of those who died as the freedom they fought for became a reality, the casualties of the last day of war. Bisho, 1992 was such a story, actually 28 of those stories. Freedom and democracy were upon us when those people were gunned down by Ciskei’s ... 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 ... Here we found the war overnight or within a couple of months completely transformed. The protection was our responsibilities. We could not send our troops in uniform into the townships because if you send a man in uniform there they are immediately seen. So we had to find some other ways of ... 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 ... ... 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 ... For years the people of Maokeng, the township outside Kroonstad in the Free State were terrorised by a brutal gang, called the Three Million Gang. The authorities, for their own reasons, turned a blind eye. And then the community dealt with it in their own brutal way. One of the central issues in the complicated story dished out to the Amnesty Committee is that of a so-called hit list. The list contained the names of many prominent people, including that of Chris Hani. The list have been obtained from Derby-Lewis’ wife and given to Janusz Walus. The Committee ... 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 ... 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 ... Eleven people died in the Trust Feed massacre. Captain Brian Mitchell is serving a 30 year sentence for this crime. Four special policemen who were also convicted have since received indemnity. ... I say, a person should attack the police or the army, why attack innocent people sitting here enjoying themselves, who never had any ill feeling towards blacks before? And I thought people should be found and justice should be done. Because they haven’t asked forgiveness or anything. ... 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. // ... 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. ... It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. // When one speaks to the people that were there they remember the vivaciousness of Sophiatown’s cultural diversity and the magic of its constant and rebellious heartbeat. // The people used to dance and we used to sit here, my mother was ... Joe Mamasela, self-confessed political serial killer was one of the Vlakplaas askaris who participated in this operation. // It was brutal; it was what in Afrikaans people call ‘broekskeur.’ It was terrible. // Were they tortured? // They were tortured severely. They were savaged; they were ... |
