![]() |
News | Sport | TV | Radio | Education | TV Licenses | Contact Us |
people's warExplanation 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 ... ... after the unbanning of the ANC, SACP, PAC and other organisations the AWB started flexing its military muscle and threatened the government with war if the ANC ever came to power. // ‘The intention of the ANC is to destroy my people, to destroy everything in sight. My message to the ANC ... If you want to know whether white judges who went onto the bench had, across the spectrum, a range of views which white people in South Africa entertained I wouldn’t have thought it was necessary to ask me that question. The answer is rather too self evident. William Makulani is the only other member of the 26 who still lives in Victoria West. He was also the one most severely tortured by the police and it is for this that he went to the Truth Commission. // Because they beat me up so badly for something I did not do. // But was there any truth in the ... They were fellow Afrikaners, part of my people. I knew many of them. And I have asked myself, was it possible, how is it possible that they could have done what they did and that some of them seemingly could have enjoyed what they did. Were they so deeply impregnated by this ideological concept of ... There is an accusation that precisely because it was black labour and because of the nature of the racism, in fact that black lives were considered expendable, that the mining industry did compromise when it came to questions of safety. // Firstly I think that a suggestion that management in the ... The highs have really been very individual things and I think of specific events like workshops that I ran for victims in Port Elizabeth - also very early on in the process when I was learning and they were learning - and Brandon Hamber from the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation ... The millions of people arrested for pass law offenses passed through special commissioner’s courts presided over by so-called Bantu or Native Commissioners. The sentences varied from fines to floggings. Usually offenders were endorsed out, meaning they had 72 hours to leave the area. Professor Giliomee … // Well I’ve got trouble with Donald Woods’ assertion that people know when they hear the truth or not. I think as a newspaper editor I think he probably will say no that is not quite true. The point is that, certainly in the case of the Biko case we have had revelations, ... Are you saying you never did anything wrong, that’s why you won’t apologise? // No but you are always in front to do wrong things. I know that gentleman, I know that gentleman. He’s one of the gentlemen I don’t like. // Are you going to apologise for the people who died in jail, who died in ... We talk of witchcraft, we don’t even talk of wizard craft, there’s nothing like that. It’s always witch craft. And the victims in the north have been mostly women, old women. // More than 200 people have died at the hands of witch hunters in the Northern Province. Belief in witchcraft ... ... next? Madikizela-Mandela consulted with her lawyer, but clearly she had no choice, she had to offer some form of apology. But as people asked afterwards, how much does an apology mean when you have denied so vehemently before that you had done anything wrong. ... Eighty year old Elias Molatseli was a school principle when he was arrested in 1978. // On that particular morning the police came in and they wanted my identity document I gave them. And they started searching the house, and they found a book called Up from Slavery that was written by T Washington ... The National Party government military, I would say they are a bunch of cowards, traitors if anything. They have left their people there; they have done nothing to help them. And in the morning the very same people came in the very same uniform. They were still like the previous day. They took my name. They said they needed some statements as to who had injured the people. I was quite scared to tell them that you are the ones that were here yesterday. South Africa’s political parties made submissions to the Truth Commission in August last year. Most parties promised to give further information at a later stage and promised to respond to any questions coming from the Truth Commission. Last Sunday, the leader of the National Party, FW de Klerk ... ... searching a lot of people there and I bought a newspaper, I remember. And then I was carrying this newspaper with my bag here, then when moving towards them I just read the newspaper and I passed them, they never called me and searched ... I believe a person who killed so cold-bloodedly, I believe something must be done about him because it’s innocent people, innocent people in the street. He didn’t care who they were. I think it was Cecil Msotho who I saw first and he described the tail end of the shootout in which opposite the dormitory we were in, under a gum tree, police had walked up to a guy, to one of the people they had shot, and had in fact fired a bullet into him while he was prostrate on the ground. For a person to be guilty of a crime there must be intent and we cannot therefore say citizens who had no intention to set up Vlakplaas and kill people that they should carry the burden of this. We cannot hold responsible ordinary shunters, farmers and so on who supported apartheid because they ... |