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people's warExplanation Showing 961 to 980 of 1000 First Page•Previous Page 42 •43 •44 •45 •46 •47 •48 •49 •50 Next Page•Last PageBut this week for the first time, Adriaan Vlok and the top commander of the police force admitted our men may have murdered, killed, tortured and bombed in the line of duty. // This highly confidential letter was delivered to the Truth Commission this week. // 22 former and serving policemen want ... ... - there must have been people travelling on the road. We have no independent witnesses. We’ve got absolutely nobody who can really come forward and say ‘we were involved, we did this and this and this.’ ... In GaMatlala in 1979, the former government people came there to come and take our animals. They took donkeys and goats and cattle. After that only after two weeks, they came back to burn our huts. They burned our huts, and all our property inside. Everything that was inside the house was burned, ... Twelve years, Mr. Mamasela you were part of the security police in South Africa. Is that right? // I was made part of I was not part of, I was made part of against my will, against my political conviction. // Yes, we’ll get to that … against you political conviction. // Yes. So what was your ... The shocking images of Sophiatown, people just being uprooted and carted away much against their will and quite hopelessly struggling against this thing, the machine of the National Party Government at the time was just simply too strong. One disappointing thing for many people in George is the fact that PW Botha, after the magistrate had made his ruling, went on record as saying that he doesn’t feel it necessary to apologise for anything outside the courtroom where people from Lawaaikamp, from Pacaltsdorp, from Thembulethu from ... One was of course aware of certain steps that were being taken, people who were being murdered. We did know about it, and we were very upset and worried about that, because we didn’t think that that was the way to go about. // Did you at any stage give this information directly to Mr. Botha? // ... Reference book, pass book, dompas, stinker, different names for the same thing. The hated document that determined the life of every black South African for decades, where they could sleep, live, work, visit and for how long. The main aim of the pass laws was to control the movement of black South ... Apartheid was an option or a choice for death, carried out in the name of the gospel of life and that is why it was an issue of faith, for people of faith, to say no to apartheid. It was a spiritual question in its most fundamental form. Col Van Rensburg words to me were that a drastic plan should be made very quickly with these particular people and that I accepted to mean that they should be eliminated. A common worry is that the Truth Commission should not become the forgiveness commission. // You know, we have attended a case of, you know just recently, de Kock’s case. He didn’t appear sorry for what he did, and he expects people to say, okay we forgive him … which is very … you know we ... 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. But there have also been many lows. // I remember at a hearing when somebody talked about just walking daily with her child down the street and so on and this most overwhelming sense of sadness… I just felt I wanted to weep no end. And often I think it’s when things resonate with one and often ... We have seen very few former politicians, generals and foot soldiers expressing genuine regret for the evils of the past. The apologies we have heard so far mostly went along the lines of, if we hurt people, we are sorry, but we didn’t mean it. Adriaan Vlok and Pik Botha also expressed regret. As far as our collaboration and resistance to the system is concerned there is the community at large. In truth, the community at large was a complacent community, feeble in its responses and going whichever way the wind was going at that particular moment. In 1979 Imam Abdullah Haron was murdered ... The request that I want to make is that in all that I have done I did it because I was tempted by a very clever person who was older than me. And after such a long time that the Asvat family has been troubled, wanting to know as to the circumstances surrounding their relative, their father or their ... The Truth Commission can, according to the Act of Parliament that governs them, investigate the gross human rights violations perpetrated by Vlakplaas, but there are other apartheid practices that did even more damage to generations of our people that cannot be narrowly defined as individual human ... But the message that was given many people was you’re a coward or there’s something wrong with you, and again there was the attitude of almost a joke, bossies was a sort of a joke. People joked about whether they were or weren’t or whether other people were or weren’t, without really ... And yet many of the files do remain. // It’s very difficult for any bureaucracy the size of the South African state to ensure that every copy of every document is destroyed. There is also evidence of certain people who just chose not to destroy documents, that’s all. They just didn’t do it. ... In October 1990 three men belonging to the right wing Orde Boerevolk attacked a bus of black commuters. Seven people were killed and 27 injured in this racially motivated attack. Piet Botha, Adriaan Smuts and Eugene Marais had executed the attack. They wanted to kill black people in revenge for an ... |
