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people's warExplanation It was during 1986, I was working with my contacts from Botswana and Kenya. One of my contacts by the name of Ata Mabena, he was a person that used to visit in Botswana. One day I met him at a place where we used to meet at the border. He gave me information that he met one ANC member who told him ... Crossroads eleven years later has survived the social engineering that scorched its people and its land. Today, people live and people die, but that’s normal. Ten years ago the top five hanging nations in the world were China, Nigeria, Iran, the United States and of course South Africa. By the end of 1989 when a moratorium was placed on the death penalty in South Africa over 2500 people had been hanged in this country. The Truth Commission now has to ... The Ciskei puppets skilfully undermined all those litigations by arresting and detaining the lawyers who were defending those people or some who actually had civil claims against the Ciskei government. Of course when they were told, it was interpreted in a political way that you are taking the ... Actually, it was a lie that I was tortured by ministers like the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred Nzo and it was also lies that I was tortured by the late Chris Hani and also the late Secretary-General of the ANC, Thomas Nkobi. So, those were lies, but also within my statement that I made, my ... We had another two guys who were from Natal, they escaped to Swaziland and then we were given a mission to go and hunt them down, we were given false passports, a car, a hide-out compartment to hide the weapons which we are going to use there. And then they went in, we followed them, De Kock and ... During the conference of December 1993, that was in Umtata was it not? // That’s correct. // You say the armed struggle or the idea of the armed struggle was to continue; that was the resolution that was taken at that conference. // That’s correct. // Was that a clear signal that went out from ... ... them were family, we’re one people. So, despite of all those things we managed every now and then going back to them. We pleaded with them and towards the end of eighties then they started to realise that really these people they are not behind us. Because, we pointed out to them that on a ... Committee’s full schedule starts in two weeks’ time, but a serious problem has been that former security force members were reluctant to come forward. That could be changing. In a major breakthrough 22 former security policemen approached the Truth Commission this week to discuss the ... Queenstown in the Eastern Cape is more or less the same size as Kroonstad, but the stories the Truth Commission heard there were very different. This is Mlungisi cemetery where 11 victims of the 1985 Queenstown massacre lie at rest. The trouble began with a consumer boycott against white businesses ... During the trial, the policeman which was handling the case had difficulty and committed suicide. The following day, I think two days after the trial, Zandi was killed. So you can see that there was something that is ... that the very police cannot handle it. So I did even predict that those ... 2000 Years ago the southern part of the African continent was inhabited by hunter-gatherer peoples, the Khoi and the Bushmen. Slowly moving down from further Northern Africa into these parts were several groups of farmers called the Bantu. To the people of other continents Africa was unknown until ... Perhaps I should remind you of the structure of the Truth Commission before we move our focus to the hearings at Phokeng, in North West Province. // The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is divided into 3 committees: The Committee on Human Rights Violations, the Committee on Amnesty, and the ... When one talks about torture and murder in the Eastern Cape how can one not think of Steven Bantu Biko? // No evidence on his death at the hands of police interrogators in 1977 was heard at the Truth Commission because his widow Ntsiki Biko, still prefers a criminal prosecution to the Truth ... Now tell us what caused the division between you and the Youth League? // I have already indicated that I was patrolling at night because I was working. Sometimes members of the SDU would be patrolling during the day and people would be looting spaza shops, the taxis would be shot at. If you are a ... There’s no way that you can take away the rainbow aspect of our nation, it’s there, it’s permanent. It’s just that it has to be cemented further by ensuring that there’s parity between people in terms of conditions of their lives, conditions at work, at school, at their residencies. We ... 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, ... I was actually leaving for Germany on the day when the Commissioners were announced and Sheena Duncan actually phoned me to tell me and shoe! It was incredibly exciting because for me I think that you have law, you have the whole question of jurisprudence, but law doesn’t often bring justice and ... One of its members was Katiza Cebekhulu; he vanished seven years ago. Today he has a damning story to tell about Winnie Mandela. // There’s a sense in which what Katiza has to say confronts the soul of this nation, and usually people who do that end up on a cross. The Bonteheuwel Military Wing started precisely because we needed to respond to the manner in which the state operated. We needed to one, defend ourselves, defend our community, because it appeared as if our community were under siege. We had a situation where there were, police put patrols – and ... |