TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 10

Subsection 15

■ WOMEN AS PERPETRATORS

125 The women who spoke at the hearings spoke as primary or secondary victims of abuses. There were, however, also women who perpetrated abuses on others. In her address to the hearings, Ms Thenjiwe Mtintso pointed out that nowadays:

We go to the women's conferences and hug and kiss, we are kissing with some of the perpetrators. It is okay that we kiss, but it is not okay that they do not come forward and talk about the role that they played.

126 She included among the perpetrators those who supported the “boys on the border” by sending them packages, by giving space to them in the media, and by otherwise “egging them on”. She was clear that “patriarchy must not be allowed to shield these women, because they claim they did this for their partners, for their husbands, for their brothers.”

127 Ms Ann-Marie Wallace, on the other hand, spoke as the mother of a white soldier who was killed. She spoke about the pain of losing a son in this way, but also about her and her community’s ignorance of what men were doing in the army. She said that they “had come to accept that it is the law. Your children get called up for two years and that’s it.” She noted that her son, too, “did not have time to learn that it was all lies. According to him, he died a hero because that’s all he knew.”

128 Of the 7 128 applications for amnesty received by the Commission, only fifty-six were known to come from women and 4 665 from men, while in 2 407 cases the sex of the applicant was unknown. Thus only 1 per cent of those where the sex was known came from women. Of the forty women’s applications available for analysis, two had been granted amnesty, twenty-four had been refused and fourteen cases were still awaiting a decision at the time of reporting. The two whose applications were granted were ANC members. One had planted bombs and been involved in theft, while the other had been found guilty of possession and distribution of weapons.

129 Amongst those still awaiting decisions were seven women who had applied for amnesty under the ANC’s collective responsibility application, or had otherwise failed to specify the exact nature of their act. Of the thirty-eight who had been refused, the most common offences were murder (five applications) and theft or fraud (eight applications).

130 One of the most intriguing applications came from a young Indian woman, who applied for amnesty for what she describes as her “apathy”. The application stated that those applying on these grounds recognised that they:

as individuals can and should be held accountable by history for our lack of necessary action in times of crisis … in exercising apathy rather than commitment we allow(ed) others to sacrifice their lives for the sake of our freedom and an increase in our standard of living.

131 The applicants argued that apathy fell within the Commission’s ambit as an act of omission. The application was, however, refused on the basis that it did “not disclose an action or omission which amounts to an offence or a delict in respect of which amnesty can be granted.”

132 From the men’s side, one of the more bizarre applications was that of Mr Michael Bellingham. Mr Bellingham was one of the more than thirty security policemen who applied for amnesty for the bombing of Khotso House, Cosatu House and ‘Cry Freedom’ cinemas.²⁶ Bellingham requested amnesty for the murder of his wife on the grounds that she had threatened to reveal his political role.²⁷

133 Several of those who testified at the hearings spoke about the extent to which those who had perpetrated abuses against them were women. They spoke, in particular, about women warders in prisons. The CALS interviews provided further evidence on this topic.