TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 8

Subsection 10

52 The following is an extract from a written statement to the Commission by Ms Anne-Marie MacGregor whose son, Wallace, died while he was doing duty in the SADF on the Namibian-Angolan border ¹⁴:

And then on Thursday, March 9, I was confronted with the total shock of the news of his death. I was told that my son was killed a few kilometres from Oshakati. He was brought home wrapped in a thick, sealed plastic bag. The instruction was that the plastic bag should not be opened. The only thing I know about the state my son was in is that all his limbs were intact. And this I heard from his uncle, who could only establish this by running his hands over this plastic bag.

Again, I accepted this as military law. You are not allowed to have the last glimpse of your own child - even as he lay there, lifeless. On the day of Wallace’s funeral, his coffin wasn’t opened. It is ten years since I last laid eyes on my child - nine years since he was laid to rest. But in these nine years, I’ve been struggling to complete the process of mourning for Wallace.

A part of me wonders if in fact it was him in that plastic bag. How can I lay him to rest within my heart, if I didn’t see him go? When I lost my mother, whom I loved very much, I saw her, I touched her and therefore I was able to separate from her, release her and move on.

But with Wallace, there are so many questions that are still unanswered. In my struggle with my grief, I would like to know where exactly he died. How it had happened. Who was there with him when it happened? Did anybody help him to prevent it from happening? Who was the doctor who attended to him? I’ve never had the opportunity to ask these questions. Nobody has ever explained anything to me about my son’s death.

They can say nobody asked, but who do you ask? And even if you do, you will not get any answers.

I sometimes see Wallace in the streets. I remember two distinct occasions, when I thought I was seeing him. And it turned out to be somebody who looked like him. My grief becomes more intense on the anniversaries of my son’s death and on his birthday. He would have turned thirty in January. I’ve kept an album of all his photographs, as a way of dealing with the many feelings I have about the loss. But it is very hard, when there are so many things you are not sure about.

53 In a very poignant follow-up to this statement, the Commission facilitated a meeting between Ms MacGregor and a young man who had been with Wallace when he died. He told her exactly what had happened. As he described Wallace’s last moments, she looked at him and said, “So, Wallace is really dead” and wept inconsolably for about ten minutes. It was only at that moment that she actually acknowledged and accepted that her son was dead.

54 The transition to a democratic South Africa, coupled with the very public process of the Commission, has complicated the healing process for many ex-conscripts suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Many of the conscripts treated by Ms De Ridder reported a recurrence and/or intensification of their symptoms as a result of some of the testimonies to the Commission and, particularly, the trial of and television documentary (“Prime Evil”) about Eugene de Kock. To some extent, the Commission has helped release traumatised ex-conscripts from ’the prison of silence’ surrounding their experiences and, more importantly, their emotional responses to their experiences. Ms De Ridder says, however, that many others experience the current process as a form of retraumatisation:

While many of the conscripts referred to here do not differentiate their anger to the old or the new regime, some focused intensely on their sense of being abandoned by their old leaders. The old society did not provide for any process of reintegration and failed to acknowledge their sacrifice. The new society condemns them as perpetrators, as defenders of apartheid.

55 In response to Mr Koen’s submission, Commissioner Wendy Orr said:

I feel that you were describing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Very many people in this room recognise those symptoms either in themselves or their brothers or their friends, their husbands, their boyfriends. Which leads me to realise that there are so many damaged and injured young men, amongst others, in this country who have been really very severely damaged by the experience of conscription. This leaves us with an immense challenge of what we do to heal that damage. That’s one of the challenges that faces not only the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but all of us. Thank you for presenting that challenge to us today.