TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 8

Subsection 11

■ THE WAY FORWARD

56 Submissions at this special hearing made it clear that dealing with the legacy of past armed conflicts will require a concerted effort, with contributions from the state, organised civil society and individual citizens.

57 The role of the state was illustrated by Lieutenant Colonel Botha’s submission on a defence force project, Curamus Care for the Disabled, which was formed in 1990 to handle the treatment and aftercare “of our men and women who have been serving in the forces and have been injured in the process”. This is an interdepartmental project which includes those injured while serving in the police and correctional services. Sitting in his wheel chair, Lieutenant Colonel Botha emphasised that the project, which is his full-time responsibility, includes those with physical and psychological disabilities such as post-traumatic stress disorder. He encouraged those who made individual submissions, like John Deegan, to come and discuss with him the possibilities of and procedures for applying for a military pension. He also spoke in his capacity as chairperson of the Curamus Association for Security Service Disabled, a voluntary association formed in October 1990 to give disabled members a platform to deal with their problems – for example finding employment within government and the private sector.

58 Mr Ian Bruce highlighted the possible role of groups in civil society. He shared the vision of a fellow ex-combatant, Marius van Niekerk (who is still based in Sweden), of forming a South African Veterans Association (SAVA). SAVA’s basic mission, following in the footsteps of Vietnam veterans’ self-help organisations, would be to create a formal network to help ex-combatants from across the political spectrum to come together and help each other with problems like post-traumatic stress disorder. Some specific projects might include helping ex-combatants to tell and write their stories, supporting the campaign against the use of landmines, initiating and supporting relief and reconstruction projects to help local populations in former operational areas, linking with churches and official military medical services, setting up and supporting special training programmes in post-traumatic stress disorder treatment for interested health professionals and so on. John Deegan, who has been working with Marius van Niekerk, expressed the vision of SAVA as follows:

So what I hope for, for the future then, is to find out answers to a lot of questions, but obviously within a structure. With the help of the Commission and, hopefully with the government’s backing, we can possibly get a veterans’ association off the ground which Marius and others have been working on for some years now. It hasn’t been formalised, but there is a constitution, there’s something on paper, it’s concrete. All it has to do is get approval and we put it into gear ...

It’s not a bunch of ex-soldiers getting together, having a braaivleis and swapping bush stories. What it is, is SWAPO, ANC, APLA, Umkhonto weSizwe, Koevoet, ‘Reccies’, all the units, every single unit, everybody who ever was trained in any way militarily getting together and just trying to make some kind of sense of the mess we made and doing something about it. Like, we talk about reparation and remorse and all this but, until we actually do something, like, tangible and physical, it’s all words, it means nothing. So I’d really like to see the South African Veterans’ Association, if that’s what it’s going to be called, get off the ground. And hopefully we can convene a national meeting at some point where we can express the aims of that and make it open to absolutely everybody who feels they might have a problem with post-traumatic stress disorder or anyone who was just connected with this whole conscription, with the whole military thing.

Part of the SAVA thing, then, would be to go back to Namibia, to actually go back and see the victims of our actions, their families. And to go and make reparation to the Namibians and to try and help and then just make sense of what actually happened there because it was absolute madness.

59 Various submissions, for example that of Professor Johan Hattingh, illustrated some of the ways in which individuals could creatively express their shared responsibility for what went wrong in the past and their commitment to a new South Africa:

To conclude, as I pointed out at the beginning, this is a personal statement describing some of the events, emotions and positions that I have experienced and lived through whilst serving as a conscript in the SADF. With hindsight, it is clear that I have collaborated with a military machine that has permeated throughout society and penetrated it very deeply. Insofar as this is the case, I share responsibility for the pain, suffering and death inflicted by that military machine within South Africa but also far outside of its borders.

I could argue that I am guilty of nothing because I only acted on orders handed down to me in terms of the law of the country. I prefer not to do so but rather, without sounding sentimental or trite, to tender my sincere personal apologies to all fellow South Africans who have suffered directly or indirectly from the actions of the SADF during the years of apartheid.

Looking back on the sad history related above, there is nothing that I am and can be proud of. On the contrary, I am humbled by a deep sense of shame for the fact that it only slowly dawned upon me that I was participating in, and then virtually did nothing about, the system that I described.

This is underlined by the ironic fact that I started to question the military structures I was conscripted into on the basis of what it did to me personally and not so much on the basis of what it did to others. The way in which I tried to compensate for this moral insensitivity is now currently to actively participate in community initiatives, striving towards the reconstruction and development of our country.

It gives me a deep sense of satisfaction to work with people who were formerly the declared enemies of the SADF or Citizen Force towards such seemingly small goals as securing a shelter for street children in Stellenbosch or helping community organisations to articulate their needs and translate them into viable development programmes.

60 Compulsory military conscription required many young white males in South Africa to face the reality of apartheid, bringing them face to face with the knowledge that a war was being fought. Some were socially conditioned to accept conscription as a national duty. Some saw no other option. Some saw options but were afraid of the consequences of refusing. Some were shocked and traumatised by what they experienced and began to question the world view they had always accepted. A few believed that, for a variety of very different reasons, it was their moral responsibility to refuse to serve in the military.

61 Often a change of attitude or a refusal to serve threw individuals, families, friends and even entire communities into crisis, triggering self-analysis and moral debate. Although the resistance against apartheid has always involved a small number of white people, conscription put young white men directly in touch with the moral costs and human consequences of maintaining it by military means.