TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 8

Subsection 8

Mr Eric Rautenbach, who opted for exile rather than conscription

41 Writing from Canada, Mr Rautenbach told the Commission how he escaped conscription by leaving the country.

The people I went to school with and my other white friends and acquaintances all went one by one to do their military service. One couldn’t really blame them - how do you go against such a big machine? You have nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. ... I made the decision eventually to break the law ... to finance a ticket out ... I lived and scavenged through fourteen countries. I was getting tired. It was a confusing time. I was sick and I’d lost faith in humanity. I had no country, no visas, no work permits, no future and no food. I stole food to eat. I was truly homeless even more than the homeless of South Africa [were]. I had no tribe, nothing. I trusted nobody. Round and round I went, using my white skin to blend in with the university students, the vacationers and young travellers from South Africa, Canada, Australia and Europe ...

I finally returned for a brief visit to South Africa this year, twenty-one years after leaving, to take my father’s ashes to the mountain ... Every day my soul cries for home, but home is not home anymore.

Value of individual submissions

43 These individual submissions highlighted a number of important points.

44 First, they provided glimpses of the different ways in which some white men struggled with the issue of compulsory military service. These included those who objected on religious and/or political grounds and were imprisoned; those who went into exile; those who openly mobilised opposition to conscription; those who participated reluctantly and opted for a more passive style of resistance, and those who tried to join the military ‘enemies’ of the previous state.

45 Some of the submissions focused on military activities in neighbouring countries, especially in South Africa’s ‘fifth province’, Namibia. This highlighted the fact that there are large numbers of victims in the southern African region whose stories were not addressed by the Commission.

46 Many of these individual testimonies helped to achieve one of the purposes of the special hearing, namely to draw attention to the reality of post-traumatic stress disorder and to the urgent, deep challenge of dealing with the psychological consequences of past conflicts. In the words of Commissioner Wendy Orr, who spoke after John Deegan had completed his testimony:

John, it’s very difficult to respond to a testimony like yours. It engenders so many feelings in all of us. In me, it engenders feelings of horror, of pain, of anger but I think, most overwhelmingly, of sorrow that young men like you and not only those that were in the SADF but those who were in MK and APLA and other forces - that young men like you had to deal with that insanity [of the war] ... We’re going to need to deal with the issues and challenges that you have raised to-day ... I remind you that this is not the end as you yourself know. There’s still a long way to go, and we wish you every support and courage and affirmation in that journey.