TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 4

Subsection 16

■ THE CONSEQUENCES OF GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ON COMMUNITIES

135 Apartheid’s racial and ethnic-based social engineering resulted in both the construction and destruction of communities. Legislation such as the Group Areas Act, the Land Act and influx control laws were all attempts to define and regulate communities. Apartheid created communities that were racially, linguistically and ethnically determined. Resources for the development of these state-defined communities were differentially allocated resulting in the deprivation, particularly, of African communities. These racial categories were adopted by communities themselves, resulting in generally understood divisions between white, African, Indian and coloured groups.

136 Clearly, differences of various kinds existed within these groups. However, in the period under the focus of the Commission, some of these internal differences were masked. The white community generally shared a common sense of defending and maintaining the status quo while the black community united in a common resistance to their oppression. The state therefore viewed communities as homogeneous and polarised entities.

137 From the mid-1980s, intra- and inter-community violence began to emerge and differences between communities along class, ethnic, linguistic and political lines led increasingly to violence. The security forces manipulated these differences through the recruitment and collaboration of vigilantes, which generally represented the more conservative elements in black communities.

Black communities

138 In 1960, the year that marks the starting point of the Commission’s mandate, the state embarked on the rigid enforcement of apartheid legislation, in particular the Group Areas Act. It was an era characterised by mass forced removals and the consequent dislocation of communities. Resistance to forced removals generated fierce conflicts which resulted in grave human rights abuses as the state violently enforced its policies.

139 The townships and residential areas constructed in this period were grossly under-serviced. Many were without basic services such as water, electricity, adequate housing, roads, schools and clinics. Lack of services and appalling living conditions generated tensions that laid the ground for much of the conflict that was generated in South Africa’s contemporary history. From rural farming areas to homeland settlements to urban townships, living conditions and economic deprivation provided fertile ground for conflict. The battle for national liberation and civil and political rights cannot, therefore, be separated from countless localised battles rooted in socio-economic deprivation.

140 Many communities mobilised around issues relating to poor living conditions such as inadequate housing, water, infrastructure and the lack of services. The death of three Robertson residents in 1990 bears testimony to the kinds of violations experienced as a result of such protest by communities. At the funeral of these young men, a pamphlet was produced and circulated. It read:

Their death is due to police action before, during and subsequent to community protests against those unacceptable living conditions in the community despite several efforts and memorandums from the community to the local Municipal authorities to improve these conditions.²⁷

141 At the Mmabatho hearing, Ms Florence Madodi Nkosi told the Commission why her activism was rooted in community issues:

We wished that Huhudi could undergo changes, because at that time we were using bucket systems for the toilets and people were forced to go to Pudumo and didn’t also want to go to Pudumo.

142 Community mobilisation influenced the state’s view of entire communities as homogeneous entities. This often resulted in the arrest, detention, torture or killing of individuals who were seen as symbols of the resistance. Thus, according to the construction of communities as ‘us’ and ‘them’, and articulated in the South African context in racial terms, the white state constructed black South Africans as the enemy. Mr Anderson Lizo, a youth from Upington, was a victim of this indiscriminate persecution. In 1985, while waiting for friends after a rugby game at school, he was picked up by the Commanding Officer of Upington, known as the Rooi Majoor (Red Major). It was assumed that he had information on the organisers of resistance in the local township, Paballelo. Although only fifteen years of age at the time, he was repeatedly thrown off a high bridge into a river in an attempt to elicit information.

143 Such attacks by the police and security forces undermined the dignity and sense of security of communities. Testimonies of random shootings and arrests dominated hearings. Victims of these violations included women, children, elderly people and residents of communities going about their daily business. Pastor Dyantyi told the Commission at the Oudtshoorn post-hearing workshop that:

You would see a Jeep from the police launching teargas all over the township. As you can imagine, the township is so clustered - this teargas would be blown all over the township.

144 Police and defence force violence wreaked havoc in communities and destroyed the natural flow of life, evidenced by the fact that young people commonly died before their parents or grandparents. The killing of Ms Anna Maria Sam’s grandchild was one such case. At the Upington hearing, Ms Sam told the Commission that Ms Beulin Isaacs was fifteen years old and about to give birth to her first child when she was shot dead. She had been buying milk for her grandmother, Thus, in some communities, daily activities such as buying bread or visiting friends meant risking one’s life. The situation was exacerbated when police turned community rituals of grieving (after incidents caused by police violence) into further traumatic incidents. Police harassment at funerals and denying families the right to see the bodies of their loved ones were common. Ms Xoliswa Stella Lumkwana said at the Upington hearing that, after the police shot her brother:

they decide when to bury him and where and as to how must he be buried and yet they are the ones who were wrongdoers.

145 Funerals became both a symbol of the effects of the repression and an opportunity for mobilisation. Consequently, the state sent police to monitor and disrupt many funerals, perpetuating the cycle of violence. More killings occurred at funerals, and then there were more funerals. This was a particularly brutal manifestation of the South African conflict, especially in the light of the importance of funeral rituals in the black community.

146 The sense of powerlessness experienced by communities was increased by the culture of impunity within which the police and security forces operated. Ms Anna Sam described how the Commanding Officer of Upington, Rooi Majoor, “could go into your house and shoot somebody but nobody could stop him” ²⁸. This perception of omnipotence was used by the state to undermine communities and discourage resistance and counter-mobilisation. Indiscriminate victimisation was intended to serve as a warning of the dangers of dissent.

147 Persistent poverty, economic hardship and unemployment, together with various forms of torture, made it possible for the state to manipulate communities through the recruitment of informers and collaborators. This manipulation exploited existing inter-community rivalry - including rural/urban divides and conservatives who feared progressives - and was usually articulated through intergenerational conflicts which pitted ‘fathers’ against the ’comrades’. The exploitation of these divisions lay at the heart of the destabilisation strategy adopted by the state in the late 1980s.