TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 7

Subsection 13

Psychological abnormalities

88 The claim that violence is due to psychological dysfunction appears to warrant more attention. Nevertheless, the bulk of the international literature on atrocities and perpetrators¹³ reports little evidence of severe abnormality. Even in regard to sadism (Baumeister’s final potential motive of perpetrators: pleasure in hurting others), the general consensus is that, while it cannot be entirely dismissed, only about 5 per cent of all types of perpetrators (for example, serial killers, torturers, rapists) may be classed as sadists, and furthermore that this motive is gradually and slowly acquired over time. It is not inherent, but a consequence rather of earlier perpetration of violence. Although there is scant evidence that perpetrators suffer from major or severe psychological pathologies, other studies suggest that perpetrators may experience severe stress and anxiety along with denial, disassociation, ‘doubling’ and other defence mechanisms¹⁴ .

89 In the South African case, some submissions to the Commission have made claims of post-traumatic stress disorder among some perpetrators. However, the diagnostic manual on post-traumatic stress disorder attributes this state to victims, not to perpetrators. Furthermore, post-traumatic stress disorder, even if diagnosed among perpetrators, is far more likely to be a consequence of appalling actions, not primarily a causal factor. There is sizeable evidence that perpetrators experience severe stress reactions, and take to heavy bouts of drinking and drug-taking: but these are consequences.

90 An extract from the written statement of Koevoet member Mr John Deegan states:

I really had bad dreams … I have dreams of bodies, or parts of bodies … like an arm … this is a recurring dream I still have now … an arm sticking out of the ground and I’m trying to cover it up and there were people around and I know that I killed them, whatever is down there and its been down there for weeks … and it is this intense feeling of guilt and horror that this thing has come out of the ground again … and I had a dream that I actually met a guy that I shot.

91 While it is premature for the Commission to draw any final conclusions on this matter, the considerable bulk of international literature, and also the testimony submitted to the Commission, suggests that severe psychological dysfunction is not a primary cause of atrocities. Instead, most commentators have emphasised the ordinary, rather unexceptional character of perpetrators, typified in Hannah Arendt’s celebrated phrase, the “banality of evil”, or in Browning’s term “ordinary men”¹⁵. In this regard, it is instructive to quote Colonel Eugene de Kock, the Vlakplaas multiple killer who distances himself from psychological accounts that put the blame on childhood experiences, another form of explanation which seeks dysfunctions.

I know it has become fashionable to blame a person’s adulthood on his childhood … But such an approach makes me uncomfortable. I do not believe my childhood was especially bizarre. To be sure, my father was the proverbial hard man and he drank too much. So what? Many sons had hard men and drinkers for fathers … I find it unacceptable to blame my father and my home life for me.¹⁶

92 Along similar lines, in explanation of ANC-inspired SDUs in Gauteng townships, the Commission heard testimony that such persons were not dysfunctional but quite dutiful citizens. At the special hearing on children and youth, the Commission heard that –

… far from being a bunch of undisciplined comrades or the last generation, SDUs were in many ways the backbone of defence in certain townships.

93 Rather it was the social system and wider context that changed people. Mr Jimmy Nkondo, who joined an SDU at age thirteen –

… changed from a carefree young man who enjoyed school and sport to a person with no mercy. Instead of being nurtured in the family home he became a killing machine. There was no choice, it was kill or be killed.