TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 13

42 Mr Johan (Hennie) Smit gave testimony at the human rights violations hearing in East London:

Ms Seroke: You live in Pretoria, and you are the parents of Cornio Smit who at the age of eight years in 1985 was killed in a bomb blast in Amanzimtoti. At the time, he had gone to Natal with his grandparents for a holiday, and, whilst they were shopping, two days before Christmas at the Sanlam Shopping Centre in Amanzimtoti, this bomb blast occurred. Can you tell us, how did you get the news and what happened?

Mr Smit: I got a phone call from my uncle who stayed in Malvern in Durban, and he told me that my son was in an accident; and I had to come down and see him. I thought that it might be a car accident because he didn’t explain what type of accident it was ... We only found out that it was a bomb blast when we arrived in Durban in the hospital. I can’t remember the name of the hospital. They told us that my son’s not there, but they know of a little boy who was in the mortuary. By that time it was very late; the mortuary was already closed, and I went to my uncle’s house …

We went to see him the following morning, but I didn’t want to believe that it was my son that was lying there. I asked them to take him out of the glass case so that I could see his chin. Under his chin, he had a small little cut which he got when I accidentally dropped him when he was a child. I still really didn’t want to believe it, and my wife and my father had to convince me it was my child.

Then after that, we came up to Pretoria. We buried him in Pretoria. I told newspapers that I thought my son was a hero because he died for freedom for people that (I would prefer to speak Afrikaans). He died in the cause of the oppressed people. A lot of people criticised me for this. They thought that I was a traitor, and they condemned me, but I still feel that way today...

Ms Seroke: You had the opportunity to meet the parents of the boy who planted the bomb.

Mr Smit: That’s true.

Ms Seroke: How did you and Annamarie feel during this meeting with his parents?

Mr Smit: I’ve got no grudge against them. I mean it was actually a rebellion. It was war. In war things happen that the generals don’t plan. Nobody plans it. It just happens. You don’t always – it may happen that the troops become a little bit over-zealous and start making their own terms and do things that they weren’t given orders to do, but in a war you just obey orders. You don’t question and ask why you should do certain things. So, I accept that it was an order that was given which this person or persons executed by planting the bomb.

Ms Seroke: How did you feel receiving these parents of this boy in your own house and what took place there?

Mr Smit: It was a great relief seeing them and expressing my feelings towards them that I felt glad that I could tell them that I felt no hatred for them. I bore them no grudge. And there was no hatred in my heart…

Ms Seroke: When your son was bomb-blasted you said, in the midst of acute grief, that you wished that these killings would stop and that the Nationalist Government could negotiate with the ANC for peace. That was a very profound statement. Hennie, what did your family think when you said that?

Mr Smit: Like I said, they couldn’t understand it; some of them still don’t understand it. They can’t see my point of view. They are not as liberal as I am. They really don’t understand it. Like my mum was in the same bomb blast, and she doesn’t feel the same way that I feel. So, there are different viewpoints on the subject…

Mr Malan: Did you find peace in the knowledge of what had happened? Did that bring reconciliation for you?

Mr Smit: Yes, it gave me peace because I knew what was happening. I thought that if I placed myself in the other person’s shoes, how would I have felt about it. [How] would I have liked not to be able to vote, not to have any rights, and that kind of thing? So I realised that I would not have liked it, so I realised how it must have felt for them.

Chairperson (Archbishop Tutu): My Afrikaans is not that fluent, but I would like to say this in your mother tongue. The people of this country are incredible, and the testimony that you have just given is something which people really admire. ... [we take] our hats off to you, and we would really like to express our appreciation and thanks to God that he created people like yourself, and that the reason why we still have this hope that reconciliation will triumph in the end is because there are people like yourself.

We would like to say how much we appreciate what you have done, and I really hope that all the people in this country, and you’ve referred in your statement to this fact, that we must forget about skin colour and that we must not apply reverse racism in the new South Africa. I do hope that our people will heed your appeal.

On behalf of all of us here and also on behalf of the whole nation, I can say there has been so much pain and suffering in this country. On behalf of all of us, I would just like to say thank you very, very much for what you have said here today and for what you have suffered and experienced with your family at a time when nobody would have wanted to believe that such a thing was possible.

43 A number of statements emphasised the importance of truth in the reconciliation process between victims and perpetrators: in other words, knowing whom to forgive and why the violation(s) took place: