TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 16

■ APOLOGIES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

49 The Commission heard acknowledgements from a range of individuals and representatives of various institutions about their direct and/or indirect involvement with gross human rights violations. Many offered unqualified apologies for their acts of commission and/or omission and asked for forgiveness. The response of others was qualified. In the process, the role of sincere apologies in the reconciliation process emerged. While insincere apologies add insult to injury, honest apologies encourage forgiveness by “helping to pour balm on the wounds of many”¹⁰ .

50 At the ‘Bisho massacre’ event hearing in Bisho, the following statements were made:

Colonel Schobesberger (former Chief of Staff, Ciskei Defence Force):

From my point of view and for the soldiers of the Ciskei Defence Force I can speak. I say we are sorry. I say the burden of the ‘Bisho massacre’ will be on our shoulders for the rest of our lives. We cannot wish it away – it happened – but please I ask … the victims not to forget (I cannot ask this), but to forgive us, to get the soldiers back into the community, to accept them fully, to try to understand also the pressure they were under then. This is all I can do.

Major Mbina (former captain, Ciskei Defence Force): Some people shot, probably shot without having been given orders, knowing that at the end it’s the boss that will answer. That is what I want to make clear. I also ask for forgiveness. I empathise with families that lost their members. I ask forgiveness on behalf of the Ciskeian Defence Force, especially those that were involved. We ask forgiveness. We will be very glad if the Commission would forgive us. To the community, we ask for forgiveness.

51 The testimony of Major General Marius Oelschig, head of the Ciskei Defence Force at the time of the ‘Bisho massacre’, highlighted some of the difficulties with public apologies. At the time of the hearing, Major General Oelschig was serving as Director of Transformation Management in the SADF:

I repeat that I have been a soldier, a professional soldier of 35 years’ standing. I do not know how else to express myself than in purely professional terms…

A commander grieves on his own and he grieves quietly. You learn through the years to accept it as such. I apologise if the Commission expected me really to open my heart and to put it out for public display. That, that is my grief, that is my concern that I live with as I have during my professional career and as I will until the end of my days. I am a committed, loyal South African. I feel very, very deeply about everything that has happened in our country, and I have made my contribution where I could. I have done my very best as an officer and as a South African, to promote what is happening in this country today…

I would like to conclude by insisting that I be allowed to grieve the way I grieve, and if, in my professional language of expressing my regret that loved ones have been lost and injured, if that is not sufficient, I apologise for that, but that is how I feel. I am a soldier, and I have been taught to hide my tears, and I have been taught to grieve on my own.

52 A submission at the East London youth hearing stated:

This past week, we met in Burgersdorp to do what we call a reconciliation service where we were going to cleanse ourselves of the past deeds. We’d slaughter a goat and cleanse ourselves with the blood that is shed. In a symbolic sense we’d cleanse ourselves of the wrong deeds, even if they were justifiable... The following were acknowledged. That we as the Inter-Church Youth or the church within the youth have, in one way or the other, killed people or at least were involved in the process of killings. That we were involved in demolishing people’s property... That we informed on others who ended up being tortured severely and who died in the process. We watched hopelessly whilst people were being ‘necklaced’. If we didn’t do the ‘necklacing’, we would have gone to buy petrol, arrange tyres and be part of making petrol bombs etc.

We were part of this as the church youth. One needs to emphasise that this was justifiable for the cause of the liberation of ourselves.

We want to say we believe that 70 to 80 per cent of the young people who died during the period of the struggle, most of them were church going youth or were young people who believed in Christ, or who were baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as it were. These people were all disappointed by the church. We are here to say that we take full responsibility for any human rights violations committed by our members. To families who perhaps had no idea that ICY members were involved, we are [unqualifiedly] apologising to you all.

53 In May 1998, at the hearing on the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Cape Town, Mr Patrick ‘Terror’ Lekota, former UDF leader and currently chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, had the following to say about ‘necklacing’ by UDF activists:

We accept political and moral responsibility. We cannot say these people have nothing to do with us. We organised them; we led them. When we were taken into prisons, they were left without leadership and many of them, angry even at our arrest, did things which were irrational.

54 At the human rights hearing in Upington, on 2 October 1996, local community leader and minister Aubrey Beukes apologised to the mother of the murdered municipal constable, Lukas ‘Jetta’ Sethwale (see above):

We were silent on the pain of the mother, the family of Jetta. As someone actively involved in campaigning for the release of the Upington 14 (those sentenced to death), I would like to say to Ms Sethwale and the family of Jetta: please forgive us that we allowed you to suffer in silence amid all the media attention. We were all victims. Forgive us the times when we drove past your house, showing journalists and foreign people where Jetta stayed and telling them our stories, and not inviting them to make some time to listen to your pain.