TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 20

■ TOWARDS RECONCILIATION BETWEEN VICTIMS/SURVIVORS AND PERPETRATORS

62 Although it was not part of the Commission’s mandate to effect reconciliation between victims, the community and perpetrators, there were a number of significant instances where the Commission directly facilitated the beginning of this complex process.

Neville Clarence and Aboobaker Ismail

63 Fifteen years after he was blinded in the Church Street bomb in Pretoria, Mr Neville Clarence, a former South African Air Force captain, shook hands with the man who planned the attack aimed at the South African Air Force headquarters. During the amnesty hearing, Mr Aboobaker Ismail (former head of the special operations unit of the ANC’s military wing MK and currently head of policy and planning in the Defence Secretariat) told the Committee that he regretted the deaths of civilians in the course of the armed struggle. In a face-to-face meeting before the start of the hearing, Ismail told Clarence: “This is very difficult, I am sorry about what happened to you.” Clarence said that he understood, adding, “I don’t hold any grudges”. Both agreed that they should meet again, and they exchanged telephone numbers. “Talking about it is the only way to become reconciled”, Ismail said.

64 Afterwards, Clarence told reporters that he could not comprehend the full extent of the healing that had taken place at the meeting.

I came here today partly out of curiosity and hoping to meet Mr Ismail. I wanted to say I have never felt any bitterness towards him. It was a wonderful experience… Reconciliation does not just come from one side. We were on opposite sides and, in this instance, I came off second best.

65 According to an editorial in the Sowetan, “Clarence’s magnanimous gesture will no doubt stand out as a symbol of hope for a society that remains deeply divided”. The editor of another major newspaper saw the meeting between Clarence and Ismail as a lesson that:

Despite ‘our war’ (or perhaps because of it) we can live together. That is possible because people on both sides possess magnanimity of spirit. This is not a call to naivety and the creating of a ‘new’ South African nation will not happen overnight. But looking at other parts of the world – be it the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Somalia, Rwanda – we should never forget our ability to forgive.¹¹

Ivy Gcina and Irene Crouse

66 At the human rights violation hearing in Port Elizabeth, veteran activist and ANC MP Cikizwa Ivy Gcina gave harrowing testimony on her torture in detention in 1985. Ms Gcina also had praise for a warder at North End Prison, Ms Irene Crouse:

The same night I saw a light at night and my cell was opened. I did not see who was opening my cell. I did not look at the person. She said to me, "Ivy, it is me. I am Sergeant Crouse. I have fetched your medicine". She rubbed me. She made me take my medicine. I told her that I could not even hold anything but I can try. I told her I was going to try by all means. She said "It is fine, do not worry yourself. I will help you." So she made me take the medicine and then she massaged me. Then after that I could at least try and sleep.

67 A few days later the local newspaper, the Eastern Province Herald, carried a front page, full size picture of Ivy Gcina hugging Irene Crouse, under the main headline: “Ivy meets her Angel of Mercy. Now here’s what reconciliation is all about”. The report read:

Tortured activist Ivy Gcina was yesterday reunited with her Angel of Mercy – the kind jailer who held her hand and tended her wounds after hours of brutal interrogation by security police. “I never thought you’d remember me”, said Irene, 37, as the two women threw their arms around each other on the stoep [verandah], crying and laughing at the same time. Ivy, 59, replied: “But after I was assaulted it was you who was there to help me, who entered my cell at night. Can you ever forget someone like that?”

68 Both women said the Commission hearings had brought out necessary, though painful, details about the country’s past – but equally important, it had brought them together. “We met as human beings, as women,” Ivy recalled. “There was such communication there. Ensuring I had a clean towel, asking me how I was. The relationship was so good.” Irene felt she was “only doing her duty” when she helped Ivy.

69 At the Eastern Cape hearing, chairperson Revd Bongani Finca said the Commission was not only bent on discovering the hurt that had been done, but also those who had “risen above the system. It is wonderful that even in a system like that there were people who rose above it. I salute Ms Crouse that in such a situation she was able to show kindness”.