TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 35

Towards reconciliation at a community level

127 The following extracts from statements at the post-hearing programme in Oudtshoorn illustrate central aspects of the reconciliation process at a community level. Mr David Piedt, a community leader, reported:

So this was the place, the rural town in the Karoo, after the big march in August 1989 in Cape Town, where in September 1989 we mustered about 15 000 people in Oudtshoorn for the first big rural march. So in this town we decided on two things: the slogan "Submit or fight", because this was a very conservative place, extremely conservative, and the people in town had to make their choice early in the ’sixties: are we going to fight or are we going to submit? And the people took the alternative, and that is to fight back.

So, we headed for one hell of a confrontation. And after the change in the coming of the new Government and the freedom of the State President and everything, then people started to interact with one another. So what I am trying to say is that that phase of confrontation and conflict has passed in Oudtshoorn.

I spent four hours in a meeting yesterday with developers in Oudtshoorn… it went for a confrontation, but through means of interaction and negotiation we could reach some sort of an agreement and consensus.

So what I am trying to say is that this town is now on that way, and I am talking for the majority of people, and that includes white people, that there is a sincerity among the people: that we want to rebuild and reconstruct our town on a humanitarian basis, on the basis of human dignity, on the economic basis and on a social basis.

128 Mr Charles Narkin, representative of Western Cape Provincial Administration, Mental Health Services, said:

We had a meeting of about thirty people, nearly all of whom were from Oudtshoorn, and our mandate was to try and present a working programme that we can begin to implement with almost immediate urgency.

This group decided that they want to try and develop trauma services within their existing resources. There was an acknowledgement that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission cannot in the short term put up any reparation money. They cannot put up a lot of mental health resources. We must turn to the resources within Oudtshoorn and the resources within the Southern Cape.

So, the decision was that there would be two types of processes that will happen. First of all, the existing mental health workers will put the word out that … people who have suffered from various forms of trauma [should] please feel that the health and the mental health services have an open door to receive them.

And this would also possibly include people who are perpetrators, who are suffering potentially the traumas of having played that role. Maybe deliberating about seeking amnesty, coming out into the open, seeking forgiveness, so it is really an open audit.

They have been trained, but they will get further training around the very particular nature of politically motivated trauma, as well as all the other trauma they deal with, like child abuse, sex abuse, violence, which is clearly no less in Oudtshoorn than in other communities – and we are very concerned about that.

But in addition to the traditional mental health workers, the decision was made by the group – and there were a lot of people there who immediately volunteered to set up a cohort of volunteers. They are going to be trained by Dr Van Wyk’s team and a supportive team led by myself from the Provincial Administration, where we are going to develop trauma work skills in this group of people, counselling skills, trauma skills, conflict resolution skills.

So, they are going to be armed with a set of skills that they can offer this community to ease some of the distresses and pains which are both chronic and acute. So, we are going to get going with training programmes, where these people, who are also the volunteers, will put the word out.

So, we want to just make a final message and a final statement to the community to say that put the word out that groups will be starting up. If people are suffering from trauma, if they are having all terrible symptoms and they cannot get their lives back on track, if they are having all kinds of problems which they feel are due to the traumatic events in their life, to feel that there is a supportive web being built up in this neighbourhood and in this community, by people in the community, and it will hopefully grow from strength to strength.

129 Mr Sipho Kroma, Mayor of Oudtshoorn, said:

I am saying that we have a democratically elected municipality in this town. And that democratically elected municipality has got a task and the task of making sure that we play a major role in the reconciliation of our people in this country.

One of the major roles that we have to play and that you must play in that municipality is to make sure that you participate in the whole issue of reparations and the healing of our people in this town. Because if our people are not healed, you are not going to be able to have a community to lead at the end of the day. We must and we are compelled to play a role at that level.

I am saying this, and I know that I am saying this on behalf of the majority of people in this town of ours, and I know that I am saying that on behalf of the majority of the Councillors who are within the Council.

As I mentioned that it is our task. People who are here who for the past three days have been part of this whole endeavour. I think what we need to do now is to go to the other side and go and convince our brothers and sisters who are living in town and explain to them the importance of the Truth Commission and the importance of us coming together as a nation and the importance of us living together as brothers and sisters in the spirit of reconciliation, what that can do for our town.

There were people of the opinion that there can be no ways in which the people who were formally oppressed can reconcile within ourselves alone. We need to take our brothers and sisters in hand and bring them along with us. Even if that meant that we have to do that on a day to day basis and pursue and continue because it is very, very important for us to move together.

Let me further say that I hope that this is not the end of the whole process. That I hope that this is the first step towards healing and that with [the] step [taken] today we are going to form something concrete that is going to lead to us having a town that is healed.

Let me further say that, when I am saying these things, when I refer to the town I do not necessarily refer to the town council. I refer to the people of Oudtshoorn, to the community of Oudtshoorn. Together we can be able to build, to bridge the gap existing between us in this town. Together we can be able to make sure that our idea of reconciliation becomes a reality at the end of the day.