TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 3

Subsection 5

37. The Caprivi unit members’ legal representative, Advocate A Stewart, explained how the applicants perceived the role of the political leadership of the IFP:

… in addition to which Mr Luthuli and then Mr Mbambo in particular, and some of the other applicants too, discussed really what they saw as the two faces, the private and the public face, to IFP policy. And the public face being one which said, we’re a peaceful organisation, we embark only upon peaceful tactics and objectives. But the private face, the one being propagated from the meetings of the cabinet of the KwaZulu homeland through to public meetings, mass meetings, was one of anger and of revenge and of attack, and that was the very real experience of the applicants in the way in which they explained it to the Committee, that public and private face.

And so their understanding is that that was the policy that was being embarked upon and they had it confirmed to them in so many ways. In addition to which it was confirmed to them inasmuch as they were hidden and protected when the a rm of the law was able to reach out to them. So in instances where Mr Khumalo was arrested, where Mr Dlamini was arrested, he was whisked out of hospital where he had been lying with his leg up in a sling and he was pulled out of hospital and taken away in a car and then hidden for a long period of time indifferent places including in Venda and in the Mkuzi camp.

The same with Mr Khumalo when it appeared the police were on his trail, in fact on the one occasion he was arrested and bail was paid, and then he was hidden away and instructed not to go back. And those activities, in hiding and protecting the applicants from the law, in those instances, that was done by senior members in the IFP itself and in the KwaZulu Police, and that gives credence to their claim that this was the policy and this was how they understood the policy to be, that these are the things they should be doing. (Pinetown Hearing, 8 March 1999)

38. A similar situation applied with respect to members of the self-protection units, who were trained in the early 1990s. While the political leadership admitted having trained thousands of people for defensive purposes at various camps in KwaZulu/Natal, not one member of the political or senior military leadership applied for amnesty for any unlawful activities.

39. None of the applicants in the service of the SAP or the KZP at the time of the incidents for which amnesty was sought (including the Caprivi trainees) was supported by applications from their senior officers. There were no applications f rom senior members of the KZP, despite documentation suggesting that, at the very least, they allocated resources or attempted to cover up the activities of their members. Nor did the Riot Unit members and Special Constables who applied for amnesty receive the support of their commanders.

40.At a local level, although some IFP political leaders assisted applicants in establishing a context for the political violence between the IFP and the ANC in support of their applications, few of those implicated applied for amnesty,

41. Corroborated victim statements before the Commission provide evidence that ordinary IFP members were involved in politically motivated illegal activities. Moreover, the correlation between victims’ statements and amnesty applications demonstrates that a very small minority of perpetrators applied for amnesty.

Categories of violations

42. The IFP applicants applied for the following types of violations:

a targeted killings of ANC supporters;

b planned attacks on people believed to be UDF or ANC supporters and

members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSAT U ) ;

c spontaneous attacks on people believed to be UDF or ANC supporters and

C O S ATU members;

d revenge attacks on UDF and ANC supporters;

e attacks on state officials ;

f mistaken identity, and

g internal IFP attacks.