Special Report Transcript Episode 20, Section 2, Time 10:48

I do not know if he made a deal. I wouldn’t know. You see, I’m not a politician. Quite frankly, when I understood that there had been an intervention by him I was on leave and I was sick and I was not here. But I understood that he was doing so at the request of the minister of safety and security who apparently made representations to him on the basis that the people, it was rumoured, who were going to subpoena, the generals, were people who - since most of them were commissioners of police – were assisting the ministry of safety and security in their presentations to the Commission. Because they also wanted to make an institutional presentation. And the view was that if those people are keen and prepared to assist in the manner in which apparently they are assisting the ministry of safety and security, why do we subpoena them? Because that might send wrong signals maybe to their underlings that they are being subpoenaed because they are not wanting to be cooperative and if therefore at that level they are not wanting to be cooperative there would be no incentive for underlings to be cooperative. It was an argument, which we in the investigative unit - possibly because we thought that we have sufficient to go by in terms of information that we’d covered up to that point on each of the persons that we wanted to subpoena. It did not go down well with us, but we understood that there was a point that was being made and we said well the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let’s see what they are going to submit to the Truth Commission. And that’s why, in that meeting, we sought to establish whether what they are going to be submitting to us is going to go to the heart of the matter, namely indicate to the nation… we have been asked by the Pebco Three, what have you, Cradock Four, those families have said ‘we want the bones, we want this, we want that’ and we have a duty to those people. And if they would assist us, as the letter from their attorney – you remember the original two months ago – had indicated that they might assist us in relation to those matters. If they were keen to do that then we take no pleasure in just issuing subpoenas. But as I’ve said the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I am now sitting here as I do … // Waiting for the pudding? // I’m waiting for the pudding. I am not satisfied that it may meet my expectations.

Notes: Dumisa Ntsebeza