Special Report Transcript Episode 48, Section 1, Time 00:18

When one day we look back at the truth and reconciliation process three images would come to mind: the agony of victims giving testimony, the skeletons of police victims being dug up from secret graves and the image of this past week, Truth Commissioners grilling the leaders of the political parties who were in conflict the last few decades. It was the second appearance by political parties before the Commission. This time they had to respond to questions from the Commission and give detailed information. This did not really happen in the case of the National Party. In fact, National Party leader FW de Klerk became quite upset with the questioning. By the end of the week the National Party announced their withdrawal from Truth Commission proceedings. We’ll show you the whole encounter and give you our assessment of what De Klerk said and what he did not say. But first before the Commission was the top leadership of the African National Congress. Where De Klerk was the only person to speak on behalf of his party ten ANC leaders joined Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in their presentation. The ANC admitted that to fight a just war was not enough; they also had to fight their just war in a just way, the end does not justify the means. They faced vigorous questioning on this issue and sometimes had difficulty in defending their stand on necklacings, on the killing of civilians, on the treatment and sometimes execution of suspected spies in their camps and the use of landmines. The ANC leaders spoke for almost two days so we had to cut and edit their responses quite radically as you’ll see.

Notes: Max du Preez

References: there are no references for this transcript