| Time | Summary | |
| 42:22 | Stompie Seipei died at age 13. He was a fiery and unique young anti-apartheid fighter. In 1992 Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a fiery and unique leader of the anti-apartheid cause was charged with abducting Seipei. Members of her personal army, the Mandela United Football Club were convicted for this murder. Madikizela-Mandela has been implicated in other disappearances. This week, their parents will ask her to explain what happened to their children, but let’s listen to what Justice Minister Dullah Omar had to say a few days ago. | Full Transcript and References |
| 43:00 | You cannot compare the alleged violations in which Mrs. Mandela is allegedly involved with the crimes of apartheid, both in terms of quality, in terms of number, scope, scale and the nature of those violations. There is a fundamental difference between the two. At the same time I regard any violation of a human right as a violation per se and need to be admitted as having been wrong. On the side of the ANC we accept that during the course of the struggle violations of human rights were committed. Our struggle was a just struggle, the international community has regarded our struggle as a just one, justified by international law, but that did not justify violations of human rights and we recognized that such violations are wrong. But I do not think that you can equate the violations which have taken place during the context of a just struggle with a system which was a crime against humanity itself. | Full Transcript |
| 44:23 | Very few of us would disagree that apartheid was a crime against humanity and that the fight against it was morally and politically just. But such claims of abduction and torture and murder against an icon of the anti-apartheid struggle confront us and the Truth Commission with a thorny moral question. Can war be justified? If so, what would be a just war? And are all methods and actions acceptable when you are fighting a just war? | Full Transcript |
| 44:51 | I don’t think anybody here, the general, myself, likes war. I’ve met very few military people who do. War is horrific and is best avoided, but does this mean that when war cannot be avoided that those who are involved are all equally evil or equally guilty? | Full Transcript |
| 45:29 | Even if both sides participate in the same war, even if both sides commit similar acts of shooting, bombing and killing; morally speaking they cannot be equated. It’s a question of a just war as against an unjust war. | Full Transcript |
| 45:48 | There is a desire amongst parties to establish a moral equivalence between those who fought against oppression in this country and those who perpetuated the oppression. I think it is absolutely crucial as we move forward into the future that we should leave posterity with the understanding from our perspective of the morality of that struggle. | Full Transcript |
| 46:11 | The moral paradox of war is that in war soldiers may kill; soldiers may kill enemy soldiers, they may intentionally, deliberately kill in combat enemy soldiers without that being murder. Combatants may legitimately kill other combatants, but the fundamental principle of justice in war is the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. You may never, even in a just war, deliberately target a civilian, a non combatant, a bystander. | Full Transcript |
| 46:51 | The liberation movement, I submit, failed heavily on this issue of the methods used in war. The whole concept of the revolutionary war is not acceptable and has not been passed by international community as an acceptable form of war making. Secondly terrorism is completely rejectable. Terrorism is a crime against humanity because it strikes at the defenceless. Thirdly, the liberation side’s complete disregard for the protection of non-combatants, especially after the open decision and announcement to act indiscriminately in the use of force in the eighties. It became, this force, became intentional, it deliberately took the warfronts to the residential areas thereby exposing the non combatants to the ravages of war. | Full Transcript |
| 47:37 | Against our political record and my statements that it would have been antithetical to our objective to have the intention to terrorise the civilian population and to harm them. Apartheid on the other hand inherently had to terrorise the majority to accept its subjugation. They had to terrorise not only South African blacks, but they had to terrorise every white who stood up to join the blacks in the democratic struggle and they had to terrorise the whole of Southern Africa. | Full Transcript |
| 48:11 | When we talk about a just war as we had in South Africa undoubtedly against a corrupt, criminal, racist regime; when we talk about a just war against it and we invoke that we did not give to ourselves the right to terrorise people, we did not give to ourselves the right that the ends don’t justify the means. We were highly principled and the evocation of the just war does not accept, because it would undermine the justness of the cause that the ends justify the means. Now I’m not saying in that that there weren’t certain departures, certain aberrations… | Full Transcript |
| 49:04 | In so far as the violations that occurred within the ANC I can show systematic processes which attempted to address them, which had to acknowledge them. Not now, which acknowledged them when we were still guerrillas and said this is wrong. | Full Transcript |
| 49:26 | How do we as a society begin to read, now today begin to read, allegations of abduction and murder of a thirteen year old activist from Tumahole? // What we have to ask is what was the purpose of that abduction and what happened during that kidnapping? Well, the fact is that this child was tortured and murdered and that is absolutely unacceptable in moral terms. You know, individuals can’t set themselves up as a tribunal to judge somebody who is allegedly a spy, we can’t accept that kind of behaviour. A tribunal that is set up by a movement may be a different issue, but we’re not talking about that in this situation. So, to equate the affairs that occurred in a household in Soweto with a just tribunal set up by a liberation movement in a foreign country perhaps or even inside the country, something that was actually accepted by the movement. Those two are quite different things and I don’t’ think that we can accept an individual like Winnie Mandela making a decision, or ...more | Full Transcript |
| 51:17 | The role of the individual morality is essential, because reconciliation and forgiveness can’t be about groups and sweeping political statements. It’s about the individual as well, if it’s about establishing some kind of morality. Given that, it’s also important, if we understand it in that context that we must see that individuals had choices, whether they were easy or difficult choices is another matter, but individuals have choices. And unless we bring it down to the level of the individual then we take away that important aspect of it. So in every action I do believe that one must look at it from the perspective of the individual as well. | Full Transcript |
| 51:57 | There are no just or wrong wars, but there are just or wrong causes and then there are the means used to struggle for this cause, as my colleague was pointing out, and there is according to me always individuals’ personal responsibility and morality. Morality and not politics have taught us during our often brutish century that sometimes it is a sin to obey; to obey orders does not discharge the individual from his moral responsibility. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission to me is a unique opportunity to define what was just and what was not and in South Africa the Commission generously gives to the individual the chance to come to terms with his doubts and if individuals don’t use this chance I do think that they should face prosecution as they would have to do at an international criminal tribunal. | Full Transcript |
| 52:52 | There is wide national and international interest in the Mandela United Football Club hearings starting tomorrow. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela also thrusts herself into the spotlight once again this week with a stinging attack on her own Party and its government. She was harshly rebuked by Sports Minister, Steve Tshwete. The background to that squabble is the looming elections for a new deputy president for the ANC, but tomorrow’s hearings are only about finding out the truth about past human rights violations. | Full Transcript |
| 53:21 | I think it’s important to place on record the reason we had these section 29 inquiries is because that was the first part of the investigation process into allegations made about the involvement of Mrs. Mandela and members of the football club. These have been in statements made by victims who have come forward to complain about human rights violations. Mrs. Mandela herself at all times while she was subpoenaed called for a public inquiry and the Commission was quite pleased to accede to that request, because we also saw it as an opportunity to allow people to come forward to testify who’ve never actually testified in the trials that have taken place. And so one wanted to get a perspective from all the people who have knowledge of the activities of the football club. I want to reassure people, we’re not tied into any of the political processes, we haven’t been influenced by any of the parties, but we think that it’s very important for us to have this hearing because it is ...more | Full Transcript |
