Special Report Transcript Episode 9, Section 3, Time 27:50

Joe Slovo is a member of the ANC national executive. His wife, Ruth First was assassinated in 1982. // The problem we face in this country is that here is an obvious tension between reparation and reconciliation, between retribution and reconciliation. At a moral level the answer is absolutely clear and that is: they should all be put on trial and they should pay for the crimes that they committed. But I’m afraid looking at the kind of vision of the unfolding of the negotiating process it’s not as simple as that. And this is one of the issues, which in other countries as well -whether it’s Chile or other places - become an element in the bargain in a way which has to be struck in a atmosphere of give and take. // Do you feel a need to know who killed your wife? // Absolutely. It’s the kind of thought that floats in your mind continuously. It bubbles up every time you open the paper and read about a similar event or similar historical analogy. It’s almost difficult to describe the psychological need to know the truth about this. It’s part of the therapy because you know to have emerged from the kind of waning situation from which we’ve emerged you do need a degree of therapy and part of the therapy is to expose, to know and to hear people say, I’m sorry. // Over the years there have also been victims of ANC crimes, torture of so called rebels or informers or the bombing of civilians for instance. They and their families also have a need to know. So, what does the ANC intend to do for them? // I think a crime is a crime, and torture is torture, whether it’s perpetrated by a government agent or by an ANC militant. As far as I am concerned, it falls into the same category. And I think we owe it to ourselves and we owe it to our organisation to investigate these kinds of distortions which occurred in our ranks. But the difference is, and I advisedly use the word investigate our ‘distortions.’ In our case it was a distortion. It was not part of policy; it was carried out by people who may themselves have been brutalised by the system of apartheid. I’m not making excuses for them, but it was against policy, it wasn’t part of a deliberate decision to engage in murder, to engage in total onslaught, torture as a matter of policy.

Notes: Jann Turner interviews Joe Slovo