Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-10

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Chairperson I may be a bit faulty in my memory because I was in prison at that time, I recall that against the evidence put by the Deputy President and President Tambo at Kabwe about the formation of Inkatha, that its origins were in a cooperative framework between Mr Buthelezi and the African National Congress, I recall sitting in prison pre that period how Mr Buthelezi was the target of covert operations by the State.  How many times we read reports in prison of efforts made to bomb his car and to kill him.
 But somewhere down the line I recall Mr Jack Buchner appearing on the scene in KwaZulu Natal.  And along that line you see a steady deterioration of the relations.  And Mr Jack Buchner I don't have to give you the history of Mr Jack Buchner.  I don't have to even confront the Commission, I don't have all the evidence ad hoc on me of how he is very short on the truth.  So if you look at that shift the problem is at some point, and you have also the evidence of Mr Groenewald in Military Intelligence, how they went systemically to persuade him that the ANC was his enemy and seeking to kill him, until he believes it.  So there's a major problem there, that there was a change in his own thinking and the leadership of his party supported that change in thinking.
 But again who benefits?  Who did that to bring about that change?  It's too early for me to make that judgement call, but I say there are a lot of indicators strewn on the ground that we need to take into account.  It would be helpful if the IFP saw its way to cooperate with the Truth Commission, once more not for the sake of indicting each other, but for the sake of this country.  If they could even come here and say how and why their thinking developed in a certain way, even from the point of view of their perception and however unsubstantiated by the facts, it would help all of us to grapple and exchange views to move it in the right way.  
 So I am saying yes, the regime was deeply involved and the key manipulator of that, but in the process of that manipulation there was a dramatic shift in the thinking of Mr Buthelezi.  That shift at that level gave the opportunity for the idea of IFP versus ANC as the major conflict to take root in KwaZulu Natal.  In other parts of the country where they made the black-on-black violence efforts to stick it did not stick, we were able to defeat that move, because no substantial person of political stature emerged to embrace the idea that the ANC was their enemy.  This would be part of that low intensity conflict.
 But the point I am making is that in other parts of the country 
no substantial personality emerged amongst black people to embrace the idea that no, the enemy is the ANC.  In KwaZulu Natal there was the acceptance of that and therefore it began to be translated right through the communities and is part of the problem we are grappling with today.

MR GOOSEN: And do I take it from your answer that once the conflict, I mean you've described from your perspective the genesis of that conflict, but once that conflict took root that there would be a significant contribution from the side of the ANC to the continuation of that conflict, given that the conflict had taken root?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: The significant contribution if there is anything from the ANC could not be in its policy, could not be in the leadership of comrades like Jacob Zuma, it would be located in certain pockets of the leadership like the Siphiso Nkabindas.
 But more significant is that those on the ground who were dying would become so emotionally charged that many, many people in leading positions in the community who could get caught up in that atmosphere.  But the ANC was very clear, we are systematically, from the time we were legalised, engaged in initiating processes to try and get peace through talking and we have persisted at the moments of greatest violence.  Even now every time the violence erupts in Natal, the leadership of the ANC situated in the Natal wherever they are in the country abandon everything to rush back there to try and get peace moving and to hold the processes there.
 So I am simply saying that yes, I think it comes back to that the forces of the National Security Management System remain embedded in our society, sometimes even in the ANC structures.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax.

MR LAX: Sorry Chairperson, just the last answer has in essence forced me to ask a particular question, but it's contemporary in a sense because we have strayed onto a contemporary issue, and that is, I am just trying to understand in the light of that response why it is that elements in Richmond and within ANC leadership structures in Richmond are saying we won't talk to Siphiso and his - they refer to them as criminals, they say we are not going to discuss peace with those people, and I am just trying to understand that response.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: It's problematic when we keep on keeping to the present.  I know it's a real problem but you must appreciate that it's at the same time not for glib reasons that the ANC in government has had to deploy Mr Engelbrecht to head the investigation in Richmond, and it is clear that that deployment began to deliver the first arrests.  It's a repeat that in the security forces deployed in that area, particularly in the police, clearly the violence has been continuing and the perpetrators have been getting away because there is some linkage with those in the police force.  We send a
special unit, sometimes it works, sometimes it bumbles along.  
 But the question you are asking goes beyond that. I am saying that we can't get detained with that here.  What we have to say in your investigations pursue the proposition that we have put and help establish whether that proposition has validity, and to the extent it has find a way to reach the other parties involved to try and contribute to this process of coming clean so that the public can, and people involved can understand the reality.  So that's all I can say at this stage.  
 Insofar as the people in Richmond saying we won't talk, well Chairperson all of us said we will never talk to the apartheid regime, but the ANC is an organisation guided by principles and policies, those principles dictate to us to talk to the National Party regime.  Many of the individuals that sat with us at the table at Kempton Park carried out more killings than anybody in Richmond, but we talked to them to bring democracy here and to bring reconciliation.
 So if the conditions mature, if you can help it, our position will not be a vindictive one but will be searching a solution in the interests of unity, peace and reconciliation.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Mr Goosen.