Amnesty Hearings — Durban — UNKNOWN

EUGENE MARAIS: You must understand, Mr Chairman that the bus - the victims that evening - they weren't the true end.  They were perhaps the means to the end, it was a suitable target.  We didn't go out with the intention of shooting a bus full of people, we wanted to make a political statement.  To strike a blow in the struggle which our people were waging at that stage.

MR WILKINSON: Thinking back now - with a an armchair view - do you think you would have succeeded?

EUGENE MARAIS: It's difficult to say, but I - I believe not, because at that stage our aim - we were aware that the road that South Africa was on, was   the full democracy that we have today.  We knew at that stage that we were on the way to a multi-party democratic election.  We reacted against that and that's the message, that we rejected that, that the Government of the day, the National Party Government was on the wrong path.
That was not what the White Afrikaners of the country wanted and I don't believe we succeeded because in view of the election, even if you tried to stop it with bombs - that election in 1994 - it did take place.

MR WILKINSON: If I recall correctly, the press at that stage reported that one White would die as a result of that attack.  You took seven lives.  How can you justify that?

EUGENE MARAIS: It has already been testified that the Orde Boerevolk's policy has been mentioned, that if one White should die in organised political violence, then ten Blacks would have to die in response.  Today I can say that on that day we didn't decide when we left Richard's Bay that we would should ten Black people.  We looked for a suitable target.  Thinking back from today's perspective, I can ascribe it to nothing else but fate that seven people died.

MR WILKINSON: Why do you say that?

EUGENE MARAIS: Although we shot with automatic assault rifles and because of the conflict of the past we were fully aware of the destructive abilities of such weapons.  You must understand that when we attacked, it was at night.  The stretch of road was pitch dark, there were no street lights.  We were shooting at a moving target from a moving vehicle.  We were shooting blindly into the night.
Anybody who knows anything about automatic arms, is that when you use such a weapon, the barrel climbs, in other words you don't shoot straight.  The longer you shoot, the higher you shoot.  The duration of this attack, because we shot with automatic weapons, and if one looks at the rate at which these rifles fire, this attack took about two and a half to three seconds.  What I am trying to say is that we couldn't predict - we couldn't foresee that seven people would die - it could have been more, it could have been fewer.

MR WILKINSON: If you were quite aggressive in carrying this out, why didn't you stop and shoot at an even more helpless bus?

EUGENE MARAIS: That's the point I am making.  We didn't set out to shoot people, we went to make a political statement.  If we'd wanted to kill people on a large scale, if we wanted to create large-scale destruction, we could have shot at the taxi.  We would probably also have hit homes and pedestrians.  That's been testified already and I want to repeat it because the person who's asked the question - it seems to me, didn't understand it at all.  In a taxi there is a terribly high concentration of people sitting close to one another.  In a bus they are more widely dispersed, there's more space between the people.
If we wanted to kill more people we could have stopped there.  We could have because at that stage when we passed the bus again when the bus was standing still and the people had already begun to get out, we could have fired at them again.  We could have gone and looked for another target, but we didn't.

MR WILKINSON: Did you have any bullets left in your magazine that evening?

EUGENE MARAIS: Yes, I did.

MR WILKINSON: I know this is a difficult question - how many bullets did you have? Can you remember?

EUGENE MARAIS: We had approximately eighty rounds between us in magazines, and as far as I know, in total, I think 32 two rounds were fired.

MR WILKINSON: In a matter of seconds, and that's between the AK47 and the FN.:   Are there any other facts that you want to reveal to the Committee today about this incident?

EUGENE MARAIS: No, I'll answer questions.

MR WILKINSON: Is there anything you want to say in addition?

EUGENE MARAIS: What is your political view?

MR WILKINSON: I can put it to the Committee like this.  My arrest was a shock, it was the first time in my life that I had a clash with the law.  I literally, before that I had never even got a traffic ticket.  The Section 29 detention period - during that time I was in tremendous conflict - I was wrestling with myself and I came to the view that we had done something terribly wrong, and I also realised after conversations with a number of people that violence was not the solution to this country.
And that truly it could lead to the obliteration of all the people in this country, and not only the White Afrikaners.  After our detention under Section 29 I was granted bail.  On the first opportunity after that I broke off my membership of all right-wing political parties, and since then I have had no political alignment.

MR WILKINSON: Why was it necessary to do that?

EUGENE MARAIS: The most important reason for that was that I realised that I had done something tremendously wrong, and I knew that I hadn't done it entirely of my own volition. I felt if that's what they wanted me to do, then I didn't want anything more to do with them.

EUGENE MARAIS: Do you think the retribution and revenge and victimization are the key to prosperity in this country.

MR WILKINSON: No, I don't wish anybody the fate of going to jail, but sometimes it is a good thing because in prison I learned to live with people and that there is a place for everyone on this earth.  During my sentence I, in 1994, I experienced the election.  I saw that peace and reconciliation could truly come in this country when the right-wing parties already approached the negotiating table and today I know that there is a place for us all on this world.

EUGENE MARAIS: Good, and what else do you have to tell the Committee?

MR WILKINSON: Today I'd like to ask this Committee to grant me amnesty,  not because I want to justify what I did or I want to try to say that there was anything good about it, on the contrary, I want to ask for understanding not for retaliation.  I would ask for restoration rather than retaliation and not for victimization.
I would like to refer you today to the words of our present State President when he said at his inauguration this year, that we should forget the past, what is past is past.  Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: No questions?

WILKINSON: No further questions, Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WLKINSON

MR BRINK: Will you answer in Afrikaans?

EUGENE MARAIS: I will be replying in Afrikaans, Sir.
CROSS -EXAMINATION BY MR BRINK

MR BRINK: You, speaking for myself, strike me as a very intelligent man.  You went to university?

EUGENE MARAIS: Yes Sir,.

MR BRINK: You got your degree?

EUGENE MARAIS: No, Sir.

MR BRINK: And just clear one thing for the record.  In answer to my colleague you said that you pleaded guilty at your trial?

EUGENE MARAIS: That's right, Sir.

MR BRINK: Is it not true that at the first trial you pleaded "not guilty" and the trials were separated?

EUGENE MARAIS: So that was under the advice of my legal ...  [intervention]

MR BRINK: No, no, ...  [intervention]

EUGENE MARAIS: Yes that's true.

MR BRINK: I just want the facts.  I just want to clear things up.  You pleaded "not guilty" ...  [intervention]

EUGENE MARAIS: At my very first appearance ...  [intervention]

MR BRINK: At the first appearance ...[intervention]

EUGENE MARAIS: That's right, yes.