Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-07

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: Yes, wait, wait.  What I think is referred to you on the second paragraph, we said,
"... we remind those who have chosen to forget that this is a system that the international community had declared a crime against humanity."
I hope your question is also, you also take that into account.  That even the international community, United Nations and all other agencies recognised that we were fighting against a regime and they declared that system as crime against humanity.  It is part of what one will call s the international law and, secondly, from this morning we have been reiterating that we were engaged in war and I do not think we have been trying to duck or shift or, on that concept.  It was war.  Whenever contradiction has reached a certain level of antagonism, war is unavoidable and in our country, at a given time, war was basically unavoidable and whether you decide or you prefer to refer to it as violation or illegal activities, but we consider it as war of liberation fighting and war, as I stated earlier on, involves killing and bloodshed.
 I am a bit worried on this matter, because it appears that as if we say we did not kill.  By declaring war it is admission, we accept the responsibility that we did kill and I think it is up to the Commission to define that as violation or illegal activities, but we stated very categorically clear that we were engaged in war and in war it means the death and the killing of the people.  We are here, basically, to admit that, yes, and give face to the faceless guerrillas or terrorists or whatever you people use to refer to earlier on that we were engaged in this to destroy the system that we consider as evil, as wicked, as disgusting and all that.   In that way, we were part of international community.  That is why even the international law you are referring to, which I take it that that law was adopted and taken, was adopted by the United Nations.  The United Nations recognised the Pan Africanist Congress and other liberation movements fighting against the former settler, colonial regime and it would be the United Nations that will say, yes, because the terrorist organisation known as the Pan Africanist Congress does not obey or recognise the international law, therefore, it remain terrorists and cannot be, must not be recognised.
 We are represented, we had a permanent observer status in the United Nations, because the international community, the world and everybody recognised the justness of our cause, the legal and legitimate course as pursued by Apla and the Pan Africanist Congress.  So, I believe and I hope I have elaborated enough to show and to link our local struggle, that is in South Africa, Azania, the concern and the eagerness and the urge of the world community to see the oppressed people freed and liberated.  So, we were part of that even if, as indicated by the Director, that some of us we were, we never delved deep into that aspect.  Thank you.

MR GOOSEN: Thank you.  The question remains, though, do you not regard it as a fundamental failure of leadership on the part of the PAC or the Apla high command, that you did not apprise yourself of what the position is in international law and did not ensure that your cadres acted in accordance with international law?

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: Yes, let us put this in perspective.  We are talking about international law.  Before there was international law and written on paper, there was a set of morals, ethics and morality.  That we had, at any rate, and the African people have always had it, because we have always fought wars on this continent.  We did not have anything written.  We had a set of morals and a set of ethics that governed our behaviour in war and in peace.  That is why every African tribe knew what to do during a war and after the war in respect of, for instance, capturing of slaves or and stuff like, and how to treat captives.
 So, the PAC also, for the mere fact, that the PAC recognised the basic tenet of humanness, human rights, which is enshrined in the PAC documents and no, and in no way different from the verbiage that you find on the very documents that you are talking about for the mere fact of that simply signifies that the PAC was happening in that areas.  So, that now you cannot judge us on whether we read international law or we did not.  You should simply judge us on whether we were cognisant, aware and conscious of the humanness of our actions and in our introduction here, we did mention some of these.  
 We indicated here that we did not have prisons where we kept people and that is one of the conditions that I commensurate with the recognition of human morality and human morals and, also, our cadres did not rape woman, for instance, wherever they went, we did not attack creches where babies were, we did not attack hospitals and stuff like that.  So, this is part of the humanness that is enshrined in the document that you are referring to.  You are referring to a piece of paper, we are referring to a mentality and a psyche.

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: In addition to that, on page four,
"Apla Human Rights Record",
I think we expuntiated a bit on that.  Is there anybody who wants to contribute (indistinct).  
BRIG ???????: This is precisely why I requested that follow-up questions on international humanitarian law should not be made, because I do not think there will be any key answers that you are going to get on this.  Firstly, I would like to request that, maybe, you rephrase the questions, because it is a bit unfair when you say a person has failed, it means that person has been given an opportunity to know what is right and he has failed to observe that what is right.  I have indicated it here that the first time I understood anything about international humanitarian law is when I joined the SANDF.  I, therefore, do not think it is fair for a question to be raised that I have failed when I did not know anything about international humanitarian law.
 So, that is how I understand the question when you say we have failed.  I would request that, maybe, you rephrase it.

MR GOOSEN: Yes, I will try to make it clear what I mean.  The Pan Africanist Congress leadership and the Apla high command leadership, on the basis of the fact that you exercised leadership, political leadership from the late 50s, when the PAC first established, and placed yourselves in a position to, in a representative capacity, prosecute a liberation struggle for and on behalf of and in conjunction with a struggling people, you assume responsibility, you have a responsibility to exercise that leadership responsibly.  Not to apprise yourself of what the prevailing standards are in the conduct of a war of national liberation, I would typify a failure, but I am asking you,  as a (indistinct) to indicate whether you would regard it, in hindsight, in retrospect, from the position that you are now in, as a failure of leadership?

MEMBER OF DELEGATION: Yes, I think this has been made very, very clear, that we did observe ethics, we did observe ethics.  The only difference is that we did not extract those from the international documents that you are talking about, because we had them in ubuntu.  You see, this thing of thinking that international law, like for instance, I mean, there was no African State in 1952.  You understand, there was no African state which contributed to that, but this does not mean that the Africans, themselves, did not have a code of ethics and a set of morals.  We had them in the PAC and we were exercising our leadership, therefore, in terms of ubuntu, which, actually, goes even beyond those pieces of paper that you are talking about.