Amnesty Hearings — Pinetown — 1999-03-08

CHAIRPERSON: Yes I think we probably have to go right over the top to find that they tried to play down their roles.

MR STEWART: Thank you, thank you Mr Chairperson, I won't then dwell on that.  I would like, though, just to make, in a way to take us out once again from this sorry morass of murder and mayhem that we're in, to make one reference again, and I've said again I'm not an historian, but to make one reference again to what was said by Simon Wisenthal who was a well known Nazi war crimes prosecutor, and had spent much time in concentration camps in Nazi Germany during the second world war, and he was in a concentration camp when the war ended.  And he and his colleagues were emaciated and had no strength, and they invariably, they had to stay for some time in the camp, at least a few weeks afterwards, to try and recover before they could make arrangements to go to other places.  And the comment he made in his book, Justice not Vengeance, is particularly telling, and it was a comment about the local civilians who had really, in effect, been supportive of or complicit with the Nazi war machinery, and that they then, after the war, came to the concentration camp to see the people who were held there, and made the claim that they did not know what was going on, and they tried to really reduce themselves, or remove themselves, from the conflict.  And the quote is very short.  What Wisenthal says is, he says, "...for the first time in my life I saw what enormous cowards these people were.  How instead of dealing with their guilt they tried to deny it, to suppress it insofar that in the end they couldn't see it themselves.  We didn't feel like talking to these people but we realised one thing, that the Germans and the Austrians would not simply acknowledge with shame what we had experienced, they would dispute it."  And as the Chairperson has indicated, the case of the applicants here today is really quite different.  They're not coming and disputing an involvement, quite contrary.
	What I have sought to do this, from page 17 onwards, and dealing with the question of acts associated with a political objective, what I've sought to do is to try and categorise some of the different acts and activities that the applicants have been involved in in different ways.  
	The first category there is the assassination of identified targets, and those are in a sense easier for the Committee to deal with.  Questions have been raised as to whether the particular targets in some cases were political targets, and that's a matter that can be debated, but examples are, as I've said there, the murder of Zazi Khuzwayo, the attempted murder of Pearl Tshabalala.  And there are many others I can refer to, the murder of Nagtval Khumalo, that's Dlamini incident eight, the murder of Natie Gumede, Dlamini incident 11, the murder of April Khayiwe, Dlamini incident 12, the attempted murder of Welcome Ntumkulu, Dlamini incident 15, the murder of Mrs Thaba, that's Khumalo incident eight.  The numbers I'm referring to of course are the numbers in the schedules.
	In each of these cases the targets were identified as being prominent members of the ANC or UDF or of playing a significant role in the conflict on the other side.  Arguments may be raised well that perhaps those people weren't, or perhaps insufficient double checking was done to ensure that they were prominent members, but on my submission there's no credible suggestion on the evidence before the Committee, that the belief the applicants had that those were prominent people, that did need to be murdered, or were within their instructions to murder, or assassinate, there's no criminal suggestion that they didn't bona fide believe them to be so.
	If we deal with the case of Zazi Khuzwayo, for example, it was suggested, or an attempt was made in cross-examination to suggest that perhaps this was just an attempt by Samuel Jamile to eradicate one of his business opponents as opposed to political opponent, and thereby secure a business advantage in Claremont, and in that sense it wasn't a political assassination.  
Now in the first place I would submit that it's clear that Zazi Khuzwayo did play a prominent political role in Claremont.  That's been detailed in the amnesty application of Mr Hlope, where Mr Hlope if I remember correctly was granted amnesty in respect of that murder.  It's been detailed, for example, by his lordship Mr Justice Hurt, in the case of the State v Mshengu, and others, where Pumulani Mshengu Bengu and Thlangani Pani Jamile were accused of the murder of Zazi Khuzwayo, and Mr Justice Hurt detailed there the political background to that murder, and that one of the main problems that faced the State there, I beg the Committee to bear with me but I've got the wrong, ...(intervention)

SISI KHAMPEPE: Whilst you're on that point Mr Stewart, shouldn't we confine ourselves to the evidence that is before us, that's coming from your client, inasmuch as we are aware that in the case of Mr Hlope a different perspective was given in relation to the leadership that Mr Khuzwayo played in Claremont.  Shouldn't we begin by what we have been given by Mr Luthuli so far as his significance as a political activist in Claremont is concerned.  Shouldn't we actually stop there without having to go into something that is not before us.

MR STEWART: Thank you Ms Committee Member.  Indeed, that is the starting point, insofar as any of the other documentary  reference are concerned, those are only corroboratory, and that, but that they are public documents and in that sense can be placed before you.  The other amnesty decisions and the decision of Mr Justice Hurt and so on.  But in Zazi Khuzwayo's case, yes indeed the evidence before the Committee is that he was a prominent political leader in Claremont.  The problem that he represented for the IFP is that he was resisting, or leading the resistance to the incorporation of Claremont into KwaZulu and played a prominent role in that respect, and he was clearly a political opponent of Mr Jamile and indeed of the IFP in the area as a whole.  And the IFP was weak in Claremont at the time.  We know that from the evidence of Mr Luthuli and Mr Khumalo who was also involved in that hit.
	But in any event, even if Jamile's motives were that Mr Khuzwayo was a business opponent and should be eliminated on that basis, there's no suggestion that in the minds of Luthuli and Khumalo, who were involved in this murder, that they thought that their involvement was on the basis of him being a business opponent to Jamile.  They thought that they were pursuing a political hit against a prominent ANC or UDF community leader, and that's what they were involved with.  And the same goes, my submission, in the case of Pearl Tshabalala, notwithstanding that she was a business person in Claremont.  She was clearly a leading political figure in Claremont, and a political figure in the opposition, and there's certainly no evidence before the Committee to suggest that her businesses were the same of Jamile's and that they were in conflict in some way, or in opposition to one another in any way, in fact and very similar explanations in respect of each of the other targeted assassinations that I've referred to.

SISI KHAMPEPE: So your argument is basically that the belief that they had was reasonable, that the targets were political targets, and that's why they carried out he instructions of Mr Jamile.