Human Rights Violation Hearings — Kimberley — 1996-06-10

FATHER LAPSLEY: Yes, thank you very much.  May I just say also on beginning that I have the privilege of telling my story many times in South Africa and around the world but I think for me this has a particular  [indistinct] in significance to be able to tell it to a Commission  which represents the nation.  
And I want to express my own respect to the Commissioners for the way they are hearing the pain of the nation.  And for the opportunity to share my own story.  I was - I'm originally from New Zealand, I was born and brought up there.  I went to Australia to train to become a priest  and I joined an Anglican religious community - the society of the sacred mission in Australia and it was my community - the society of the sacred mission  which transferred me to South Africa in 1973.  
And I became a university student at the University of Natal in Durban and subsequently Chaplain to the three campuses in Durban.  And maybe I might observe that through out the time that I was in South Africa I was a convinced pacifist - which I'm sure the Arch Bishop will agree is not typical for Anglicans.  
 This - but it was for me I suppose the turning point was 1976 - the Soweto uprising and the killing of school children that changed me very dramatically.  And I was at that stage National Chaplain for Anglican students and I was speaking out against the killing of school children and the torture of children during that - that year.  And  then I was expelled from South Africa in  September 1976 and then I went to Lesotho - I was - continued my studies in Lesotho, became Chaplain  at the university, trained priests for the daises of Lesotho.  
But in Lesotho also I - I joined the African National Congress of South Africa.  Not having been born in South Africa that was a way I understood that I was taking citizenship in the South African that we were still fighting for.  And it was in Lesotho - the - perhaps the first indications came that I might be on a South African Government hit list,  particularly through the citizen news paper and the  [indistinct] news letter there were articles written diminishing me that's appeared around 1979, 1980.  
At the end of 1982 the South African Defence Force attacked Lesotho and 42 people was shot dead.  I was away from Lesotho at the time but it was believed particularly by the church authorities that I was one of the targets of that massacre and then I was forced by the church to leave Lesotho.  And I went to Zimbabwe -  I lived from 1983 to 1992 - trough out the period I was a - a Chaplain of the ANC, I'd headed an ANC unit at the National University of Lesotho.  In the ANC I was involved in educational, pastoral and theological work - the work of an Chaplain of the ANC and in Zimbabwe I was head of the ANC Education Committee.
 But the - I was not an employee of the ANC - I did various church work, working for the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe and also for the Lutheran World Federation.  And I did  a masters degree in Zimbabwe as well.  In - and I was part of the community  - the exile community in Lesotho and subsequently in Zimbabwe.  
I can't remember the exact date but in about in 1988 - I think it was - the Zimbabwe Authorities came to me and they said that we have information that you are on a South African Government hit list.  They said that we believe that there may be some attempt by commandos to kill you.
 It's one of the moments I remember when I was called into this office and told that the Government of South Africa wishes to kill you.  And I remember the loneliness in the way of the moment because it was very personal - it wasn't simply that they wanted to kill members of the ANC but it was me in particular.  And you may be ask what it was that I was living for if in fact they may wish to kill me for it - I came to the conclusion that the only way that I could be a threat to the apartheid state was because of my theology.  
Because I believed that apartheid was a choice and an option for death carried out in the name of the Gospel of live.  And my work was the work of mobilising the religious community in South Africa and internationally to applause apartheid as an issue of faith.  Now 1990 came Nelson Mandela was released, the political organisations of the people were un-banned  but I forgot the say that when the Zimbabwean Government said that they had information that the South African Government who wished to kill they asked me to except an 24 hour armed police guards and I had those armed police guards.
 I suppose it was for about 2 years and then there were around end of '89 the end of 1990 there where assurances from Magnus Malan that there would be no further attacks on front line states and my armed guards were removed.  And after February the 2nd - although we kept saying we  shouldn't be naive we relaxed.  February, March into April I visited Canada invited by the Canadian Churches to speak about what the significance was of the release of Nelson Mandela.
 At the end  of April 1990 I returned from this visit and I was about to start a new job as a parish priest in Bulowayo having been working for the Lutheran Bop Federation for the previous couple of years and you know when you've been away for about 6 weeks - especially as a priest - like other people you get lots of mail of all sorts of shapes and sizes and all this mail had accumulated whilst I was away.  And perhaps naturally when I first got hold and read all the personal letters and left all those  [indistinct] envelopes to be opened a bit later.  
But there had been a letter which had come from - from South Africa written on ANC letter head from somebody who called himself Vusi  - a type written letter saying that he - he had some religious literature of some kind of  [indistinct] literature that I might be interested in and he would soon be sending it.  I didn't I suppose attach that much significance to the letter in that I had this vast amount  of mail that I was simply ploughing through.  
But there was also a slip from the post office to go and collect a registered article.  So I'd gone to collect that but hadn't in fact opened it - I just pilled the envelope with other envelopes.   So about a week after my return from Canada I had a farewell party on a Saturday - on the Monday I was starting a new job in Bulowayo.  I came back from the party in the early evening and I continue to open mail and I sat opposite a colleague I stayed with, Andrew Mattishwe - a young Zimbabwean teacher.  
I stayed with two young Zimbabweans and we were chatting about the party and I actually said I was about to phone Tito Mboweni - he's an old friend of mine.  And I was about to pick up the phone at the same time I was opening the mail - the accumulated mail.  
 So I came upon this  [indistinct] envelope that had been among the accumulated mail.  I opened it and it was addressed to me and inside where two religious magazines and they - the magazines were - were wrapped in plastic - sealed in plastic.  So I ripped open the plastic and took out the magazines both religious - one in Afrikaans one in English.  
I put aside the Afrikaans one because my Afrikaans is not very good and I opened the English magazine and the act of opening the magazine was the detonating devise for a bomb.  I - one of the extraordinary things was that I, and the doctors don't  know why, I didn't become unconscious - I didn't go into shock.  The ceiling of three rooms blew out and there was a hole in the floor and I can still remember what happened - the actual explosion it still - it's still - it's still something with me.
 I remember pain of a scale that I didn't think a human being could ever experience.  I remember going into darkness - being thrown backwards by the force of the bomb.  The exact angle saved my life that I opened it - I opened it on a - a small coffee table.  If I'd opened it on a - something like this - a table like this it would have killed me because it would have knocked out the - the heart or knocked of the head.  But because I was opening it on - down on a lower angle it blew off my hands - I lost an eye, my eardrums where shattered.  
 I think perhaps the most extraordinary thing of all was that I felt the presents of God with me in the bombing.  I felt also that - that Mary had watched her son being crucified.  Also understood what it was that I was going through, I remember the calling out for an ambulance, calling for the police.  I suppose in a way my - my years of Chaplain of the ANC, the people I'd had to bury in a way also helped prepare me.  I think I had long realised that it was only through sacrifice that - can we have some water - that our freedom would come.  
And I suppose I'd face the possibility of my own death and I had never - I'd never - sorry but I'd never face the possibility of major permanent disability.  So I was taken to the hospital for a variety of complex reasons - I didn't receive any treatment for about 6 hours and remained in pain for that period.  And in darkness and I guess for little bit of the time after I came round after the operations that happened later in the night, I thought maybe it would have been better to have died when I realised I had no hands.  I've never met another human being with no  hands, I didn't know whether life would be life and meaningful since.  
They didn't know whether I would ever see properly again, I lost one eye - couldn't see properly out of the other.  I couldn't hear properly because the eardrums were scattered, I was burned extensively.  I had a broken arm and just a fast number of injuries but I'd also travelled the world for years in the cause of the struggle against apartheid and one of the effects of that was when I was bombed  - I think that when I was bombed I would say this that I became the focus of evil because of something very personal about a letter bomb that was supposed to kill me but in the response all over the world I'd became the focus of all that is beautiful in the human community.  
Our ability to be turned the loving compassionate and I think that's what enabled me to take that situation and make it redemptive to bring the life out of the death - the good out of the evil.  But I - I spent a month in hospital in Harare and then I was flown to Australia where I spent 3 months in a  [indistinct] hospital in  Sydney  and then another 3 months at a rehabilitation hospital and then I returned to Zimbabwe to joblessness in that the Bishop who was suppose to employ me said well you're disabled now, what can you do.  
 And I remember saying to him I think I  can be more of a priest with no hands than I ever was with - with 2 hands.  So that's more or less the account of the bombing and that experience.  I should say also that I was as helpless as a new born baby for 3 months.  There was literally nothing that I could do for myself but I also said to myself that I - my struggle now is a struggle to get well - a struggle to return - a struggle to live my life as fully, as joyfully, as completely as possible and that would be my victory. 
I also realised that I was filled with hatred, bitterness, self-pity, desire for revenge that they would have failed to kill the body, but they would have killed the soul.  That I would be a permanent victim and today I would say that I see not simply as a survivor but I'm a victor over the evil and hatred and death that apartheid represented.  
 And the sign of the triumph of good but I want to just conclude on two other parts, I want to talk about responsibility and also what I would ask of the Commission.  I my mind there was somebody obviously who typed my name on an envelope - a woman or a man who typed that bomb, also somebody who made it, who created it.  And I have often asked the question about the person who made it - the person who typed my name.  
What did they tell their children that night that they did that day, how did they describe when they said how was your day today.  What were they saying that they actually did on that day?   So of cause that person has a particular responsibility but I believe responsibility increases the higher you go up the chain of command.  To my mind I have always been clear that the person I hold responsible [indistinct] for my bombing is FW De Klerk and the reason I say that is that remembering I was bombed on April 28th 1990 - on the eve of the first talks between the ANC and the Government.  
FW De Klerk was the head of state, the death squads remained part of the machinery of the State.  They - they were there within the machinery of the State, he knew about them - I know that for a fact.  At a conference that Alex in fact chaired I spoke to Van Zyl Slabbert and he said I - I Van Zyl Slabbert went to De Klerk and told him about the death squads.  He cannot say he didn't know and so I hold him politically and morally responsible for the attack on me.  I'm not saying that he gave the command, I'm not saying he even necessary knew about my particular bomb - he may have but I'm saying because he knew the death squads were there and were part of the machinery of the State and did nothing to dismantle them I would hold him responsible.
 I would also say that there is a sense in which - I know the Arch Bishop often speaks about the question of forgiveness and in a funny sort of way for me forgiveness is not yet on the agenda.  And the reason I say that I've said that I'm not filled with hatred or bitterness or self-pity nor that I want revenge.  I think - I think what I believe in is not retribution, I believe in restorative justice - not retributive justice, restorative justice.  And for example if - if FW was to come to me or the person who made the bomb was to come to me and said I'm sorry for what I did.  
And I want your forgiveness and this is what I'm now doing in the way of reparation.  Not to me personally but to our country and our people, these are the kinds of things I'm doing to heal our land then of cause one would say of cause here is forgiveness, there would not be a problem about that.  
 But I haven't heard from De Klerk one work of remorse, I have not heard one acknowledgement of evil at all and I've heard very few voices coming from that community of perpetrators showing any sign of remorse or sorrow or willingness to make reparation and perhaps what makes - perhaps many survivors quite cynical is that rather we see golden handshakes - we see  [indistinct] benefit coming from what in fact they had been parted to and I think that is particular gaoling to many people.
 I think in - in - to conclude my last part is what do I ask from the Commission.  I should say to that the Government of Zimbabwe has an open attempted murder docket in my case which is not complete because they have not found who was responsible.  Now obviously there was a complex range - I think one must also be clear, one is not talking about the active and the individual.  That bomb was so sophisticated that it could come through the post registered mail from South Africa to Zimbabwe and not explode until I opened it.
 It also came to my private post office box - in fact not even mine one I shared with a friend.  There was a grate deal of intelligence and sophistication - the sophistication that only lay within units such as the CCB and it certainly bough the  [indistinct]  of the CCB whether it was particular.  So I say to the Commission I would like to know who was responsible - I would like to know the chain of command and I'm some ways more interested in the top of the chain of command that at the bottom.  
Because their lies  the greatest moral responsibility all though it may extend beyond the chain of command as I've said to the De Klerk's of the world and the members of the State's Security Council and the  [indistinct] .  So that I what I'm asking but also one of the things I've been thinking even this morning do I want to meet the person who made the bomb?  The answer is it depends, I don't know if I could cope with somebody who doesn't care, I don't know if I could cope with somebody for whom there is no issue - who is perhaps so dehumanised that it doesn't matter that you make better bombs.
 But if there is somebody who is trapped by what they have done - what they've been part to do perhaps to me and perhaps to many others then I'd love to meet them.  I think we could have a very interesting conversation where we could begin to discover each others common humanity and of cause - you know if somebody I was sorry but I want to ask them what they do for a living now, if they still make letter bombs.  I'm not sure what that would mean but again if that person - if the sorry and they 're living their life in a new way, I'd love to be able to say to them of cause - of cause I forgive you in that contexts, thank you very much.