Amnesty Hearings — Pinetown — 1999-03-08

MR STEWART: Yes, indeed Ms Committee Members, although really my argument, the first step of my argument, is to say that they were political, political figures, opposition political figures.  They were in fact that and that fact emerges from these hearings.  But in any event, and aside from that, I can also argue, as I do, that it was a reasonable belief on their part that they were pursuing a political hit pursuant to instructions to Mr Jamile who was the KwaZulu legislative assembly member in the area, and they had been instructed to go and assist him in the problems that he was having with the ANC in the area.

SISI KHAMPEPE: It's not Mr Luthuli's evidence that he knew that Mr Khuzwayo was an activist.  He was new in the area, he had been instructed to come down to Durban by Mr Jamile, is it not his evidence?  That's how I recall his evidence.

MR STEWART: His evidence as I recall it, and I can dig it up of course, is that he was instructed by NZ Khumalo to go and assist Mr Jamile, and he was then told that, look, the first person that we have to eliminate on the list of prominent opposition people is Zazi Khuzwayo, so it's not that he had some independent knowledge of Zazi Khuzwayo's role, but he was told what that role was.

SISI KHAMPEPE: And he reasonably believed that Mr Khuzwayo was a prominent member of the ANC who needed to be eliminated. He didn't know as a fact that Mr Khuzwayo was a prominent man. He was told by Mr Jamile that he was, and he believed that Mr Jamile was saying the right thing about Mr Khuzwayo.  That should be the end of your argument, shouldn't that be?

MR STEWART: Thank you Ms Committee Member, indeed that then is the end of it on that point.
The next area which is the one where there is some more difficulty perhaps, is in the area of random attacks, so called random attacks to call this terror.  And one had for example the Clewer(?) incident, where Luthuli and others were travelling in a car, some pedestrians said something insulting about Inkatha recognising the car, and that knowing that it was a car associated with Mr Jamile, and consequently Inkatha, and they stopped, and on Luthuli's instructions they went and they fired into the pedestrians.  That was one of the so called random attacks one might refer to.  The others being, perhaps falling into the next category, but these categories overlap very much, is into the area clearances of identifying a particular area as an ANC area and then going and burning houses, firing on people, and so on, in those areas.  And I've already addressed, to an extent, the background to that, but what I've sought to do as well is to identify specific motives, or rather objectives, in those attacks, and these objectives emerge from the explanations given about those attacks in the evidence before the Committee.  And I've set them out here, I mean the first one is, this is on page 20, is the objection of creating terror in ANC areas thereby making political organisation there difficult and dangerous, making people scared to live in those areas.  That obviously supports an IFP cause at the time.
	Secondly that demonstrating that those areas are vulnerable.  Thirdly demonstrating that the ANC to be incapable of defending its people in those areas.  Fourthly demonstrating the continued resilience and strength of Inkatha.  And fifthly making it very risky for people to support the ANC or UDF or to live in areas where there were many supporters of the ANC.
...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Stewart with these objectives that you've just mentioned now, would you submit that they would also apply in the Clewer incidents, where it would seem that, correct me if I'm wrong, that that shooting took place as an angry reaction.  It was spontaneous, unpremeditated.  There's an insult and then there's a hit, sort of an act in anger, as such.  But would any of these apply in that sort of circumstance?

MR STEWART: Yes indeed Mr Chairperson.  I would submit that they do, and that is the explanation given by Mr Luthuli about that incident, is that in particular that was a demonstration.  That was in Claremont, it was an IFP area, or at least an ANC area, IFP was very weak in that area, and that was a demonstration that, we are still here, you can't mess about with us and we won't be insulted, we have a presence and you must watch out.  That's very much the kind of explanation that was given, and perhaps I can ...(intervention)
PROBLEM WITH MICROPHONE

ADV MOTATA: Whilst looking, that we know that the ANC in this area was prominent, and IFP being least.  In the process, I would want to know that this reaction of Dover was it not in the extreme, or would you say it fell under the discretion Luthuli had as the overall commander?
...(tape blank)

MR STEWART: It certainly, in my submission, falls within his overall authority.  The question which arises, though, is whether or not that specific incident can be justified as being one as an act associated with a political objective, and even, even if.  Well, let me put it like this, it was in my submission, within his overall authority and objective to create terror, to shoot ANC supporting people and so on.  But in, the suggestion has been made, this specific incident may have been merely an angry outburst, and the way in which Luthuli described it on one occasion under cross-examination by Mr Hewitt, this is at page 153 of the record, towards the foot of the page, he was asked
"...Now can you explain to this Committee what possible political objective you could be achieving for your masters, for your party, by doing that"
and the incident referred to is the Clewer incident.  And Mr Luthuli said:
"...I will explain that in Claremont the IFP no longer existed.  Mr Jamile wanted by all means that he IFP's strength should be clear and be evident at Claremont.  This group of people and this remark that you are talking about from the IFP side, the person who makes this remark provokes the IFP, was is showing the people that he is with that here is somebody belonging to the other side, something must be done to him. Therefore, what happened at this incident was to show that he IFP at Claremont is there.  Such remarks shouldn't be used anyhow.  That was helping Jamile at Claremont."
And I don't deny that, or don't seek to deny that there may have been some anger or some level of insult being felt, but this falls within what Luthuli has described, if anything, as retaliation rather than revenge.  And the Members of the Committee will recall that that was a distinction that was drawn by him.  Revenge, he said, would be where if his brother was killed and he felt the need to revenge that death.  But retaliation he put very much in a political context.  Someone attacks us, we must go and attack them.  It's a means of defence, it's a means of showing that we're not vulnerable to such attacks, that we have some strength, and it may indeed be done in anger but that doesn't put it within the category in the Act of spite, of motive of spite for example, it doesn't remove it from the realm of being an act with a political objective.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Would it not be too disproportionate?  You insult me as an IFP and I respond by killing you.