Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-11-18

MR MEYER: I think Chairperson, Reverend, of course the Commission has the obligation, not only to find out about the truth of any situation of the past, that relates to the conflict of the past, I believe it also has the right to make an appeal on all of us about the morality of what took place in the past and therefore I accept your question in that spirit.  I fully accept that.  And in the same spirit I would say yes the mistake is obvious, the mistake that we have created an independent state like the Ciskei is the most obvious of those mistakes.  And I would not deny responsibility for that as far as the previous South African Government is concerned.  Whatever happened that particular day, and where the blame was for that particular day is almost different to that question.  The real question therefore is how could this have been avoided, and it could have been avoided by not having had the Ciskei as an independent state at all.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: My question relates to Bisho in specific, but to the gross human rights violations in general which were supported by the then government of the day, and I'd like to refer you to your last sentence on page 20.
"The National Party therefore requests that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in its final report on the tragic shootings at Bisho on September 7 1992, include a list of the names of all children, women and men who died on that fateful day under the burning African sun.  Let
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their names and tragedy of the day remind us all and our children of the price they paid for us to enter into the New South Africa".
I want to say to all three of you this is the first time that the National Party has even said let's list, and I think it's too easy to say let's list because the blame on this side is put on Brigadier Gqozo and Ronnie Kasrils.  Never before in the past has there been a request to list, and we are talking about thousands, I'd like to put faces on this list and some of the faces are in this room and ask the question, and may I plead that I am not looking for a political answer, that one of my fantasies is to be a fly on the wall in a meeting of the National Party and ask this question, not about the list of the people who died but the children who were left fatherless, motherless, whose futures were changed for the rest of their lives, the question I ask, have there been any discussions or are there any discussions currently going on within the National Party about what should have happened to these children and what should be happening to these children and their future?  I want to bluntly refer to the golden handshakes that have been publicly pointed out.  I would like to publicly refer to the rewards that were given to the people who successfully committed missions to kill and to kill and to kill.  We have been very successful in killing.  We have been very successful in maiming and leaving people crippled for the rest of their lives.  We have been very successful in leaving children without parents and without a future.  Have there been any discussions at all within the National Party about these children, about these women who were left without?  I mean because these questions, these discussions EAST LONDON HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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would point to assuming responsibility ....(tape ends) ....and thousands of children, particularly Black children who have been left without a future and we all point to guns, we all point to statistics, we all point to who has done what, but I really have never heard any discussions from the political parties about these children and our future, because these are our future South Africa.  Please Sirs, I am not asking for a political answer, I am asking for your souls, I am asking for you to bear your souls.  Thank you.

MR MEYER: Chairperson I would like to thank the Commissioner again also for raising this issue, and I think, may I first of all say I think you have made an appeal to us, but not only to us, the three of us who are here, not only to our Party, I think you have made an appeal to the whole of South Africa, to all political parties but also civil society in general, the community out there, everybody in South Africa.  I don't think it's possible now, I would not do right to the issue you have raised if I try to respond now to that question.  I can say, yes, we are in various ways within the National Party attending to this question and related questions.  What I would like to suggest is that we have a responsibility to come back to the Commission on this very question.  We have already indicated to the Chairperson and the Deputy Chairperson of the Commission that we are preparing a further written submission to the Commission and I would like to suggest that this very issue should form part of that further submission to the Commission.  And that equally so others who can come up with proposals and suggestions as to how this issue should be dealt with should also do the same, for
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the sake of the Commission who has in the final instance to attend to this as far as its report is concerned.  But I think Madam Commissioner if I may say, you have raised with us an issue which is probably the most important one in the final instance of the work of the Commission, because if we can't find an answer to the very question that you have put, then the work of the Commission with all respect is not going to be in the long term worth anything. 
 May I say that I don't think it's only those that have suffered directly, but there are many, many South Africans, thousands of South Africans who have also indirectly suffered through apartheid, that we have to consider within the whole spectrum of what we want to do in the future.  So it's not only a question of the specific terms of reference of the Commission, namely how to address human rights violations of the nature that has been described in your terms of reference, but it is in the final instance us as politicians, as political parties, that have to give direction as to how we are going to rectify the wrongs that flowed from apartheid in a very general sense.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Chairperson may I ask Mr Meyer and his team that as you prepare that submission you consider the following comment from the communities, particularly the greater Black communities and I want to quote
"They get amnesty.  They get the golden handshake, (meaning rewards).  They get retirement pensions worth millions.  And we get nothing.  And on television they smirk or they smile to boot".
As you address that submission please address the question of the perpetrators on your side, the other Parties will deal with the perpetrators on their side, but the 
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perpetrators on your side who so far when they apply for amnesty and present themselves, and even say they are sorry, none of them has said this is my contribution, I would like to do the following, it stops with I am sorry.  None of them has said as a demonstration, perhaps of how sorry I am, this is what I would like to do.  None of them have done that.  So as you prepare that submission could you please address that, because that is the more tangible thing that people are asking, and people say that is a re-victimisation, that is a de-humanisation and that has caused more pain than you realise.  Thank you.

MR POTGIETER: Thank you Dr Ramashala.  Are there any other questions?  Ms Mkhize?