Human Rights Violation Hearings — Johannesburg — 1996-05-03

RUSSELL ALLY: Yes you may.

MAGGIE FRIEDMAN: I thought a bit about what I want from the Truth Commission and the first and most important thing for me is the truth about why David was killed.  I want to know why David in particular was killed, what are the reasons that somebody decided that he should be killed? And I want to know who it was who made that decision.  I'm a lot less interested in the people who were in the car and who pulled the trigger, and I think anyway we know something about those people.
 But without rigorous and transparent and publicly accountable investigation the truth will not be established and I think we don't need more investigations of the sort that have already happened.  But without the truth there can be no possibility of reconciling, and this especially so because I believe that some of those responsible for authorising, planning and implementing this strategy of murder and condoning and participating in the cover-up of these strategies, they continue to serve in senior, responsible and influential positions within the State.
 The second thing I'd like is that the perpetrators of the murders brought to justice. I don't believe that anyone has applied for amnesty for David's assassination, although some of the people I have mentioned may have applied for amnesty in respect of other offences, and I think that they will only be applying for amnesty in the event of them feeling they are in danger of prosecution and in those circumstances, I can't feel that amnesty should be open to them, However I would appeal to those who were directly involved to come forward and make disclosures now, because for them this is the best possible moment at which to disassociate themselves from their superiors who are the ones that must accept the brunt of the responsibility.
 I'm also sure that there are many people who know something about the case but they have been too afraid to talk about it and I appeal to those people to come forward now to the Truth Commission which has the ability to protect them from those who they will be exposing, and I think that a lot of the problem with this case is being the fear and the intimidation that has been emanating from the CCB.
 Then to just say something about reparations.  I've been working with other victims for over a year now in the Kulemani Support Group and we have worked the issue of reparation with quite a large group of victims, and out of that we've produced a document which we have presented to the Reparations Committee. And it seems to me that victims have been asked to make sacrifices once again for the greater good of the Nation, that we must give up our expectations of justice, we must give up our rights to civil claims against perpetrators, and we must talk about our grief in this public forum and I'm afraid we're going to be asked to then accept symbolic reparation, or community reparation and I think that this is simply not fair.
 From our discussions, it's apparent that victims are quite modest in their expectations of reparation, in my view, that they're not expecting huge sums of money to be paid out to them, but they are expecting something that will make the qualitative difference to the way that they are living.  Most victims are unemployed and they have no skills and they have no hope of finding jobs and many of them are looking after the children of slain family members and I believe that as well as bursaries and medical expenses being paid that victims should be given special pensions to allow them to just live decent lives.  
 And for myself, I had hoped that this Truth Commission would be the end of things for me and something will bring them to a close but I can see now that in fact it is opening up another phase of the saga, and so I would like to ask that my legal fees should be paid where necessary to help me bring this to its logical end.  We used to have funds out of which legal assistance came from places like IDA but those are no longer available to us.
 And should any of the perpetrators come forward to confess their part in all these crimes, this is on a more general note, and their crimes fall within the criteria for amnesty, as an essential to the process of reconciliation, they should not be prosecuted but neither should they benefit from their deeds, and the receipts of State Pensions derived from employment in State Service, which involves the commission of the crime, should be denied to the perpetrators in the interests of reconciliation.  It would be more appropriate to channel such funds into a fund for victims.
 For reconciliation there needs to be an even hand of justice, otherwise this process is going to leave a great deal of bitterness.
 Finally I ask this Commission that for those being given such a huge task, that it doesn't settle for a cosmetic truth and token reconciliation, and don't claim to have found reconciliation where none in fact exists.  Thank you.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you very much Maggie for account and for your honest views and opinions and I'm sure that the Commission will consider very seriously the points that you have raised.  There are just one or two, are you okay to go on, issues that I'd like to ask you about which should hopefully help the Commission.  The first is, I've heard that the Attorney General has recently opened up an investigation into David Webster's death, do you know anything about that?

MAGGIE FRIEDMAN: Well I know that he came to ask for the inquest record from the Webster Trust Attorneys and it was at that time that we discovered that the Supreme Court had in fact destroyed the inquest records, but we haven't had any report-back, we don't know what this investigation is hinging on and I think that that is one of the things about transparent investigation, that we would really like to know and we are not being told.  You know he's had the files for some time now and there's been no indication of what this investigation's about.

RUSSELL ALLY: Would you like the Truth Commission to attempt to follow that up and to try and establish what is going on?

MAGGIE FRIEDMAN: Yes, yes I would.

RUSSELL ALLY: You mentioned, in your statement you list quite a number of names, now I think that you are aware and I think people generally should be aware that the Truth Commission does have certain powers and that one of the powers that it actually does have is to subpoena people, witnesses.  Of those names that you have listed, who specifically do you thing the Truth Commission should consider subpoenaing?

MAGGIE FRIEDMAN: Well the one who would be top on my list would be Judge Louis Harms, because it holds the key to it, I think that he knows who was trying to suppress the information and who kept that particular commission so limited, and I think it might be possible to get an honest answer from him.  But I think there are those people who still have knowledge and we know for instance that someone like Willie Smit has knowledge and I think people like Tony Naude and Martin Hennig who weren't, I think that they were not exactly honest in the evidence they gave the Hiemstra Commission, and I feel to bring these people back now, they might actually feel differently about what knowledge they have and what they have to say.  So in fact I would say all those people in my last two categories are people who should be called on to talk about what they know.

RUSSELL ALLY: I don't want to put words into your mouth, but if I understand correctly what you are appealing for, you're saying that before there can be reconciliation, there is a need for public open accountability and transparency and without that we can't really speak about reconciliation.