Special Hearings — Political Party Hearings — 1996-08-20

CHAIRPERSON: We have up to this point heard what we call victim or survivor hearings, giving forum to people who in the past have not had a voice in order to help in the rehabilitation, restoration of the human and civil dignities of such persons as is required by the Act and we  have in the course of those heard as a kind of (indistinct) from very many of those who testified, we want to know, we want to know.
 And we have embarked now on this different kind of hearing in which Political Parties make submissions to help us in drawing as full, as complete a picture  of human rights' violations which have been the result of the conflict of the past.  Again a requirement placed on us by the Act, our founding Act which is the Act for the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act.
 And we seek to be provided with the perspectives of different sorts of people, again it is something that is placed on us as incumbent on us to try to be given the context in which things have taken place.
 We are very glad I mean, that you saw your way through to coming to give a presentation to the Commission because we believe that all South Africans have in one way or another been involved in the struggle that characterised this country as we have moved from a dispensation of oppression and exploitation to a new dispensation democratic in which we are seeking to establish new values that even when perhaps people might claim that they were not directly involved in the armed struggle, they were certainly as South Africans affected by what was taking place  and we value the contribution that you will be making and you may help us by making suggestions with regard to the recommendations which are expected of the Commission which relate to structures and ways and means that must be used to ensure that violations of this sort that we are investigating, do not happen again.
 We obviously will not perhaps be able to deal in depth with your submission, there may be questions after you have presented your Party's submissions, questions about points of clarification and then we will pass, as we will have done with the others, your submission to your research department which will then examine it with a tooth and comb and provide us with perhaps points that we may raise and we have the option of recalling you for an indepth discussion at that point.
 May I then ask Mr Tony Leon to present us with, sort of in a formal way ...  I will just like to introduce my colleagues here.  I think I should start on this side, on my extreme left is Hlengiwe Mkhize, she is a Commissioner and Chairperson of the Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee and is based in our Gauteng office.
 Dumisa Ntsebeza is a lawyer, Commissioner, Head of our Investigative Unit and also a member of our Human Rights Violations Committee and he is based in the Cape Town office.
 Alex Boraine, deputy Chair of the Commission and a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee and he is based in our Headquarters office, here.
 Bongani  Finca, Commissioner and member of the Human Rights Violations Committee and he is also head of our Regional office in East London.
 Dr Fazel Randera, Commissioner and member of the Human Rights Violations Committee, also head of our office in Gauteng and to my extreme right, in position not politically, Chris de Jager, Advocate and a Commissioner and a member of the Amnesty Committee and based in Gauteng.  Thank you.