Special Hearings — Conscription Hearings — 1997-07-23

PROF HATTINGH: I would like to thank you very much forthis opportunity.  I  myself, as you heard Johan Hattingh, Professorof Philosophy at Stellenbosch University.  I rushed through to-dayfrom a Master's course I'm teaching, to be here.   I've livedin Stellenbosch for almost thirty years since 1966 and I matriculatedin Stellenbosch.  As I said in my statement at this stage I'mforty two years old, Afrikaans-speaking, a member of the DutchReformed Church and I was conscripted into the Citizens forceof South Africa in 1973 after completing my matriculation examinationin November of 1972.
 After an initial stint of basic training in Oudtshoorn as aninfantry soldier I was transferred to Heidelberg, Transvaal, tobe trained as a junior leader or a Platoon Commander and thenon successful completion of this course I stayed on in Heidlebergas a Platoon Commander in the State President's Guard.  Afterthat, after my initial one year of training I went to the regimentof the University of Stellenbosch which was the military unitfor lecturers and students mainly at the University of Stellenbosch. Subsequently at the beginning of the '80's I was transferredto Stellenbosch commando and about these things I sort of madea couple of statements in my submission about fourteen pages longwith certain addenda's attached to it.  
 What I am about and what I submitted and I'm going to talk about,only highlighting certain aspects which is based on my first handexperiences and impressions that I've formed during approximately24 years.  I wrote my submission from memory, which may be vagueand sketchy in certain instances, and I do not claim that anygeneralisations could be made from them.  I speak on my personalbehalf but I do believe that what I submitted can throw some light,a perspective, a personal point of view, maybe said by othersbut a personal point of view of what it was to be part of theCitizens force during the '70's and '80's.  It was also a wayfor me of sorting out some impressions that I myself have hadand I say here that I highlight in a sense in this submissionnot everything that happened but a sort of shift from initialfull and whole hearted participation in the Citizen's Force andthen subsequent disillusionment with it, but I never joined theEnd-Conscription Campaign and I never seriously considered doingso.  
 My growing disillusionment culminated in a kind of passive distancewithin the structures.  I started to question certain actionsand practices of my superior officers and in some instances Itook the courage to convey these questions and criticisms to themopenly in formal meetings, order groups etc., where these officerswere also present, and in some other instances I refused to obeycertain orders or requests but without ever taking a public standon it.  
 To-day looking back on these days of my army service I realisethat in spite of the fact that I never saw any action, I nevercame near aiming my rifle at any person in a combat situationever, that I was trained in fact to do so and therefore at thattime was contributing to the maintenance and perpetuation of theoppressive system that apartheid was.  This submission might helpme find more clarity on why I didn't see my role as clearly thenas I do now.   
 I've divided my submission in three parts.  The first part isWhole Hearted Support and Full Co-operation with the Citizen'sForce during 1973 my initial training period, then I go into asecond section which I refer to as Regiment University of Stellenbosch- Adventure making place for Disillusion, and then the last partof my exposition I go into Stellenbosch commando militarisingmy own home town which was the experience that I have.  
 I would like to read a short passage from the experience of 1973. 
"It was ironic that my initial conscription into the Citizen'sForce was characterised by wholehearted support and full co-operationif I take into account that the most humiliating experience thatI ever suffered personally within the army took place within thevery first hours of arriving in Oudtshoorn in the military base. All the new intake were still in their civilian clothes and wewere taken to huge hangars where we had to be issued with ourkit.  Everyone was ordered to strip to their underpants and formost of us it was a kind of a joke.  Everyone was ordered to stripbut at the entrance of the hangar my eyes met with a young officerand I presume he took my level gaze at him as a challenge to hisauthority and I was immediately ordered to take off my underpantsas well which I did leaving me naked in a long line of men walkingour way through the hangar from one administrative point to theother receiving equipment here and there.  I was only able toescape from what I experienced as humiliation when I eventuallyreached the point where army underpants were issued.  You canimagine they were sort of very long and uncomfortable type ofthings but it did what it had to do at that time.  There was notime for me to dwell on this experience at tha time and the terror,as it were, struck me at that experience of this kind of abuseactually made it impossible for me to file a complaint of anykind and to take the matter further."  
 I think I also explained this humiliation away by interpretingit as part of the process of turning into a real soldier.  I referto similar things happening to other people in the following sixweeks but I didn't want to go into all of the detail.  You canread about this in the submission on page four but I mention allthese details to show what it was we had to put up with withinthose first six weeks.  Remember we were just out of school, noteighteen year olds and we experienced this as normal because wethought this was what was required of the process of turning usinto tough soldiers and because everyone that returned from hisyear of army previously warned us that basics would be hell whichit turned out to be.  We didn't question this hell because wethought it was a good thing to be a good soldier.  We also didn'twant to drop out of our basic training because we wanted to beselected for officers in Heidleberg, which of course was an idealwe fostered because of the relative soft life we thought we wouldhave as officers in the army.  We didn't want to spend the restof our days as troops that everyone with the rank of Lance Corporaland up can order about.  
 I also mention here the reasons why I accepted that kind of disciplinarypractices imposed on us.  I came from an Afrikaans-speaking homewhere all were proud of me going to the army even in school withour peers it was sor-of  very nice to go there because there wasa general atmosphere of enthusiasm and excitement.  I can stillremember why I chose to go into the infantry, I entered that Iloved to walk in the "veld" so there was this senseof adventure, the war was, as someone previously said, was veryfar away and one indulged in a couple of new things that you learntas you went into the army,  handling and firing different kindsof rifles and weapons, map reading and orientation, hiking routemarches, and survival skills.  All of this was part of, can Isay, a big adventure to a broad extent very positively experiencedand I wrote home very positive letters.  
 Then I joined the Regiment of the University of Stellenboschand as I explained that was part of a unit set up for studentsand lecturers.  During that stage our initial 240 days of conscriptionwere turned over to a 1,000 days up until the age of fifty fiveand I would have still been a conscript under that scheme if Iwasn't subsequently put on the reserve.  That was a kind of lifesentence at that stage.  You couldn't imagine being fifty fiveat that stage and still be in the army.  
 I went out of Stellenbosch three times with the Regiment of theUniversity of Stellenbosch to Namibia, three times for trainingcamps, one time up on the border and suddenly during one Julyin Namibia we were taken out of our training routine and put asit were on a stand-by.  We were suddenly issued with live ammunition,a kit to treat serious wounds and the sense of adventure beingin the army suddenly turned very, very real.  One suddenly realisedin a very real sense what you are really there for even when youhad to sign a special military will.  We were all on stand-byat that stage, we didn't know it at that stage but there was someaction going on in Angola and later on and subsequently we onlylearnt, we didn't know at that stage that we were on stand-byto be flown into Angola to support the South African troops there. 
 At one stage for a longer period we were put on border duty. The regiment sadly enough wasn't very well trained, we didn'tscore very high marks in our evaluation so we were not deployedon the proper places that we were supposed to be.  In some sensea relief in another sense one thought this was a huge waste oftime and resources here.  One small incident here was we wereissued with live ammunition from some source which was of sucha poor quality the army wouldn't even take it back  on us leavingthat,  so we had to get rid of that by shooting all our frustrationsout, by getting rid of thousands of rounds of ammunition shootingit out into dam walls in an excavation.  These were very littleincidents but as you can see contributing towards a sense of disillusionmentand being sort of not well trained and realising that I was senton a training course and subsequently became a Captain but I anda couple of friends then started to ask, can't we opt out of thissituation.  
 We then had the opportunity to apply to be transferred to Stellenboschcommando and we thought that, that would be better, we would notbe transferred to border duty far away we would be in our ownhometown, but that turned out to be more stressful as it werebecause in a sense we were now in military uniform walking aroundin your own hometown, in your own backyard.  We were in the publiceye of our friends and family.  Those of us who had rifle safeswe had them in our homes and we were never issued with live ammunitionthat had to be kept at home.  All these things sort of contributedto the military invading one's private space, one's private life.
 Besides Saturday mornings spent away on shooting practices, during the mid '80's there were lots and lots of 20 four hourstandby's we were put on.  There were roadblocks and you had todo duty during these things over and over again.  Another thingat that stage what the Stellenbosch commando at that stage it'snot still the case but at that stage it was an all White commandoand the perceptions of the enemy was that it was the people onthe other side of the colour line.  
 The commando also invaded to an extent one's professional lifeand to some extent also the University life because the Universitybecame an object of surveillance in particular for security threats,and information from these forms of surveillance done by the Intelligencesection of the commando was then submitted to higher authority. I was not a member of those intelligence sections of the commandobut I was once approached by someone to make a tape recordingof a public lecture of a colleague of mine working in the samedepartment that I was working in.  I refused bluntly to do thattape recording and I spent some time explaining to this IntelligenceOfficer that he expected me to compromise my integrity as a Universitylecturer.  This happened during 1983/84 and I was not approachedby them to do anything similar again.  
 During 1987 I went on sabbatical and after that I was sort ofside-lined out of the commando's structures I was just sort ofa hanger on in the commando.  
 One thing that which contributed to a very deep sense of disillusionmentwas during 1984 or '85 I discovered hard evidence that my telephonewas tapped.  I dialled my home number and when the telephone wasanswered on the other side I heard the snippets of a tape recordingplaying back bits and pieces of conversation that I have  hadwith my family.  I heard my own voice, I heard my son's voicein a kind of surrealistic collage of words used at the end ofseveral conversations.  That tape was clearly used over and overagain.  
 I reported this matter to the Vice Rector of the University atthat time to investigate the matter further but nothing came ofit and I never received an explanation for it.  What I wantedto know from him was whether the University collaborated in thepractice of tapping phones of it's staff members, and he assuredme that the University would never condone something like thatand I believed him ,but it made me very, very cynical that I experiencedmyself as a moderate and not taking hard-line points of view andnot being an activist being subjected to that kind of surveillancemyself.    So I embarked on what can be referred to as types ofsilent protest, but I also started the question openly at theoffices of the commando about the role of the commando in thecommunity of Stellenbosch at that stage.  
 I was also approached at one stage to approach the South AfricanPolice force in Stellenbosch to set up a structure which shouldtake over as it were the civilian duties of delivering servicesto communities because of the efficiency of the army ,and I neverreally got around to doing that.   I always thought up excusesnot to report any progress, and  before I really got into bigtrouble because of not showing any progress the whole system wasscrapped.  Maybe at that stage I didn't formulate it like that,but  maybe I sensed something of the danger of military structurestaking over civilian functions in a society.  
 So that is on a very mundane and quiet level this completed myshift in position from full in support of participant in militarystructures to a disillusioned and reluctant participant practisingin a sense forms of passive resistance rather than open confrontationand disruption.  If I ask myself why I followed this rather low-keypath I have to confess that on a personal level I was not preparedto pay the penalties of refusing call-up papers.  There were legalpenalties attached to that.  I was not prepared to face criminalcharges against me, to be jailed for something like six yearsor to go into exile.  I would have liked to establish my career,my family life and get on with my life.  Also the moral and logisticalsupport system that would have made something like that like morekinds of activism possible was not possible for me or availablein the Afrikaner community of which I was a member of at thattime.  I was also starting a family and wanted to get on withmy life.  
 I was also torn between that which I perceived as my contributionto the real needs of security and stability in our country andmy resistance to that which made a mockery of what I was perceivingas my duty.  This ambiguity as well as the structures that I saidI lived and worked in made it very difficult for me to embarkon a more active and aggressive kind of resistance in my conscription. 
 To conclude, as I have pointed out at the beginning this is apersonal statement describing some of the events, emotions andpositions that I have experienced and lived through whilst servingas a conscript in the SADF.  In hindsight it is clear that I havecollaborated with a military machine that has permeated throughoutsociety and penetrated it very deeply.  Insofar as this is thecase I share responsibility for the pain, suffering and deathinflicted by that military machine within South Africa but alsofar outside of it's borders.  I could argue that I am guilty ofnothing because I only acted on orders handed down to me in termsof the law of the country.  I prefer not to do so but rather withoutsounding sentimental or trite to tender my sincere personal apologiesto all fellow South Africans who have suffered directly or indirectlyfrom the actions of the SADF during the years of apartheid.  
 Looking back on the sad history related above there is nothingthat I am and can be proud of.  On the contrary I am humbled bya deep sense of shame for the fact that it only slowly dawnedupon me that I was participating in and then virtually did nothingabout the system that I described.  This is underlined by theironic fact that I started to question the military structuresI was conscripted into on the basis of what it did to me personallyand not so much on the basis of what it did to others.  The wayin which I tried to compensate for this moral insensitivity isnow currently to actively participate in community initiatives,striving towards the reconstruction and development of our country. It gives me a deep sense of satisfaction to work with peoplewho have formally been the declared enemies of the SADF or Citizen'sForce towards seemingly small goals such as securing a shelterfor street children in Stellenbosch or helping community organisationsto articulate their needs and translate it into viable developmentprogrammes.  
 I will neglect my duty, however, if I do not also make referenceto the deep sense of waste that I experience looking back on myyears of conscription.  Conscription not only inflicted pain,suffering and death on the enemy, it did the same to the conscriptsthemselves on both a physical and a moral level.  On a moral levelconscription stripped us all naked.  The humiliation that I'veexperienced on my very first day in that hangar in Oudtshoornwhen I was physically stripped naked was a premonition of themoral humiliation we all suffer because of participating and co-operatingwith a military system that gave a false sense of security toa small section of our population and frustrated the need forsafety, security and peace of the majority of our fellow countrymen. 
 I seriously appeal to the political leaders and to the spokespeopleof the SADF of the '70's and the '80's to acknowledge this, notonly by taking responsibility for what was perpetrated in thename of security in our country, but also by extending appropriatemeasures of restitution to everyone who had suffered from conscriptionin the first place and foremost those who were catogorised anddealt with as the enemy, but also the conscripts themselves whowere in a completely different sense of the word also victims, tis time victims of disciplinary practices or military operationsthat left it's mark upon them often transforming them beyond recognitionsometimes physically but mostly morally.  
 This is the substance of my submission and may I with your permissionI would like to just read a small extract from a letter that mymother wrote me when she learned that I was preparing submissionsfor the TRC dated the 10th of June 1997, and I would like to putthis as it were, on record.  She wrote to me in Afrikaans. 
"Johan, perspective relating to the Defence force of whichthe Truth Commission will  never hear is the role, one, of parentsof soldiers played despite the parents serious concerns and angerregarding what was happening to their sons, parents had to remainpositive to be able to assist their sons come what may.  
Secondly, the women in South Africa (White women) became activeand started service-rendering,  these are Defence force women,the Southern Cross Fund and the Church women.  We collected moneyto furnish coffee bars in a cosy way where soldiers could relax,we bought furniture etc., there was also money collected for roomsof prayer, for various bits and pieces of furniture and gamesetc., we corresponded with soldiers and we assisted families ofsoldiers locally.  We sent parcels with biscuits to all the armybases (and in parenthesis she mentions something on a humorousnote that she later heard that the soldiers were throwing thesebiscuits at each other because there was such a flood of biscuits). Then she writes, I can't remember anything else."