Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN: I don't know if there is anything besides a third force. I am quite certain that the overwhelming majority of members of the IFP have never been involved in this violence, didn't like it, didn't want it, in much the same way that the overwhelming majority of members of the ANC would not want this violence.
I think you will remember yesterday that Jacob Zuma made some observations about the amount of effort that had gone into trying to knock together agreements with the IFP. We started with this thing from the mid-eighties, UDF and COSATU and ANC and so on and really battled very hard to get this thing to happen, the leadership of the IFP too, but somehow it would not work. And the reason it wouldn't work is because there were people who did not want it to work. It was not, I don't think, an absence of will among genuine members of the IFP and genuine members of the ANC.
I think that the information, some of which people might have been guessing at, but information which came out certainly during the Kwamakhuta trial, some of the information that came out of the Shobashobane trial and so on, would have pointed to the problem. It's not, there wasn't a situation in which two members of the ANC in Kwamashu or one member of the ANC, one member of Inkatha, one stands up and says, I, member of the IFP I am in favour of a federal South Africa, and the ANC one says, no, no, no, we don't like this federation business I am in favour of a unitary South Africa. They disagree and then they draw guns on each other and shoot. No such thing. Organised gangs, political, were responsible for this violence.
One of the reasons that it's taken such a long time to deal with the question of this political violence in KwaZulu Natal is because the police abdicated their responsibility and to some extent we must be to blame for that, because we ourselves said it's absolutely critical that we engage the IFP and reach political agreements in order to reach this, in order to deal with this question of violence. So the approach developed that this was not really a law and order enforcement problem, it was a problem that the political leaders must solve. And you tried desperately hard to find an accommodation and we never could, even when you reached agreements because somebody would pop up and shoot.
So I'm saying the police said this is defined as a political problem, not a law and order enforcement problem and didn't do anything. I see Commissioner Malan is shaking his head - it's true. We had to put in special units into KwaZulu Natal. We had to put in special units actually to arrest to say you never mind what the politicians are doing talking peace and trying very hard to do so, do your work, we had to bring in special units into that province, five of them, before any arrests took place. And indeed arrests took place. Many arrests have taken place over the violence and it goes down. And we all say glory hallelujah to the political leaders, but I also say glory hallelujah to the police. They did a tremendous job there. They had left this matter because we ourselves encouraged that the political solution is the way to go.
We have to arrest these people, I was saying earlier, just look at the records of the Shobashobane thing, those assassins who participated in the massacre in Shobashobane in Christmas '95 I think it was had been killing since the eighties and they were not interested in any peace agreement between the IFP and the ANC, not in the least, and nor were their controllers.
So I don't think you have an original problem, an original problem of intolerance that these political organisations are defined by intolerance. What happens is that as the conflict persists over a period of time and the IFP is defined in the mind of a community as essentially a terrorist organisation, it might not be the IFP, various elements in it, but as that persists and indeed here thousands of displaced people, so many people killed, you can't hold meetings and so on and so on, of course in a situation of conflict like that indeed there is a response which would translate among other things into that culture of intolerance. But I am saying there is no original culture of intolerance within the organisations, but the situation would produce that. So we can't treat it as cause, that because as the original sin of intolerance within the organisations this therefore led to this. I am saying it was a consequence of the on-going conflict.
And I am absolutely certain that the reason that these battles for ten years to establish cooperation, peace and so on between ANC, UDF, COSATU on the one side and the IFP on the other, the reason they didn't work is because there was somebody that was interested that they do not work and therefore would shoot, on both sides, and go and shoot an ANC person, put out a story that the IFP has shot this person and do it the other way round, and there were are again back in a big battle, provoked Black on Black violence, all this kind of nonsense.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Dr Mgojo and then Wynand, and then we'll come back to - before you - can I just indicate, we were supposed to be going to break for tea at 11 but Hanif indicates that really he is about to finish the questions and we want to give an undertaking that we think we would finish by 12, it will be much better not to break and let's just go on and finish the whole caboodle. All of us must be brief.

UNKNOWN: Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Excuse me Dr Mgojo, Ronnie Kasrils was saying is it not possible just to have a five minute break, just so that some people can dash to the smallest room in the building and ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Don't give us all the gory details. (Laughter) Yes maybe let's have a five minute, I am going to be very strict.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Mgojo.

UNKNOWN: Thank you Sir. Mr Chairperson I am sorry that I have to revisit Mr Hanif had his question based on that article which was read. I listened carefully to the Premier and I agree with most of the things which he has said, but I find that they are very general. They are not specific. The article which was read was associated with ANC, whether it was put out by an individual, to me that is not important, because there is a saying in Zulu which says (quotes in Zulu), whether it was one person from the ANC circles but the article (...indistinct) and this article has caused a lot of problems in the context of KwaZulu Natal because wherever we go, we are accused, of course in some circles it is said that the Truth Commission is the ANC baby, and this thing keeps on coming. They even said we killed Mxenge but we have not heard any apology from them whoever said it, that we didn't kill Mxenge. The new revelations have come out clear that the IFP didn't kill Mxenge. Now how do we go over that cloud which keeps on cropping up supported by the new revelations that Inkatha did not kill Mxenge?