Amnesty Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: It was a very uncomfortable decision and I won't disclose who I stood in that Judgement but my recollection is that it was not a unanimous Judgement. But the majority Judgement was that even though these people specifically wanted to go and kill black people and they went out to go and kill black people, they killed about six or seven of them, they got amnesty for

ADV PRIOR: I'm simply - I'm familiar with the facts of all the amnesty applications.  Each application should be on it's own merits.  Unfortunately if the Amnesty Committee has created a precedent that it must follow then it becomes very difficult to argue in any given case, that one should deviate from that.  It's unfortunate that such precedence may have, for whatever reason, have been formulated.

CHAIRPERSON: Another one was, somebody got amnesty for - he was convicted for abducting and assaulting a black person and he said: well, they drove around in the evening because they didn't want black people to be in town after 9 o'clock in the evening.  So they were specifically targeting black people and to forcefully drive them out of town.
	They were not just looking for any person, they said: "We're looking for specifically black people to assault them, to beat them so that they could get out of town simply because they were black and then he got amnesty for having abducted a black person under circumstances.  
	You know this - if you consider these types of cases, there are precedents and maybe uncomfortable ones but I'm just mentioning this you know, to make you understand that there are certain precedents which seem to find the face of this argument which make all of us, not all of us, most of us or some of us uncomfortable.

ADV PRIOR: I simply raised it because the literature on amnesty indicates that.  And I think if acts were perpetrated on that basis alone, on race, then it's a factor that must be weighed up.  It is an uncomfortable area but it's an area that obviously must be met head on, it must be ventilated and it must be analysed.
	I accept that there are precedents and obviously this Committee will have to, in the light of those precedents, whether it can deviate from those precedents or feel itself bound by those precedents.  I certainly accept what you say Mr Chairman, that amnesty has been granted in - probably if you have to compare those incidents with the one before you, are more shocking, are more barbaric and more savage.  
	However, I respect what you have said and I accept that there are precedents in that nature.  I simply refer to race because it was mentioned by the Chair itself, it was mentioned that it seemed to be one of the motives for the attack and that is context on which I address the Committee.

CHAIRPERSON: Ja well we can never stop examining very closely a case of that nature.

ADV PRIOR: Yes, and I think it's part of the process that it is ventilated properly and be talked about and not simply discarded because it is an uncomfortable subject.
	Just finally, it would appear that - I simply bring it to the Committee's attention, that amnesty can only be granted to the applicants in terms of Section 20 (2) sub-sections (a), (d) or (f).  With submission, sub-paragraphs 2(a) and (d) don't seem to be applicable because the targets or the object of the attack must another political organisation or movement against the state or former state or other publicly known organisations.  
	And (d) says it must be members of the security forces or the state or supporters of such publicly known political organisations.  It would appear that the application may then be limited or restricted to sub-paragraph (f) which says:
"Any person referred to in paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) above who on reasonable grounds believe that he or she was acting in the course of scope of his or her duties and within the scope of his or her express or implied authority".
Thank you Mr Chairman, those are my submissions.  I don't have any other submissions in this regard, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Arendse?

NORMAN ARENDSE: Mr Chairman, yes just on the racial aspect.  I want to advance three reasons why it should not be held, certainly not against the applicants, that they - or found rather that they had committed a purely racist act.
	Firstly, the applicants, on the uncontested evidence were foot soldiers carrying out orders, that is not disputed.  They were not part of the APLA hierarchy or high command which it is well established made the policy decisions and decided on matters of strategy.  For the same reason that Brian Mitchell or Coetzee or any other ex-South African defence force soldier wasn't part of the inner ...[indistinct] of Botha's cabinet making decisions to pursue cross-border raids etc.
	Secondly, the struggle for liberation in this country inevitably had to have a racial dimension and the reason for that is quite simple and very glaring and we don't need evidence for that because the applicants lived through it.  
	Black people in this country lived through it who were born here.  They were governed by whites, they were controlled by white, they were suppressed by whites and the overwhelming majority of the white electorate voted in the same government repeatedly by in fact increased majorities as we moved towards the April 1994 election.
	So that was an inevitable part of the history of this country.  Now it's very important that our parliament a democratic elected parliament recognised this by making the cut-off date the 10th of May 1997.  It recognised, the law makers recognised that we were engaged in a racial struggle up to that point.  And the 14th of February falls within that cutt-off date.
	Then just thirdly, again on a parity of - because this is what this Committee must do, this is what the Commission as a whole must do is to be even-handed and to treat people in the same fashion.  The apartheid government targeted overwhelmingly black people.  Coetzee was told to get rid of Griffiths Xenge and he did so very effectively.
	Griffiths Xenge was a well-known human rights activist but he was a black civilian.  Brian Mitchell committed the trust feeds matter where he killed innocent black young men, woman and children, he slaughtered them.  Those were civilians and both of them got amnesty.

CHAIRPERSON: No, Brian Mitchell was a mistake.

NORMAN ARENDSE: He was a mistake but in fact he ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: He didn't know that he was killing innocent civilians.

NORMAN ARENDSE: For the same reason ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: His plan was not to kill innocent civilians, his plan was to kill political activists.

NORMAN ARENDSE: A plan that went wrong.

CHAIRPERSON: A wrong house was attacked.

NORMAN ARENDSE: It went horribly wrong, that's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And Xenge, his killing was justified on the basis that - you see the argument was that he was not really a civilian in the true sense of the word because the allegation was that he was a functionary of the ANC in some way.  He was channelling funds into the country for the benefit of the ANC, something like that and therefore he was a political activist of some kind.