Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-07

CHAIRPERSON: I understand what you are saying and I certainly don't want us to spend any more time on this issue. I just for the record mention that I didn't even raise the question of Amy Biehl.  This is what you have done. I have not referred to it at all in my own questions. I have referred only to the incidence which you yourself have put before the Commission for whatever reason. I want to hand this back to Mr Goosen now.  But just that I can understand, and I think it is right that people should understand your position, and that is that we are asking questions about APLA, because APLA is here today.  We will not ask questions about APLA tomorrow. We will be asking questions about the SADF tomorrow.  So too with MK and so too with the Police.  Let's be quite clear on that.  We are respecting your presence, and that is why we are trying to get information from you. If you are saying now as you have said, that as far as the St James Church is concerned, it is a matter of regret, then that is an amplification of your testimony before us. I am not saying that you are arguing that you are apologising for the struggle, not at all.  But if that is a particular incident which you say is a matter of regret, well, that's fine.  Then it adds to your report. Thank you.  Mr Goosen.

MR NTSEBEZA: Maybe before Mr Goosen goes ahead with his questions. I think I need to indicate that maybe two, three points.  Firstly this is not an adversarial engagement between the Truth Commission and the PAC and the APLA leadership.  I think I need to stress this because I am becoming very concerned with the sort of direction which this particular proceedings are taking.  There seems to be a perception in the PAC leadership that the Commission is on a witch hunt and certainly, I think Mr Modane has stopped very nearly short of saying so, that we seem to be seeking to find out those things that are in our view, commenting negatively about the PAC and APLA and their activities.  For what it is worth, I think it would be very remiss of us, and certainly of myself and I am sure I am speaking on behalf of the panel as well, to let that go unchallenged.  I speak on behalf of a Commission which I voluntarily became part of, and part of our exercise is to make sure that we discharge the mandate which seeks to present as complete a picture as possible of incidents which we call in terms of the Act, gross violations of human rights that took place in the context of the political conflicts of the past.
 So no one is on trial here.  Certainly not the PAC, not APLA. We are engaged in an information-gathering exercise, the purpose of which is to inform not only us, but the nation as a whole, of those things, the motives and perspectives that shaped the political history of this country, in a way that produced the APLAs of this world, the PACs of this world and other formations. Today, it is your day to give us the benefit of those aims, those motives and those perspectives.
 In gathering of information, you must expect that there will be questions which will be put to you.  They will be robust, they will be penetrative.  I want to make it very clear that on no account because the questions are robust and penetrative, should they be regarded as amounting to a witch hunt. If anything, they are amounting to an endeavour by us in the Commission to make sure that you utilise this opportunity, not to be defensive, but to explain in as clear a way as you can command, why certain things happened the way they did.
 I am grateful for this, to the extent that the majority of the questions have been answered in that fashion.  I beg to differ from my comrade, comrade Mondani, for the defensive stance that he has taken, where he brings in people like Amy Biehl when they were not even being referred to.  In fact, as we are this stage, the question which was a simple one, remains unanswered. Was the leadership of the PAC aware of what took place in the incidents that it itself has brought to us, and if it only became subsequently aware of these incidents, did the leadership condone it, for right or wrong reasons.  There needs to be an answer to that. But let me deal with the other question.
 I want to make it very clear here that no one in this Commission is calling upon anyone to be apologetic for any act. The "just war" debate has been brought before us in the submissions by the liberation movements before, and certainly, in some of the submissions and replies to questions. The Commission, as far as I know, is not asking for a moral position to be expressed.  It does, however, seek a minimum threshold of moral accountability.  By and large that has come out in the submissions that we have made. In fact, on that very page that you have referred to and on others, it is quite clear that there is an acceptance, an accountability of sorts, but we are not sitting here simply to receive one phrases or one sentences.  We are here to satisfy not only ourselves, but all those who have an interest in these proceedings.  That what is said is in fact what is meant. I have no doubt in my mind that by and large what is said is what is meant.
 So I will just ask all of us to bear in mind that it is a complex process that we are involved in. It needs all of us to be laid back, and to appreciate that we are not at war.  Fortunately those times are past or are nearly past. 
 Certainly in the context of what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is about, we are keen to be able to say in a question and answer engagement with the APLA and PAC leadership, we are able to come to a finding that the minimum threshold of - or moral and political accountability that we called for, has been satisfied. You can only get satisfied if we reply to questions that are put.
 I am insisting on a reply to the question.  Was the political leadership, when it became aware, able to take a position as to whether those were justifiable at the time operations, and that does not mean we exclude from our understanding of the issues, the fact that those laudable steps that we have taken, that the PAC leadership have taken, meeting the Amy Biehls and all that, are things that were forgotten.

UNKNOWN: I think will call upon Col Zene to respond to that.

COL ZENE: It is unfortunate that St James, Heidelberg and King William's Town have become such a big issue, and I know they became a big issue to a certain section of the population.  They are just but three of probably scores if not hundreds of attacks that have been mounted by the Azanian People's Liberation Army.
  We may as well go further perhaps and ask questions as to were reports made prior to or after to the leadership about specific operations within perhaps, let's say there were 200? No. We do not make reports about individual operations.  We can make a report that we are opening a southern front ... (intervention).

MR NTSEBEZA: Comrade Zene, I am sorry, I must interrupt you.  We are concentrating on operations that have been brought forward in the report by Comrade Mofokeng.  I insist on the reply to the question that was put. Not because I am isolating the three incidents. You will be aware that I was involved in the defence of many, many, many APLA cadres as a lawyer, and I am aware of many operations. So I am not one of those people who is insisting on only three incidents for the sake of insisting on three incidents. I am very much aware of all those cases that I defended, defending APLA people. I am asking this question for a specific reason, and for the specific reason, is that we need to concentrate on the questions put and the replies must concentrate on the questions put.