Amnesty Hearings — Klerksdorp — 1999-05-11

MR TERRE'BLANCHE: The Honourable Mr Chairman, at the end of this session on my part, my appreciation
for having listened to us and in the spirit in which this application for amnesty and my evidence took place, I would also like to conclude.   I am grateful for having had the opportunity to state our case to you.  I am also grateful for having been given the opportunity to try to prove to the world outside that we were never criminals in this country, that we never used the laws of the country in order to promote our political motives, but that the acts of the previous government were used to make criminals out of us.
	For your information and that of a totally unreliable media, I would like to say that we applied for amnesty in order to prove to our families and our people as well as our nation and our people that we indeed never perpetrated criminal deeds in order to enrich ourselves to in any way support ourselves, to promote ourselves.  On the contrary, in these three cases, as far as I am concerned, there was also a lot of humiliation, financial losses were, we had financial losses and that which we have done, we did in the spirit of our conscience and a deep responsibility towards our God.  The matters serving before you, we believe qualify for amnesty.
	The requirements by your Committee was proved in this Committee.  Firstly, certainly there was no proof that the tarring and feathering of Professor van Jaarsveld was not a very strong political motivation, that the mere fact that Professor van Jaarsveld indicated a new direction in his position as Professor of History and which he had to do with the youth, gullible youth and to such an extent he abused the realities of the Covenant that after the attention drawn by the AWB on what was said by him, his text books were even removed from schools.
	One thing is sure then, it could never have been a personal attack of revenge and that the AWB acted without substance was indeed proved by Mr van Jaarsveld's family and their legal advisors, in which they even admitted that the attack on the Vow of my forefathers was done, but also that he indeed was so far from the standpoint of the Boer people that the Security Police approached him about a paper he delivered on communism.
	I mention this because that mere fact also supports our political motivation very strongly.  Therefore, for political reasons we saw politically motivated that the person, Mr van Jaarsveld, tried to change history and to leave a nation disillusioned and take them away from their God and to tear them away from their vow to God, tear them away from that which was sacred to him and which comprises the biggest part of its culture. 
	Mr van Jaarsveld, his family, thought to make a personal attack on me as well as that of the other 39 tarrers and featherers.  Mr van Jaarsveld in his submission that he read to the world, used the opportunity given to him by the court by even doubting my relationship with my God.  Mr van Jaarsveld accused me also that I did not for the sake of my conscience did what I have done but that I did that in order to promote my political career in the AWB.  That in itself is proof of the fact that there is a strong political motivation.  Mr van Jaarsveld said that it was only merely politics, but in the presence of a Boer peoples' God I have to confess to you and admit that it was not only politics per se, but that there was a strong motivation because of my religion and my responsibility as a Boer to protect the dignity of my God.  Nevertheless, I do believe humbly, that I adhere to all the requirements for amnesty with regard to this specific matter.  
	With regard to the weapons, I would like to draw to your attention that these weapons, that there was never any evidence that these weapons were required to in any way gain from that.  Those were not acquired and put under my control were sold for money or any other gain, those weapons were left at Witrandjiesfontein and it was left there should they be needed because of political changes, political instability, which could lead to chaos, revolution and disruption.  Those weapons were indeed buried by the AWB but we never took them out again.  They could probably still be in the fertile soil of my old family farm.  Those weapons were taken away by the Security Police when it suited them, when they wanted to stop the young, up and coming movement which could be a strong opposition to the government.  That is why Mr Moos who, without a shadow of doubt had strong ties as was also said by myself to the Security Police was sent out of the country without ever returning.
	I believe, humbly, that the weapons there were kept there and were not handed over to the SAP because we as political opponents of the government, could not trust that government.  In fact, we saw that government as a government who would like to change the course of history and it would like to end the sacrifices of the nation.  Therefore, my humble submission is that in that case, I adhere to all the requirements for amnesty.
	In the third instance, with regard to the Battle of Ventersdorp, it is perhaps not to be disputed that it was about politics.  In that case, we certainly had the best example of when something is done by being motivated by politics.  Such a transgression, offence, could never take place if Mr de Klerk did not force himself down and he tried to gain, not the AWB.  He would look stronger and he would show, prove to the world that he would go to the Boers and that he would not give the Boers the opportunity to exercise their democratic right to place Mr de Klerk, to draw the attention to Mr de Klerk.  He believed there was a stronger person and apparently he did not care about the corpses left behind in the streets of that town. In my evidence I proved, and I think it is relevant here again, that shortly afterwards he was not again going to a place where it was just as unpopular, this time round however, Boipatong, black community.  Mr de Klerk, once again, had to leave the audience.  He once again had to flee from the public and behind him in his terrible abuse, as in Ventersdorp of the South African Police and the Defence Force, once again leave dying people behind in the streets.
	I believe with regard to the third application that it is simply not able to say that in this case I do not qualify for amnesty.  I, Honourable Mr Chairman, also because I am not a legal man, I perhaps at the wrong stages made applications to you which should take place, but I would once again like to point to one thing and unfortunately I have to repeat myself, I once again want to say that these cases took place during a time when the National Party of FW de Klerk ruled and was in power.   Our approach towards that government was that we indeed regarded the government as a bad government and a weak one, as party political opportunists for whom it was about own positions in most cases, as a governed without principles to which we could not trust the governance of this country, as an arrogant government who was prepared to allow people to be killed for the sake of his own honour and positions.  To allow people to be killed, people of their own nation, but also to allow people of their own security forces to be killed as long as they could prove a political point.  
	In opposition to this government, the AWB stood and the AWB's political purposes were directly against the party political opportunists, which could even use power of the Roman Dutch law in order to promote themselves. 
	I therefore believe that in all three of these cases, my application to you is justified, that I would have the opportunity and that this Committee, being given the opportunity as a law abiding citizen in a country, my beloved country, having given the best days of my life in order to maintain law and order in the South African Police as an ex policeman, who at a stage was even elected.  I was even elected to be responsible because of my talents for the safety of the State President and that of the Premier.
	Despite the fact that at that stage when I was a member of the unit, the guard who was responsible for the security of the Premier and the State President, my political motivation took me away from politics.  I resigned and politically, without violence, I started fighting that infamous government and to the best of my ability I, the de Klerk, Vorster and PW Botha governments, I fought.
	My ideal was directly against government policy.  I was in favour of a Volksstaat where the Boer people could govern themselves in freedom.  I, in my policy, never made provision for the addiction of any nation.  The AWB policy spelt out clearly.  We were looking for political borders to give freedom to my nation and any other nation.  I wanted to lead my people to worthy, to a nation who such as in the case of the British, Germans, the Israelis, whoever.  As I saw it at the time, the Zulu, the Xhosa as well as the Venda, that policy did not give protection to the political opportunists such as de Klerk and his other politicians.  	I was prepared to even show my disgust outside of the acts of the country, as was the case with the tarring and feathering, the illegal weapons, the Ventersdorp meeting which at a late stage all of a sudden we were not allowed to attend.  
	I place this application in your hands and I am grateful for this body, so that it can be recorded because history is busy to write mercilessly about the actions of all of us who were here and I would like to trust and I record it.  I would however, and I know that it is not my right to do so, I would like to make an appeal to this Committee that while this Committee - the biggest task of this Committee is to bring about reconciliation and peace but above all, truth, to ask that what happened in my case, that people coming with allegations and insults are not allowed that they, untested, give it to the press who is still in the hands of the previous government, give them the opportunity to do exactly the contrary of what this Committee wants to achieve, to write that and I refer here to Mr Desmond Thomas(sic), his report in Beeld today.
	If you would like to heal, then little men such as Desmond Thompson being to lie, allow to heal and to break, instead of healing to break down and to publish irrelevant evidence as to what is actually happening in your Commission.
	The TRC says today whether it accepts FW's evidence, ET attacked the TRC about tarring and feathering.  That was his main report.  He never learnt that the freedom of the press is there and that he should be allowed by the State, or he is allowed by the State in this Committee, and that he achieves the freedom or has the freedom to tell the truth.  Mr Tutu cannot be so stupid and his level of intelligence so low that what, as not to see what is relevant.  And that the tested evidence under you and Ms Patel, leading the evidence, so as not to report that but use this to, in terms of his old pattern, who could write about so many better things, still drives in and causes differences.  I will report Mr Thompson to the Media Board in the same way I have done after a media speech in Pretoria.  I would just wonder whether we couldn't come up with a mechanism that this Committee should not be used for sensation-seeking lies by people who still have their own political agendas and who still hate the Boer people, whom I belong to as was the case with the days of Mr de Klerk.  
	I thank you for your patience and I would like you to forgive me for having abused your time.  Perhaps it will be a good thing for the sake of future reports with regard to your amnesty committee in the press.  I thank you.