Human Rights Violation Hearings — Balfour — 1997-05-23

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Coetzer, can I ask you whether the sentiments you have expressed here are shared by you, your family, that is the wife and children and your family, father, mother and brothers ?

MR COETZER: My response to this would be the following.  It is a very clear yes, I cannot involve my parents in this since both of my parents have since died.  My mother in 1988 and my father in 1993.  My wife is present here to-day and she will be able to testify that what I say is true, that they agree with me that no reconciliation is possible except in and through Jesus Christ.

THOMAS MANTHATA: At that time you were still a student.  Do you recall the impact that the explosion could have made to your fellow students at the time, that is your school mates ?

MR COETZER: I will have to give hearsay evidence now.  If mean what the immediate incident of that morning was, it was an incident which brought about panic and uncertainty.  As I understand it, the school children did not know how to respond.  They were frightened that something like this might even happen in their school.  That there might be hidden bombs or even landmines on the school property.  As I've said to you, as you know I was not personally conscious, I was not able to know how people responded immediately but from what I've also been told by the Principal of the school, this created chaos that morning.

THOMAS MANTHATA: And thereafter you have never had the opportunity to meet some of your fellow ex-students ?  I understand the immediate chaos but in the process of your healing and in the process of what was attained in the country, you have never got to know what impact the whole incident could have made on them ?

MR COETZER: This is a very difficult question.  The actual impact on my friends, I would not be able to gauge.  What the true feeling in their hearts would have been, I don't know.  We never actually discussed that aspect of the event.  To really ask people who they felt about the events, I would imagine that they would have felt disappointed and shocked since this had been the first time in the history in the Volksrust environment that that happened.  How they upon reflection felt about it, I do not know.  I must be entirely honest with you.  I simply do not know what their feelings and the feelings of other persons had been.

THOMAS MANTHATA: With apology, I'm asking the question because I feel this is how you have correctly described the incident.  This has national implications and we would want to see reconciliation taking place almost at national level and it's at this stage that we are trying to say what's going to guide us and to guide the nation and everybody is to find out how many share this kind of view.   You have put it very clearly that forgiveness, reconciliation, this should only be perfect if it is done through God but at the same time we maintain that God works through his people.  Are there practical things that you can suggest that the people of God can do to actualize forgiveness and reconciliation ?  Besides that the two communities or whatever communities that were previously were in conflict can do together ?  Don't worry, I think that you may not have had a change to reflect upon this but I thought you could just throw one, two or three ideas which can guide the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

MR COETZER: As you have truly said, this is a very difficult question.  I want to link to my previous comment namely, that there has to be remorse and also an honest telling to the truth.  There must be a testimony of what had occurred.  Alongside the idea of forgiveness these things must come together.  If we can share our ideas with one another, if we can tell one another that we must forgive one another, then forgiveness can happen.  As to the process of how we should forgive one another, if we do not want to forgive one another then  there will not be forgiveness.  For all of us who continue to hold in our hearts the idea that the events of the past has hardened us entirely so that we are not able to forgive, for those who do not want to show remorse, these persons will not be able to join in the process of reconciliation because they will not want to bring their share to the process of reconciliation.  I don't know if I'm making sense now.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thank you, Mr Coetzer.  I hand you back to the Chairperson.

MR LEWIN: Mnr Coetzer, baie dankie.  Could I just ask one brief question which I also asked the previous witness and probably unnecessary.  Could you just tell  us what is your reaction to the action by the South African Government to ban altogether the use of landmines ?

MR COETZER: I will wholeheartedly support this suggestion or recommendation.  My personal feeling is that this is a cowardly act, a most extreme cowardly act which any person can perpetrate against another.  To entirely ban this in our country would be one of the most valuable contributions towards peace and reconciliation.  Thank you.

DR RANDERA: Mr Coetzer, in your statement you've very clearly told us what to your parents and you said already that they passed away.  I think you mother in 1988 and your father in 1993.  Do you feel that this was related to what happened to you ?

MR COETZER: I would not want to see this as directly the cause thereof.  In the case of my father I can say that he was a person who suffered from heart trouble and the incident of that day effected him to such an extent that the staff of the General Hospital that evening of the tenth of June wanted to take him up in the hospital for shock I would assume.  That might well have had a negative effect on his health in general.  Whether it in fact reduced the length of his life, there's a possibility but I do not think that one can make a direct cause or a link.

DR RANDERA: Mr Coetzer, again earlier on you so eloquently talked about reconciliation and forgiveness.   I think you're looking back with  hindsight at what happened to you but can you tell us what your thinking was at the time as a young White person of eighteen, about to start University I would have thought and the generation that grew up with you on the farms, in the schools.  We've heard already earlier on, Mr Tshabangu referred to you people as the boss.  What was the  thinking about of yourself and others in terms of the conflicts that were taking place in our country ?  I'm not asking for a general statement because you were part of a group of young people.  You grew up in a community and you went to a school which was altogether White.  What was the thinking about at that time, that prevailed in yourself and your friends ?

MR COETZER: At that time, as you have said the circumstances in our country, the circumstances of our lives were entirely different from those of to-day.  This is a difficult question.  A very difficult question.  From the very beginning I grew up in a home where conflict and things like conflict was not allowed.  I grew up in a Christian home with Christian values.  To speak very specifically about our family, if you saw the video material of the SABC, if you could see the words of my father, his very clear words at that time was that we bear no hatred against those who committed this act.  We do however feel hatred against the act itself.  That is what my parents themselves said.  The attitude of the community however, that would be difficult.  I have some difficulty.  I was a very young person at that time.  I could not think about these events in the same way as I do to-day.  So you are asking me a very difficult question.