Amnesty Hearings — Pretoria — UNKNOWN

JEREMY CRONIN: Well, I think he puts that rather clearly on page six, towards the bottom, the last two paragraphs of page 6 of this submission.  This is the week before his assassination and he's talking to an ANC alliance East Rand Summit of Peace and Political Tolerance and that already give a sense of the purpose of this particular meeting.  And he says to his audience - I refer to the second last paragraph at page six
"With all it's limitations, the National Peace Accord and the structures that have emerged from it have played a role in escalating the political costs of low-intensity warfare strategy.  The National Peace Accord and associated structures have opened a few windows on the South African Defence Force and SAP actions and that has been crucially important"
What he's trying to get across is that while we are negotiating we are dealing with other people across the table who have a twin track strategy, who are talking to us over the top of the table but are kicking us underneath.  
	And he's arguing that the best way of countering this low-intensity conflict of disinformation, of STRATCOM operations that have been directed against him personally, of assassinations, of random violence in trains and taxis, the best way of addressing it is not to meet it with counter violence but to expose it - to open the windows and doors on what was happening. 
	And so he's arguing that with it's limitations, this is what the National Peace Accord has helped us to do, it's given us some idea of what the SADF and SACP are doing or were doing in Boipatong and places like this.
"The limited success"
as he goes on:
"of the National Peace Accord and the introduction of international monitors and good work on the ground, have all contributed to the success of some important but still tentative steps in the last period.  	In particular I'm thing of the resolution dispute structures which have acquired a new impotence in Northern and Southern Natal and the Midlands and I'm also thinking of the very important hostels initiative here in the PWV.
	It's imperative that the ANC and it's allies become ever bolder and more creative in building a major momentum for peace.  We must draw in new forces across the political spectrum and in every sector, youth, women, religious formations, into the process.
	We must relate energetically to Nkatha members on the ground, we must spearhead the peace process and we must ensure that no momentum is lost"
And he's making all of these points literally a week before his assassination.

GEORGE BIZOS: And in relation to the low-intensity conflict that was going on, did he have any views in relation to the self-defence units that were being formed?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, that was a vexed issue, it was a complicated issue.  The ANC led alliance had suspended the armed struggle, we were not waging an armed struggle.
	But as I've said already, there was violence happening - a great deal of violence happening and in our perception the victims were either - or very often, ANC aligned people or just citizens you know, catching a train or catching a mini-bus.
	And in the face of that violence that was being visited in that period on largely the Black community, there was a major demand from our constituency that people should be able to defend themselves and this was one of their arguments for unsuspending the armed struggle, they felt that it had been - many people felt it was wrong to have suspended the armed struggle.  
	And our answer to this was that we were serious about suspending the armed struggle, it remained suspended, there was no Umkhonto weSizwe functioning as an army waging an armed struggle.  But clearly individuals, families, communities, congregations, had the right to self-defence and we felt as an ANC alliance, that we also had to assume some responsibility for assisting people to defend themselves.
	The problem was of course, that when you help people to defend themselves there are dangers and that this can sometimes contribute to escalating the violence rather than to solving it and Chris Hani was well aware of this difficulty and again he was the leader most frequently deployed by the ANC alliance to try to instil discipline, to try to get across the political agenda that we had two self-defence units - some of which sometimes went off the rails.  
	And he explains why again - I think it's - yes, it's at this Peace Summit on the East Rand in the week before his death, where he helpfully gives us a sense of his analysis of the problems of the SDU's.  He says:
"The record of SDU's has been uneven"
I'm quoting from the bottom of the fourth last paragraph on page seven.

CHAIRPERSON: Page seven?

JEREMY CRONIN: Yes, it's the paragraph that begins
"Does our Peace Campaign mean that we need to renounce the need to defence"
Somewhere in the middle he says"
"But the record of SDU's has been uneven.  It's essential hereto that the ANC and it's allies take the lead.  It is we who must take the lead in critically examining the track record of SDU's"
He's saying: "We mustn't fudge the issue, if there's ill-discipline, we must deal with it - we've got responsibility for these SDU's, we've encouraged their development in the face of provocation and we must also not also walk away now from our responsibility and just say: "Well, there's some generalised violence happening", we must deal with it effectively and just say: "Well, there's some generalised violence happening", we must deal with it effectively.
	He then lists some of the reasons why there has been weakness in the SDU's, he says:
"There's been heavy infiltration by the enemy"
meaning the police and defence force of the time.
"We've often been guilty of poor selection of cadres, there's a lack of accountability"
presumably to political structures.
"There's an absence of a cohesive strategy on the part of the ANC allies and community organisations around this area and also because they're unable"
he says:
"the inability to obtain legal firearms makes our SDU's vulnerable to constant SAP harassment"
	He means that because they can't get legal firearms - licensed firearms, there's a tendency to try and acquire them by other means and this often exposed them to infiltration - gun runners would present themselves and make guns available and so forth and this was often the route through which they were infiltrated by other forces.

GEORGE BIZOS: Were the views of Mr Chris Hani covered throughout South African media, both print and electronic?

JEREMY CRONIN: Well, absolutely, I mean he was one of the most high profile political leaders of the time, he was continuously talking and I think there was hardly a day that went by in this period - this three year period prior to his death, in which he was not addressing some public gathering, some public meeting of one kind or another.
	Some of those meetings - because he was not a limelight seeker, some of those meetings would have happened in remote rural villages in which there would not have been public coverage but there was certainly a great deal of public coverage of Chris Hani's views, statements and speeches.
	And I remember in particular - in the month before his assassination, an initiative that he led onto the East Rand where there were problems with self defence units and this was very widely covered on the television news at the time ...[indistinct] these kinds of views which I've been quoting.

GEORGE BIZOS: Did he give talks to various interest groups in the country, not only to - did he confine himself to dwellers in the townships or in the country districts or was he invited to universities and business organisations?