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

CHAIRPERSON: Right. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first day of a four-day hearing entitled the Armed Forces Hearing.  Today we will be hearing from the Pan African Congress and then the APLA leadership; tomorrow the former South African Defence Force; on Thursday the former South African Police and on Friday, the final day of the hearing, the MK which was the armed forces of the African National Congress.
 I am delighted to welcome all of you here today. I understand that we have a number of guests from the United States. I don't have all your names in front of me.  So let me simply say we are very pleased to welcome you and that we hope you will find the hearing both interesting and informative.  
 I understand also that there are three monitors from the United States who have been monitoring the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  You, are of course, also very warmly welcome.
 I want to welcome the members of the media and the Press and we will allow with, your permission, just a few more minutes for them to take photographs and to film, but thereafter we would ask them please to leave the front of this hearing so that we can move straight ahead.
 Before I formally welcome Bishop Mogoba, let me just dispense with a few preliminary announcements about proceedings.  We will adjourn for tea at 10:45 and resume again at 11:15.   There will be a break for lunch between 13:00 and 13:45 and we will resume at that time and then depending on what progress we have made, we will determine whether or not there will be a tea break or whether we will simply close at 16:00. We are hoping that our proceedings can finish at four because we have other work and responsibilities, and of course, members of the panel have responsibilities as well.
 I would like to say a very warm welcome to Bishop Stanley Mogoba who is the President of the PAC.  We are delighted to have him with us.  We are glad you accepted our invitation and indeed, expressed a willingness to be here and to open the proceedings on behalf of your party.
 We have a number of representatives of APLA.  In a few moments I am going to ask my colleague on my left, Dumisa Ntsebeza, to ask you to take the oath, which is required of all who appear before the TRC, and then we will be able to start the proceedings. So could I ask Mr Ntsebeza to do that as far as Bishop Mogoba is concerned, right away.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you, Dr Boraine. I don't want to assume anything, Bishop.

UNKNOWN: (Duly sworn, states).

CHAIRPERSON: Just one other sort of one these silly little announcements, if any of you have cell-phones, please put them off now.  It would help us enormously.   Before I call on Bishop Mogoba to make an opening statement, I would like to introduce the panel.
 Immediately on my right Ms Hlengiwe Mkhize, who is the chairperson of the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee of the TRC.  She is a full Commissioner.  She resides normally in Gauteng, but is specially here for this hearing. 
 I have already mentioned Mr Dumisa Ntsebeza, who is the Commissioner and head of our Investigative Unit, and works out of Cape Town.  
 On my far left, which I assume is appropriate and wearing a tie for the first time for many months, Mr Ilan Lax, who is from Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu/Natal, he is an attorney by profession.  But he is a full Committee member, full-time working for the TRC and a very valuable member of the team from KwaZulu/Natal and we are delighted to have him here as well for these hearings.  
 My name is Alex Boraine, I am acting Chairperson of the TRC.  Archbishop Tutu is in Adis Abeba and will be there until the end of the week. So he will not be attending any of these hearings.
 Bishop Mogoba, you will know, as I introduced earlier that we are trying to get as much information as we possibly can about the conflicts of the past.  This is demanded from us by an Act of Parliament and you of course, are a member of that Parliament, and the Parliament has instructed this Commission to try and get as complete a picture as possible of what happened during that time.  So as once and for all, to know the truth and allow the people themselves to give their point of view, rather than being interpreted by other people.  We have tried to do this over the last year and some months, and have had many, many public hearings as you know, with many different constituencies coming before us.   We will take all of that information and try to get that complete a picture as possible, to put that into our final report and present it to President Mandela, who will then make it available to Parliament as a public document.
 One of the commitments we have is an attempt to try and learn from our past, learn from our mistakes and our successes, so that we build a future which is based on democracy and justice, values which we haven't had a great deal of in this country, in the past, and yet, whilst we examine the past, we really are much more interested in building a future.  We believe you can't come to terms with that unless you at least come to terms with what really happened in the past.
 So we are delighted that you are here. I would like to give you now the floor and we will listen to you very carefully. You are most welcome.  Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Mr Acting Chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, honourable Commissioners, I want to thank you for offering us the opportunity this morning to share with you some of the past which we regard as being very, very unhappy. But before I say a word, can I ask that my initials be corrected. I realised I am listed as W Mogoba, instead of M S, which is Mutlahela Stanley Mogoba.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, that will be done, I apologise.