Amnesty Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

NORMAN ARENDSE: For the same reason then Mr Chairman, with respect, white people wherever they were at the time, certainly in terms of the APLA policy were regarded as enemies.
	They were supporting the - they put the government in place and they supported that government.  They were also therefore seen by a logical extension as functionaries supporting the state.  Without them voting the government in who knows what would have happened.
	But in any case, the point that I'm making, those considerations, do you just kill white people and so on, those considerations didn't feature for the applicants because they were not part of the decision making process they were soldiers and they carried out their orders.
	Mr Chairman, then just on a few other matters.  I think I made the point that yes, there were negotiations on at the time.  If one must take this factor seriously, and with respect I say we can't, then the legislature would have made cutt-off point the time when we had the negotiations at CODESSA.  Then it would have been and I think maybe it was, I think earlier December 1993 but the Act was amended and it was extended to May 1994.  And that period covers the applicants more than adequately.  
	And in fact my learned friend made the point that even the PAC had by a majority decision decided to continue with the armed struggle, so it wasn't to be complete yet.
	The issue of proportionality like all the other factors that are mentioned in sub-paragraph 23(a) to (f) is not on it's own decisive.  And clearly if we look at each case in isolation then I think this Committee would have difficulty in giving amnesty to anybody.  
	I mean how on earth could Coetzee's murder of Xenge or Mitchell's mistake where he kills 11 people, how could that possibly be proportionate to the end which is being sought i.e. to get rid, in Mitchell's case, to get rid of ANC, UDF activists.  And in Coetzee's case, to get rid of one functionary, a person who is alleged to have been a ...[indistinct] for the ANC.
	It clearly must be seen in it's overall context, in the context of the struggle in this country.

ADV SANDI: Sorry Mr Arendse, if I can just chip in for a moment here.  Consistent with your line of argument I thought in the Brian Mitchell matter you were referring to, you were saying even if he ended up hitting a target which he never intended, at the end of the day he would have hit black activists anyway.  Isn't that what you are saying?

NORMAN ARENDSE: Yes, I mean the end result was not the same because he didn't hit the intended target but I was just trying to draw some parallels with this case.  I didn't understand Advocate Prior's submission with regard to similar submissions made in the St James that not every act is a political act and not every - evoking a slogan doesn't mean that that's a political objective.  I think the evidence is very clear in this case.
	With respect, it is very clear that these applicants, they are not what one can call ordinary criminals.  You've heard from them Mr Chairman and learned members of the Committee, how they articulated their position, where they found themselves in, where they come from, their background and why they joined the liberation movement. They clearly don't deserve to be locked up for committing what was purely a political act clearly on their evidence.
	The Norgaard Principles which is referred to by my learned friend, the attacks on purely civilian targets are attacks of a purely political nature which justifies amnesty.  I'm sure that our law makers had regard to the Norgaard Principles but we have a process in this country which is unique and the Act is designed to cater for that uniqueness. 
	The law ...[indistinct] has recognised that lots and lots, hundreds and thousands of innocent people overwhelmingly black were caught up in the crossfire but to put the past behind us it was necessary to have an amnesty process. Civilians would be killed and they were killed and they were killed in this case.  
	Mr Chairman and learned members of the Committee, unless there's any aspect you wish to raise with me, those are our submissions, thank you very much.
	Mr Chairman, can I just raise one aspect which I raised at the previous hearing and that is your decision.  It concerns me and my clients who are not only the applicants but the PAC and those in the APLA High Command, that such a long time elapses and has already elapsed before the Committee makes a decision.  	It concerns us that it would appear that the Committee, not this Committee but the big Amnesty Committee, is waiting to hear all the evidence in all these matters.
	With respect, I think that's irregular.  Like my learned friend says, each case depends on it's own facts and I can't see how if this is the intention that an applicant may have a credibility finding against him or her in some other or subsequent proceeding, that it would then influence the result in for example, this particular matter.
	I would accordingly urge this Committee to make a decision as soon as possible in this matter.  The applicants have been in jail now for almost five years.  Mr Molefu for example, who wasn't directly involved in the incident and was an accomplice is also sitting in jail for a long time.

CHAIRPERSON: We have noted that point.

NORMAN ARENDSE: Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: But it must be pointed out though that it's also a question of practicalities.  If you got only 12 members of the Amnesty Committee and an applicant has got 50 incidents in respect of which he could apply for amnesty, a difficulty may arise.  And this has been as a result of the attitude adopted by some of the applicants and I don't blame them for that, perhaps they are right in doing so.
	They brought an application in respect of one incident and a particular combination of the Amnesty Committee heard that particular application and took a decision which was not favourable to the applicant.  And the next thing that same applicant comes again with another incident, in the meantime a decision had been given in respect of the first incident.  
	He appears again before the same Amnesty Committee or slightly constituted, differently constituted Committee, he comes with the next application and he says: "No, no amongst you there's somebody who sometimes turned down may application, I don't want you in this combination, let him go out.  And then that person or those two people get out of the Amnesty Committee because previously they turned him down.  And he's not through yet with his applications.  
	Next time we hear his third application, his fourth and his fifth, surely he's going to exhaust members of the Amnesty Committee.  Who is going to hear the balance of these matters in the end, after everyone of us have been asked to excuse themselves because they would have heard his applications one after the other.
	Now it's an over-simplification of the problem.  The solution may well be that when a person brings applications in instalments, we should reserve judgement until we have heard all his applications to avoid that kind of scenario.  Particularly if it is obvious that he has got a lot more applications to bring because the problem that I've explained to you may arise and force us to withhold the Judgement.  I'm not necessarily saying that that is going to be the case but I'm just pointing out what in fact has already happened.
	You'll find that somebody with many applications has exhausted all the members of the Amnesty Committee, all of them had to recuse themselves, what do we do?