Human Rights Violation Hearings — Moutse — 1996-12-02

ROELF MEYER: The question is, if I understand you correctly, what the National Party Government did to actually consult in the process of taking decisions.  I am trying to apply that question specifically to this area when I respond, Chairperson, and that is I am afraid to say that it is not clear to me whether there was actual consultation because another area in question is, of course, Ekangala, which also formed part of that same process of, let us say, deviation from decision making.  It seems to me that in the case of this homeland altogether there were was a notion that there should be a homeland for this area, but that it was not properly, if I may say so, thought through, unfortunately.  That is a deduction I am making from the facts that I have tried to study.  Again, one will have to go further and to more detail.
 Let me just say that when Mr de Klerk has referred to the start of change of policy from 1978 onwards, it, of course, did not necessarily originally reflect a change of police in regard to the homelands idea.  It was rather a
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start to a change of mind in looking at, first of all, the position, viz a vie, the coloured community and the indian community as you will recall.  After those changes were made in 1983, then further attention was given by the then Government on the questions of reforms regarding homeland policy and so forth.  I think a big question remains in that regard which, I guess, we will have to respond to and that is after 1976 it must have become clear to the Government of the day that the whole idea of the existence of the africans permanently in the, so called, white areas is an inevitable fact and that something related to that conclusion or deduction that had to be made at that stage, already started or had to start materialising in Government thinking from that period onwards.  Unfortunately, it did not materialise in respect of the changes of the Constitutional changes that took place in the early 1980s because we did not see it in the Tricamaral Constitution and, of course, only thereafter new thinking was given to the whole question of, in the end, what to do with the homelands policy.  
 Now, it becomes clear, any maybe I should have pointed that out earlier on.  It becomes clear that by 1985 and 1986 the South African Government had a clear view that at least no further independence was pursued for any of the homelands that did not become independent at that stage.  It also became clear that outside of the independent, so called independent states, the rest of South Africa was seen as one united geographic area and that in some or other way Constitutional reality will have to be given to that.  I am referring in this context to speeches that have been made by the then State President in 1985 and 1986 which actually gave effect to this acceptance of the fact that we are
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talking about one undivided piece of land, but, that of course, only meant the areas outside of the, so called, independent states.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Russell.

RUSSELL ALLY: Mr Meyer, I accept that you say that you are not defending the policy, but you are trying to give a perspective and understanding, but if you would just indulge me.  I want to just explore some issues which you mentioned in this giving of a perspective or an understanding.  You say that the issue of the homelands that Verwoerd was trying to find a moral underpinning.  Now, I want to just explore that issue with you because would you not accept that at the end of the day the implementation of that policy depended very critically on the Nationalist Party still being able to maintain order and domination?  How would that relate to the issue of finding a moral underpinning which you said was an attempt to move away from domination and discrimination when the implementation of that policy rested very much on the ability still to dominate and still to exercise power?  I would just like to explore that idea with you.

ROELF MEYER: Chairperson, I think one has to go back again to what Verwoerd had in mind and then follow it through from there.  I guess Verwoerd had a dream that this moral basis would provide to everybody and to all the various ethnic groups in the country, not only a sufficient basis, but a moral basis upon which the country could be divided and each of the different ethnic groups could live in peace also with each other.  I especially say it was a dream because under no circumstances could that dream materialise because the dream had one critical mistake in itself.  That was that it was impossible to separate the people of this country into
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different geographical areas altogether.  The critical issue that was, apparently, not on the table at the time of Verwoerd and that was not questioned in his time was actually how to deal with the millions of South Africans that would not, necessarily, find themselves in any of the homelands.  I think this question really started to emerge for the first time in the mid-1970s.  If I look back at the overall picture it seems to me that the real first event where this question started to come to the fore was after the 1976 unrests in Soweto.  The particular question of, on the one side, this dream, but on the other side the reality that you cannot and will never be able to separate the different ethnic groups or the different communities totally into different geographic areas.  
 Of course that, since it was not addressed by Verwoerd, his dream was an impractical one and later on, it seems to me, that people when they started to deal with the realities also did not look much further into the original moral basis of what Verwoerd might have had in mind at his time, but simply started to look at how the idea could be forced through although it became unimplementable in terms of the original idea.  So, I think there was a dualism, there was a conflict.  Later on also in the minds of those that had to apply that dream, but the basic fault was, to my mind, the fact that Verwoerd himself did not address the realities of what he had in mind.

RUSSELL ALLY: Mr Meyer I want to come back to this issue of the question of morality and the question of an ability to implement.  More specifically the question of authoritariasm because an issue which emerges over and over again in many of the conflicts particularly in homelands is the extent to
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which the security police, the police, other authoritarian structures become more and more involved in the conflict, in the issues to the point where it is those structures, in the end, who seem to be in control rather than the politicians.  So I would like to come back then and explore this issue of whether one can have this idea of a dream or a moral order against the backdrop of this question of wanting to maintain power and domination.