Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN: Thank you Chairperson.
Very briefly I want to follow on what Joe Modise said. I would like to say in that context, Chairperson, we may have said this before, in the course of our preparations last year and continuing into our preparations to appear before the Commission we had quite a long discussion about the manner of the approach, that we could come to the Commission and make some brief statements, submit brief documents and all that, or we could take a different approach even to answer questions we have not been asked, always a dangerous thing to do. We thought it was necessary, Chairperson, to be comprehensive and to be really as open as is possible.
I would like to take note of the remarks the Chairperson made, which I thought were well made when you said earlier this morning that we should not resort to self-justification. I thought that was an important remark to make. You would understand that sometimes that would happen to any human being, to share the little bit of the guilt to say I'm not as guilty as you think I am, I'm justified to this extent, but I'm saying that would only be a natural thing. But otherwise we have tried, Chairperson, to be as cooperative as possible.
I'm saying this because during the course of our presentations, both yesterday and today, it became clear that there would be some additional information that would be required from us and we did say, at various points, that we would be prepared to cooperate with the Commission with regard to that. I want to reiterate that we are very willing to do that and we will try as best as we can to cooperate.
I must say about the other list of documents which we gave to the Commission, which are marked "Eyes of the Commission Only", again we respect the position that the Chairperson of the Commission indicated yesterday, we agree with that. This Commission will take its own decision within the context of its own guidelines. We shall and we bear in mind Chairperson that it was said that the Commission as a whole will meet in plenary session, I think Thursday, and so you did indicate that you would of course listen to any substantiated argument, but the decision rests with the Commission to decide what it wants to do within its guidelines. As I say, we respect that. We will try and come back to you on that point, Chairperson, before Thursday. We don't want to compromise a life of the Commission by doing things which become difficult. So we will do that in the context, Chairperson, as I was saying, of our cooperation.
There are clearly certain things which we would have wanted to say more about and I think you heard some of that yesterday, Chairperson, for instance the questions that were raised about camp life. Because again, as we are saying, an image can be created out there that camp life had to do with detention camps, torturing of people, beating up of people, abuse of women and all of that, but in our presentation last year we did to some extent cover this matter, just to give a description of camp life of what it was about. Questions like that and what happened in the post-Kabwe period with regard to the institution of a more stable substantial system of justice to deal with punishment, discipline and this kind of question. Indeed certainly we would have wanted to have dealt with those questions to give a more global picture because there's an image out there which also needs to be addressed while the urgent matters that you have to deal with are also dealt with.
That of course, Chairperson, as you would understand, would include from us a continuing assertion, if that is the right word, of the correctness of a people denied all other possibilities of change by a tyrannical regime to correctness not to submit, not to submit to say no, to stand up and say we'll fight for our liberation. That is not an excuse for human rights abuses in the context of the conduct of such a struggle.
I am making these remarks in part Chairperson, therefore to conclude in this way, that we are absolutely certain that at the end of these processes the Truth Commission will make an important contribution to this matter of reconciliation, these issues that Hanif Vally is raising, raised in this statement by President Mandela, it seemed to us that one way of assisting in ensuring that you achieved that objective of the greatest possible contribution by the Commission to this objective of reconciliation was to enable the Commission to do that, to empower it, to give it the capacity, by making sure that we, ourselves, cooperate with it as fully as is possible.
The matter of that national reconciliation is fundamental to the future of our country, and we, as a political organisation, as a political organisation, this might sound even strange to you Chairperson, we have even, informally perhaps in the past, spoken even to the National Party to say it is in its own interests we said then, that it stays in government, in its own interest to remain a viable force to assist in this process of national reconciliation. They wouldn't listen.
We are engaged in discussions now with the Freedom Front which continues to raise, perfectly within its rights, questions about the right of self-determination of the Afrikaner people, with all the controversy there is about that we are discussing this, because we believe it is important to find solutions, to address those kinds of questions seriously. The ANC might have a philosophical problem about that, but they are part of the political reality that has to be addressed seriously too. I am saying in the practice we, all of us, try to add more of these bricks to make up this edifice.
Therefore, Chairperson, good luck to the Commission. We will continue to cooperate with the Commission as best as we can.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. There is just, before I close there is one point that Hlengiwe Mkhize wants to ask.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much Chairperson. One of the legacies of the Commission is the question of the survivors of human rights violations, individual survivors, can we have your comments on that?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes Wynand.