Human Rights Violation Hearings — George — 1996-06-18

CHAIRPERSON: Let us pray
God for as much as without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may inverse and in all things direct and rule our hearts through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Please sit - good morning, from you all with warm hands in this gathering of the Commission, of the Truth Commission and reconciliation.  We welcome you to this hearing of the Human Rights Violations Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the Southern Cape.
  We welcome you all very warmly but especially we welcome those who will be testifying, their families, and friends.  We are deeply indebted to many without whose generous help and already difficult  [indistinct]  task would be rendered virtually impossible.
 Our thanks and appreciation to them, cannot really be expressed in words adequately.  We want to mention especially the following.  The municipalities in George, Knysna, Mossel Bay, Plettenberg Bay, Oudtshoorn and Ladysmith for making their venues available to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
 We are deeply indebted to the  NGO's such as Black Sash in Knysna and Rape Crisis in Oudtshoorn and there are Steering Committees in George, Plettenberg Bay, Knysna, Oudtshoorn - for their general support in particularly in the taking of statements.  And there are Government structures such as the police service, who are providing security.  The traffic police, the  Department of  Social Services for  physiological support and the Masakhane Centre.  
 There are designated statement takers and community briefers, people who come usually from NGO's and community based organisations.  A big thank you as well to those who will be serving as our interpreters, and I want to say thank you to my  colleagues the Commissioners and Committee members some of whom  are with me up here and the staff who have done a sterling job of work in preparing for these hearings.   Louis and Melanie and all the other people who  have been assisting and collaborating with them to ensure that we have a smooth and efficient operation.
 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has four regional offices, one in Cape Town, one in Durban the other in East London and the fourth in Gauteng.  And each of them has a Commissioner as the convenor and for Western Cape/Northern Cape which includes the Southern Cape, the Commissioner convenor is Dr Wendy Orr who today is operating as one of the logistics team.  And each of our regions has a regional manager and Ruth Lewin is our regional manager who has to  ensure that all our staff operate as an efficient team and to them we want to say a very big thank you.
 I have almost always expressed our appreciation to the media, the print media, the electronic media who have very-very largely down a superb job of  work in helping to convey to our nation and to the world the kind of  things that have been happening in our hearings and ensuring that the stories that we hear get the widest possible publicity.  To them we want to  say thank you and I  do want to single out four special mention the SABC, that they have done a wonderful  job in being unobtrusive with their  cameras and ensuring that the stories to a wide audience as possible.  And we say thank you too, to SABC radio who have given what  was largely a live coverage of the hearings.
 We are a little perturbed to hear that some  of the local papers here have felt that they could not be present here.   We had thought [indistinct -  interpreter is speaking Xhosa] in a just system and by the conflict of the struggle to overthrow it and the resistance to that effort.
 But most normal people have been appalled by what we have been hearing in the different centres that we have gone to.  The price of our freedom has been very high and we pray that we will not devalue that freedom, we must cherish it with all we have.   And we must commit ourselves to ensure that such evil and suffering should never happen again in our  country, indeed in any other country.  We must all of  us black and white, young and old, say never again.  
 Yes we have been devastated by the horror and the agony, but we have been overwhelmed as well by the extraordinary people there are in this land.  Many indeed most of  those who have suffered and who have come to  testify before the  Commission have amazed us -  have amazed the world with their readiness to forgive with their nobility and generosity of  spirit.  They are the people who have made possible the miracle that is this new South Africa.
The world looks on and marvels  we pray that the offers to forgive will not  go unhidden, that they will inspire others to be ready to  say  we are sorry, please forgive us, then -  then this  miracle will be complete.  In these hearings we will not immediately be making a finding on whether a person is or is not  a victim as defined by the Act that has set us.  It will be a great deal later after the evidence that has been presented has been verified and after perhaps those who have been named as alleged perpetrators have been given an opportunity of making a response if they wish to do so.
This hearing is not a court of law, it is  a forum in which especially the so-called little people, those who's stories have not generally been told to a wide audience - are given the opportunity of  telling their stories.  But all though it  is not a court, we seek to have a proper decorum -  we hope that all of you are moved to want to have a dignified setting in which such often horrendous stories can be told.  It is part of our response to those stories that we gave people a dignified setting in which  to tell them.
I will not want to invoke the powers that are vested in us, when perhaps people  do not conduct themselves as they might on the  whole we have had very little trouble in - in our experience.  People are generally well behaved and I don't - I don't think that the people of this area will be different.
I have said it is not a court of  law but in one respect it has the attributes of a Court of  Law, if  anyone were deliberately to misinform, mislead the Commission then they would be guilty of the same offence if they had done that in a court of  law.  And as you may be aware, someone who came before the Commission and sought to  mislead us, has since been found guilty and sentenced to a years term of imprisonment.  So that we -  we are concerned about veracity about truth, and hope that everyone is  aware that the only way  our land will be healed is when that truth is  revealed.
I want to introduce the panel that is sitting here with me on my  left is Joyce Seroke, she is a Committee member, not a Commissioner, she is a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee and comes out of the Gauteng region.  On my right is Mary Burton, she is  a Commission and a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee and is  based in Cape Town.  And on her right is Dr Ramashala who is a  Commissioner and a member of the Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee and she is  based in Cape Town.  We are expecting  a fourth panel member Russel Ally who is a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee based in Johannesburg, Gauteng.  His flight has been delayed, we  hope he will be able  to arrive on time.
I have the privilege then of  declaring this hearing of the  Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, Human Rights Violations Committee open.