Human Rights Violation Hearings — Grahamstown — 1997-04-09

CHAIRPERSON: We would like to thank you sir.  We do not always have policemen that speak in this fashion.  Mr Sandi reminded me this morning when we were having breakfast, we were reflecting on poetry where it says that I do not know, and I do not care.
 We are aware of those three factors or stages of religion, the I don't know, I don't care and it was not I, but we thank you.  You identify yourself with what the Police Force had done, which is a major point.
 There are people here who did not even know about apartheid, when you speak to them now, they do not even know that anything like that existed and they refuse to even acknowledge it.  It is very rare where you find someone acknowledging that they supported apartheid.  Everyone denies that they supported apartheid, because people don't want to own up, they don't want to say it is us or it is me.
 Lots of people turn a blind eye.  When these reconciliation meetings which we have, these hearings, the reason we have them in public and the reason we have these large venues, is so that people can come along and hear.  Come and see so that they get affected by what they hear and see.
 People close their eyes because they want to say we did not know.  Even at this time when they've got an opportunity to know.  They do not want to come because they want to say they did not know.
 We thank you for coming here and coming to inform the people.  But more than anything we thank you for caring, for
the concern and even suggest ways forward of how the cleansing, the cleansing of the nation can take place.  Because this is to me a national ritual, national ritual of cleansing that this nation can be cleansed.  And this nation can start again.
 What happens is that the victims come here, the perpetrators and beneficiaries of the old system don't want to know what happened because they don't want to avail themselves to the cleansing.
 We thank you for your suggestions.  You are our last witness and you are going to sit there until I have finished.  We have now reached the end of our hearing here in Grahamstown.  We have listened to 68 matters, we have heard 68 matters.
 These are matters that have left us moved beyond belief.  When we are going home now after the hearings, whether it is in Umtata, Aliwal North or Uitenhage or wherever, we go home with pictures or mental ideas of what happened here which will affect us for the rest of our lives.
 Because these hearings affect us and when we get home and we lie down to sleep, there will be faces that will come back to haunt us, that will not leave our memory.  Faces of people who were before us, who testified before us.
 We leave for home with an additional 68 faces, some of them are tearful faces, some of them have scarred and injured hands and the last face is one that was shot and half the scull went through a wall behind him.
 Those kind of images will stay with us for the rest of our lives.  We thank the people of Grahamstown and also the little towns around it for having brought your testimony to
us.
 We thank the people of Grahamstown who have come here to listen.  When we got here on Sunday and got up early Monday morning in the cold and the rain, I got here and said to Mr Sandi, I think we should get a small room.  I think they should have given us a classroom because we are going to get cold here.  I am amazed that even in this weather, the people of Grahamstown have come out to our hearings and have attended our hearings throughout.
 They have come here determined to behave themselves in a manner befitting such a hearing.  The behaviour of the people of Grahamstown has been excellent and even those who were tempted to disrupt that, were unable to.  
 Once again, I would like us to thank the following people because at this hearing I said this in the beginning, there have been White people as well.  Our hearings in the Eastern Cape and this has brought us a lot of pain, have been attended by the previously disadvantaged.  Those who were previously advantaged and benefitted from the previous dispensation, have been 100% absent from our hearings.
 In this hearing we have seen a consistent attendance of a few, very few, I would say 5% of our audience has been White people and I think that they must know that the gesture that they are making, that is recorded, because here in Grahamstown, there are people who have said by their attending, we care, we want to own up to this past.  We want to deal with this ritual.  We want this cleansing of the nation to see us participate and we are not going to close our eyes to it.
 And we thank you very much for that gesture.  You are going to be haunted as well by what you have seen.  These
images will remain with you all your lives and this is why we hold these hearings at public gatherings.
 We would have loved if there were more than just 5% or 3% of White people, but at least a start has been made and we appreciate that very  much.
 I would like to thank the Clergy, especially the Bishop of Grahamstown, Bishop David.  He has made a remarkable gesture who in spite of his busy schedule and I know how busy he was, made it a point that since Monday, the beginning of the hearing to the end of the hearing. 
 I think by doing that he has demonstrated pastoral solidarity, pastoral concern to the people who were violated in various ways in this area.  I would also like to thank Luke Pato who is in charge of the theological ceremony here and who decided to be here all day today and yesterday as well to listen to this hearing.
 Those gestures, and also the other members of the clergy who have opened and closed our hearings, they are indeed very appreciated.
 We thank the Councillor of Grahamstown, the Mayor who borrowed us this hall, we thank him for his presence at this hearing.  We thank the Mayor of Fort Beaufort and others who attended this hearing.
 I would like to thank the police, the person who is in charge of the police.  We would like to thank them for maintaining order.  They at some stage wanted to search us upon our arrival here, but they have made some concessions and we are very grateful for that.
 We had spoken about the police quite often but having a cooperative attitude, shows a new direction.  We thank the interpreters as well and also those in charge of the
recording facilities.
 We thank the interpreters who have worked very hard here today, the first day we had one interpreter who worked all day without complaining and we thank her and we would like to thank the staff of the TRC and especially, especially the statementtakers working in this region, Mr Plaatjie, Mr Mere, Mr Petros.
 We have heard 68 matters, but I am sure that we have received more than 200 statements.  Some of them will remain in our records, we will investigate them and we will do internal hearings in regard to them.
 Finally, I would like to thank the media for the good coverage they had given our hearing.  I thank the panellists, our colleagues who kept us in order, especially Mr Sandi whose responsibility it was on his shoulders to prepare for this hearing.
 I would like us to give them all a round of applause.

ADV SANDI: Chairperson, before we close, I think we would be failing if we did not thank you for the dignity you have bestowed upon this hearing by your presence and the thought provoking remarks you made after each testimony, in spite of the pain the people expressed and we would like to thank you and encourage  you to keep that up.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: I thought that we could close this hearing by singing a verse of a particular hymn.  We will close by singing the national anthem.

COMMISSION CLOSES WITH NATIONAL ANTHEM: .