Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-09-09

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very very much for your submission Mr Botha.  Some of my colleagues would want to put questions to you for the purposes of clarification and so on.  Bongani Finka?

BONGANI FINCA: Chairperson, we have invited Mr Botha to testify before the Commission today because we are convinced that there is a great need, especially in this region, to establish truth about certain things and that the possibilities of reconciliation, not only because of the Bisho massacre but of the events that followed thereafter.
 The possibility of burying the past hinges solely on getting the truth about some things.  So we will be raising quite a number of questions, Chairperson, as you permit us but the first one that I want to raise with Mr Botha is just a comparison of the submission that he has made before this Commission today.  I compare that with the memorandum that he submitted or that his government, which I suppose that was drawn by his department of Foreign Affairs, submitted to the United Nations which deal with the same event.
 The two submissions are very different from each other.  Chairperson, perhaps we should appeal to the crowd that we should not be disturbed?

CHAIRPERSON: I asked you, we are supposed to be a Commission that listens to every side.  I told you this morning.  If you do not want to adhere to these conditions I would be very reluctant but I have the authority to clear the hall.  I don't want to do that and if we are a democracy, one of the things that we are having to learn is that we have to give everybody a fair sharing whether you agree or not.
 [Indistinct]  is bad and I said that this morning when I spoke about the fact that we are not a political rally, and so I trust that you are here because you want to hear the truth and we need to establish that truth as much as we are able to do so.  So I rely on you to be disciplined people that we always thought you were.
REV.

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you Chairperson.  I was still saying that the submission made, I suppose through the Foreign Affairs Department, to the United Nations which covers 20-odd pages mainly devotes, I think 18 pages of that submission, to the critical analysis of what the Alliance of the ANC and South African Communist Party did, and very little blame is attributed to those who were responsible for the shooting.  Now I want to find out from Mr Botha, it may be that he has obtained new insight since that submission has been made.  Has there been more insight and when has this taken place?

PIK BOTHA: Yes it must be clear, the emphasis that I put on Judge Goldstone's report, that memorandum was despatched by me on 7 September to the United Nations when the events was not only fresh in one's memory but when we had to rely mostly on media reports, reports of observers here etc.  I have a copy here.   I do not agree with the honourable member when he says that it was one-sided.  I made it also clear that the attitude of the Ciskei government was to be condemned in severe terms.   Chairperson, having gone through the 4 August event and playing a humble role to prevent bloodshed, then to have been faced with this second event, was personally to me a very painful experience.  I must be honest, I thought it was unnecessary.
 We had agreed in CODESSA on the TBVC states, procedures were agreed upon.  I, at that moment thought it was unnecessary.  We had a meeting.  We had a meeting the day before the 7th in President de Klerk's office and there we decided that if Brigadier Gqozo, if the next day the court says that he must allow the march, which we expected, and he didn't, that we would then have taken drastic steps against him.
 And it was when you are in that frame of mind, 4 August was there, the point was made.  Professor Suttner here tells you, the ANC regarded that was a victory for them.  No bloodshed.  Now comes 7 September barely a month later.  I thought it was unnecessary.
 At the same time I must admit that the ANC like any other party, had the right of peaceful gathering.  It is of course a tragedy, or ironical, that that right was not really practised all over the country.  There were vast parts where you couldn't hold a meeting at all if you belonged to a certain party, but be that as it may, I, the answer is yes, when the Goldstone report came out with a proper analysis of the facts, having seen the videos, I accepted immediately Judge Goldstone's analysis and then realised that my submission to the United Nations was partly framed in a state of emotion and, but what I did was I immediately sent the Goldstone report to the United Nations and I also invited, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, a United Nations representative to come and acquaint himself with the situation but the answer is yes.

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you Chairperson.  The next question deals with the fact that there is a conviction in many people's minds that the South African government had the means to stop the massacre.  You mentioned in your testimony that you actually had an arrangement where you appointed certain ministers to cabinet of Ciskei as per agreement with Brigadier Gqozo and also of course many of the people who were in charge of the Security Forces here were seconded officials by the RSA government.  
 I would like to hear Mr Botha's comment on the fact that they had the means but lacked the will to stop this massacre, or alternatively, there is another suggestion that the South African government had covert operations here in Ciskei which were aimed primarily at destabilising Transkei with a view of removing Bantu Holomisa there, and that acting against the Ciskei decisively in a manner that would have stopped the march would have compromised those operations which were there at the time.
 I don't say these are facts but we are here trying to get to the truth and that is our only opportunity to get to it and it is not usual that we have got a person of your stature to raise these questions with and perhaps we could hear your comments on those two suggestions.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Botha, would it be all right if he, I don't know what it is but he says it is related to this, if we could take that question.  Dumisa Ntsebeza?