Amnesty Hearings — Vosloorus — 1998-11-24

ADV DE JAGER: Mr Kasrils, I think we all understand it and I think that was necessary at this stage as it's necessary today still to form self defence units for instance to protect the farmers?

RONNIE KASRILS: Well precisely, so it's a correct idea and you're right, we discussed the same question with the farmers and I'm very sympathetic to them but the difference, Advocate, is that this government is able to bring the police and the military to the protection of the farmers even if we can't assure a hundred percent protection.

ADV DE JAGER: Ja.

RONNIE KASRILS: What the apartheid government totally failed to do was to provide any form of protection for communities who were subject to the most incredible onslaught of terror and really that is the essence of why people sought to defend themselves, how we tried to get it done in a disciplined way, the way we might in Sandton where people have got their gates and their alarm systems and cars and the police, but here in communities living cheek by jowl with buildings and areas where there were forces that were used against them.  So I do agree sir.
	Would you like me just to - I'll make this very brief now?

ADV DE JAGER: I can assure you that we're satisfied, we're not saying that self defence units was per se not a good ...(intervention)

RONNIE KASRILS: Endeavour.

ADV DE JAGER: Endeavour to protect people.

RONNIE KASRILS: Well could I actually respond by saying that the National Peace Accord recognised the right to the  self defence units and in fact in our discussions with government at Kempton Park - and I was in the security commission with the then Minister of Law and Order as it was called, Mr Hernus Kriel.  He accepted that the self defence units could be created and that indeed perhaps they could be provided with weapons by way of licensed firearms.  We took that up but unfortunately the government very quickly forgot about that and we couldn't pursue that course.
	The document goes on to assist people with how to go about discussions with the community in creating the self defence unit and stresses that there should be a non-sectarian approach, it shouldn't be an MK unit or an ANC unit, it should cut across the political divides to try and unify the community and indeed we had in mind the hostel dwellers being part of this and part of the community but unfortunately, the circumstances at the time, the beleaguered nature of the way hostel dwellers saw themselves, the way their mindset was exploited and clearly the role of the third force played it's role and they remained as cocoons or fortresses against the community. 
	 In brief the document details the following.  Organisation of a unit and it's structure, a street defence system, how to recruit, how to train, the question of weaponry, communications, intelligence, observation, barricades, support groups and very important, a chapter dealing with working with hostile forces.  The hostile forces being referred to as perceived hostile forces such as police and military and hostel dwellers and in that chapter it articulated the need to make friends with those forces to win them over and come to solutions together and search the political solution.  
	There's a final chapter on tactics.  Now I would simply like to add that we did not see MK members as constituting the entire defence unit, that the ordinary people needed to be recruited into the units and given discipline and training, that it was an MK members duty to do everything possible to assist, to train, to arm, to educate and so on.  That's basically what this document refers to but what I would like to say in conclusion to this is that and as a writer of this document, it's one thing to have an ideal, an objective and to write very nicely about it from a discussion group or in a study or at a desk.  It's quite another thing to place people in the real situation.  It's the tremendous gap between theory and practice, between what we are attempting to do and should be doing as between what actually happens on the ground and I want to make this point here very honestly, not simply to find a way of coming to plead for defendants, I'm also an applicant, not in this court but I have put in an application and I'm sure I will be called at one stage or other in relation to the self defence units, the arming of the people for self defence and so on but the enormous difference sir, between the theory and what actually happens on the ground and all the problems that develop on the ground particularly in the most demanding situation that a human being can find themselves in and that is the struggle to survive against somebody who is attacking you with all guns blazing.  In other words a war zone, a battle field situation and not a situation of an organised mighty army of the British in the Falklands or the Americans and the Iraq army in the gulf and the Second World War but a battle that rages, that any moment and any time and any second of night or day in a sprawling, depressed area such as this where people have got the flimsiest of shelters, where people are living cheek by jowl with one another, where suddenly an outbreak of violence occurs and young people who are driven by the most noble of sentiments and that's to defend their mothers and their fathers and their neighbours and their children and the brothers and sisters, are prepared to do that, have been prepared to do that, they've been prepared to go to jail or to die for that.  They've had to in that situation whilst we have the leaders with perhaps a more mature view of documents such as the one I've indicated and policy are not at hand and they've got to respond and find a way of responding.  I think this is the most essential point that I believe I can make before you here today.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Kasrils, you know I think basically we all understand what you're saying and mostly it's been an understanding that the Amnesty Committee was aware of, by the time but in exercising those or executing those decisions and setting up what was necessary, I'm sure you will agree that maybe on very infrequent occasions the criminals for want of a better word, maybe the third force saw opportunities to infiltrate and do things that were not planned.  I think it is that type of notion which gives rise to enquiries such as these.  Had it not been for that I think the activities of self defence units could not be questioned and I'd just like to known what or hear what your comments are on the possibilities of these ill-thought of creatures that infiltrate and caused mayhem and did wrong things for various reasons?

RONNIE KASRILS: Can I make it very clear that I totally welcome hearings such as this and I would say that the applicants do as well, my knowledge of them.  We don't see you as an instrument here of making people sweat and cringe about what they've done.  Then I might be sweating but it's terribly hot.
This is the most positive development, the whole TRC process.

ADV DE JAGER: Well Mr Kasrils, to interrupt you, you see us sweating too.