Special Hearings — Conscription Hearings — 1997-07-23

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Please don't go away yet.  We are notgoing to ask many questions says the Chair but perhaps just tomake one comment probably similar to many of the other submissions,that often this process leads to a lot of introspection and I'msure that this must have lead to quite a bit of introspectionon your part as well.  It's perhaps part of the aim of the exercisethat we look inward as well as look into the future because weare after all in the process of trying to re-shape how we go intothe future and not perhaps make the mistakes of the past.  I thinkthat one of the things that worry me often is a quote that says"one of the certainties we have is that we often do not learnfrom the past".  We examine the past but we actually do notlearn from it, and I wonder if there is a way in which we cantry to change that.  Perhaps we can ask you to just tell a littlebit more about what do you feel about how we can shape the necessaryneed that we do have to have a defence force.  I don't think thatwe're debating that but how can we make it a humane credible forcegiving the background and given the history we have of the past?

MR LIEBENBERG: I think it's a very complex question andI cannot vaguely attempt to give satisfactory answers especiallynot to my brothers and sisters that in principle differ from theinstitution of the military or the military has an institution. My feeling is the first step has been achieved, militaries aremuch better under control in democracies.  We have achieved that. The more difficult part probably is we're shaping a history ofauthoritarian control, an authoritarian Government and the waysuch a Governments relates to the military and visa versa.  ThereI have quite strong feelings that one should never, as you shouldhave civil societies that have and provide and impose in a sensechecks and balances on politicians.  Politicians should providean impose checks and balances on the military and civil militaryrelations is a very important area here.  It goes about thingslike what oversight do we have about budgets, what ways of doublechecking on budgets exist and how do you keep that in place andintact so it becomes part of an inculcated culture that it doesn'tjust become structures that exist on paper of how do we overseebudgeting processes, intelligence gathering etc.  Exactly howdo we double check that those things relate to how a militaryshould see it's role in a democracy.
 More important I think the Argentinean experience is the importantone, that while the Argentinean military perhaps more than theChilean military were brought in kicking and screaming into theprocess there, they afterwards by introspection came around tothe conclusion that the term re-professionalisation of the militaryis not that bad a term at all and that you should try to re-evaluateand re-constitute a military under a democratic rule.  
 In Chile we know Pinoche is still very powerful and we know thatthe Chileans have experienced the Chilean example of Truth Commissionsin many 
senses especially in the justice part of it as a negative experience.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: That is a big challenge and thanks forpointing us at least in some way to looking at some of the areasthat we need to examine in terms of institutional change becausethat is one of the imperatives in the Act that we need to makerecommendations about institutional reform and institutional change. I notice you have one small comment to make.

MR LIEBENBERG: A very small one, but I think it's a verylogical one, but no institution structures or processes changeif people don't see the way in which they attempt to deal withthe situation in relation with other people.  In my personal viewthat was perhaps my biggest experience since 1978 until to-dayis that the change might come with a lot of ache and sort of moralreflection but once it's come I don't think one should spend toomuch time suffering ad nauseam, there's a lot of other thingsto build and there's a country to build if you put in the Africancontext there's a lot more to do, thank you.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Glenda and thank you Ian.  We'llcall upon Tim Ledgerwood to come up please and Glenda please stayon.  Thank you Craig Botha and family thank you.  Thank you, overto you Glenda Wildschut.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Good afternoon Tim I know you've beenhere all day and it's been a long day.  We want to thank you forthat patience.  Maybe we can just pause a while because thereare some people moving out and then we can give you our full attention. Tim once you've switched on the red button after I've spokenyou may go ahead and present your submission to us.
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