Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-03-23

ADV PRIOR: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman, today is the 23rd of March 1999 and we continue from today onwards till Friday with the completion of all the part-heard matters from last year, dealing with the APLA contingency in the Eastern Cape.  Today we will start with the killing of Donne and Mike Meyers.  I understand that there's no further evidence to be led by either the applicants or the victims, nor myself as Evidence Leader, and the matter is simply to proceed on argument only.  Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Prior, we have on occasions been asked to put our voices on record for the sake of the transcribers, should we still do that?  You have just done that.  I am Andrew Wilson, the Chairman.

ADV GCABASHE: Advocate Leah Gcabashe.

ADV SANDI: I am Nsikelelo Sandi.

MR LAX: I am Ilan Lax.

MR BOTMA: I am D C Botma.

MR MBANDAZAYO: I'm Lungile Mbandazayo, I am appearing for the applicants, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Right, we can carry on.

ADV PRIOR: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman, I don't know the order in which argument should take place, normally the applicants argue and summarise.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Thank you, Chairperson and Honourable Members of the Committee.
	Chairperson, I will start by quoting Section 20(1) of the Act which provides as follows:  that if the Committee after considering an application for amnesty, is satisfied that the applicant complies with the requirements of the Act, the act or offence to which the application relates is an act associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past in accordance with the provision of (2) and (3), and the applicant has made full disclosure of all relevant facts, it shall grant amnesty in respect of that omission or offence.
	Section 20(2) provides as follows:  If this act, unless the context indicates otherwise, act associated with a political objective means any act or omission which constitutes an offence or delict which according to the criteria in (3) is associated with a political objective and which was advised, planned, directed, commanded and ordered or committed within or outside the Republic during the 1st March to the cutoff date by any member or supporter of a publicly known organisation or liberation movement, on behalf of or in support of such organisation in furtherance of a political struggle waged by such organisation against the State, any member of a publicly known political organisation in the course and scope of his duties and within the scope of his express or implied authority, any person referred in (d) above who on reasonable grounds believed that he was acting in the course and scope of his duties and within the scope of his express or implied authority.
	Chairperson and Honourable Members of the Committee, it's my submission that the applicants have complied with the requirements of Section 20(1) and also (2) and that they were clearly acting on behalf of APLA, a publicly known organisation, a liberation movement which was engaged in a political struggle against the State at that time.
	Chairperson, it is in dispute the membership of these two applicants, that they were members of APLA at the time of the incident and that at the time of the incident PAC was still engaged in the liberation struggle and as such its political wing, APLA, was waging the struggle on its behalf. 
	The question which I think is important, Chairperson, is whether what they did on the day in question was politicly motivate or what they did they did on behalf of PAC or APLA, or they believed what they did was acting, or they have any instruction to do that.  And the second point which I think will be important is whether they have made a full disclosure about the incident.
	Chairperson and Honourable Members of the Committee, it is my submission that what they did on the day in question was associated with a political objective and that they acted on behalf of APLA and what they believe they did was in furtherance of the political struggle at the time.
	Chairperson, if one looks at the submission, I would just on that aspect, at the submission of the PAC regarding whether their struggle regarding the whites in general, in their submission, Chairperson, they made an analogy of a sjambock with regard to the incident of whites, regarding whites as a target.
	Chairperson, it is my - I suppose that the Members of the Committee do have that submission, but myself I would not quote from that submission, I will quote from the book from which this submission was extracted, thus to have a very wide view of that submission of the PAC with regard to that.  This book I once photostatted it, I don't know whether the members still have it, I once photostatted this book "Pan Africanist Congress of AZANIA, Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe".  This is most of his speeches and he his trial and some of the questions he answered regarding the PAC. Chairperson, I would start, with the permission of the Committee, with regard to them as whites as targets.
	The question from the journalist was this:  
"What is your answer to the accusation that you are anti-white?"
Sobukwe's reply was as follows:
"Our reply has been officially given in a statement appearing in Golden City Post on the 7th November 1958.  On the material level we just cannot see any possibility of cooperation.  To say that we are prepared to accept anybody who subscribes to our programme is ...(indistinct), to state a condition that one knows cannot fulfilled.  From past history, not only of this country but on other countries as well we know that a group in privileged never voluntarily relinquished that position."
Question:
"But are you anti-white or not?"
Sobukwe:
"What is meant by anti-whiteism?  Is it not merely an emotional term without a precise signification?  Let me put it this way, in every struggle, whether ...(indistinct) the masses do not fight in abstraction, they do not hate oppression or capitalism, they concretise these and hate the oppressor, be the governor-general or a colonial power, the landlord or a factory owner or in South Africa, the white man.  But they hate these groups because they associate them with their oppression.  Remove the association and you remove the hatred.  In South Africa then once white domination has been overthrown and the white is no longer a white man's boss, but is an individual member of the society, there will be no reason to hate him and he will not be hated even by the masses.
		We are not anti-white therefore, we do not hate european because he is white, we hate him because he's an oppressor.  And it is a plain dishonesty to say I hate the sjambock and not the person who wields it."
Question:
"Do you regard all whites as oppressors?"
Sobukwe:
"We regard them all as shareholders in the South African oppressors' company.  There are whites of course who are intellectually converted to our cause, but because of their position materially, they cannot fully identify themselves with the struggle of the African people.  They want safeguards and checkpoints all along with way, with the result that the struggle of the people is blundered, stultified and crushed."
Thus the submission of the PAC with regard to their position was extracted from the speech of Sobukwe and what I have read, and they concretise that and put the submission to the ...
	Now my argument ...(intervention)

ADV SANDI: Sorry, Mr Mbandazayo, I don't want to interrupt you.  I just want to ensure that I follow the context in which this quotation is being made.  Should we understand you to say then that the applicants were acting our of hatred when they carried out these attacks?