Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN: Let me say to that, Chairperson, that this is a - the Commission has got certain specific tasks. One of them is the discovery and exposure of gross violations of human rights. When we introduced this document, Chairperson, we tried to draw attention to a danger that lurks somewhere underneath the surface with regard to that, in that because the Commission has to deal with those matters, that is its mandate and must deal with that, and therefore doesn't have to deal with the issues of non-violation of human rights. You could then get an impression such that all that happened was violation of human rights.
You see Joe Modise here and Gertrude Shope, Ronnie Kasrils did say yes, indeed, there were instances of the kind of abuse of women that you referred to, but the fact that we talk only of that, does not mean this is the only thing that happened to women. In the majority of cases, and I am sure you can talk to all the women, cadres of Umkhonto weSizwe, that they would say that they have never had any such experience. This does not mean that - let us take me for instance, hypothetically, it doesn't mean necessarily that I couldn't have said to Geraldine oh, you look beautiful today, can we go dancing together. But I am saying the danger of the work that - which I think needs to be guarded against consciously, of the work that we were doing, is that the Commission is attending to, is that because you are looking specifically for this violations, which is what you must do, then an impression can be given that all that happened was violation of human rights, and it is not true.
With regard to, it is also reflected in the question that the Commissioner raises about opening up the camps. There were thousands and thousands of men and women who went through these camps, over a number of decades. There are people who joined Umkhonto weSizwe from the beginning. We went through a particular period in our history at the point of extreme repression in the sixties, in the sixties in particular when the machineries of the ANC within the country were destroyed to all intents and purposes. Many thousands of people arrested, imprisoned and all of this. In reality what remained of the ANC as an organised formation was outside.
We would say in 1976 when larger numbers of people began coming into the ANC, that if the generation that joined Umkhonto weSizwe at its beginning and stayed with the organisation despite all the difficulties, there would not have been an ANC for those young people in 1976 to join. I am talking about people who were with Umkhonto weSizwe from 1961 and have just been demobilised now. They would not have stayed in an army which was characterised consistently by human rights abuses.
Nor would these thousands of young people have stayed, come and joined this army, stayed in it, been inspired to come and fight, the Solomon Mhlangu's and the others. They wouldn't have taken this position if this army was characterised by gross violation of human rights.
So there isn't anything to hide about these camps. There ought not to be the notion of a dark cloud as the Commissioner was saying, because you have a sense that there was something that was hidden, that we should be ashamed of, that needs to come out during these hearings. The overwhelming majority of these South Africans who joined Umkhonto weSizwe, whether they went out of the country or stayed in the country, were not traitors. They were not traitors. They didn't sell out, they didn't become subject to investigations. They didn't become subject to abuses either, of being beaten and tortured. I am saying the overwhelming majority of these people.
So I would plead that we should not, in the pursuit of this particular set of issues which must be pursued, gross violations, then begin to develop an impression that what we are about was gross violation of human rights.
My colleagues here, Mr Vally, were whispering to me that they would like us to go beyond the earlier period of those military tribunals, 1982 and so on, that you asked questions about, because again what happens, is that when we leave the matter there, it is as though that is all that happened with regard to the administration of justice in the ANC, whereas in fact, because we learnt many things, we are clearly caught unawares by the extent of the infiltration of the movement. We hadn't understood it. If I had time, Bishop, I would explain some of what we have got to understand.
Many of us who had gone into exile for longer periods, only understood very late the extent to which values of money and material goods had taken hold of the minds of our youth. It is because we hadn't had that experience and then discovered that in fact you could get this flat(?) simply on the promise we will buy you a Mercedes-Benz when you come back. It took us by surprise, that you could have so many young people corrupted as extensively. We reacted in a particular way, inadequately at first, because this thing suddenly hits us as a flood, and then the things improve.
But I was saying, Mr Vally, that my colleagues here were saying too, it is necessary that you ask the questions that you ask, it is necessary that we provide honest answers, but it is also necessary to say that there was continuous improvement in our treatment of those people, including declarations of our own amnesty. So I was just responding to Commission Mkhize. I think we need to maintain a certain balance.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. I think, I mean, that my colleagues at the moment are satisfied and perhaps they will try and bear in mind your plea. Hanif?

MR VALLY: Thank you, Mr Mbeki. I note what you say. Unfortunately the Act was given to us. Our mandate is to find out the gross violation of human rights, not the upholding thereof.
I just have two more questions on this issue. The first question which Dr Mgojo also tried to ask, was have the families of the people who were executed been notified? And do we know where the people who were executed, were buried?

CHAIRPERSON: Matthews Phosa?

MR PHOSA: Thank you, Mr Chairperson. I thought the question was about whereabouts, now it is changed to whether or not the families have been notified. I would like to deal with both, because I think they are related.
If you go back you realise that there was a war going on in Angola, in particular, and go back, it was not easy for any South African, inside the country, to go out and meet the ANC and hope to come back and have a happy return. Those are facts.
Given all those situations, it was not easy - at a certain time, if they were expelled before 1985, for many families to be informed promptly or even to attend funerals. But later it became much easier as we had delegations even going to Lusaka of many people, for many families to attend funerals outside and to be informed promptly of the death of their children.
Since we came back, as we are re-establishing the organisation inside the country, we formed, what we call the Bereaved Family Desk, headed by Mrs Msumang, who is a veteran in the organisation, and a number of others, who have been compiling information about all these sort of things we have been talking about, and also taking steps to visit families or cause visits to take place, and we have got a lot of information about their work and where there have been executions, a number of families have been informed. There are those who have not been informed. 	There are a number of objective and subjective factors why some families were informed and others were not informed. If you take the KwaZulu situation. A lot of families have been displaced and it is very difficult to trace a lot of people, to give that particular example. Yes, we have been informing families and yes, we have informed families with regard to some of the people who were executed. Thank you.