Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pollsmoor — 1996-11-26

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Thank you for your testimony Reverend.  I wonder if I could just ask a few questions.  Perhaps for some clarity and also to understand the situation a bit better.   Could you perhaps tell us what your role and what your designation was at the time of the march.   And perhaps - were you part of the planning for the march?

REV DE WAAL: Ja I am not sure whether I was so much in the inner circle, part of the planning of the march, but I mean - to me it sounded a very good idea.  And in that stage, there were a lot of church people involved in the UDF.  I mean, many of the patrons of the UDF were from the church backgrounds.  And I believe also that  with the church background in that, that the understanding of peaceful resistance really came into a clear perspective.
So, I don't think I had really an official position at that stage.  I just had the conviction of my mind - that we had to do this and as it was a symbolic march, it was the - the message was - let us release the true leaders of this country.  And let the CODESA that followed many years later, could have started many years ago and a lot of things, at that stage, could have been sorted out, which we are still battling with sorting out today.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: I know that there was a lot of pandemonium and commotion and sadness and death on that day.  Do you think that - you also mentioned that many people were injured at the time.  Are you aware of about how many people were killed and injured on that day?

REV DE WAAL: I don't know on that day -  I know on the 26th and  I've have seen foreign TV reports -  there were quite a number of programs made around that period as well.  That  a - especially the next day, a lot of people died and then the days following as well.  But I don't know exactly how many of them.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Can I just ask about your injury?  It seems as though the emergency operation, the doctors were able to re-construct your eye, but you obviously still have consequences of that injury.  Perhaps you can just give us some idea of what the side effects, or the consequences were of your injuries.

REV DE WAAL: Look, I have lost  - I am not sure what percentage of sight, but at least around 50% in my right eye.  The left one recovered perfectly.  I have been, since that time to many eye specialists.  I have taken treatment and now I am still  - I am stuck to some eye drops.  It is difficult to fix my eye with laser technology.  So, it seems to me, the only solution is a cornea transplantation.  
On the other hand, that is also a risky thing, there are no proof that it will work.  So, of course, I am hampered by reading potential.  I read a little bit less than I have done in the past, but it is also true that the human bodies are also wonderful that  one can adjust.  That the one eye can take over many more strains. 
I was also very shocked, while I was in Groote Schuur, and being a Minister, I tried to look after some other people.  In the same ward there were  I don't know how many, but numerous patients there as well, with birdshot like the person just explained to us - in their eyes and so on.
So, I felt very lucky that I haven't had gone through that.  At that stage I wasn't sure what the extent of the damage to my eye was, because I have only started using my eye a month later, when I took off the cover that was over that.  Ja but I am glad to be alive.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Thank you very much.  I don't have any more questions.  Perhaps my colleague would like to ask you some more.

ADV POTGIETER: Wendy Orr.

WENDY ORR: Reverend, I am just going to ask you a little bit about the hospital.  As I ask this, because I obviously have a particular interest in the role of the medical profession and human rights abuses.  You say that you heard the Security Police came to the hospital, looking for you and potentially looking for other people.  Are you aware that doctors or nurses actually pointed people out to the police?

REV DE WAAL: No, not at all.  The people of the nursing and medical profession - that treated me there, and I was there nearly for two weeks, I mean they were very excellent.  I remember this professor made it very clear to the Security Police that I am under his jurisdiction for the time of my treatment and hospitalization.  And he will not allow them to interfere with that, till the time that when he thinks I would be ready to leave the hospital.

WENDY ORR: Thank you very much.

ADV POTGIETER: Rev De Waal, thank you.  Can I also just say that we are just as happy that you are alive and you are able to come and tell this story to us and share the experience with us.  Thank you for having taken a stand.   We know that in those days it was unpopular and even dangerous to take a stand, as you have and others have in this - in this incident and very many other incidents - before and after that.
But thank you for coming and thank you for reminding us of what we have lost in the process and how irrational this whole thing is, because today President Mandela - I think it is fair to say - he is excepted across the board - by most of the people in this country, as the natural leader and a great national asset to all of us - black and white. 
And what you say just underlines the irrationality of all this.  I mean in 1985, when all this happened - if President Mandela was allowed back into the community at that stage, what difference it would have made.  But thank you for coming.  
You have physically lost a lot in the process.  You have lost the amenities of having your full eye sight and so on and that is appreciated.  We know that at one stage, the only people that could really take up the struggle and the move towards normalizing the country, were - was the clergy and thank you very much to you and your colleagues who have actually taken that stand.  And, you have obviously contributed very largely to what we have today through that.
Thank you very much for coming.