Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-12

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Rupert.  Doctor Boraine?

DR BORAINE: I thank you very much Mr Rupert.  Your father is probably one of the most quoted persons in South Africa, because he is so quotable.  I have so many in front of me here and I met him recently, for the first time, and he told me that he had written a submission and asked me ten spite its length, to make sure that I read every word.  I have done so.   But coming here today, there just a couple of quotes that I want to mention because I think they impact very much on where we were and where we need to be.  He said this for example, and you of course are familiar with all of these,
"We are all Africans whatever shade of color or belief or conviction and our future depends on mutual loyalty and respect."
Now if that was said in the last few years, one would understand that that was generally being said more and more.  He said that in 1978.  He also said about the people in Lesotho, if they don't eat, we won't sleep.  In other words his concerns for peoples social and economic welfare are well known.  But what I must just admit took me by surprise, was a letter which your father wrote to a Mr Pierrie (?) Botha.  I hope that one day it will become read by everybody in this country, because you see, there is a suspicion, understandably, I think that you'll agree, that 'big business' to coin a phrase, is extraordinary adept at public relations.  It's part of its job.  But when you quote from a private letter, which is not private, because it's been given to us, where he says this to Mr PW Botha, and he develops the point,
"I believe that the belief that apartheid guarantees the interest of the white man's survival is a myth.  As a matter of fact, it threatens his very survival.  But this even more, for all these reasons I'm appealing to you personally, reaffirm your rejection of apartheid.  It is crucifying us, it is destroying our language, it is degrading a once heroic nation to be the lepers of the world.  Remove the burden of the course, a curse of a transgression against mankind from the backs or our children and their children."
That is a remarkable statement addressed to Mr PW Botha, the tragedy is, that like so many other appeals it wasn't heard as effectively as it should have been.  I'm very glad that you have offered this correction to the quote because it is not only in various public meetings, but in a book called 'The struggle for South Africa' by Davies, Amara and Dhlamini, not this Dhlamini.  They actually misquote that and obviously this has risen to a lot of debate.  What they also go on to say, and this you may care to respond to or you may not, and this I suppose is the whole question of loyal resistance, they claim that during the 1950's, Rembrandt retained and I'm quoting,
"It's very close links with Afrikaner nationalism through heavy financial contributions, to the Nationalist Party".
Now, I think that's the dilemma which all of us have when we're looking at the period between 1960 to 1994 about resolutions and statements and actions.  And I wonder if you'd care to develop a little more in light of this statement and quotation, Rembrandt's, your father's, your own view towards apartheid, the National Party and the role of business.

JOHAN RUPERT: Thank you, Dr Boraine.  When I joined the company, I started by going through all the records, right into the starting years to get a better understanding.  I certainly didn't find any contributions to the Nationalist Party.  There might have been some, but I can guarantee you, they had no money to give.  The company was not in the position to give money to anybody.  And why they would have wanted to, sorry, give money, I'm not sure, because I think the first break that my father had, was at the 'Tweede Volks Kongres' where, I think there's speech of Dutch, but I think it happened during the Tomlinson era; and I certainly remember growing up as a five, six year old, knowing that we were not 'with' the Nationalist Party in that sense.   And I think my fathers well publicized, how can I describe it, mutual animosity to the late Dr Verwoerd, would have predicated against any support.  There was a basic difference of philosophy.  Where I regained the respect of, or how should I say, They regained my respect was when, and I'm sorry that in many of our beliefs, he was not treated properly when FW De Klerk did the bold move to unban the ANC and to hand over power and to free the country, knowing full well that he was going to be vilified by some people.  It takes a brave person to knowingly give away power and know that you will be vilified by your own people.  But in the interim period, I can assure you, we did not have close relationships with them and I think the public record speaks for itself, if you look at their mouthpieces, in the, both the SA Radio Corporation originally and later on some of the newspapers that were closely aligned to them; it will, I think the record will bear me out.

DR BORAINE: Thank you, I have only one last question and that is, we've put a question to everybody who's appeared before this panel both during these hearings and many others and that is the whole relationship of total strategy, which as we all know through joint management centers, went far further than into merely political and security army and police, but involved business as well to quite a large degree and other organizations as well.  Hardly any area was untouched.  What was your own view and relationship, if any, and that of your father and that of the company.  Was their general support for the total strategy of the government or was there misgivings or opposition, how did you view that?

JOHAN RUPERT: I was in the navy and did an officers course after that, maybe in sixty eight and it soon became apparent to me that my views were not exactly theirs when I wasn't invited back to any further officers courses in the early seventies.  Now, quite frankly that suited me fine because it happened to be in the June holidays, but, the tragedy of the whole total onslaught, was that was based upon the denial of facts.  And we had so many discussions and what we thought persuasive arguments against it. We certainly did not participate in it and a lot of the things, and I must say this on behalf of many other South Africans, very many South Africans, even Nationalist Party supporters.  The evidence and the facts that have come out in the TRC have shocked and astonished people.  And it was not that people didn't want to know people genuinely didn't know a lot of things.  But, I think, it's led to an even bigger moral dilemma.  But we certainly did not participate, I believe that it was in the end, not only an immoral situation that was being backed up, but it was a totally foolish, wasteful application of scarce resources.  I mean in 1970 / 71, and I'm indebted to the late Ronnie Bethlehem, I read it recently, the squandering of our reserves, we had thirty four million ounces of gold, in reserves at twenty-five dollars an ounce, in the early seventies.  We squandered the capital of the country.  We indebted our children and if we take the decade of the eighties, over three and a half million potential job applicants.  I think a hundred and eighty six thousand jobs were created in the formal sector, of which by the way, more than a hundred percent were a mistake, and there was a nett loss in the private sector.  So, I'm glad that, and I'm not sure that, or everybody in the room will disagree that, that I'm glad that we got rid of two immoral attempts at social engineering in the last ten, fifteen years.  The one was communism and the other one was apartheid.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Rupert, I have two more questions, one from Mr Dhlamini and one from Dr Ally, but if I can please ask you to be quick, to be a bit more crisp in your answers...

JOHAN RUPERT: Okay.