Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-05-10

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Zondo, Andrew's mother, is waiting for a person from the ANC's office to fetch her.  We don't know, is she around here?  Yes, she is here.
I want, first of all, to express our appreciation and thanks to the churches and to the members of other faiths for the service that was held on Sunday, on the eve of this hearing in this province, and to say thank you to all those who have upheld the hearing and the TRC in their prayers.  We express our very deep appreciation and thanks to the witnesses and their families for their willingness to expose their hurt and pain to us and to the public of South Africa.  We have been touched by your courage, generosity of spirit and magnanimity.  We have heard from people like Terence, who spoke of the needs of others, rather than of his own need.  We saw Phoenix - a girl who was a baby when her parents were killed in Lesotho.  We have been asked by people like Helen Kerney, concerned not for herself but for others, as well as Haroon Aziz, Judge Tshabalala - Judge Tshabalala speaking about his readiness to forgive.  Thank you to the interpreters and to the police and all who provided us with security, especially in this province racked by violence, especially when we think of what happened last Saturday here.  And we thank the public, who have been present in very good numbers here, particularly because it was uncertain up to the last moment whether we should go ahead with the hearings.  So we thank you for your support.  Thank you also to those who have been catering for the Commissioners, committee members and for the witnesses and their families.  We want to say a very big thank you also to the trustees and staff of this Jewish Centre.  Thank
 /you to Wendy
21A/25 you to Wendy Watson and the regional staff, the briefers, the counsellors, the investigators, the administrative staff and others.  We are deeply grateful again to the media for helping to tell the stories so that many, many who are not present here might be able to gain knowledge of our horrendous past.  I want to thank our media liaison persons - John Allan, Ndu Lembede, Christelle Terblanche and Pila Ncumba, as well as Cyril Rabothatha.  Thank you, Richard Lyster, co-ordinator of our office here, and your fellow Commissioners and committee members.  You have done a splendid job of work.  Thank you.
It has been, in a sense, an auspicious time for this hearing to happen, because it happens in the week in which our Constitution was accepted - a Constitution to ... (inaudible) ... a society and democratic dispensation in which human rights will be respected and upheld.  Perhaps it is not entirely auspicious, since there has been the announcement of the withdrawal of the Nationalist Party from the Government of National Unity.  Coalition politics are difficult, but we seem to over the hump in our transition from an oppressive dispensation to this democratic one.  The sky did not fall in when a black-led Government came into power and on the whole the sky should still remain firmly in place.  More familiar and more conventional is the pattern that will happen when we have one party clearly in the opposition.  It is important for democracy that there is a vigorous opposition, to keep the Government on its toes and to guard against abuse of power and the erosion of the liberties of individuals and the community, and erosion of the rule of law and order.  
We have been shocked and filled with revulsion to
 /hear of the
21A/27 hear of the depths to which we are able to sink in our inhumanity to one another, our capacity for the sadistic enjoyment of the suffering we have inflicted on one another, the refinement of cruelty in keeping families guessing about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones - sending them carelessly in a run-around from police station to police station, to hospital and mortuary in a horrendous wild goose chase.  That is one side - the ghastly and sombre side of the picture that is emerging thus far, but there is another side - a more noble and inspiring one.  We have been deeply touched and moved by the resilience of the human spirit - people who, by rights, should have had the stuffing knocked out of them, refusing to buckle under intense suffering and brutality and intimidation.  People refusing to give up on the hope of freedom, knowing they were made for something better than the dehumanising awfulness of injustice, oppression, refusing to be intimidated to lower their sights.  It is quite incredible the capacity people have shown to be magnanimous, refusing to be consumed by bitterness and hatred, willing to meet with those who have violated their persons and their rights, willing to meet in a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, eager only to know the truth, to know the perpetrators, so that they could forgive them.  We have been moved to tears.  We have laughed.  We have been silent and we have stared at the beast of our dark past in the eye and we have survived the ordeal, and we are realising that we can indeed transcend the conflicts of the past.  We can hold hands as we realise our common humanity.  We are touched by those who have been moved to ask for forgiveness, as did the
 /dominee (?).
21A/29 dominee (?).  That gives me great hope for this beautiful land, where all are now truly Africans.  The generosity of spirit will be full to overflowing when it meets a like generosity.  Forgiveness will follow confession and healing will happen, and so contribute to national unity and reconciliation.  We believe that by now all will be convinced that this Commission intends to be even-handed, that this Commission has no bias, except the bias of caring about victims.  The lack of bias, the even-handedness of the Commission must be patent to all, except the perversely blind.  
We want to announce that these are not the end, these hearings.  It is the first round and from now on we intend to have different kinds of hearings.  We want to have event hearings, when we look not so much at individuals but at an event, an occasion where a community has suffered the violation of its rights.  We intend to have hearings when those who have been named to their detriment may have the opportunity of giving their side of the story.  (End of tape).