Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-09-09

<UNKNOWN>: Thank you Chair.  I don't know what your deadlines are, or -   Cyril I would just like to say that firstly, you should bear with our questions and if our questions sometimes give an impression that the alliance now is on trial, it is as a consequence of the mandate to the Commission.  We have to try and be even handed and sometimes it seems perverted now to us to appear to be blaming those who were victims or those who were leading masses of the people in an endeavour to install a democratic order in this part of the country.  
 Now having said that, it seems to me that the issue is going to turn around the question of the break-out and I'm sure when Ronnie testifies we will also ask questions surrounding to that.  On page 7 of, oh, on page 7 you say the march was to be peaceful and conducted as far as possible in accordance with the guidelines set out in the Peace Accord.  Now its goal was not insurrection.  The first question is - were you as alliance leader satisfied that the goal of the march not being insurrection was understood as such by Oupa Gqozo.  That's the first question. 
 Now the second question in relation to that is, it seems clear from both what you have said and from the objective facts that even though there was a Court Order, now let's put aside your reservations about the judiciary which are clearly indicated in your comments about that sort of order, but there was a Court Order which it appears the alliance leaders were quite prepared not to obey.  Now how do you square up the fact that you had a Court Order which said - hold your march and, but do not go into the centre of the town, Bisho, but confine yourselves to the stadium because it seems that, that at the end of the day is going to be the issue.
 And the third question allied to that and I think too it will be the final question - it seems that as part of the so-called Goldstone rules for mass demonstration, those rules usually, in fact they emphatically called for each side to know exactly what the other's deployments and plans are.  Now it appears from your submission that neither the National Peace Secretariat nor the Ciskei authorities were taken into confidence about what appears from your submissions, to have been a planned breakout, it having been the intention of the people to hold the march where they wanted, I mean to hold the gathering where they wanted it to be held, namely in the centre of the city.  
 Now what would the alliance views be with regard to the Goldstone rules for mass demonstration in so far as that might appear to have been a contravention of that standing rule.  You didn't disclose to either the Ciskei authorities or the National Peace Secretariat that look, if you are going to confine us to the stadium we're certainly going to break that, we are going to get into Bisho.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I just indicate what you must already have seen for yourselves that we are dispensing with the tea break so that we can try and accommodate as many witnesses as possible.  I hope you will bear with us.  It's democratically agreed.  Thank you very much.

MR RHAMAPHOSA: Thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me Mr Rhamaphosa, when in fact are you due to leave?  I mean we don't want to chase you away but...[indistinct]

MR RHAMAPHOSA: I think I should still be able to make my flight if I leave at quarter past twelve.  Chairperson, with regard to the question of whether we were satisfied that Oupa Gqozo understood that we did not have insurrection in mind, it is very difficult to can say at that time that any one of us understood Oupa Gqozo.

CHAIRPERSON: Order please.

MR RHAMAPHOSA: I had been in discussions with him on a number of occasions either face to face or also on the telephone and I never reached a point where I could say I understood him.  But we had sought to make it clear through communicating our objectives publicly, through various authorities and may I say even not to try and make it personal that I had at some stage during the course of the turmoil there, had said that you know, all we want is free political activity and the rest will follow.  One thought that he understood all that.
 How do we say as you ask sir, we can reconcile our action even against the Court Order that had been issued.  The Court Order by the Supreme Court was to direct the magistrate to apply his mind to this and the magistrate accordingly proceeded to grant permission, type of permission that in our view sought to frustrate the objectives that we had set.  As I indicated earlier, we had dealt with this magistrate before.  We had dealt with magisterial authority in the Ciskei before and by and large our applications, our attempts, our approaches to them had, if not dismissed out of hand, had been blunted, had been undermined and so forth.  So when this one came at the very last hour, at the very last hour in the early hours of the morning, setting out what the terms were when decisions had already been taken, and when people had already been mobilised it was difficult if not impossible.  It was going to be impossible to comply with this order.
 Given also sir, that the magistracy in that area was seen as part of the oppressive machine that acted in collusion with the regime of Oupa Gqozo in as far as denying our people free political activity.
 On your question that it would appear that it could be read that this was a planned break out of the stadium in that we did not communicate to the authorities of the Peace Secretariat and so forth, I did say sir, that having sent the group of people who were going to reconnoitre the area and look at the conditions of the wire as well as the conditions in the stadium, I did say that they did report back and instantaneously the decision was taken, that seeing that there is this opening, this opening is there, that could well be the route that we should take right into Bisho.  Remember that the objective was to go into Bisho and when this opening was seen, people did not in their own minds think that this was an ambush, this was a trap, they did not think like that.  They just saw an opening, we wanted to go to a particular destination and whilst the route was controlled by wire fence and all that into the stadium, but through the stadium there was this opening.  
 Our argument and our submission is that if the intention was to prevent us from going out of the stadium, the people who could put up a wire fence could have taken care to raise the wire that had been flattened, could have taken care to close the stadium completely with the wire fence as well.  They could have taken care that everything ends up in the stadium to frustrate our objective but they didn't do that.  They didn't do that, they left the opening knowing what our intended objective was.  So we could not communicate sir, to the Peace Secretariat because the decision was taken instantaneously.

<UNKNOWN>: Can you just, just as a follow-up  ... [indistinct]  can you comment on a finding I think, which suggests that videos indicate that while the crowd was breaking out, the soldiers were still running to take up their positions in the area.  Now in view of the suggestion that there was an ambush and a trap, the Pickhard report seems to indicate that that may not be sustained on that basis, that if it was a planned thing, they would have been there at the time of the break-out but they say, he says the videos indicate that when the break-out took place, it was only then that the soldiers ran to that area where they could have been in a position to.