Human Rights Violation Hearings — Rustenburg — 1997-05-07

KEVN P DOWLING: To the extent that I was supporting the oppressed who happened to be ANC, PAC, AZAPO, NUM, COSATU, NACTU, Baphokeng,  I was, to the extent that I was supporting groups who happened to be opposed to Mr Mangope, I was supporting them.  I was supporting their right to be opposed to Mr Mangope.  Now I think, I had every right to do that and that was what I tried to discern, based on the faith and the Gospel values that I have, flowing into therefore my perception of justice and human rights.  I was supporting their right to be opposed to Mr Mangope.  And I believe they had every right to be opposed to Mr Mangope, politically or whatever way.  And that was my position.  I was supporting that.  I was not saying to the ANC by doing that, that I agree with your philosophy.  We as pastors kept right out of that discussion, this group on human rights.  That is why we did not participate in a meeting that was called just by one sole political party so that it would not appear that we were supporting one political party.  When all the peoples' organisations came together on any issue, and they came to us as the pastors' group to be supportive of that, then we supported that and we were involved in that.  So I was supporting the fundamental right to meet.  I was also supporting the political groupings' right to be opposed to Mr Mangope.  If that had been a democratic society, they would have been given that right by Mr Mangope himself.  He had refused that right.  Therefore these people were oppressed, therefore I stood for the oppressed.  It was as simple as that.  These people happened to be oppressed, because they were political groupings, or civic groupings or the Baphokeng community grouping.  Different groups, all of them happened to be oppressed for the same thing, that they were opposed to Mr Mangope at that time.  Therefore I supported their right to be opposed.

RUSSELL ALLY: The reason I ask you these questions is not in any way to get you to take a position.

KEVN P DOWLING: Yes.

RUSSELL ALLY: Often the Truth Commission is actually faced these same questions.  What are you going to write in your final report?  Are you going to take a side in the political conflict?  Or are you going to be even-handed.

KEVN P DOWLING: Yes.

RUSSELL ALLY: As you know from the Nationalist Party, in particular, from ex State President De Klerk, he insists all the time that this was a conflict and there were gross human rights violations committed on both sides.  From the ANC you hear the position that this was a just war and therefore what the ANC did was justified and you cannot make, you can't put an equal sign between those who opposed apartheid and those who actually fought to preserve it.  It is in that spirit that I am actually asking you those questions, because the kinds of responses from people like you and others will assist us when we have to finally write a report in which we make comments on these issues.  So I hope you appreciate it it's in that spirit that I have asked those questions.

KEVN P DOWLING: Oh yes, absolutely.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you.

KEVN P DOWLING: Thank you, Dr Russel.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera.

DR RANDERA: Bishop, just a few questions.  The first one is for clarification.  When you talked about Phokeng and Chief Lebone, you said he was sent into exile after the coup in 1988.  I assume there was some association between the coup and him.  Can you just tell us what this association was?

KEVN P DOWLING: As far as I understand, he did not, he was not actually sent into to exile, he escaped and went into exile himself.  He was down in - after the coup he was a very sick man and he was in a hospital and it looked like he was going to be arrested and so forth, but he managed to get out.
 But as far as I understand, because I was not here at the time of that attempted coup, as far as I understand the People's Progressive Party and Chief Lebone were accused of supporting,  masterminding the coup, perhaps Chief Lebone with the Baphokeng, being accused of bank rolling the whole thing with some disaffected officers in the Boputhatswana Security Forces, they actually then led the coup attempt at that time.  Some of them landed, in of course, jail on that hunger strike which I mentioned about, people like Bushy Molefe and so forth.  So that is the way I understood it.   He was accused of being involved, perhaps by actively supporting, maybe that was the perception, the PPP, the Triple P, and by actually being involved with the soldiers and perhaps with the bank rolling, the financing of this whole thing.  That is what I heard.  I do not know the actual, real details of how that coup was planned.

DR RANDERA: Thank you.  Bishop, I just want to pose a similar question to what Dr Ally was posing to you earlier on.  And that is to look at it more from the everyday working point of view when you were clearly in your communities seen as someone who stood for justice and human rights and perhaps you became too identified with one particular side of the struggle.  We, as you no doubt know, the first amnesty hearing in Phokeng was related to a gross human rights violation that took place there.

KEVN P DOWLING: Yes.

DR RANDERA: And similarly yesterday we heard the story of a young woman who talked about her father who happened to be a member of parliament in the chief's Government at the time, who was burned to death in front of her eyes.  Did this not create difficulty when it came to ministering to people from that, if you like, from the other side, where gross human rights violations took place as well?