Amnesty Hearings — Pinetown — 1999-03-08

CHAIRPERSON: Speaking generally now, with rape.  You're saying that the rape here was committed with a political objective.  Is it not a physical necessity that there must be a huge degree, or a large degree of self-satisfaction in order to be able to rape a woman.  You know if a commanders orders a man, his soldiers, to get an erection, they won't get an erection.  Because there's no self-stimulation, there's no ... but with rape there's got to be that element of self-satisfaction.  Now, am I right or wrong?  I don't know.  That would seem so.  You know, how can you physically rape a person and your motive is purely political?  How can you do it?

MR WILLS: Certainly one hypothetically would agree with what you say, but it's my submission that the rape can also be seen as one of the most horrific and degrading things that one can possibly do to a woman.

CHAIRPERSON: I understand that, I can understand that element, but in order to perform it, to do it ...

MR WILLS: Yes, well all I can say is clearly that, clearly that, that must occur, but my submission is that in itself wouldn't prevent an applicant in the broader circumstance of applying for amnesty in the broader context of the rape, the murder and the whole policy, to just annihilate and eliminate the ANC in those areas.

ADV MOTATA: Put it in the context in which you are saying on page 17 that the, what I understand in your Heads is that, what governed the day was love and fear and the most powerful of the two was fear.  And I say, taking that fear and saying now we would look at it in the context of rape.  You must first have that love, and if that love is preceded by that fear, would you, in the circumstances say rape was political?

MR WILLS: My submission and I can't take it any further Mr Committee Member, is that it was an attempt to - sorry, my submission is that it was simply, there was no love involved, there was clearly no love preceding that, but it was an attempt to simply humiliate and degrade in the most abominable way, a person who was hated for her being a member of the opposite camp.  And I have, with respect, tried to find reference to this, but haven't come up with anything specific, but it is my contention that the, that rape and pillage is a common occurrence in attempts to subjugate people.  I know for example that the, that in Yugoslavia it was a common occurrence.  My submission is that it has been a tactic that has been used to completely destroy the opponent society.

ADV MOTATA: Let's look at it in this context, in the context of the evidence before us, and this is my understanding of the evidence.  That firstly, these women were kidnapped, raped, that's my understanding, correct me if I'm mistaken, and thereafter instructions were sought.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that, they were girls, they were fourteen or fifteen.

ADV MOTATA: Fourteen yes.  That instructions were subsequently sought, what should we do with these women?  And then the blood issue came into play.  That slit their throats and wipe them with a cloth so that we could utilise that for muti.  Now I say if we look at it in that instance, how could we say it's political?

MR WILLS: Well firstly, with respect Mr Committee Member, there is a conflict between the applicant's evidence in chief and his evidence on the statement in this regard.  As you correctly reflect, that chain of events accurately describes what he said in his statement.  In the evidence in chief, the opposite is the case, that he went first of all to Mkehle and then got the instruction and came back and raped the girls.  There, I raised with him this contradiction in his evidence, and his answer was to the extent that, you know it was a long time ago, he couldn't be sure.  However, if the first incident, as you describe, occurs, the whole manner in which Mr Hlongwane's being, his very essence, had been completely destroyed from a moral point of view by his activities, by that time, he had been involved in numerous killings, attacks, he had been taught by numerous people including South African government agencies, his training in Koeberg occurred before that period, simply to hate the ANC with a passion.  And I submit that the act of degrading the women to that extent, would have served that purpose of simply showing the ANC that we can do anything to you.  We can do anything to your women, and this is our area, and you guys must know that, you clear out of here.

ADV MOTATA: Would we, if we look at it in hindsight, that, what would have been paramount when we look at these two young girls?  Their throats having been slit, or that they had been raped?  What would have been paramount in the community of the ANC in that area?

CHAIRPERSON: I think what is, yes, what Mr, who would have even known that they would have been raped?  Would it not have been, if the purpose of the rape was to send a message to have raped them and tell them to go home and tell their people what had happened to them, rather than to cut their throats.  Fortunately one of them survived, but that was through no skill on the part of the applicant concerned.

MR WILLS: The only submission I can make in that regard is that it was quite a public incident.  There were a number of people involved, a lot of them on the ANC side, I mean on the IFP side were involved in the incident, and I submit that that news would have travelled like wildfire.

SISI KHAMPEPE: How can that be so, on probabilities?

MR WILLS: Well I'd submit that it would be something that people would normally talk about, and would indicate that, you know, this what you do, this is what has happened to these people, and it's the type of thing that would be discussed quite widely.  Particularly in view of the fact that the police in that area were supporting the operations.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Wills let me understand you on this particular issue.  Is it your submission, that your client was given an order by Mr Mkehle to slit the girls throats for purposes of muti, and further to do something really bad in order to discourage other girls from spying for the ANC?  Am I understanding you to be making those submissions?

MR WILLS: Unfortunately Ms Committee Member on the evidence I'm not able to make the submission as clearly as you frame it there.  The best that I can do is say that in the circumstances, in the context of that brutality, the probabilities are that the rape was just another act, another one of the very many acts of horror and brutality, and that it would be my submission that in view of the extent and the brutality of the violence that was happening at the time, that hypothetically had Hlongwane gone to Mkehle and said I'm going to rape these women, there would have been no objection.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Let's deal with the evidence.  The evidence before us.  What is Mr Hlongwane saying?  Isn't there serious conflict as you've just conceded?

MR WILLS: I concede that there's a conflict, but I don't concede that that conflict negates the fact that this rape was political.  I mean had it been ordered, obviously, even had it been ordered, I submit that before this Committee it's a very difficult issue and it's a very controversial issue.  I know that it's one of the most difficult issues to try and justify, but even with the order that would have been so.  But without the order, I concede it makes it more difficult for me.  But my position is that it is a brutal act against an opponent and that is consistent with the way that Hlongwane had been developed to operate.