Human Rights Violation Hearings — Upington — 1996-10-03

CHAIRPERSON: ... very much for your testimony.  It is never easy to say I am sorry and especially to say so in public and therefore we want to say just how much we appreciate what you have done.  This Commission is called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and if we are able to make a small contribution to reconciliation here in Upington, we will believe that the Commission has been worth all the trouble and you say that the community has already accepted you back but that you have felt, and it is a very noble thing that you have done, you have, it won't bring back the person that you killed but it will somehow pour balm on the pain in the hearts of his family and we want to thank you for that.  We are very concerned at the testimony that you have given about the destruction of records.  One of the tasks of this Commission is to try to follow up all of this kind of thing.  In fact I have just had a letter from the Minister of Safety and Security informing me that many records have been destroyed in the police service and we are asking that investigations must be put under way to discover what records, who destroyed them, who gave the instructions for this to happen and we will certainly follow up what is a very serious matter because it means that we will not always be able to know what happened precisely.  The records are important in assisting us.  We may be able obviously to corroborate things that people claim because others are there to testify, like I mean in your case there would be the family who say yes this killing did happen and, well of course you will confess that you did shoot and the families, as they think you did it, so in this case we are all right.  We may not always have it quite as straightforward as that.  We are a Commission that seeks to look at the past, to make all of us realise how horrible that past was, for thus not to pretend it didn't happen.  We must say yes all of these things happened.  On all sides people did all sorts of things but now we want to deal with it, we want those who did the things that are wrong to acknowledge they have done them and let them be surprised at the fact that people are ready to forgive them and we hope, I mean, that your example will be followed by others, the example of this community.  We thank you the people of Upington and Paballelo, people who have suffered as much as you have suffered, who are able to show the world that it is in fact possible to deal with pain and suffering and anguish in a way that is not destructive.  We could easily have become like Bosnia, like Rwanda where people say you did such and such to us, we are going to pay it back.  South Africa has, ja I mean, maybe God loves us in a way that is almost different from the ways that God loves people in other places, I don't know, because as we have sat here and listened, you say what has stopped people from saying I want to revenge.  Our people on the whole have not said that.  People say we want to know who did it and then we can talk about forgiving and many forgive and in many of our communities, people who hurt others still live in those communities.  They are accepted and we want to thank God for the fact that you are such people.  You are people who have suffered but you are also people who have said we have humanity ... got to try to restore relationships.  Maybe God is saying, South Africa I want you to do this so that you may be able to show people in other countries how to deal with past, how to deal with pain, how to deal with suffering.  This weekend a group from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is going to Rwanda.  The government of Rwanda have invited us and said please can you come and help us share a bit of your experience and maybe the things that are happening in our country are for the sake of the world as well.  That we must not feel maybe proud, we must just be thankful that God has made us as God has made us, that we should be people who can accept pain and not go on the streets to wreak revenge.  But we hope that those who have caused others pain, don't take it for granted, this forgiveness, because there are, I think, many in our country who think it is easy to forgive.  It is not easy to forgive.  A mother of four who has a child and a mother of a four year old who has a child killed like that, it is not easy for her to forget, as we have heard and so we appeal to the people of our land, please let the people know what it is that you did and ask to be forgiven and you will be surprised that the people will forgive me.  Now although I scolded you once or twice, I think you are not such bad people.  Actually I think you are very good people and I am going to clap you but because it will look silly, you people will say well long ago we thought that there was something wrong with Tutu's head, so in clapping you for being such a wonderful group of people, can give yourself a nice clap.  Come on!  Thank you.  Before we finish, Dominee Beukes...