Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-08-05

MR WAGNER: Mr Chairman if the Committee has a problem I will proceed with other questions, but I merely repeated the questions because there was no clear answer forthcoming.  Mr Shoke can I refer you to a document, I think Mr Chairman it is the submission of August 1996 by the ANC, I don't know whether you have it there?  May I refer you to page 86 of the document with the heading "Umkhonto weSizwe Military Code", at the top.  Do you have it there?  Now before I ask you the specific questions, this part of the document deals, amongst others, with the word people.  Now I'm not sure what is meant by the word people in this part of the submission.  Can you perhaps just help me and maybe the Committee where you say the people's army, people's war, word like, phrases like that.  What is meant by the word people?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: I'm sorry I'm unable to help you with regard to that, but my interpretation of the people's army is a army that represents the wishes of the majority of this country and that is Umkhonto weSizwe.

MR SANDI: So Mr Shoke if one understands you correctly that would be members and supporters of your organisation?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: Can you repeat your question?

MR SANDI: Are you referring there to members and supporters of your organisation and perhaps even those who stand to benefit if those goals are to be achieved?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: Yes that's what I mean.

MR WAGNER: Then more specifically Mr Shoke I have here on my page 87 a paragraph 5, it is in the top right-hand side.  It's got a heading "Umkhonto Insists on a High Standard of Selfless Devotion to the Revolution on the Part of all it's Members".  You've got that?  On page 87 in the right-hand column at the top.  Now what it says here is the following, is that from members of Umkhonto are required at all times to, and then there's an a, b, c, d and e.  You see that?  Now a says it is required of you to behave correctly to people.  Who would that people be?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: The people in general but not my enemy.

MR WAGNER: and in this instance where the explosion outside a Magistrate's Court in Johannesburg, did you and your colleagues behave correctly to the people?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: Yes.

MR WAGNER: Even though it seems as if there were victims who could be part of what you classify the people?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: I think I would like to refer you at this moment to page 50 of the same document that you have got.

MR WAGNER: You've done that earlier, I remember the passage if it's the same passage, I remember that.

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: Then it will seem as if, in you caution you chose to ignore this paragraph in the main submission.

MR WAGNER: Mr Chairman I'm not ignoring it.  All I want - I put it to you that to some extent you and your colleagues did not comply to what is said here in 5.a.

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: The answer is in the paragraph that I referred to just now.

MR WAGNER: Yes and in b it says you should have respect for their persons and property and I put it to you that you failed this test also.

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: I think it is your opinion.

MR SANDI: I'm sorry Mr Wagner I've not read this document.  Isn't this really a general code of conduct as to how members of the organisation should conduct themselves in their interaction with people and perhaps not really about how military operations should be conducted?

MR WAGNER: Mr Chairman I'm reading from a document of the ANC prescribing standards of conduct by it's members.

CHAIRPERSON: And on the column before it says

<UNKNOWN>: "The people support their army by providing it with recruits, their sons and daughters, food, shelter, information about the enemy.  The people open the way for our guerrillas make the enemy's path harder.  The ANC mobilises the people in support of the revolution through skilful combinations of all forms of struggle", and so it goes on.  Mustn't one consider people in that context?

MR WAGNER: Mr Chairman I think you're correct.  I asked the witness whether he can assist but the only point ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: ... (Inaudible) now engage in the interpretation of the document and mustn't you read the document as a whole and there they are referring to the people who support them in saying that you must treat them, respect their property, refrain from molesting or interfering with their legitimate activities, assist them to solve their problems and where possible give material aid in their labour.  Now that is surely aimed at a particular class of person in our community.  Carry on.

MR WAGNER: Mr Shoke in terms of this Volume 2, the operation seemed to have cause prejudice to what may also be referred to members of the people, your people in that there have been injuries and damage to property, cars, vehicles belonging to individuals that, the way I see it, were members of your people.  Do you agree?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: I think the ANC has made in fact a statement  that deals with (indistinct).  I think that since this morning I referred you to the relevant paragraph more than 4 times.  Please do read that paragraph so that you should understand it in it's proper context.

MR WAGNER: That's why the only reason why I asked you the previous questions was that it seems to me as if you and your colleagues failed to comply with any of these specifications under paragraph 5 a-e as members of Umkhonto weSizwe and this will be argued.

CHAIRPERSON: Which particular piece are you referring to in Volume 2?

MR WAGNER: Mr Chairman if you merely look at page 41 and onwards there seems to be a list of victims and from then on, on the face value, it seems as if they may be, although I'm or I'm still not sure who would be this people, but on face value it seems to the position.

CHAIRPERSON: I take it you're not referring to Anglo American as one of their people?

MR WAGNER: Not at all Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: What you're referring to is the fact that the list there is of 62 vehicles which were apparently damaged in the explosion?  Carry on.  I'm just amazed, we've only just been given this book.  I hadn't seen it before, about the two way radio that was discovered.  Carry on.

MR WAGNER: Mr Shoke while the Chairman mentioned it, in the documentation before the Committee mention has been made to a radio that was found a couple of hundred of metres from the explosion which seems to have been connected to this incident.  Would you know anything about that?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: No.

MR WAGNER: Then only one last aspect Mr Chairman.  What do you say Mr Shoke to this suggestion.  I heard you to testify this morning that you wanted to, the way you put it, to pump some sense into the heads of the politicians, I think that's more or less what you said or rather I would like to ask it by way of a question.  Why then to achieve that result, was it necessary to detonate a bomb of this magnitude in a public area, killing a number of individuals and injuring even more?

SOLLIE ZACHERIAS SHOKE: I think what you must bear in mind that the South African Government was at war with it's citizens, particularly the Black majority of this country and there were those on the side of apartheid who resorted to arms to sustain that system that was declared a crime against humanity and in our quest for freedom, we had to deal with them because they were in the frontline of apartheid defence.

MR WAGNER: Mr Chairman I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WAGNER