Human Rights Violation Hearings — Alexandra — 1996-10-29

OBED BAPELA: I think the person I have mentioned just for records it is Sergeant Sam Mdawa that one I said was one of our members and then turned into a police.  Some of them I do meet in my work as the chairperson of the standing committee on safety and security. They are very good friends of mine and I think we go well with them.  But it is not enough really for them to befriend me alone because I have already reconciled, I have accepted them and I think they need to come to the community that they have aggrieved so that the extent that change in them, the repent that now they are to the people of Alexandra and I think I as an individual I have long reconciled and I have welcomed and  accepted them as a new people who are prepared to build a new South Africa.

MR LEWIN: Do you think the community is sharing your reconciliation, your feelings of reconciliation?  One of the people you mentioned now for instance, his name has cropped up in a large number of the testimonies, you say he is now a minister.  Do you think the community shares your feelings?

OBED BAPELA: Well from when I met him I think I was convinced that he is a changed man and I think we do go through terrible things once in life where we aggrieve a community on many, many ... (nothing further on tape).

COMMISSIONER: ... appearing in the amnesty hearing is that they were responding to the violence of the groups of the day. Would you say that things like consumer boycott, rent boycott, were these violent?

OBED BAPELA: Consumer boycotts and rent boycotts were not violent.  Those were very peaceful means of advancing our struggle for a better life, of advancing our struggle for
ALEXANDRA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
24 BAPELA
freedom.  And I think we used them as peaceful means really to send a message to the then previous regime of South Africa and I don't agree with those who are applying for amnesty who say they were responding to a situation.  They had legal ways of dealing with a situation, they had those legal - the courts were in their favour, the justice was in their favour, and then they had all range of laws that they could have utilised to ensure therefore that they bring to whatever stop but not the covert methods that they used of killing and attacking people at night without arresting them.

COMMISSIONER: With the killing of Isaac - sorry at the burial of Isaac the police attacked.  Would you say that the response of the youth on that day and for that occasion was a planned and organised response?

OBED BAPELA: No, it was not an organised response.  No one knew that that was going happen.  At the time Alexandra was just organising itself into street committees, block committees and yard committees.  And when the funeral occurred people want to give their last respects and they were provoked by the police by tear-gassing them and that anger therefore provoked the situation.  It was not planned and no one had really planned for it.  We never knew that it was going to happen.

COMMISSIONER: Would you have an estimate number of people who were killed just on that day or injured on that day of the burial of Isaac?

OBED BAPELA: I don't remember the figures but Mr Bennet Lekalakala who has gone through some statistics on those particular, they may provide a hint on the number on the day itself.
ALEXANDRA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
25 BAPELA

COMMISSIONER: Then you come onto a very vital question of reconciliation.   Do I understand you to mean that there has been first reconciliation between the ANC people and the Azapo people?

OBED BAPELA: Well at the moment as we are talking here today I think we are no longer enemies with Azapo.  There is complete reconciliation between the two groupings but then the unfortunate thing is that those who were involved at the time are no longer there and they are no longer a part of Azapo and they are leading another life, a life which one could then say is the life that Eugene De Kock also after he was discharged from the police started leading.  I think they are leading that life now.  They are into criminal activities unfortunately, are no longer a part of the organisation that they did belong to when the events took place in 1986.

COMMISSIONER: You have given us here the names of police, I don't know whether you could be kind enough later hereafter to try and get our unit their addresses personally, that is where they are so that should the TRC consider reconciliation programmes for Alexandra they should be able to reach these people with ease.

OBED BAPELA: I will gladly do so.

COMMISSIONER: I have no further questions.

COMMISSIONER: Just two short questions which you are free not really to respond to.  The first one I would like to know were there cultural or political reasons why your wife didn't make a statement so as to begin the process of healing as well by breaking the silence publicly as to what happened to her while she was pregnant.  For us as a Truth Commission that is critical.  I am surprised Yasmin Sooka
ALEXANDRA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
26 BAPELA
didn't raise that since she has been charged by the Commission to facilitate gender specific hearings and we have already had one in Kwa-Zulu Natal.  The second question it relates to what you referred to as the just war.  It is a big problem for us as a Commission because we have numerous witnesses who have made statements to the effect that their rights were violated, their beloved ones were killed in some instances by the people who were in charge of the peoples courts.  So as you were saying you feel proud that you did that and this is why we are benefitting today, I was conscious of those people who on a daily basis are deeply hurt and saying they won't heal till such time that people who set up those structures come forward and publicly apologise so my question to you is do you think in the process of a just war so many things went wrong especially around the peoples courts?