Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: (Indistinct) that manner, this, what you're saying, therefore, is that what this boils down to, it was simple a struggling by two factions over the control of Moleleki Section?

MR MADASA: Mr Chair, this is not what I'm saying.   I'm saying the SDU saw themselves as the sole legitimate defence structure for the community, and their work was hampered by these individuals who were the enemies of the community, and the SDU included, but not just of the SDU, of the community, this is what they've explained, by the conduct of these people, they were enemies of the community and of the SDU inasfar as they were hampering their work was concerned, but from their perspectives, they did not see this structure as an opposition, as another defence unit which was trying to take over or usurp their powers within the township, no, they saw these people as an enemy to the community by their conduct, which is what is important, they explained it, it is by their conduct.   The name of their organisation meant nothing.

CHAIRPERSON: And their conduct was criminal activities?

MR MADASA: Yes.   Nothing political, but just criminal activities.

MR MALAN: Could I just, on that point, Mr Madasa, ask you then to explain to us the evidence from the applicants, or from at least some of them, that they agreed for blocks A, B, C and D to be controlled by the Youth League, and later even accepted the formation of another SDU in block F, and then later came to the conclusion, to quote one of them, that there was no benefit in it for them, does that really tally with simply the, or the simple approach of seeing them as being involved in criminal activities?

MR MADASA: I submit that that very conduct, that very conduct, of accommodating the Youth League goes to explain that the SDU were avoiding trouble.   If they couldn't convince these people to be part of them, they were prepared to accommodate them, because they were there and claiming to want to defend the community.   So inasfar as they could, they accommodated them, but because of their conduct, because of their conduct, they could not remain with them.

CHAIRPERSON: What conduct?

MR MADASA: The criminal activities.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, these people were killed not because, from what the applicant says, of any political motive that they were able to, to describe for us, but simply because they were regarded as being a gang of criminals, that's how it was put.

MR MADASA: Mr Chair, this ...(intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: But you have made the point, I think.

MR MADASA: Yes.   Perhaps this brings me to the - I had assumed that this was a presupposed factor, a known factor, that criminal activities per se did not indicate absence of a political hand in them.   Now, and some of the applicants have explained this, but the regime at the time would use the very fact that structures or organisations are at loggerheads, bring in criminal activity to cause disunity, havoc, so that the work of the SDU does not go ahead, and in ANC submission, this is what President Mandela, the point that he made was that he said De Klerk was bent on not allowing this structure of SDU to be successful.
	So the way the police agents dealt with this matter was that they would infiltrate organisations, and I submit, Mr Chair, this was easy with these young boys, these were young chaps, they must have been oblivious as to the political developments at the time, excited about belonging to a structure, that was, they were therefore vulnerable if there was an attempt by the State to infiltrate them.

CHAIRPERSON: You see, members of the SDU were members of the ANC, right?   Do you accept that?

MR MADASA: Yes, Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Members of the ANC Youth League were members of the ANC, right?

MR MADASA: Claims to be.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying that they were not members of the ANC?

MR MADASA: That is what the applicants have said, Mr Chair ...(intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, all right.

MR MADASA: ...that they operated under the umbrella of the ANC Youth League, and again, if I may go back to this submission, which I really had assumed that these factors were known, it is dealt with in their submission that, if I may quote
"The deliberate subversion of SDU's by the De Klerk regime in order to ensure that people could not mount sustained resistance to State sponsored violence, and to discredit the ANC in the eyes of the grass roots supporters and the international community is illustrated in the case of the notorious Polla Park SDU."
	Now genuine community defence groups and violent gangs presenting themselves as ANC aligned SDU's, and I'm saying the ANC Youth League fall under this category, that there were infiltrations and certain organisations would present themselves as operating as ANC defence units, and I'm saying, Mr Chair, that there was this possibility.   I'm not saying there's hard evidence before this committee that these boys were infiltrated, but I'm saying it's a probability that they were infiltrated, and in the absence of hearings from the police who were operating in the East Rand before the TRC to tell us, I submit that at the time be known to some of them, were infiltrated...
...(tape ends)

ADV MOTATA: ...we are not privy to, what are you saying we should make out of the submission in 7.4, because you merely say paragraph 6.2.9 to 6.2.9.4, that's all, and there is no meat to the skeleton, we are merely told that this is what the ANC did, and I assume you assume we should be knowing this, but we are here to listen to evidence and if somebody's got to make submissions and referring to such paragraphs, he must make those available to us so that we know fully what that submission is all about.

MR MADASA: Thank you, Mr Chair.   Yes, I accept my error on that point, because I had assumed wrongly that these documents were available, because the submission was made, and that is why I simply referred to them in that manner in my heads.   I apologise for that, but I understand that they, I thought they were available, but if and it be, I can ask for copies to be made of these particular paragraphs.

CHAIRPERSON: Well they are somewhere, they are available somewhere, but they are not before us today, so we will look for them and read them, but they're not available to us today.

MR MADASA: Thank you, Mr Chair.

MR MALAN: Mr Madasa, may I just on this point, I happen to have a copy of what you've read from, and you did selectively read from the example in Polla Park, but that was a general statement and then the Polla Park was given as an example.   The ANC goes to great lengths, especially in follow-up discussions, which I'm pretty sure you will also have a copy of, which relates to the evidence in the recall of the political parties, where the president had an alter-cation with Commissioner Zengewe Mkezi on the SDU's and where he confirmed the difficulties, and even says that the ANC made a mistake not to really exercise a control in many cases, and he even says that in many cases they were not even community endorsed, in other words he acknowledges in this altercation the conflict also existing between communities and SDU's.   Is that not also to be taken note of by ...(intervention).