Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — UNKNOWN

MR MTHEMBU: Mr Chairman now I will call Mr Abel Oupa Khotle.

CHAIRPERSON: That name again.

MR MTHEMBU: Abel Oupa Khotle, K-H-O-T-L-E.

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: (sworn states)

MR MTHEMBU: Mr Khotle which language would you prefer to speak?

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: I will use Southern Sotho Sir.

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you Sir.  Mr Khotle is it correct that you were a member of the PAC and its military wing, Apla?

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: That is true Sir.

MR MTHEMBU: Would you explain your position in Apla regarding the Free State and Because?

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: What I would say shortly is that I was a member of Apla, then I was operating as a regional commander in the Free State.

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you Sir.  I would like you to address this Committee on two issues, firstly, what Operation Great Storm entailed and secondly why the PAC as a party was at Codesa negotiating, whereas Apla as the military wing of the PAC had not suspended its armed struggle?

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: I will start with Great Storm. Firstly, Operation Great Storm, or in the 1990's was declared the decade of intensification of the armed struggle and the people's offensive. That is where the Operation Great Storm was originated from.
	I would start by saying the thing which we need to understand firstly it was not the beginning of our struggle as maybe that would be the perception created now.  At the time when we were changing our tactics in the 1990's so that we would be able to intensify our struggle under the PAC and taken by the military wing which is Apla.
POWER FAILURE - ADJOURNMENT

CHAIRPERSON: You may proceed.

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you Mr Chairman.

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: Mr Chairman, members of the Committee in regard to the question posed by the honourable legal rep there I still want to maintain that the Great Storm was just a declaration decided upon by Apla's military commission which included the political leadership of the PAC, and that is both political leadership and military leadership of Apla.  This declaration was meant, as a matter of fact Mr Chairman, to advance the struggle, that is the armed part of the struggle, and it included many phases which was to be carried upon, or carried out, but I will confine myself to the important phase which is now the attacks on farms or farmers.
	As a matter of fact Mr Chairman it is known that the farming community, or farmers in general contributed a lot as they were either beneficiaries and they also upholded the values which was represented by the colonial minority regime then.  So the attacks of farmers was also part of this declaration, that is Great Storm.  So all in all it was nothing new or nothing old as the struggle by then was still going on, dated back from the day the PAC decided to form an armed wing or a military wing.  
	So briefly Great Storm was nothing else but a programme aimed at bringing pressure to the regime through such a means applied in the act in question today, that is the attack committed by my fellow comrades here.  And I think that is the only thing I can say about the Great Storm.  Of whether it was publicly announced, yes it was by our late army commander, Comrade Sabilo Pama.  And as a matter of fact it was endorsed by the political wing, that is now the PAC itself because I don't remember anywhere where the PAC ever distanced itself from the Great Storm or Apla activities in general.  So that is the only thing I can say about this Great Storm.
	Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you going to talk about the second point?

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike is not activated ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry.

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: The second point is about negotiations, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

ABEL OUPA KHOTLE: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Yes it is true that at the time there was negotiations going on.  Firstly they started as, what do you call it, Codesa.  Well but one thing important or one thing everyone should remember here is that Codesa never, never lasted, it collapsed and the PAC for that matter never took part in Codesa as it was clear that Codesa was not meant to bring about genuine change which would benefit the oppressed, exploited and social degradation of the masses of our land, but it was a structure aimed at putting the racist minority regime at the point where everyone, our peoples included, will say at least the regime is now trying to bring about change and we are happy about that.  No, that was not the situation.  The situation was that as I have said, Codesa was aimed at portraying the racist minority regime as a regime of goodwill, a regime with intention to do away with oppression, exploitation and degradation of the African masses.  After its collapse they devised another way of bringing about, that is all the different political parties or political organisations in the country, hence the talks at Kempton Park.  These talks, yes, the PAC partook in these talks, and it participated while at the same time its component structure or military arm, Azanian People's Liberation Army was still active on the ground.  Apla continued with activities, military activities with full knowledge of the Pan Africanist Congress, with the approval of the PAC as in the first place Apla was not either a bandit or rebel army but an army aimed at enhancing political objectives of the PAC through military way.
	So by then there was no order, political order from the PAC which partook at that talks, that is an order saying Apla stop your military operations.  And the talks themselves did not mean that we had freedom.  The fact that it was talks it means peoples were trying to reach a solution through negotiating.  
	So one other thing is that it is not, that is the talks did not come from nowhere themselves, they came as a result of the struggle waged by our peoples, militarily, politically and otherwise.  They never came as a result of the release of some leaders from prison, they came as a result of concerted pressure by our peoples in their struggle of liberation, and the very same peoples who were released, for that matter, from prison they were released because of the pressure mounted by our people on political fronts.  
	So what I am trying to clear here is that yes, the armed struggle did continue at that time of negotiations but they did not come from nowhere, they came as part of the struggle by our peoples. And the only time that the political leadership, that is of the PAC, decided to issue an order restraining or suspending the armed activities of Apla was in 1994, if I still remember well, on the 16th of January. So that is the only time when the PAC decided to suspend the armed struggle.
	So what is clear here is that Apla, as a military organ of the PAC, did immediately after that order, political order, suspend it unilaterally, the armed struggle.  So all in all our struggle started long back ago as we all know, not in 1959, not in 1912, but we must remember there were the Bambatha rebellions, there were the Sekukhune battles and all Moshoeshwe fought, I mean battles, and the likes.  Our struggle started the day the European man landed in our land, that is the 6th of April 1652, that is the day our struggle started, because on their arrival they declared war.  They went on holding Africans as their captives, killing Africans, maiming Africans and they encroached in our territory through armed means, so that is clear that as a peaceful nation, the African nation we did not declare any war on anybody, but peoples came from far away, Europe, and declared war in a land foreign to them.
	So Mr Chairman I don't know whether the question has not been answered and if it has not been answered I will hear from you.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I think your counsel must decide whether he has got everything that he wanted from you.  Are you satisfied?

MR MTHEMBU: I am Mr Chairman and I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MTHEMBU