Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-10-31

MRS FOURIE: And I shook your hand.   Mr Gqomfa, was 
unwilling and he looked the other way, but I certainly shook Mr 
Mabala and Mr Madasi's hands.  Nothing has changed, I still feel 
exactly the same way and I do forgive you because my High 
Command, demonstrated to me how to do that by forgiving his 
killers.
	I want to tell you who Lindi was.  She was known as Lindiwe 
by her Xhosa friends.  Lindi was a true child of Africa.  She was 
happiest hiking in the mountains, riding a horse with her dog out in 
the countryside.  She was just finishing a Bachelor of Science in 
Civil Engineering and had spent a lot of time designing and thinking 
about how it would be possible to improve the infrastructure in 
places like Khayelitsha, so that running water and waterborne 
sewerage would be available, to people who have been oppressed 
and discriminated against.
	She had spent her vacations with one of the big engineering 
companies in the Western Cape, and during lunch time the black men 
would come and tell her about their lives.  She would come home in 
the evenings, and tell me the tragic stories of hopelessness and the 
despair that they felt in never being able to get further than being 
labourers.
	She understood that.  She wept to know that that was 
happening in her country.  She helped me to understand how subtle 
my prejudice and bias and racial discrimination was.  But it was 
nothing blatant, it was in the very, very subtle fibres of my being.  
She helped me to understand that.
	She was totally willing to treat everyone as an equal and she 
did that openly and freely.  Her black friends were as important to 
her as her white friends.  	Lindiwe could have been your friend. 
 You did your own cause immeasurable harm by killing her.  She was 
totally opposed to violence.  She was a gentle person who cared for 
not only the people, not only the little people, but the animals and 
the flowers, the ecology of our country and the world.
	As a medical person, I had to go straight back into the wards 
of Groote Schuur and treat your colleagues who had been shot and I 
needed to do that without showing any bitterness or resentment.  
God gave me that grace.  	I think the reason that I am here, 
have been here through this week and particularly today which is 
very important to me, is to tell you that on that day you ripped my 
heart out.  Lindi was one of the most precious people and I am 
biased because she was my daughter, that this country could have 
produced.
	I resent being called a victim, I have a choice in the matter.  I 
am a survivor.  Lindi was a victim, she had no choice.  I have just 
had major surgery, which I trace as a direct result to the stress and 
trauma that resulted out of the Heidelberg incident.   It has been 
demonstrated that cancer of the colon is something that results from 
tremendous stress.  So first my heart was ripped out, and now half 
of my gut.  
	I am happy that you are well, I hope that emotionally and 
psychologically you can be well because my greatest concern is that 
you have been programmed killers, you repeatedly said that you 
were acting under orders from your high command.
	You could not tell us how you felt which indicates to me that 
possibly you have been trained not to feel and I can see that that 
would be important in a killing machine, to be unable to feel, but 
just to carry out orders indiscriminately.   And that is my greatest 
fear.
	I have no objection to amnesty for you, but we know there are 
enough indiscriminate killers on our streets and my fear is that we 
have three more who are capable, because of their programming to 
do exactly the same thing once you are released.
	I wished that it could be otherwise and perhaps with time and 
counselling things can be otherwise, and I would wish that that is 
possible and that it is made available to you as it has been made 
available to us, to have counselling for the tremendous trauma that 
we have been through and I am sure you have been through trauma 
as well.	Both through the incident and through your own 
experiences, which Lindiwe would have been delighted to hear and I 
would be also interested in hearing how you experienced oppression 
personally.  I have experienced oppression as a white woman and I 
am sure the oppression that you have experienced, may be much 
worse.  But I would like to know the details because that is what 
Lindi would have wanted to know too.
	We came here hoping to hear the truth about who the people 
in high command were who organised this whole dastedly affair.   I 
am not convinced that that truth has come out and until it is, and 
does come out, I am not happy that you could just disappear into the 
woodwork.
	I know that it must be terribly frightening to reveal who the 
high command is because your own lives are in jeopardy if you do 
get amnesty, and I appreciate that it must be very, very frightening.
	I thank you for being able to look me in the eye and for 
having to hear my story.  Thank you Mr Chairman.

MR PRIOR: There is nothing further Mr Chairman, from this 
witness.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Arendse, are there any questions you wish to 
put to this witness?

UNKNOWN: No, Mr Chairman, there are just two things I 
would like to mention maybe for the record.  The first one is that in 
terms of Mrs Fourie saying that she hasn't had everything, we've 
only got three applicants here before us and they have said what 
they did, including killing her daughter.
	The other thing is it is a matter of record, certainly it is in the 
bundle that is before the Committee, that the APLA high command 
and this is what I am not sure about, the APLA high command is on 
record when they made submissions to the TRC Committee, I think, 
on the 7th of October, as having accepted responsibility for what 
happened and there is also a statement that we put to the applicants 
which had been handed up on behalf of Mr Xuma where he says as a 
member of the APLA high command they accept responsibility and it 
is also clear that they were the ones, including Mr Xuma, who had in 
fact organised this attack.  So that is a matter of record.
	I am not sure whether Mrs Fourie is aware of that.

CHAIRPERSON: They are accepting responsibility for what has 
happened, appears from the papers, but we have to decide whether 
we would like to call the person who gave the orders to appear 
before us for having given the orders and to explain why he gave 
such orders.  We haven't decided that, we may very well decide that 
we would like to hear that evidence, if not now, but at some stage.

UNKNOWN: Well, the evidence thus far, which is 
unchallenged, is that Mr Gqomfa got his orders directly from Mr 
Nonxuba who unfortunately is deceased and the other applicants 
Mabala and Madasi have said that they received their orders from Mr 
Gqomfa.

CHAIRPERSON: We will deal with that during your address.

UNKNOWN: As you please Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

JUDGE WILSON: The statement by Xuma which you referred to, 
which is being handed in, is not an affidavit.  It is merely a 
statement prepared by him and signed.

CHAIRPERSON: Anyway that is a matter we will deal with at a 
later stage.  If there are no further points you would like to put to 
Mrs Fourie, then I would like to excuse her.

UNKNOWN: No, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Fourie, thank you very much.

MRS FOURIE: Mr Chairman, may I respond to Mr Arendse's 
comment.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MRS FOURIE: Yes, I do understand that the PAC as a group, have 
taken responsibility, but have the people who were directly involved 
with planning this whole thing, and getting these gentlemen to 
execute the orders, they are the people that we want to know about 
and have they applied for amnesty?

CHAIRPERSON: These are factors which we will be considering.

MRS FOURIE: We appreciate that Mr Chairman, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.