Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

MR DE KLERK: Well just looking quickly at the document the fact is the decision was to follow Option 4, whatever that might have been because I don't have the document, I think you might have it and it might be part of the rest of this, but the decision was not to approve all that, the decision was to follow Option 4.

<UNKNOWN>: air enough. The alarming thing, and that's all that I am trying to focus on, the alarming thing is that that seemed to have been the effect of this discussion in this meeting comprising of the President of the country, senior cabinet members and so on, that seemed to have been the effect of ...(intervention)

MR DE KLERK: I really think I've taken the matter as far as I can on this issue and we'll come back on that.

MR POTGIETER: No fair enough. Then perhaps just in conclusion, with your permission Chairperson, perhaps just briefly, this is a debate that is also before us at this stage, you have conceded quite unequivocally that apartheid was wrong, you have highlighted the evil that flowed from the policy. Now we've got this debate in front of us and I'll put it to you for your comment, given your concession that apartheid was wrong can one equate the fight against apartheid, morally speaking, with the fight to maintain apartheid?
Apart from the incidents, I know you've answered to some extent in your second submission and you've said one must look at specific incidents to see whether a particular person has been supporting apartheid or not but apart from that, a general question, just generally.

MR DE KLERK: Yes, but I think it's important that we do highlight what I said in my written reply as well. I said that you asked whether one can legitimately equate the struggle against apartheid with the struggle to defend it. You see in that question lies a fallacy, and that is it pre-supposes that all actions against the revolutionary forces were in defence of apartheid. And it presupposes that all the actions of the revolutionary forces were in their fight against apartheid, and in both instances the supposition is wrong. And I've dealt at length with the many motivations why people fought against the revolutionary forces while they were also against apartheid. Surely nobody can accuse, nobody can accuse any Black man or any Coloured or any Indian in the old South Africa of having been for apartheid. But nonetheless the revolutionary forces had tremendous opposition and they were rejected by millions of Black South Africans, why? Because their methods were despicable in the eyes of those Black South Africans, because those Black South Africans were anti-communist, they had various motivations. So against whom did the revolutionary forces fight? They fought against pro-apartheid and anti-apartheid people with equal vigour. That accounts for many, many deaths. Because they fought to grasp all the power and they demonised fellow Black South Africans because they preferred the peaceful route. Because they preferred the road of negotiation, while rejecting independence because they said we'll work within the system to change the system.
I come from a people who chose the same route of working in the system and rejected the rebellion in 1914 and the terrorist efforts and methods of the Ossewa Brandwag. So it's a fallacy, it's a fallacy to typify the conflict of the past as just a conflict between the proponents of apartheid and the opponents of apartheid. That is the first fundamental point, I think, which we must take.
And then I said, 
"The answer to your question accordingly depends entirely on the circumstances involved. A Black policeman going about his duty protecting the lives and property of his neighbours undoubtedly had a more moral cause than the activists who burned him and many like him to death by tying a tyre to his neck with barbed wire, filling it with petrol and setting him on fire. Civic organisations demonstrating peacefully in support of their rights undoubtedly had a more moral cause than elements in the security forces who committed brutal crimes to suppress them. Those advocating peaceful change and promoting democratic reform within the government were, in my opinion, morally superior to members of the South African Communist Party who were plotting to impose a socialist dictatorship through armed insurrection in South Africa".
So it's a complex question. I think all sides carry moral blame. 
And we strongly resisted, we would not have voted for the bill which instituted this Commission if Minister Omar did not step down from his original assistance that double norms should be written into this. So it is not by chance that, in my interpretation, the Commission is, with all due respect Mr Chairman, charged with applying one norm and not in any way double standards at any time. That is how I interpret your .....

MR POTGIETER: Can I just with the Chairperson's permission, just put it together. Of course insofar as amnesty is concerned, insofar as that process is concerned there is no question about drawing moral distinctions at all, but insofar as the rest of our mandate is concerned it's quite conceivable that we might very well have to decide this question of the morality. And I know, I've read your response, I know that you are arguing that this is a complex matter and one should look at all these issues, but what I am really asking you is a very simple question actually and I'm putting it to you in that sort of context. You concede it's wrong and I'm asking you, if you defend what is wrong and you've got another side that fights that which is wrong, can you equate them morally?

MR DE KLERK: No ...(intervention)

MR POTGIETER: It's that scenario.

MR DE KLERK: No, but communism is also wrong. And revolution, if there is another way, is also wrong. Elsewhere in my replies I've dealt with, in reply to a question, what else could they have done? And I pointed out that in India everybody got their liberation without a revolution. And I could keep you busy for a long time about doors which have been opened which could result in a peaceful resolution which the ANC slammed shut and didn't want to walk through. We argued that instead of murdering in terms of a policy, councillors who said we would make ourselves available for municipalities, if the ANC and the UD

<UNKNOWN>: and those said let's put up our candidates and create a tremendous strong power base in a democratic way, that the whole change in South Africa could have been sooner and it could have been with much less bloodshed.

<UNKNOWN>: urthermore, in looking at morality I would urge the Commission also to look at it in phases. Because surely there were phases when the main cause was the existence of apartheid, but the last phase of the violence was when it was already clear and then it was when the violence was stepped up, it was already clear that apartheid is dead. That apartheid has been relinquished as a policy. That imminent now, is one man one vote for each and every South African with removal of all forms of discrimination and then there burst loose on this country a wave of violence from the revolutionary force sides which killed many, many people. So in analysing moral blame I think also one needs also needs to look at it in timeframes.

MR POTGIETER: Thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Yes Richard.