Amnesty Hearings — Carltonville — 1998-08-12

MR KOOPEDI: May I mention that before the applicants appeared in the High Court, the applicants appeared in the Regional Court in Kutsaong and the applicants were granted bail.  Now what I was saying is that that part of their representation was done through Legal Aid, which was initiated by the ANC, so the process of their defence leading up to pro deo counsel was initiated, the first step of their defence was by the ANC.  Of course pro deo would, as a matter of course, come to hand.

ADV DE JAGER: ...[inaudible]

MR KOOPEDI: I was distracted.  Now perhaps I would also want to go into political motivation on objectivity.  I believe I have mentioned that it is my humble submission that the applicants and their fellow comrades, when they decided to go Bekkersdal, the motive was purely political and nothing else.
	I further wish to submit that the political objective which all sought to accomplish, was to rid the township of this gangster element or this thug element which in a certain sense, as I have said, had a same pattern with third force elements that were running havoc in the townships and making sure that the people are destabilised.  It is my submission that it could not have been anything else but a political objective to confront these thugs, bring them to the people and let them answer for their deeds and then hand them over to the police.  This was not just a crime clearing campaign but this was a politically motivated action.  
	Now finally, I would like to address Members of the Committee on the events inside the mine premises.  That is where the actually killing took place.  Now it is also my submission that the pursuit from the X section through the veld into the mine premises, when this pursuit was taking place there was nothing other than a political motive pushing the applicants and their fellow comrades.  There was no revenge.  In my mind there was no intention to revenge or avenge but they were fulfilling what they construed as a political mandate, what they thought is in accordance with the ANC's principles of fighting crime in the area.
	Now if this pursuit was - if at the stage of the pursuit there was this political motive, I would wish to submit that the fact that the deceased then drew weapons out would not therefore mean that that could be the end of the political motivation.  Something else comes in as a new act.  I wish to submit that the drawing of weapons, the subsequent attack and perhaps a defending attack by the applicants on the deceased, this was a result of a political action and it would be an error to assume that at some stage political motivation vanished away and the applicants then acted for other reasons. 	My submission is that right until the end the applicants had a political motive.  The applicants' actions were towards a particular political objective.
	Of course one may wish to argue that, wasn't their action a little excessive?  Why didn't they stop at some stage, especially with the first deceased who was armed and especially because we have evidence that he was also stabbed with his own knife?  I would ask Honourable Committee Members to be subjective about this matter and perhaps not objective.  Not look at this as how we would look at it today with hindsight, as how we as reasonable men would look at it now, but look at it in terms of the situation that prevailed at that stage, the age of the applicants of the applicants at that stage.  I believe that the first applicant was about 19 years old at that stage, and I also believe that it would be a very big mistake to put an older man's head on his shoulders and expect that he could have acted otherwise.
	Perhaps I would also wish to mention that from the evidence that I've heard, it did not strike me like after the first deceased was disarmed, that is the gun and the knife, there was a long protracted attack on his body, stabbings and kickings.  It is not clear as to the timing in terms of saying when did it stop, but the fact of the matter is, when he became motionless, when he was no longer fighting or perhaps even defending himself, this is where it stopped.
	I would also wish to make mention of a fact which may also seem very speculative on my side, which is that under normal circumstance, if a Youth League or and "SDU" goes and hunts for a person and finds the person whom they believe has wronged, the general trend would have been to set this person on fire but this was not done and this clearly illustrated the point that when the applicants and their comrades went to look for these people they had no intention to revenge because there was no reason for them not to take the general trend and set them on fire.  It is against this background that I will ask the Honourable Committee Members to view the actions of the applicants on that day as being politically motivated towards achieving a political objective.
	I would further ask the Honourable Committee Members to rule that the applicants have fully disclosed to the Committee and have not hidden anything.  
	And finally, it is my submission that by granting amnesty to these applicants the township of Kutsaong, their families and the families of the deceased people, whom it is very noteworthy that they are not opposing these applications, will be reconciled and we will have a better Kutsaong.  Thank you Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Steenkamp, is there anything you wish to say?

UNKNOWN: Yes, if you would allow me Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, yes.