Human Rights Violation Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-06-09

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you for having come to talk about your pain.   To be carrying such pain for many years and then giving yourself an opportunity to come and testify before us.  We also are affected and we share the painful experience with you.  We thank you for having come and may you go, knowing that we shall try and meet halfway with you in this Commission. Thank you very much.
 Thank you.  I want to thank you, everybody in the audience for coming, for coming to listen to all the sad stories.  Usually - can you please be quiet.  Just remain in your seats so that we can conclude, because the chairs are making some noise.   
 Usually in Xhosa we say when, if men can cry, things are very bad, but today we have seen that pain is not something that is male or female, pain is just pain in the heart. When it touch, it touches the male, it touches the female.  I think that in this case it also symbolises the extent of powerlessness that all of the witnesses felt during those brutal years.  
 It happened in Crossroads. It was a very complex situation.  It would be false to suggest that the 9th of June 1997 marks the 11th anniversary of the events that took place in those years, because what happened at KTC and Crossroads, it didn't start in June 1986, it is something that had started in the late seventies. People who were living here and people who followed the Press, they will remember of squatter camps in the Western Cape became a very topical political issue in those years. In fact, people will remember Mr Koornhof who was in the forefront of all this and coming with solutions as far as he is concerned, how to deal with Crossroads.  That basically was the main issue, that was the source of this, in my own opinion.  Our job then is to investigate the eruptions that followed;   how related were they to those facts and that was one of the main political issues in those times. Then they were removed from this place to that place and then they were promised the permits, how long the permit was a survival issue.   So most of the conflicts arose as a result of the issue of having a permit, and many of the leaders, in both sides, Witdoeke side and from the communities - for people this issue of the permit became e the main issue, to realise that abantu in their country of birth would be considered illegal residents.
 In fact, I do not remember ever hearing of white people being considered illegal residents.  White people could move around in this country, they could buy property anywhere in South Africa. In fact, white people from outside South Africa in many instances could buy property in this country and settle as citizens of this country, whereas black people had to be moved around and to be considered illegal residents in their own country. That tells us that part of the problem was that people were black, that was the root - especially the issuing of permits.  This is a very long and complex story, the issue of influx control and the migrant labour control, we can never discuss and conclude it today. But it is important that you should get people to understand the background, and the number of challenges when we are preparing for these hearings.  One of the challenges that face us was our concern about revisiting the conflicts and reawakening the conflicts.  When we revisit these situations and experiences we try and call victims as well as the perpetrators. We did not want to revise the pain, we just want to remind people that when the Commission has its hearings, it is not a court case. We do not call - but we are giving people an opportunity to talk about their experiences. 
 That is very important.  We had people here, we had called witnesses from people who had been killed by the comrades as well. But unfortunately two of those people have fallen ill, one of those people couldn't come because their employer could not release them for this occasion.  I just want to mention it for the record that we did try so that people do not perceive the process as being an opportunity only for those people who were victims of Witdoek attacks.
 In conclusion I just want to mention a few people, the commitments of our investigators and our researchers.  It is very important because it reveals and uncovers the situation and to understand what exactly happened, what were the issues at the time.  
 Madeleine, the researcher, helped us to understand what the issues were at the time. The investigators who were leading the investigation in this case, Adv Pumla - now Pumla has recently become an advocate.  
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 ... helped us with people, like Steve Khan and many others at the time when he was dealing with this case.  The other person amongst our investigators is Mr McWilliam, he is Khan who has joined us.  
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 Lucky Njosela, one of our statement-takers and then because of his knowledge of the activities in Crossroads he helped us a lot.  
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 ... who enlightened us. Some of this enlightenment will become clearer as we move along in the rest of our days of our hearings.
 Tomorrow, on Tuesday, we will continue with the public hearings and we invite people again to come.  We want to uncover these events. It is clear from what we heard today from what has been said, that the police people, with the Witdoeke were seen as people who testified here, coming out of police vehicles.  Then we will find out the extent - I think many of you will remember ...
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 It is clear that at the time what was happening at KTC, black on black violence, anything but ...
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 ... but that's very sad if our media do not be analytical what is happening, as people who supply the public with the facts, and then to present it to the public. So that we could also understand, this whole thing of black on black violence was spread even beyond our borders.  The first lady Felicia, her sister was the first person to be burnt down. The Commission must find out when did this start.  Because this started in the eighties, about 1985.  We will remember 1985, especially here in the Western Cape, from August, since it was a time when the conflicts were on the increase. We want to know the root of this, what was the cause, what was the real cause of this violence. It is clear from the evidence we have got, that there were power struggles and there were conflicts between community members and some of the leadership relating to money issues and to ideological issues.  
 However, what we should understand, this was picked up and used to divide people so that it is clear to us that the government of the time - I am talking about people, when I say government, I mean people who worked for the government. It is necessary to establish at what point did they decide to manipulate and make use of those conflicts and those positions.
 Thank you to all the people who helped us, people who helped, like Gail van Breda who was involved in the preparation of the hall, setting up meetings for us. Having meetings with people, Elizabeth Cloete who has worked very, very hard together with Martin. We thank you. 
 Before we close, I am going to ask Piet Meiring to talk a bit about the reparations policy and help us understand, help you understand what the reparation policy is about and how you can benefit from the reparations policy.  Thank you, Piet.