Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-06-09

MR AMEEN: Now in your evidence in chief yesterday you also sketched to the committee and to us here your role in AZAPO, the fact that you were a member, an ordinary member, the fact that you were part of the organising committee, the fact that you followed orders.  In short, that you were a disciplined member of the organisation.  Is that true?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: That is correct.

MR AMEEN: And you prided yourself on that, that you were a disciplined member of AZAPO?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: Correct.

MR AMEEN: And as such, you understood and felt yourself to be bound by the policies and principles of AZAPO.  You respected their policies?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: That is true.

MR AMEEN: And one of their policies was that of non-retaliation.  Is that correct?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: Yes, that's correct.

MR AMEEN: Now I want to refer you to page 6 of your application.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ameen I'm going to interrupt you and ask you something.  Where is you jacket Mr Ameen.  I'm not necessarily saying put it on but I get the impression that you leave it somewhere, at you office and just walk into the proceedings without a jacket.  Sorry?

MR AMEEN: Mr Chairman it is here.

CHAIRPERSON: In the courtroom?

MR AMEEN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

MR AMEEN: Shall I put it on?

CHAIRPERSON: No you don't have to.  We will give you that concession not to put it on if you feel to hot, we will grant you that concession.  I was getting worried, I got the impression that you left it somewhere in the car or maybe just walked here.

MR AMEEN: It's right here, I was formally attired.

CHAIRPERSON: No you don't have to put it on, we grant you that leave not to put it on.

MR AMEEN: I appreciate that, thank you.  I refer you to page 6 of your application, which is a continuation of paragraph 3 of the letter which you have written to the amnesty committee.  I'm not going to read it in full, but in there you describe the murder of Mgomezulu (?) and Martin Mihau (?) and you give specific details of how these people were murdered and in the next paragraph you say:  "From then on my attitude was clear ...", in paragraph 4, "From then on my attitude was clear, it was retaliation orientated", but there's nothing in your application which says that this change, this change in your personal attitude was brought about by a change in your organisation's policy.  Is there?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: There is no such thing in my application.

MR AMEEN: So this change in attitude was a personal decision on you part to attack who you thought were enemies of AZAPO, to avenge attacks on AZAPO.  In short, to take revenge.  You were not acting on orders, but you were acting from what you felt was personally right.  Is that correct?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: That is not correct.  Within a political organisation we are people, we are in large numbers, we have different emotions but at the end of the day all of us have to agree on certain principles.  There was a principle of democratic centralism.  If I did not believe or I did not agree that a certain action should be taken, it wouldn't matter, at the end of the day all of us would have to engage, yes the organisation was still that way but I was a member of the organisation and I was supposed to follow the principles of the organisation.

MR AMEEN: But the principles of that organisation was non-retaliation.  An incident happened when two members were killed, nothing came from the organisation to say the policy has changed and you then changed your personal attitude and you say that:  "From then on my attitude was clear, it was retaliation orientated".

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: Let me put it this way - let me not refer to a principle because it puts me, it gives me a problem.  Let me talk of the code of conduct of the organisation.  Each member was supposed to follow this code of conduct.  I have explained that in some of the principles of the organisation there was that one referring to democratic centralisation that even if you did not agree with what the other people were saying, but if the majority of the people would have said something it would have taken that line.  Now the leadership itself was the majority, if the leadership told us not to do so it means we would have follow what they said.  I explained yesterday that when time went on even the leadership, through the publicity secretary of AZAPO, explained that the situation is different, the leadership was not going to tell the followers what to do.  They were supposed to defend themselves in a way appropriate.  I explained yesterday that even comrade Muntu, the late comrade Muntu, did explain this.

MR AMEEN: Now just going back a bit to those meetings. When you were present at meetings at which two organisations were trying to resolve major political differences which had resulted in a lot of violence, yet understanding that, knowing what the leadership was trying to achieve, you, given the first opportunity, took part in a series of actions which resulted in a great deal of aggression and the murder of four people and attempted murder of two others, knowing that at leadership level people were trying to resolve differences.  You were not defending, you had six helpless youths whom you had at gunpoint.  The survivors deny that they agreed or admitted that they were members of SASCO or that they were (indistinct) or any of the others things that they are supposed to have admitted.  You had them at your mercy ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Let's make it less complicated please.  the question is, on the one hand you say you were involved in negotiations trying to bring peace and yet you took part in the killing of people.  How do you explain that?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: Let me explain.  I think I gave two meetings that I recall.  There had been meetings, many.  I even mentioned that even the ministers of religion on the other side were trying to bring end to this violence.  Leadership was talking but the situation on the ground did not change.  In other words things were happening here on the ground and we would not just fold our arms and say we don't defend ourselves.  I have explained yesterday that there were many incidents which we defended ourselves successfully.  Now it was after a long time of talking, unfortunately these ones were then captured.

MR AMEEN: When did you learn of the order to kill these youths?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: Whilst we were still at Orlando West.

MR AMEEN: At Jeff Lingani's house?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: That's correct.

MR AMEEN: And who told you about it?

PITSO JOSEPH HLASA: (indistinct) Nani told me about an order.

MR AMEEN: Right, I refer you to page 3 of your application, 11.b, where particulars are requested of such order or approval and the date thereof and if known, the name and address of the persons who gave such order or approval.  You talk here, your answer is:  "The order was generally to defend every member of the organisation".  Your amnesty application is in particular related to these six youths, four of whom were killed and you don't mention the order that you are told of.  Why is that omission, can you explain that omission?