Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-09-09

RONNIE KASRILS: Archbishop, Chairperson and fellow commissioners, I really welcome this opportunity to give a personal account, my own account of the appalling massacre that took place at Bisho on the 7th September 1992.  I trust you have copies of my statement.  You have listened this morning extensively to Cyril Rhamaphosa and Smuts Ngonyama dealing with the background to this march and the actual march itself.
 In my statement I have obviously for the sake of being total, or holistic as South Africans like to call it, Archbishop, given my version from start to finish but with your permission I will gloss over the first section basically that background and of course I will concentrate on those sections which are very much my own particular conduct.
 I am presently Deputy Minister of Defence in the democratic government of South Africa.  At the time I headed the Campaigns Department of the ANC and I was also a member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC and Central Committee of the Communist Party.  We have heard about the march of the 4th August.  I was not present here on that occasion.  I was involved at the national level co-ordinating the countrywide marches, protests and demonstrations following the breakdown of CODESSA - that period that Mr Pik Botha refers to as the dream turned into a nightmare.  It wasn't so for us.  It was a tough period but because of the breakdown of those talks we felt we had to revert to mass action to give the people their voice behind the negotiation process so that we could really get it moving in a serious way.  
 So on the 4th August I was at the national level doing the co-ordinating work.  Of course I heard a lot about that march and I think it's quite interesting to note that both Chris Hani and Raymond Suttner who Mr Botha referred to extensively this morning, were on that march, obviously came to certain conclusions as a result of that march and the frustration of having been prevented to go into the town and carry out a people's assembly there that in fact, they learnt the lessons from that march.
 It was rather different to Mr Botha, with all due respect to his submission, and they were very strong in terms of advocating together with the Boarder Regional Executive and the structures here, the fact that we really needed to march again and reach that CBD.
 More particularly since, is my submission and Smuts has pointed out, the repression in the Ciskei after the 4th August if anything really increased, the brutality increased and it was felt here that we really had to make it very, very clear not only to the Gqozo administration but to Pretoria that the people just could no longer tolerate, given the enormous changes taking place elsewhere in South Africa, that the Ciskei had to change.  So approximately a week before the march I arrived in the border region together with Chris Hani and Raymond Suttner.  Steven Tshwete came a couple of days later and we joined at the request of the Border Regional Executive, their preparations for the march of the 7th.  
 Our president who was at the National Executive Committee meeting on the 31st August when the chairman of the Border Region was present, said that this demonstration had to really be well organised, that we had to succeed and he was very strong about us coming down and being here for at least a week to help in the preparations.  I addressed numerous meetings during the course of the week, all over the territory that used to be called the Ciskei, in villages, in the factories, in the townships.  I really came to know in that week the suffering of the people here, their spirit and their yearning for freedom.  That mood made an incredible impression on me.
 My involvement in the struggle goes back to that dreadful massacre in 1960 at Sharpeville when I was a young white person with a privileged background and when that massacre took place I decided then that I had to join in with the struggle to change this country.  The African people of this country inflamed me from that time.  That is what had driven me, the struggle of the people, and if I've made my mistakes I've made them in good faith, attempting to do everything possible to change first of all the awful system of apartheid which I totally abhorred then and still do, and everything to see that we have the proper change in this country of the kind that the Archbishop referred to earlier today.
 So I must say that my determination increased in terms of the campaign that we were involved in.  There were two meetings I addressed that week and they particularly stand out.  The first was an attempt on the 2nd September to hold a street corner rally in Peddie which we had to abandon temporarily when the Ciskei Security Police arrived on the spot and without any further ado began lobbing teargas at us.  We immediately retreated.  I was with a group of ANC comrades and the next minute I found I was in their company, we went to the magistrate's office to protest about what had happened and to demand the right to stage a little rally in that small town of Peddie and to my amazement when he said he couldn't do anything, the comrades sat down in that office and they said well we're staying here until you give us permission.  So we were there for two or three hours and finally he had gone away to consult, he came back and he signed the order.  I think in a little way it made us feel that the kind of protest action that we were involved in, in the Ciskei could actually work.  
 The other occasion was the burial of an ANC man, the chairperson of a civic organisation at Tentagate near Queenstown on the 3rd September 1992.  I was there with Chris Dlamini, the COSATO the trade unionist.  We were very moved.  It was a political assassination quite clearly and I still hear the beautiful singing of that village congregation.  We've dealt with the decision of the strategising committee which involved the members from the National Executive, other leaders of the Alliance and the local leadership, that the march would move into Bisho and we would have an assembly in the CBD area.  That was emblazoned on our minds.  That was the objective, and the mood was such that we were not prepared to be sidelined into the stadium as had been the case previously.
 You've heard how the mass rally was held at the Victoria grounds in King William's Town in preparation for our march up the hill that morning.  I didn't speak at that meeting but all the speakers made it abundantly clear what the objective of the march was and of course stressing the peaceful nature.  
 As the march ascended the hill towards Bisho, it was decided that a small group of ours would be despatched as Smuts had told us this morning, to investigate the situation.  We were in fact a reconnaissance party but Archbishop, I don't use that in the military sense.  We were really unarmed.  We went to have a look and the names are listed there, there were six/seven of us including of course Smuts and Ngonyama.  We drove in a little truck and we arrived at the border where we found the way blocked in the manner that Cyril Rhamaphosa and Smuts described, by the razor wire barrier.
 We immediately went to that barrier to speak to Mr John Hall and Anthony Geldenhuys of the National Peace Committee and I also responded as well as Andrew Hendricks, to some questions from the media.  We explained that the march was more or less 20 minutes behind us and made it clear to Messrs Hall and Geldenhuys in no uncertain terms what our intention was.  I have included in my submission a document which I actually received from the police who are running inquiries at the moment concerning the march and possible charges.  When I gave them the statement the superintendent kindly produced a document for me which I have given to you, which is a typescript from the police video.  I found this very useful and I wished I'd had it much earlier because quite frankly, one doesn't remember exactly what one says.  That is there for you.  
 I'd just like to stress a few parts there.  There was a reporter who posed a question to me and it's clear they didn't give what the question was but he obviously must have said, are you going to hold a rally in the stadium.  Kasrils to the reporter at the razor wire barrier  No, we don't simply want to go into the stadium at all.  We really feel it is the right to cross this artificial boundary and come into Bisho and hold a peaceful [and I stress peaceful]  demonstration.  This is page 9 of my submission, and I make the point we are not carrying guns.  
 And then to Doctor Geldenhuys  We're really imploring you to see that the soldiers under no circumstances open fire and no soldier will be hurt by us.  We will be calm.  We do intend to make a point here today.  That point is about the freedom of expression and the need for democracy in the Ciskei and we'd like you to say to the authorities that they should tolerate people coming to Bisho, holding a meeting, demonstrating, expressing their will and the point of that is to relay that to President de Klerk.
 According to the typescript, the Deputy Chairperson of Border ANC and Hendricks concluded with a similar point and made the statement  Tell Gqozo that we are going to that open field there, pointing in the direction of Bisho.  At this point, Chairperson, my statement becomes somewhat more and more specific to me so I'll make more use of it.  The advance party, our advance party entered the stadium, we had a look around and we were extremely surprised to find on the northern side of that stadium that a section of the fence, ten metres or so, was totally flattened down on the ground and it was very easy to walk through it into the area, the territory, further territory of the Ciskei.  I was very surprised.  
 My companions, Chippy Olwer and Donnay Kunie who had been on the 4th August march explained to me that when the people had come into the stadium, there was such a huge crowd they couldn't all get in through a narrow entrance, so a section of the crowd had flattened that fence and got in that way.  It was actually very easy to break down a fence if one wanted to, especially if you've got such a force of people, which would have been the case on the 7th as well.  What we were surprised about was the fact that that opening was still there, given the tremendous efforts that had obviously gone in that day to preventing us with the razor wire from moving out of the road and into Bisho itself.
 We were very surprised as well that there appeared to be no soldiers whatsoever in the vicinity of that gap.  I had a very good look and in fact I came up onto the slope overlooking the fence  [I'm sure you've seen the stadium]  and there's an embankment around.  We got up onto that embankment even up on the stadium, to have a good look around.  I could see no deployment of troops anywhere.  I really need to stress this in view of other versions, even the views of some of my own comrades but nobody, no security were in sight in the proximity.
 You've heard where they were deployed and we could see this, over at this complex here, the Fort Hare buildings, along this side of the road, the troops lined up, as one of the witnesses, the former member of the CDF had explained, the other side of the barrier as we came up, the Ciskei Police and the South African Police for some time.  Beyond that barrier where this Telecommunications Centre is, at the cross-roads of Jongilanga Crescent  [excuse my, no I think it's Jongilengwe - Jongilanga]  and the main road.  That Telecommunications Centre which we could see from inside the stadium had a large deployment of troops at that point.
 We perceived that if we went through the gap and if we turned in a westerly direction, we would be moving totally away from those buildings and any deployment of troops as they were then deployed, basically at these buildings.  We concluded that the troops were deployed to protect buildings and the sacred term  'property'  which sometimes is used as though it's more important than people, were people or property endangered.  We looked at this and it seemed as though that was the major reason for the deployment.  More particularly since there weren't any troops in the vicinity that I've talked about.  
 Then we had a little discussion, I haven't elaborated on this in my report very much but in looking at that landscape, that was the view that we all felt.  We had a discussion and we considered is it possible.  We were of course very aware of the soldiers and what soldiers could do but we felt, move west, move quickly and demonstrate to the soldiers that we were not a threat to them in any way.  We would go out westward into open fields and then veer back and around towards the CBD.  Totally avoiding the concentration of troops.
 We believed that this action would give them no basis or pretext to use violence against us and we felt this crucial to the safety of the march.  To adopt this course of action leaders would have to be in the front, to lead our followers in the required direction.  We all agreed on this approach and we returned to the march which was now maybe ten or fifteen minutes down the road.  We reported what we had observed to the committee who were at the forefront and after a brief discussion, we didn't have very much time, it was a brief discussion, the decision was taken that we would in the South African rugby  paalens go for that gap, so that the march would come up the hill and we would split in two.  
 Cyril Rhamaphosa and a number of our leaders would move to the razor wire barricade to discuss with Hall and Geldenhuys, Hani, Chris Hani, myself, Smuts and Ngonyama, Linda Mnti at that time the chairperson of the Eastern Cape ANC, would lead marchers into the stadium, through the stadium as quickly as possible, out through the gap in the way that I've described it.  And this is what then happened, to a point of course.
 We followed that scenario Chairperson.  We came out of that gap.  We broke into a run.  We beckoned others to follow, to show them the way.  We veered in that direction that I've indicated and we must have moved for 50 or 60 metres.  Without any warning as you have heard already, the shooting broke out, the full volley fire.  Our immediate reaction was to dive to the ground and seek cover.  When you're under fire you're always not sure, is it real?  Many people think, as I think you've heard somebody you mention, I think somebody referred to a journalist saying, it's blanks.  
 You cannot normally believe, unless you're a soldier in battle, that the authority are shooting at you, and you think well it's blanks or are they shooting over our heads.  But whatever you think Chairperson, when you hear that first shot, a human being, unless you're in battle with your steel helmet and your defensive armour, you hit mother earth, in a kind way.  You kiss mother earth, and you hope that there is going to be one or two shots and it's warning shots and that would give you an idea it's blanks.  But this fusillade continued and as Cyril Rhamaphosa mentioned it seemed to go on for an hour.  
 It went on and on, and on, I couldn't believe it.  I thought it would never stop and then I was aware of the sensation that made me realise this just wasn't blanks because it was like a swarm of bees over our heads whistling and bees and you realised blanks don't come whistling overhead.  It was horrific and to compound that, was suddenly the whoosh through the air of launched hand grenades.  Something which I am a little bit, had been used to, being a soldier, of course you hear from a lot of people on this march, Cyril I think said it, we thought they were dropping bombs on us but I could hear this vrrrr, vrrrr, vrrrr, which was the sound of a hand grenade as it's launched and I thought my God, they have really gone crazy and boom, and boom, and boom, and boom.  Four grenades in this awful period of two minutes that seemed an agony of five/ten minutes.  I really believed it was five/ten minutes.
 After the first volley which has been estimated at 60 seconds to 90 seconds, which is a tremendous time of soldiers shooting with automatic weapons without respite.  The slight lull which the Commissioner has referred to this morning in questions, the slight lull, 10/15 seconds maybe, we put our heads up just to check what it was.  The people with me were all trained.  Linda Mnti and the others, my bodyguard Petrus Wanto, so we hardly raised our heads and then voom, voom again, the gunfire, the crackle and we were down.  Bushy, that's Petrus Wanto, had shouted to me, I've been hit, in that ten second silence and I was too scared to move a muscle.  
 The shooting came again and I lay there for another 30 seconds or whatever.  We don't know what, we didn't know what was happening elsewhere, we couldn't hear any screams above this fusillade.  It died down, we must've lain there for ten, twenty, thirty seconds.  Bushy to me, I've been hit, I think a rubber bullet.  Bushy, hold on I'll come, I'll come, cry to myself do I dare move, are they going to shoot again, another cry goodness, my God, I can't wait any longer so I crawled over to him.  I turned him over and the blood was gushing out of his stomach.  He thought it was a rubber bullet.  You don't feel the pain unless it hits bone because of the heat.  You get that pain later unless it's bone and then you're in terrible pain, and I said to him, okay don't worry.  I didn't dare raise, I turned over on my belly and I pulled him next to me and laboriously began dragging him back.
 Smuts came next to me as well as Linda Mnti and we went back 30 yards or so and by then we realised they weren't going to shoot again.  We could hear the crying, we could hear all sorts of noises.  We realised the shooting was over and we got up, we carried Bushy into the stadium and then it was, the carnage that we saw in that tunnel, six people dead already, a young man in his death throws, his companion, another young man from a village or a township, which I can never forget trying to give him the kiss of life and he had a hole the size of a cricket ball in his head.
 The First Aid people were busy, these were the First Aid people we had organised.  They were doing sterling work there and we began to help them as best we could and saw the extent of this carnage.  I spent some time there and then I received a message from Chris Hani to say the soldiers and the police of the Ciskei were seen to be coming to the stadium, I must get the hell out and I must join the leadership to give a report and assess the situation which is what I did.  
 The Goldstone Commission's findings are that apparently 185 rounds of ammunition and four grenades were used, I presume from the soldiers deployed in the vicinity of the radio installation, and 240 rounds fired by the soldiers at the Fort Hare campus.  That's a total of 425 rounds.  We had over 200 people injured and 28 who were killed on the spot.  It's not possible to hit 220, let's say it was 200 injured, we've heard that maybe it was 250 or 300 but let's say 200 were hit and 28 dead.  It's not possible to hit 228 human beings with 425 rounds of automatic fire.  When you open fire with an automatic weapon at a distance, and many of the soldiers were 200 metres or whatever, the weapon jumps in your hands, it's very difficult to keep it still, even against a crowd, and I wouldn't be surprised if something like 1000 were fired.  Now I'm not alleging that, I don't know.  It's surprising to me and I would like to draw this to your attention when you have the chance to hear the version from the soldiers. 
 You've heard how the Ciskei Defence Force shot, not only at us, those of us going through the gap, but also at people inside the stadium and others who were at the barricade there with Cyril Rhamaphosa and others who were down the road going back towards King William's Town.  There were actually people lying dead there on South African soil and I would have loved to have asked Mr Botha this morning, why the Pretoria Regime never bothered to institute any legal action against the Ciskei Administration for killing people on South African soil.   They gave no warning of any kind that they would open fire.  No verbal warnings were given.  There was no use of bird-shot or rubber bullets or teargas in advance.  There was no firing of warning shots into the air or over our heads and I would like to stress that if there had been a warning, and I'm not saying this now, Archbishop, now from this point now, if there had been a warning of this kind, if they had fired a couple of shots at us, we would have stopped.  It's not me alleging this now or claiming it now because the proof of the pudding is in terms of what happened to us.  
 The moment the shooting started we stopped in our tracks, we hit the ground and we returned.  If those had been blank bullets fired over our heads we would have done the same thing.  We wouldn't have then got up and charged again because we would know that to fire over our heads is a warning and the next time, watch out we will aim for you.  If we knew that they were going to use live ammunition without warning we wouldn't have gone through that gap.  I wouldn't have placed my own life in such danger and I certainly wouldn't have placed the lives of others on that march.
 One is left to wonder and imagine the extent to which the Ciskei soldiers and their officers had been worked up to unleash such murderous fire on unarmed civilians, compounded by the almost unthinkable action of launching grenades into crowds, dense crowds of human beings and I make that statement in terms of trying to understand the foot soldier on the ground.  We had one here today whose brother was killed.  
 The foot soldier who pulled the trigger at us and at the people throughout the centuries, or who strung Christ up on the cross, and I don't say that to curry favour, that's the foot soldier, that Roman legionnaire or the front-line soldier who is trained, left right, left right, by order, arm your weapon, load, aim, fire, and it becomes almost mechanical.  To what degree were those Ciskeians' brother Africans to the people who were marching against them, worked up to believe by that evil system of apartheid that spawned Gqozo and this regime, were worked up to feel that hier kom die kommuniste here come the Reds, the Swartgevaar and the Rooigevaar or whatever.  
 Being black soldiers they would have been told we were coming and their lives would be in mortal danger.  It was either our lives or their lives and the South African Defence Force soldiers, those white soldiers in command, their role in this.  They had to train those soldiers and they mustn't be like Pik Botha who today makes jokes about African Heads of State, be they Ciskeians or Bophuthatswana.  I don't take kindly to that joke because it's not exactly a joke about Lucas Mangope.  It's a joke about us, we'll order buses from Austria on the wrong side etc.
 To what degree is it that system to blame for those young Ciskeian boys, by the way hardly with education, they took them in here at standard six and what training did Marius Oelschig really give them?  What did he put into their heads to make them act like pawns in the game.  They were pawns in the game and that's why my friend, Smuts Ngonyama looks at this and he says there was some conspiracy.  I think that needs to be considered.   Sorry, if you can just bear with me.  It is my submission that the responsibility for the death and the injuries that occurred on that day, this is page 15, fall squarely on the shoulders of that defence force and those in command including those who wielded power and authority in Pretoria, and by the way one needs to remember that it's Pretoria that provided the Ciskei and Bop. and everywhere else with every last tickey and sixpence and cent and rand that they had.  So when Mr Botha says he couldn't really do anything, we've seen it happen all over the world, you turn the tap off and within a week or by the end of the month when salaries have to be paid, you get what you want.
 What remains an enigma is why the large gap was left in the stadium's fence.  It seems extraordinary that the Ciskei authorities didn't repair that fence, placed razor wire across it on the day of the march which would have been very simple or deploy soldiers there indicating to the marchers that we dare not go through.  Because what's the point of hiding soldiers, if in fact they were in a hidden position.  It either points to utter incompetence and, Chairperson, I don't say that that should not be ruled out, I've studied this situation as you can imagine.  I don't think utter incompetence on the part of those in command of that defence force should be ruled out.  Either that or cynical intent to lure people through the gap and given the considerable speculation in this regard, one really hopes that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will  uncover the truth.
 I've dealt with the events, Archbishop.  Finally I respectfully ask you to bear with me as I come to my own very personal testament concerning my own conduct at the time.  It's the first time in public that I have been able to do so.  I attempted to explain myself to the press.  The press had garbled versions of Red Ronnie.  Goldstone Commission and if you want to dignify those other Commissions with the name Commission, Pickhard set up by Gqozo and the Ciskei Police.  All three Commissions didn't get in touch with me, not even Goldstone.  They gave me no chance.  Goldstone gave me no chance to come forward.  If I was so controversial and they were asking that I should be censured by the ANC I would have really had expected them to call me and say please give us an account of what you actually did.   So my coming here today is a personal experience for me as someone who now personally comes to understand the wonderful role of this Commission in giving us the opportunity, whatever it is that we may or may not have done.  I have been filled with anger and intense regret that a peaceful march ended so tragically with such senseless and needless violence and my heart and thoughts go out to all the families of the bereaved and I'm saddened by the fact that my friend Oswald Mafa who was with us this morning, has been left paralysed but one is strengthened by his incredible courage and fortitude.
 These were the people who followed our leadership, who followed my leadership and to this day I truly agonise over my own decision as a leader of that group that was fired upon first.  I accept in a profound, moral sense that I was an element in the events that culminated in the massacre and it still haunts me that perhaps we could have done more to avoid that terrible outcome, but in all honesty if we had known that the Ciskeian forces would open fire on us, we would never have taken those risks.  
 We did not imagine that Gqozo, as cruel and desperate as we regarded him, would dare react with such brute force, particularly at such a public event in the eyes of the world's media, and one can only speculate on the forces and the individuals who may have encouraged Gqozo, and I'm sure that there are forces and individuals who encouraged him, to make him feel that he could defy, defy civilised and right thinking people of the world in this way.  Those people certainly share responsibility with him and today, as always happens in history, they have dumped him like garbage and we see that in fact, Minister Gqozo, Brigadier Gqozo was nothing but a little pawn in the game, just as his soldiers were nothing but smaller pawns in the game.
 With the benefit of hindsight, some might say that our decision was a tragic miscalculation but at the time, such a possibility seemed improbable to us, particularly since our stated objectives and our visible conduct was so clearly non-violent.  Should we have taken the risk at all?  Although I have a military background as a member, a commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe, our approach on the march was motivated by a Ghanaian spirit of civil disobedience.  Not that that was something new and superficial to us but we had used this in this country up to Sharpeville and I quote Ghandi's statement  
 'Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or, which is the same thing, corrupt and where non co-operation with evil is as much a duty as co-operation with good.'
 Archbishop, I mentioned how I became involved at the time of Sharpeville, I hadn't read this then.  I wasn't political, I hardly read, I was one of these silly sports mad young whites.  I came to read this later but this was what I felt, this was in my heart at the time of Sharpeville and I felt that I had to take a stand then against evil.  If I didn't then it was, if I didn't, then I was really guilty as every white would have been and had been in this country, who didn't become involved.  
 We believed this non-violent mass action which we came to use in this period after the ANC's ban was lifted, was in that great tradition of Ghandi, Lethuli, Martin Luther King and others, and we believed it could end the evil of Gqozo's despotic regime.  We felt this was possible in the Ciskei at the time, given the changes in our country.  We took, we prepared to take certain risks because we believed in the cause of freedom and could not aqueous in tyranny or tolerate oppression.
 For several decades, black communities in particular, together with Coloured and Indian and a few brave whites, resisted the brutal system of apartheid with the full knowledge that they courted imprisonment, torture, public beatings and death.  In the Ciskei on the day of the march, tens of thousands braved that risk because they wanted freedom with a deep passion.  The alternative is submission and that is simply intolerable.  I therefore emphatically reject the assertion from some quarters that the leadership of the ANC should have refrained from engaging in non-violent action in the Ciskei or elsewhere at that time and throughout our history because such action might lead to violence by Pretoria and its surrogates.
 It is absurd to shift responsibility to those who engaged in non-violent action and who were in fact, the innocent victims of that violence.  I found it very moving when we came back to King William's Town ten days later and we had, with Reverend Finca here and others, a memorial and the burials and we had Doctor Amelio Castro, head of the World Council of Churches, there.  He made a statement that really inspired me at this time of feeling of such misery, when he said the tyrants always try to blame the leaders of the people for the massacres.  The blame clearly rests with those who pulled the trigger and those who ordered the killings, the CDF and the regime of De Klerk.  
 If we are truly to have reconciliation and it is to be more than merely a word, then we are duty bound to uncover the truth.  Whilst the ANC took collective responsibility for its role, I do not seek to evade any objective inquiry into my conduct.  I have particularly wanted to dispel the impression created in some sections of the media, that I led an independent break-away from the march.  I think you have heard from others that it wasn't Red Ronnie deciding something on his own and I am very gratified to the ANC for always having made that clear.  I am gratified that comrade Smuts is here to be able to say he was there, he took part in the decision.
 I leave it to the imagination as to why the press liked to focus on me.  I emphatically reject this allegation and I claim it is clearly politically motivated to a degree and as it is intended to suggest that I knowingly and wilfully led innocent people to their slaughter.  Even if I had intended to do that, which I did not, I would have hardly led from the front and placed myself directly in the line of fire.  When this invidious criticism was levelled at me, the ANC and those we led, stood by me including President Madiba and I value beyond expression, that support.
 I am sincerely indebted, Archbishop, to the TRC for inviting me to make this submission here today and I thank you for having given me this opportunity.  If you will bear with me I would like to say a few words about the Ciskeian soldiers who opened fire on the march.  An irony of this rainbow nation of ours, as you've coined it Archbishop, is that with all the strange things happening, Raymond Mhlaba now here at Bisho where Oupa Gqozo used to laudit.  Here I am, a Deputy Minister of Defence in this democratic government and I have a responsibility to the soldiers of this country including them, and to the members of former SADF who trained and commanded them, we are creating a new defence force of seven former antagonistic forces, and we can only do this on the basis of reconciliation, which is vital to the well being of our society and our future.
 Can we blame any of the, any individual in their rank?  I've had to meet them, old SADF, former Ciskei.  I've been to the barracks here at Bisho.  On tour of inspection with Minister Modisi, trying to create this new defence force which must defend and guard the freedom and the sovereignty which the Archbishop referred to, and I have had to grapple with my conscience.  They were products of an evil system that conditioned them to fear the manifestations of democracy and they were programmed to believe that we were devils incarnate.
 As I have mentioned, they must have been worked up as to believe that we were a threat to their lives.  As recently as this past Friday I visited Defence Headquarters here in King William's Town and through the Commanding Officers, I encouraged them all to seek indemnity because they did commit a heinous crime.  They must expunge their guilt by telling the truth and seeking forgiveness from their victims.  They can shed light on what actually happened and need to be encouraged to seek indemnity because this is the key thing.  They have been afraid to tell the truth.  And I have been told stories about this officer and that commander and this one who is suicidal and this one who is drinking himself to death, and I must tell you that I have feeling for them, which is why I am making this statement and I have sent back this message to tell them they've got nothing to fear if they come forward.  But that's not the only thing.  It's not the only thing in creating a new defence force because anyone in our new defence force now must demonstrate by their actions as soldiers that they wish to serve and protect the people of our country and our democratic system.
 We must never again have a South African Defence Force or security that is used as a repressive instrument against our people or as an aggressor against our neighbours.  We owe this to those who perished, to those who ... End of Tape 9, Side A.