Special Hearings — Political Party — 1998-05-06

MOHAMMED VALLI MOOSA: If I may just add to that.  You know we had always said to ourselves that nobody can administer a revolution in its minutest of detail and we didn't want to do that.  Everybody had a right to engage in the struggle, they didn't need the permission of anybody.  It was also not feasible for a group of people, two or three, getting together and say well we're going to necklace so and so, he's an impimpi.  To say: "Shall we write to Oliver Tambo and ask him can we do so, this is the basis on which we suspect that he's an impimpi.  This is the date on which and how we are going to do it" or write to the UDF head office or wherever.
 It didn't happen in that sort of way.  Many people rightfully assumed that it was their duty to engage in the struggle and they didn't need anybody's permission.  Some of the persons may say that because they were members of an organisation affiliated to the UDF, because you are asking them difficult questions, you are asking them: "On whose authority did you do this?, Where was the line of command, which organisation did you belong to"?  
 They didn't carry cards of the ANC you know, they weren't card carrying members of the ANC, who was?  So they were card carrying members maybe of a youth congress or a student congress or a civic organisation or of women's organisations so they say: "Well we belong to the UDF". 
 "Who in the UDF instructed you"?, they say: "Well this is how we understood".  And I think they would be quite right in saying that they had understood the general strategy of the liberation struggle, that of launching attacks on the apartheid system.
 The UDF of course would be quite correct in saying that all of our policies were non violent ones, we had no violent campaigns.  We only had non violent campaigns so we were quite right.  So one could - if one is to be very technical one would find a contradiction in that regard but if one has to look at it in a broader perspective there wouldn't really be that contradiction.   And I think the only test that you would have to come to is whether such an act was conducted within a cause of perhaps petty theft, maybe to steal somebody's motor car and somebody gets killed and then say that that was an act of struggle, that may not have been.  I think that is what really the amnesty process would have to test or whether it was in the minds of the persons a bona fide act or struggle.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ntsebeza wants to follow that up.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you, thank you Valli.  Would your admitted non response - and I'm not studying the Winnie Mandela trial all over again, hearing, wouldn't your admitted non response with our mystics and these ...[indistinct]  I mean, here is an activist who hears a leader of the stature of Mrs Winnie Mandela, saying the sort of thing that she said and you on your own admission did not have a uniform ...[indistinct]  I mean the ...[indistinct] I've heard is that as comrade Dazakachera said they were quite embarrassed by this but there wasn't sort of: "Listen, hear what she has said, that is not our policy".
 Now wouldn't that in the end have re-enforced in the mind of an amnesty applicant like he has, the fact that even political leaders at that level had indicated that this is the way to go.  And what, with the benefit now of hindsight would you say the Amnesty Committee should do in that regard?  Should they take that into account, to disclaim it as having been policy of the UDF?

POPO MOLEFE: Well I think firstly we must refer the Commission to the points made in our main submission.  Firstly that we have said that the regime itself was encouraging these acts of violence but secondly, that there was a deliberate and conscious decision by the regime to block any public statements made about necklacing.
 It's very difficult for us to say: "Ex-President Oliver Tambo, the late President Oliver Tambo made a statement", whether it was closer to the time when Mrs Mandela made her statement or not, it's very difficult to say so but there was a deliberate attempt to block that.  
 Secondly, ...[intervention]

MR NTSEBEZA: Comrade Popo, just on that point without cutting you short, your mouths were not gagged, you were inside the country, you were the political leadership, you could have made a pronouncement on that particular point.

POPO MOLEFE: Let me go on.  The second issue is that comrade Winnie Mandela at that time was not operating within the discipline of the UDF, she was not active in the UDF, she was not in the UDF at that time and therefore it would have been difficult for the UDF to take any steps to try and discipline her.  She was not on any structure of the UDF.
 Of course we are saying in our submission also that we have no recollection of any statement issued.  It may well be that the leadership at the time felt that we have previously issued statements on this issue, it is adequate.

MOHAMMED VALLI MOOSA: If I may just add, if the question is whether such persons could have inferred from the statement of Mrs Winnie Mandela at the time, that this is what is considered to be not only legitimate but required actions in the cause of the struggle then I would say: yes, I'm quite certain that some people would have inferred as such because Mrs Winnie Mandela was a prominent person, a prominent activist, certainly a prominent revolutionary.
 As comrade Popo says quite clearly she was not in the structures of the UDF, she was not a patron of the UDF, she never served on the National Executive Committee or anything of that sort.  
 We were also not apartheid policemen by the way, it was not for us to go around and say: "Well don't you attack the regime in this way, do it within these bounds".  We were not - we were really, we had our own programme of action and we were dedicated to doing that really, not telling people, trying to be watchdogs over others.  And that is why - I think the point I make about the liberation struggle and the liberation movement being broad, I think is an important one.
 And quite often the person on the ground engaged in action may not have in his or her own mind the fine distinction between one or the other, between how exactly structures work and how exactly decision making processes take place.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lekota?