Special Hearings — Armed Forces Hearings — 1997-10-07

MR MONDANE: Ja, it is a, what's-you-call, a sign of human weakness, that when examples are used, depending on the paradigms of people what, how they are thinking, they would choose certain or rather to capitalise on these examples. Yet, examples are simply there to establish or demonstrate a basic principle.
 But to isolate an example and ignoring the basic principle can prove to be unfortunate in the end.  So what we have been saying here, and even the president of the PAC, when he opened this, said it. But let me start with how the operations were carried out, again, for the sake of emphasis.
 That the political leadership in Dar-es-Salaam could only issue broad instructions and broad intentions and objectives of the liberation movement, in terms of the global situation that they were confronted with.  The military command or the military commission was an entrusted with the task of detailing this global perspective.  The political commissar, therefore, would use this as a paradigm for giving instructions to the commander.  The commander would simply carry out that - those instructions in terms of his skills, in terms of what he thinks is a strategic target or not a strategic target.   Now his package is still very, very broad, because he has got to hand this over to the regional commanders.  Subsequently from the regional commanders to the local commanders on the ground.  And we have indicated here, that from that level downwards, communication was very, very difficult. Not only communication but the level of skills seemed to deteriorate - rather as it went down towards the what's-you-call-it, towards the ground operatives.
 Now we have also indicated here well, we have given a broad assumption here, that the less information you have the more mistakes you are likely to commit.  
 Now I know - let me be specific, so that maybe we can put this to rest.  It is unfortunate that only these are selected. Nobody talks about Boiphatong, nobody talks about the incident - the incident that happened. I hope you will do that when you interview the SANDF. Nobody talks about those Africans that became casualties.  But we will accept.  We will accept the paradigm, because it is a reality and it is valid for those people who hold the paradigm.
 That the important, the important incidents are those that affect White people. It is unfortunate.  But it is a perception that we have.  The perception may be wrong, the perception might be right. But on a consistent basis we observe this in these hearings.  That those incidents that involve White people are highlighted.  We are not making these observations because of a racist paradigm, or a racist attitude, it is simply an observation that we make.
 I think here the specific examples that you want to concentrate upon, Mr Chairman, is the incidents of St James and the Amy Biehl ones. Maybe if we deal with them in sort of skirting around them, if we deal with them directly, we shall put this to rest and then you can deal with other things later on. So I will assume therefore, according to the paradigms that I have observed, this is the one that you are specifically concerned with.  
 Now on the ground you find that the local commanders have to choose their own targets.  Mr Mlambo has already said here that the contextual situation was the one that determined the kind of targets that the commanders on the ground used to choose. That is one. The second one, the frenzy that was in existence, especially in the case of Amy Biehl, in the townships there, was the second one.  Then there are other factors also that come into operation here, and the one that is paramount here is the level of skills, military skills, and also political skills on the ground.
 So it is within this context, therefore, that these targets were chosen.
 Now my president, when he opened here, said that he reached out to the Biehls.  I personally reached out to the Biehls when they were here.  I was very, very impressed with their kind of attitude, because they described the kind of situation of the death of Amy Biehl as a situation similar to a situation that a Red Cross operator would be confronted with.  A Red Cross operator goes into a conflict situation, not as a combatant, but someone who wanted to assist as in the case of Amy, but knowing very well in her mind, this Red Cross operator,  that there is a likelihood of being caught in the cross-fire there.  As it happened with Amy Biehl, she was caught in the cross-fire. She was caught in a situation of frenzy. 
 During the hearings here, being assisted by one of the Commissioners, the - rather one of the people that gave evidence, spelt out exactly what happened, blow by blow from hour to hour. Now that incident was caused by frenzy. There was no command whatsoever from APLA in that regard.  But it was this frenzy because what they had, what they had, these people, was the broad instruction.  Now combat Phitla here said earlier on that there were Whites who were with us, but unfortunately there were no labels put on their foreheads to say that they were working with us.
 So from the point of view, therefore, that the operatives on the ground at the very, very lowest level, Amy Biehl turned out to be a legitimate target, but in hindsight she was not.  My president said it here and I have said it several times, that we have reached out to the Biehls and when my president goes to the States, he is actually going to visit them to express the regret that we feel about specifically the Amy Biehl situation.
 The St James, what's-you-call-it, attack, also falls within the same ambit or the same rationale, that the local commanders chose the target in terms of the frenzy that existed, chose the target in terms of the psyche that existed within that area, and the psyche actually which was informed by the operations of the brutal apartheid system, where our people, innocent as they were, were actually attacked in churches, attacked in schools, attacks on the roads, attacks in - attacked in buses and churches.  
 So naturally, in a war situation you don't sit down and confer about these things, you react to them.  So this is a context therefore, that would like the Truth and Reconciliation what's-you-call-it, process to take into consideration.  That while we are sitting here and listening to each other, in turn, the situation was not the same there. Nobody was there to listen to anybody, to explain; you see now, I am going to attack a church, and these are the reasons and this rational.  There is no such thing in a war.
 So you find also that in other war situations there are many casualties that have happened.  Comrade Phitla has said already that we are not discounting the possibility of mistakes having happened, and mistakes have happened, and we acknowledge that these mistakes have happened.  The only thing that we are doing, both as APLA and as PAC, is simply to take responsibility for those mistakes, because it is through our own failings, the failings of our own structure, the failings of everything that is human, that causes mistakes. If we are going to stand here and be pretentious about our operations and pretend that we have not committed any mistakes, then we will be fooling you.  So that it is an honest position therefore, that we have expressed ourselves about the Amy Biehl situation.  We have expressed ourselves  about the St James' affair and we have outreached to them, and our president has asked to hold a service at the church, to show that we want to be reconciled with those people.  I don't know why we should spend this whole day and we don't have all day, to deal with other more important matters or equally important matters on this one example.
 Now let me emphasise again.  We say that we do not apologise for the struggle itself.  We did not say that we did not apologise for incidents or isolated incidents.  For the struggle itself, as a whole we don't apologise for it.  But we have expressed that there have been mistakes and for those mistakes anybody who is human would look upon those mistakes as a human failing and regret it.  But this does not supposed to mean that we apologise for the struggle, because we will never apologise for the struggle.