Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — 1997-05-16

CHAIRPERSON: Dumisa Ntsebeza.  I also have just a small -I appreciate very deeply your candour and I also am very deeply committed to the principle of self-determination, it is part of what drove us as well, and I have been very saddened in many ways that there has been so much insensitivity about Afrikaans which is one of the reasons why I wore a Springbok rugby jersey and said I would support the retention of a Springbok.  I think I mean that it is very insensitive and in a way unnecessary for someone to say the name of this other province is going to be only it's English name.  I think I mean that there is no necessity for - it's gratuitous.  I appreciate what you have said about the insensitivity as it were of those who sought to force down the throats of others what they thought was good - you used the word here which you were looking for - trusteeship.
 But I want to understand, we would like to understand in terms of the history, having characterised your people as you did, as religious, as caring and concerned and being so committed to self-determination, the corollary of that should have been that just as much as we Afrikaners, ethnic Afrikaners want to be able to determine for ourselves the things that we hold dear, so we must give space, allow space to others.  Now you say that that in fact didn't happen in that way.  It was unilateral decision.  And I would like to understand why did it take, as it were, so long for such a people to support a party that was doing something that was quite in fact contrary to the principles of self- determination?

GEN VILJOEN: Chairperson this is a very good question and I have tried to refer to that often in my evaluation of the Just War principles in this situation.  I have said that at least in three decades of conflict we should have had a few real good opportunities or chances or efforts to find each other and to stop the warring.  I would like to say that I accused the NP for deviating from the original intention of the Afrikaner, which was not to govern over others but to govern over itself.
 Then I would like to say Chairperson, that this had taken place already in the early eighties.  In the early eighties already it was actually the conservative part of the Afrikaners that started to look for an alternative and the idea of the Volkstaat or the idea of self-determination was being developed from the 1980's onwards and we had people in such a, or organisations such as SABO(?), really working towards finding a new solution, a just one, admitting that the present situation in South Africa is unfair, and that we need to find a new situation.  
 But I have also accused the National Party for being power-hungry.  And I think that the road that they have walked along this idea of power-sharing is a demonstration. They have started in 1983 with the idea of power-sharing in the tricameral parliament.  They have in 1985 they have had a congress in which they decided South Africa is going to be one country, one citizenship etc, yet they organised the tricameral parliament in such a way that they would still retain the power.  You see what I am saying that they were power-hungry.  Already then there were some conservative people, not all of them I admit, but conservative people saying that there must be another solution, we are too greedy, we shouldn't accept the whole of South Africa, we should now consolidate into a smaller part of South Africa and find ways and means in which we can concentrate our people there and allow the rest of the country to carry on and we will participate with them economically and in the ways that the normal society of a diverse nature would operate.  So already at that stage it had been started.
 In 1992, when we had the referendum, it was only really after 1992 that the major part of the conservative Afrikaners, I am referring to the Conservative Party, had made the final decision to go for this idea.   
 But the concept of justness in South Africa, the concept of finding a place in South Africa for everybody, the concept of sharing the country in a way that the other people will have a bigger share, that has actually been part of the thinking of the conservative part of the Afrikaner.
 And as I have said to you today I am not power-hungry. I have no intention to try tricks to expand my party.  I am sticking to my basic principle of what I have been elected for, and if the situation changes, yes, then I can have another look at it.  Or if I get other people such as I mentioned the Vendas, or whoever might come forward, the Griquas or people saying look here we want to join this idea of yours, then we will find ways of accommodating them, because we are not a party of apartheid Afrikaners, of exclusivistic approach towards the Afrikaners, we are a party for self-determination, and those people that were joined in this concept of self-determination we welcome to approach us and we will gladly work together with them.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  General Groenewald.