Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-28

MS HASSEN: Thank you.  The second question - I won't mind if you can also respond to it - but I will be happy, it comes from Mr Cachalia's statement, that is page 2.
 Where you say by mid 1985, you have described as narrow as to what was happening there, you talk about young people, how they formed groups of street patrols, hunting down other trouble makers and hooligans and vandalism, basically you have described young people who were survivors or victims at the time, but who had survived, and then you end up by saying all the township residents were horrified by the disorder and the challenge to their authority by these young thugs.
 I am just interested in that, as a person who as you said, who have always been, especially at this time, you are a human rights activist, many people as you would know, have struggled as to how to label the behaviour of the victims of the apartheid system, from the children's' rights movements, the youth formation under the leadership of Sheila Sisholepe and many conferences, book have been written by people like (indistinct), and many others, people have struggled as to how to name the victims of the apartheid system, and here you just refer to them as youth thugs and I am interested in your reaction on that.
 For us the relevance of this is that we have a section where we have looked at children and youth, we have had special hearings on that.

AZHAR CACHALIA: Can I just explain that, if you look at 6.9, I am saying that a commentator described it in the following way.  I would use perhaps a bit more sensitive language, but the situation in the community, you had in the late 1980's, and this was happening not only in Soweto, in different parts of the country, we began to get very worried, there were people's courts springing up, people were being sjamboked at KwaMashu and the Eastern Cape, I mean things were getting bad.
 We were feeling that can we control the situation any longer, can we direct the struggle?  So in a sense what happened is the more responsible people in the community, the older people, began to take a step back and here you had these groups of brutalised people who were beginning to inflict some of the pain that they have learnt, torture methods, used on themselves in jail.
 They come out and started repeating what they have learnt.  So I think that is what I am trying to capture around what was happening, but yes, there were children.

MS HASSEN: Okay, I accept your explanation, but I had problems with that because really, many people who worked closely with those children, didn't see them as thugs.  They felt we had a moral obligation to understand where they are coming from.
 Then in 6.10, that is the third question, you refer, you say this was the climate in which Mrs Mandela created her own personal vigilante gang, Mandela United Football Club.  I am very much interested in your opinion, both of you, as people who worked closely with young people at that time.  I have been sitting here, really with interest because it has got implications for our Commission work, the majority of people who have suffered are young people, whether you look at it by years or by age, as to the vigilante groups became a national phenomena.  In Pietermaritzburg, at a certain point, it was said they are  (indistinct), but they were there, all over, and they did exactly the same thing.  I wanted just to understand here, you know, how did this differ?  There is a question in the Section 29 which look at the formation, and that for me hasn't been answered.
 As to how did these, the 6.10, which you referred to them as Mrs Mandela's personal vigilante gang, you said you worked with Mr Sithole from Natal and then other UDF people, how were they unique?

AZHAR CACHALIA: Sorry, who said that?

MS HASSEN: I should think it was Mr Morobe?

AZHAR CACHALIA: I think you are referring to Mr Gomede?

MS HASSEN: I am sorry, I didn't want to say Archie, that is why I am confusing the name, Mr Gomede, so it is like you have a national picture, but how did this differ from what other young people were doing in other areas?

AZHAR CACHALIA: Chairperson, the notion of a vigilante invariably it starts around a certain specific issues that concerns, it could either be an individual or a group of people, and that they think that the way to deal with it, is to act in certain ways.
 Now, in certain instances there are noble reasons for why people do the things and organise themselves in a certain way, but in the nature of the environment through either infiltration by the Security Police, you then have a situation where especially where there is a significant lack of political direction and infusion, into that group in terms of what their main focus is, they then slowly degenerate and become an entity that starts fighting, even against the community, within which they are in fact located.
 Now, for me, the question that arises in terms of your question, is the relationship, because if you look at the Witdoeke, you know in the Cape and if you look at Ama Africa and all the others, at some point it became part of the government strategy to actually create those kinds of forces because they then exploit some of these small problems in the localities and one of our concerns at that point, has been the extent to which we feared that this particular Football Club, could be turned and actually could become part of that element that the State can use.
 So in a sense what I am saying then, I don't know whether I am answering your question, but to say that the relationship here, it is in terms of the kinds of activities that they began to be involved in, that we reported and spoken about.  The fear that the community began to have of this group, was actually akin to the feat that any other community in other parts of the country had fears of vigilante whether they were the Witdoeke or the Ama Africa.

MS HASSEN: And the last question Chairperson, really it relates to the recommendation that you made.  Again, looking at it from how young people in particular, got involved at very tender age.  Most of them can't even articulate the political context under which they ended up getting involved in gross human rights violations.
 As I have said, most of them have not even applied for amnesty and they killed, they abducted people, they tortured, I don't know how is this going to assist us as a Commission to achieve our goals, looking at it purely from the majority of people who are affected, the youth, that they should be prosecuted?

AZHAR CACHALIA: Well, I mean you raise an interesting question.  You know, I think that as we begin to build our democracy, one of the things we have to do, is to assert accountability and responsibility.
 And it may be unfortunate that some people, through no fault of their own, missed the cut off date, through no fault of their own, do not apply for amnesty, but at some point in our history, we are going to have to say that people have a sense of responsibility for what happened.  Because if we don't say that, then I think as we go forward, there are going to be many who say well I can do these things, because comrade X or comrade Y did it, and got away with it.
 So, in a sense there has to be a tidying up process, people don't have to go to jail, but there has to be a tidying up process, there has to be a sense of responsibility, accountability and then we move forward.
 I think if it just stays out there, I think it is very dangerous.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Dumisa?