Special Hearings — Conscription Hearings — 1997-07-23

DR NATHAN: Good afternoon Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen.
 I've been invited to do a presentation on the End ConscriptionCampaign since the ECC was disbanded some years ago I obviouslydon't speak on anybody's behalf but offer some personal reflections. I was involved in the founding of the End Conscription Campaignin the early '80's.  I subsequently served as National Organisersof  ECC in 1985 and '86 and after that for a short period wasChair of ECC in Cape Town.   Currently I am Director of  The Centrefor Conflict Resolution at the University of Cape Town.  
 The War Resistance Movement in South Africa began in earnestin the late 1970's although there were in fact some precedentsduring both the world wars where conscientious objectors tooka stand,  but in terms of the apartheid era the War ResistanceMovement emerged in the late 1970's following South Africa's invasionof Angola in 1975 and the Soweto uprising the following year. It manifested itself in a number of different forms one of whichwas a group of conscripts going into exile where they joined theANC some of them and formed COSAW, the Committee on South AfricanWar Resistance with the aim of raising international  awarenessabout the role of the SADF and providing support to objectorsin exile.  
 At more-or-less the same time the South African Council of Churchespassed a landmark resolution declaring the SADF was defendinga fundamentally unjust and discriminatory society and the resolutionalso challenged Christians to become conscientious objectors. A small number of conscripts heeded this challenge and were imprisonedin military detention barracks.  The Conscientious Objectors SupportGroup, which we refer to as COSG, was established to support thesemen and campaign on their behalf.  
 The Government's response was to amend the Defence Act in 1983. The amendment offered a limited and punitive option of alternativeservice and also increased the penalty for conscientious objectionto a maximum of six years in prison.  The length of compulsorymilitary service for White men at this stage was a total of fouryears comprising of two years continuous service followed by annualcamps of thirty, sixty or ninety days thereafter.  If Governmenthad hoped that this amendment to the Defence Act would crush thenascent War Resistance Movement, the draconian measures in facthad the opposite effect.  
 At it's annual conference in 1983 the Black Sash made the firstcall for an end to conscription and shortly thereafter ECC wasestablished.  One of the particularly exciting things about thecampaign at the time was that we were a broad coalition, we hadwithin our ranks English and Afrikaans-speaking people, we hadschool pupils, University students and parents.  Some of us regardedourselves as liberals others as radicals, Marxists, pacifists,Christians, humanists we had rock musicians, poets, artists andall of these different sectors were able, through the ECC, tocampaign against conscription in a way that they felt comfortable. So we had traditional political activities like mass meetingsetc, but we had rock concerts with the title "Rock againstthe Rattel", the Rattel being a name of a military or policevehicle.  We built sand castles on Clifton beach in the shapeof the Castle in Cape Town, the police came onto the beach inuniform middle of summer, can you imagine Clifton beach, plicecame onto the beach in uniform with their boots and broke downthe castles.  
 In the streets of Pretoria early one morning we tied yellow ribbonsto trees and street poles as an effort to make the point thatwe were calling for troops out of the townships, out of Namibiaand out of Angola, and before the ECC activists were arrestedthe police climbed up the trees, up the poles to untie the yellowribbons.  
 We were serious about what we did but I simply make the pointat this stage that we were engaged in a kind of political activitythat was dynamic and creative.  We had a sense of purpose butwe pursued that purpose having fun in the process.  
 I want to read the ECC Declaration because it sums up the missionof the campaign.  
The Declaration is headed towards a just peace in our land, aDeclaration to end conscription.  We live in an unjust societywhere basic human rights are denied to the majority of the people. We live in an unequal society where the land and wealth are ownedby the minority.  We live in a society in a state of civil war,where brother is called on to fight brother.  We call for an endto conscription.  Young men are conscripted to maintain the illegaloccupation of Namibia and to wage unjust war against foreign countries. Young men are conscripted to assist in the implementation anddefence of apartheid policies.  Young men who refuse to serveare faced with the choice of a life of exile or a possible sixyears in prison.  We call for an end to conscription.  We believedthat the financial costs of the war increases the poverty of ourcountry and that money should be used rather in the interestsof peace.  We believed that the extension of conscription to Colouredand Indian youth will increase conflict and further divide ourcountry.  We believed that it is the moral right of South Africansto exercise freedom of conscience and to choose not to serve inthe SADF.  We call for an end to conscription.  We call for ajust peace in our land.  
That was our Declaration of Intent and it captures neatly theobjectives of the organisation.  
 We set up ECC and we pursued our campaigns for three principalreasons. The first was a matter of conscience, in conscience wewere not prepared to take up arms in defence of apartheid againstfellow citizens.  
 Secondly, we sought to actively contribute to the struggle againstapartheid by opposing conscription and the role of the militaryand this obviously had particular political sensitivity.  Thesystem of legislated racialism, White rule rejected by the majorityof South Africans necessarily relied on extensive use of forceto maintain and perpetuate the system.  The role of the defenceforce and conscription were therefore of critical political andstrategic importance to the apartheid Government, and by challengingthat system we believed that we could contribute to the struggleagainst apartheid and our involvement was also significant preciselybecause we were White.  We had students at Afrikaans-speakingcampuses and members of the defence force who would say to usthey regarded us as worse than the enemy because we were traitors.
 And thirdly we sought to contribute to non-racialism throughour campaign.  The African National Congress and it's internalallies sought to make the point, in the course of their campaigns,that the struggle in South Africa was not a struggle between Whiteand Black, it was a struggle between justice and injustice andthat the end goal was not to replace White domination with Blackdomination but to establish a just and non-racial society.  
 The point was made further that non-racialism could not simplybe a goal, it also had to be part of the process.  So throughour involvement we sought to demonstrate to both the White andthe Black community that not all Whites were racist and some ofus at least were committed to a struggle for justice and peace. 
 The significance of these objectives and the high profile natureof our campaigns led to extensive State repression.  We were subjectedto merciless vilification the thrust of which was that we weretraitors, cowards, mommy's boys, as Magnus Malan once put it,that we were in bed with communists and that we were part of therevolutionary onslaught against South Africa.  
 There were also numerous acts of physical harassment, ECC memberswere beaten up, we had petrol bombs thrown into our homes, themotor vehicles of ECC activists were tampered with, brake liningcut, wheel nuts loosened.  It emerged subsequently  that a numberof ECC activists were on the hit list of the Civil Co-operationBureau, the CCB and during the state of emergency in 1985 roughlyseventy to eighty of our activists were detained.  The youngestof them was seventeen years old and the eldest seventy five yearsold.  Some of the activists were interrogated by military intelligenceothers by the security police, some were not questioned at alland not one was tried.  
 In 1988, following the successful court action against the defenceforce, and following also the stand of one hundred and forty threeconscripts who collectively announced their refusal to serve,the ECC was formally banned and it was really only with the liftingof the ban on the ANC that we were once more operative.  
 Were conscripts victims or perpetrators?  In particular wereWhite conscripts who served in the defence force victims or perpetrators? In my view there is no neat clean-cut answer to this question. The conscripts who served in the defence force were clearly bothvictims and perpetrators.  On the one hand they were subjectedto relentless propaganda about the virtues of White Christiancivilisation and the evils of Black communism and terrorism. Many conscripts served willingly because they believed the propaganda. They were also victims in the sense that they were subjectedto physical brutality during their basic military training andsome of them suffered and continue to suffer post-traumatic stressespecially where they were deployed in combat situations.  AndI see on the programme that you will have speakers talking aboutpost-traumatic stress. 
 On the other hand these conscripts who served were actively engagedin defending apartheid and maintaining South Africa's illegaloccupation of Namibia and Southern Angola, many of them committedatrocities.  Under international humanitarian law the Geneva Conventionin particular, they are personally liable for their actions. The excuse that they were obeying orders is not regarded as alegitimate defence in international law, but  of course thosewho issued the orders and those who sanctioned the abuse of humanrights by members of the security forces bear special responsibility. Personally I have a measure of sympathy for members of the securityforces who have been abandoned by their former political and militaryleaders who gave the orders and supported the activities whetherdirectly or tacitly.  
 You may recall for example that the 1986 State of Emergency Regulationgranted indemnity from civil and criminal prosecution to any memberof the security forces for actions committed in good faith.  
 The ambiguities and contradictions in being both victim and perpetratoris captured in two statements that were made by conscripts inthe mid '80's and which I would like to read, and it's these statementsthat do contain offensive language but I think the statementswould lack authenticity and integrity if I censored them.  Thefirst statement was made in 1985 by a national serviceman whowas describing his experiences after four months of joint police/armyoperations in the Eastern Cape.  He wrote at the time.
"I will never forget my first patrol in a Casspir.  The Casspiris the police vehicle of choice in the townships, huge brutishmachines loaded with a plethora of weapons and equipment, invincibleand inhuman in scale.  We entered one of the sprawling Port Elizabethtownships and began our run as in a bad dream, through the mazeof streets, buildings, shacks and people.  The policemen expressedcontempt at the rubbish and dirt around them but they keep theirlitter to dump in the township, throwing refuse out of the vehicleat pedestrians minding their own business.   The streets are fullof activity.  There is a funeral of one of the persons shot bythe police and vehicles overloaded with Blacks roar back and forth. The policemen respond to the chance and clench fists with shoutsof abuse and of White power.  We move on to a less crowded areaand the cops keep a watch for members of the media especiallywith cameras.  We come upon a bakkie loaded with children andyouths who show us the clenched fist salute.  The cops go intoaction and the bakkie is overtaken and forced to stop.  The pileof Black bodies spill off in all directions as the cops tumbleout of the back of the Casspir in pursuit.  Shortly they returnin triumph with their catch, a boy of about ten, who they arehitting and slapping as they drag him into the vehicle where theycontinue to slap and punch him while he recites 'weet niks baas,weet niks'.  The pneumatic steel doors shut and the vehicle movesoff.  They force the boy to slap himself by telling us you won'tshow Black sign again in a hurry, and this for me is the centralimage of the time, the small Black boy with wild frightened eyesbut no tears slapping himself and a sudden stream of bright bloodappearing from his nose and dropping from his chin onto the carpetedfloor of the Casspir.  
A few blocks later we pause and the boy is dumped.  For the firsttime I look at the other army guys and only one shows any discomfort. On the faces of the others I see only a leer.  Well-meaning peoplehave imagined the young police and army members sitting in theirvehicles as fearful, confused somehow as deserving of pity andunderstanding as the angry mobs outside rally round.  Even I havenever been afraid sitting in this huge powerful vehicle behindthick glass and steel.  The majority of my peers are not afraidor confused they are in turn bored and excited.  They want action,they are callous, they are enormously arrogant.  Action, especiallyfor young National Servicemen is often a thrill, an ego trip. There is a tremendous sense of power in beating someone up evenif you are the most put-upon dumb son of a bitch, you are stillbetter that a Kaffir and can beat him up to prove it."
 The second statement by a conscript was published in a journalcalled Frontline in the mid 1980's and I'm reading an extractfrom that, again to make the point that we need to understandconscripts who served both as victims and as perpetrators.  Thisconscript wrote:
I haven't got sorrow and pain about what we did up there. (he'sreferring to Northern Namibia and Southern Angola)  Some of thethings were stupid I can see that now but it doesn't cause megrief.  We weren't so bad.  One time we were at a Kuka shop drinking,when we went back to base we found that three of the okes weremissing.  We went back to the shop and found that they were goingwith a woman there, they were like raping them.  We beat themup, they were lowering our name.  There was a lot of rape, wehad some low guys with us.  Some of these guys you couldn't understand. You didn't know what they were fighting for.  Me, I was fightingfor the protection of my country, I was fighting to stop the terscoming down.  Sometimes you think what the hell the ters are alreadyin Soweto anyway so what's the diff.  I don't suppose it willever end.  It will go on until the Blacks get the vote and thenwe're the fuck, but you go on fighting because you think you cankeep things lekker like now for a few more years.  Also when you'rethere you're sommer fighting, you aren't thinking about what you'refighting about, you just know that there are some ous on yourend of the rifle and other ous on the other side.  If we saw awell-built Kaffir we'd know he was a ter.  If he had soft feetthat would prove it beyond doubt at least if we were out in thebush because who else wears shoes.  We'd interrogate him and ifhe was stubborn he could have some trouble, maybe we would tiehim to the front of the Buffel and do a little bundu bashing. Feel it?  Why should I feel it, I wasn't on the front of theBuffel.  Sometimes they shout and shout and complain and thenwe have no choice we have to finish them off.  Sometimes he'sfinished off before we stop driving then we just untie him andfarewell.  I feel no skaam.  Now and then I have dreams.  Abouttwice in the last six months I woke up shivering and sweatingand thinking about what might have happened to me, but it hasnot changed my life.  Sooner or later the Kaffirs are going towin but I have helped keep us going for a few more years." 
 If we view conscripts who served in the defence force then asboth perpetrators and victims what can be said of the conscriptswho refused to serve?  It's important I think to acknowledge thebravery and the suffering  of those who went into exile and thosewho were imprisoned for their beliefs.  Nevertheless we do notregard ourselves as heroes, we did what we did because we sawno alternative and we certainly do not regard ourselves as victims. Whatever hardships we endured, they were small compared withthe life experience of Black people and the brutal treatment metedout to Black activists.  So today we harbour, as those who refusedto serve,  neither a sense of resentment nor any sense of selfrighteousness.  
 I want to end by addressing the question of how in the lightof this history we should manage the past and I want to addressthese comments in particular to the White community.  The Whitecommunity tends to take one of three positions in this regard. First they say the are shocked by the revelations of the TRC,had they only known about the atrocities at the time they wouldsurely have objected.  This is a self-serving myth.  It is patentlydishonest to claim to-day that any of us were unaware of apartheid,unaware of forced removals and pass laws, unaware of deaths indetention or unaware of the killing of children in our streets. 
 The second response from the White community is that, well weknew what was happening and we did everything in our power toobject.  This is also a myth.  The truth of the matter is thata tiny minority of Whites voiced any opposition and then mostlyin conditions of relative safety and comfort, an even smallerminority of Whites participated directly in the campaigns, inthe daily struggle of the Black community.  
 The third position comes from Whites who say, let bygones bebygones, rehashing the past will only perpetuate divisions andinhibit reconciliation.  Let us concentrate instead, they say,on building a new future.  In my view this position adds insultto injury.  It's a monumental deceit.  Whatever the individualtalents and efforts of Whites our lives of privilege to-day arethe product of a grand historical act of theft.  We stole theland, the labour, the dignity, and in countless instances, thelives of the Black people of our country.  The majority of Blacksstill live with the consequences and the majority of Whites stillenjoy the fruits of our acts of violence.  The past is present,it is present in our suburbs and in our townships, it's presentin our individual and national psyche.  White domination may havebeen eliminated in the political arena but it still prevails atan economic level and in forums like Universities and the Mediawhich have a powerful impact on the ideas and the debates of broadersociety.  
 White racism is alive and kicking.  It no longer takes the formof legislated supremacy but it continues to manifest itself incrude and subtle ways.  The most insidious is the assumption thatWhite values are universal and by implication superior to thoseof other groups.  The most offensive is the endless complainingabout corruption, inefficiency and falling standards, this isone of the bad jokes of the new South Africa.  The previous Governmentset unsurpassed standards for corruption, incompetence and neglect. 
 There is a  fourth position which is seldom heard and which Ibelieve is the appropriate response.  The White community shouldconfront it's pervasive racism, and stare our ugly history andit's long shelf life in the face.  We should acknowledge collectiveresponsibility for our efforts and our acquiescence in constructingand maintaining a wretched system of discrimination, exclusionand repression.   To invoke theological terminology we shouldconfess and engage in meaningful acts of contrition.  
 These acts of contrition could take many forms, establishingor funding memorials like those which commemorate the holocaustin Nazi Germany, funding bursaries for Black students or basicfacilities for pupils, providing medical supplies to amputee hospitalsin Mozambique and Angola, church actions such as fasts and others,training in respect for human rights and multi-cultural diversityfor teachers and pupils.  These are only some examples.  Theseand other actions are forms of reparation but it's critical thatthey are undertaken, not as charity, but in partnership with Blackcommunities.  
 If the end conscription campaign existed to-day I would proposethat we issue stickers for distribution in the White communitywhich said stop complaining, start building and I would suggestthe RDP office that they put out stickers for distribution inthe White community that say, get with the programme.  
 Let me say in closing that Whites who interpret this argumentto mean that they should become passive and sycophantic have misunderstoodthe nature of the challenge.  The challenge is to become self-criticalnot uncritical, to acquire some humility, not be submissive, tobecome empathetic, not paternalistic.  The challenge has nothingto do with self-flagellation or wallowing in guilt, it has everythingto do with accepting responsibility for our actions and our lackof action.