Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — UNKNOWN

DR BORAINE: Mr Chairperson the point I wanted to make was slightly different and that is that precisely because violence begets violence, because in wars civilians, innocent people are hurt and killed people avoid war. I think we all agree on that one. None of us like war. In terms of the Geneva Convention, to take it one step further, provision is made for movements whose cause is just to engage the oppressor, to use shorthand because I don't want to be too long on this. But it goes on to say, and it's a convention which the ANC had signed, it goes on to say that even though that is allowed for where human rights violations take place, which includes the killing or injuring of innocent people, civilians, that movement has to accept both moral and political responsibility for those actions.
Now my understanding is, which means that I think we ought to actually move on, because my understanding is the very fact a number of your leading people are applying for amnesty is not to say that the liberation struggle was wrong, but to acknowledge that in the pursuit of that mistakes are made, tragedies occur, and all I am concerned about, I think the Commission is concerned about, is that there is an acceptance of responsibility where it does occur and that there is accountability, because that's what the Commission is there to try and establish.
I would have thought that the whole thrust of this is really that the ANC, both in its first submission and its second and in its willingness to apply for amnesty is saying yes, we accept accountability for that, and if that can be confirmed I would be grateful so that we could make some progress.

PREMIER MATTHEWS PHOSA: (?) Chairperson I thought our further submission deals with exactly that, where we re-state our policy and we say in such cases where there are obvious violations we regret, which it's there in black and white in our submission. And I want to go back to give you another example of the bomb which exploded outside the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court around 1986, and you look at the sequence of events there, and you tell me if this is a type of soldier who is up to an indiscriminate bombing. He explodes a very small charge to attract the members of the security force to come to the big charge there, they converge there, and then he explodes a big charge and he causes a certain amount of damage. Now that is not a terrorist operating that operation, it's a person whose politics are correct, who understands that the targets are not civilians but the people who are enforcing an evil system. I am giving you that example for the record because it's a classical example in the history of our armed struggle which shows the care which was taken where this man could have just exploded both bombs and killed civilians.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Maharaj.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: In case there is any misunderstanding, the African National Congress unreservedly apologises to all civilians who lost their lives, whether in cross-fire or any other circumstances our aim has never been to attack civilians. And whatever the intensity of the struggle where civilians have died, we believe that it is appropriate that in our country today, in the interests of reconciliation and unity that we should apologise, and we do so.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very, very much.

MR VALLY: I want to talk further about the two lists. It's in the second submission, Appendix 4 page 72, list of MK operations, and Appendix 5 page 102. And I want to specifically talk about Appendix 5, page 102.
"Armed actions for which target category and/or responsibility is uncertain".
there is first a research note, and then the sentence goes on,
"In addition we are uncertain as to whether these attacks were carried out by bona fide MK cadres. Some appear to be the result of the operational difficulties, others very probably false flag operations".
I am reading the head-note to that, it's on page 102 of the second submission. Surely the ANC can at least indicate which bombs it is responsible for and which bombs may be the work of, as is put, "a false flag operation"? How can there be such a broad band of uncertainty? In this period we are talking about limpet mine and bomb attacks in 1985 in department stores in Durban, nightclub in Umlazi, a tourist kombi in central Durban. There were a number of other explosions in 1986, the Carlton Hotel, other hotels, nightclubs, supermarkets, shopping centres, Wimpy Bars, bus terminuses, this whole series of attacks and the response we've got is, we're not sure. It may be just agent provocateurs or it may be our cadres. Bearing in mind that there were command structures in each province, can't we get more certainty?