Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1997-06-10

UNKNOWN: My  two sons Garth and Lyle were very small when he died.  Garth was four and Lyle was two but they had to grow up with the knowledge that their father just wasn't there and when they were big enough they realised how he was accused of having died.  This happened twenty and a half years ago or lets say fifteen years ago and the climate was still such that his death did perhaps leave a bit of a slur on his name, people perhaps because of the situation the country was in people did perhaps (I don't know what they felt) but people most probably weren't as shocked by his death.  Some people  might even have thought he had it coming because George was a person who was very outspoken about his beliefs and he really was prepared to fight and to sacrifice for liberty and perhaps people felt that this is what actually happened to him.

JUNE CRICHTON: In coming to the Truth Commission what are your expectations as to how we will help you?

UNKNOWN: I would really like just to know what really happened that fateful day or that fateful period because over the years many of us, myself in particular and his family, his sister next to me here and his mother have agonised about how he must have suffered at the hands of the police at that stage and just to know for sure because we've always thought about the worst things which could have happened to him but just to be sure what really transpired at that point and of course how he actually died.  If it wasn't suicide then we would want to have his name cleared because George wasn't a person according to us who would have taken his life.  He actually prepared himself to be part of our liberation when it eventually came because he could never see that we would be in bondage for the rest of our lives.  He saw himself as being part of our liberation, part of the democratic process that we are going through at this stage.

JUNE CRICHTON: Thank you, so you are basically saying you're looking for the truth.  How would you fell and this is my last question to you if the perpetrators applied for amnesty and received it?

UNKNOWN: I would accept it because I feel that people wouldn't really come out with the truth if they really have the fear that they would be prosecuted, that is just human nature and if they can at this stage feel that to put our hearts at rest they'll come out with the truth  and then perhaps "get away with it" I wouldn't be very happy about it but I would accept it as just part of the process we are in.

JUNE CRICHTON: Pralene do you feel that you have completed your testimony to us, is there anything that you might want to say or your sister wants to whisper in your ear that you've forgotten?

UNKNOWN: No, I think I've said enough but if she want to add something ..

JUNE CRICHTON: We will need to swear her in if she does want to add something.  Would you like us to swear you in?

UNKNOWN: I will say something.

JUNE CRICHTON: Can you swear her in?  What is your full name?

UNKNOWN: Roseline Parrot.

REV XUNDU: Roseline Parrot would you kindly stand please.

UNKNOWN: (sworn states)

REV XUNDU: Thank you, you may take your seat.

JUNE CRICHTON: Thank you Mr Chairperson.   Right would you like to tell us  what it is you feel you would like to add to that?

UNKNOWN: Pralene did say everything that must be said but all I want to tell the Truth Commission is that we as a family would really just want to know what happened to George as it's still hard for my mother.  At the moment she's very sick and she's staying with me because she is so sick and sometimes I can hear in her voice that she's still talking about him and wanted to know but she said that the people must get amnesty as there must be reconciliation because George was the type of person ... when my father passed away he was like a father to us and he was like a husband to my mother and I would like to add that he wasn't the type of person that would take his own life because he was looking forward to the future.  He was the type of person that wanted to build a nation, a good nation.  That's all I want to say.

JUNE CRICHTON: Please convey our greetings to your mother and especially for her sentiments about reconciliation, we appreciate it and receive it, thank you very much.  I'll hand you back to the Chairperson now.

BONGANI FINCA: Pralene and Roseline, we thank you for sharing with us a painful experience which has stayed with you since the death of you husband for sharing the agony that you go through as you ask yourself what exactly happened and I want to say there are a number of people in this country who have experienced this occurrence of people who are said to have thrown themselves out of the windows of interrogation chambers and the question that lingers in their minds is did they  really throw themselves was the situation that they were experiencing in the detention cells or in the torture chambers was it so unbearable?   What exactly was happening that was so unbearable that they felt that they should throw themselves out of the windows or is the truth perhaps that they got killed and then were thrown out or were they thrown out in order to be killed?  Those are the questions which continue to remain unresolved in the minds of the people who have gone through this experience and now I want to say that there are a few of them, a few incidents of people who have just been reported to have thrown themselves out of detention, out of the windows of interrogation chambers.
 We share the agony with you and we share the call that you have made for the truth to be told by those people who are responsible for this, those who were responsible for detaining George and those who were responsible for looking after him during the period that he was detained and we share your call in pleading with them to tell us the truth so that we know.  
 We thank you for your story and more than thanking you for your story we thank you for the manner in which you shared your story I've not sensed any bitterness I've not sensed any anger any call for vengeance.  You've told your story with dignity and with grace indeed the dignity that belongs to a person like George who gave his life for the liberation of our land.  We convey to you our respect, we convey to your mother our respect and we just want you to know that to-day we salute George and we appreciate the fact that in the so-called coloured community there are people who even at that stage took the position that something wrong was happening in this land and it is to be corrected even if it cost them their lives.  Thank you very much.