Amnesty Hearings — Vosloorus — 1998-11-24

CHAIRPERSON: You see Mr Kasrils, the application thus far I don't ...(indistinct) it's going to change, is based on the concept and notion of self defence, defence which in ordinary terms carries with it criminal implications and criminal law requirements.  Now I'm not suggesting that that is how it operates but we have had evidence in respect of this event that at the very least there was a perception that whenever there was a funeral procession of people belonging to a particular political party or community and that on their return they leave in their wake the bodies of dead people which they didn't pick up at the cemetary that they were, right?  But they killed those people and the victims so happened to be members or supporters of the opposition political party and there had been a pattern that had developed.  This attack on this funeral procession was not an attack on the first funeral procession they had and given that scenario would you consider the attack on this funeral procession in those circumstances as having violated the code set down by the decision makers?

RONNIE KASRILS: Okay, I think if we're now talking about a funeral procession on it's way back, we therefore perhaps are looking at ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: The question is that the pattern was that on the way back the members of the procession would leave in it's wake these dead bodies and injured people but on this particular instance as I understand it, the attack was launched before that group even reached the cemetary with a view, with a vision of what's going to occur when they return.

RONNIE KASRILS: Yes I think that that's really putting it in the context and that's understanding the motive of those who carried out the attack because what I was reminded of as you were speaking Judge Pillay, one needs to remind oneself of the events.  These events were so varied and dramatic in those days that generally after a funeral and I'm referring here particularly to those of say hostel dwellers.  They would from a cemetary come through the township and they would come through many different streets, there might be a main body of people, the procession would have broken up, people would be in side streets, some would go into houses on the way back to a hostel and attack people.  I thank you for reminding me because this happened over and over again and ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Just in case people think I'm putting words into your mouth, that was the evidence.

RONNIE KASRILS: I say you're reminding me of this because when we cast our minds back to that period this was happening on virtually every weekend and if you were in Soweto or Thokoza or so on a weekend it was a most frightening experience as one expected at any moment to be attacked and you never know where it was coming from and very often danger, security was at it's gravest post these funerals because you would have the attacks that we've both now referred to.  So I can understand a motivation for an attack beforehand perhaps the motivation being let's strike first, let's deter first and let's teach these people a lesson.

ADV DE JAGER: You could say a preventative attack?

RONNIE KASRILS: I think - precisely, it's preventative retaliation and of course there is that aspect in the military as well.

ADV DE JAGER: Ja and on the other hand one could other understand, sitting back now, that people coming from a funeral having just buried one of their own people, perhaps a mother or a father that's been killed by the opposition, they would be excited in a sense they would be worked up at the funeral, emotions and they would come back and attack so we have this vicious circle in those unfortunate days?

RONNIE KASRILS: Judge De Jager I would agree with you about how a cycle can develop but I really would be failing in my duty as a citizen of our country and somebody who did see so much of these events and try to study them and I'm saying this as an individual now, not as a member of the ANC.  I think any historian looking at those events would see that the violence and the cause of the violence was really preponderantly on the side of the people who emanated from the hostels and not from the communities, that it really stemmed from that cause and I am saying that I understand too how hostel dwellers felt and how the security forces of the day indeed going back to 1976 played on the fears and the isolation of the hostel dwellers but I would really stand up in any company and argue that the preponderance was very, very much from the other direction and when we look at those who died, ninety percent or even more of the casualties were from the people living in the townships, the community, in other words rather than from those fortresses which the hostels were at that time which were receiving people coming from areas, their home areas to actually come to these areas in order to participate in the activities that we're discussing.

CHAIRPERSON: In your study or looking back in history, maybe it's an obvious answer, I don't know, were you able to categorise the hostel dwellers as opposed to the community into political allegiances?

RONNIE KASRILS: I think it's very clear that they were aligned to the then Inkatha group, that that's where loyalties were, that's where connections were and many of the court cases sentences such as Captain Mitchell of Trust Feeds, the Operation Marion of the Defence Force, the training of the Caprivi people, the TRC revelations have all, I would say, shown that in the most unqualified way and of course the experience of the people living in the townships, was that that's where danger came from.  I know when I would come into Thokoza and Catorus, Vosloorus and I came in on a number of occasions for funerals, to speak at meetings, sometimes to meet with self defence unit people and talk to them, that coming into this area was into a war zone and the danger and the fire and the bullets were coming from where the hostels were and the dividing line was as was shown to you this morning, was it Literary Street?  Sorry, Khumalo Street as we saw in the map.  So you felt physically the threat coming from that line of hostels on the other side of Khumalo Street.

CHAIRPERSON: I want to raise something with you seeing that you investigated this historically and it's just a theory that crosses my mind and I do so for the purposes of comparing.  It seems to me that in this area and other areas north, maybe Natal, that whoever was manipulating all of these things had the opportunity and so to say tools to develop these unacceptable practices when in fact it was an attack really on the anti-apartheid forces.  In other sections of the country like Eastern Cape, such tools did not exist and therefore the security police had to do their own dirty work as is being admitted to these days.  Do you see any comparison between the two?