Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: We are ready to start.  Good morning ladies and gentlemen.  We are proceeding in the first section of today's hearings with submissions from the Forum of Black Journalists and I will straight away proceed to call Messrs Oupa Ngwenya and Mondli Makhanya.  If you could take the stand please.  I believe there is a slight change in the people.  You will introduce yourselves.  Most probably before you sit snugly and comfortably in those chairs, I will ask Advocate Potgieter to administer an oath to you and then we will proceed.
FORUM OF BLACK JOURNALISTS

ADV POTGIETER: Gentlemen, just before you do that, perhaps you can just, just give your names, just, when you switch on that microphone in front of you there is a red button.  If you touch that it will switch on.

MONDLI MAKHANYA: Okay.

ADV POTGIETER: So, can you, you just mention your names for the record before I administer the oath to you.

MONDLI MAKHANYA: My name is Mondli Makhanya. I am an executive member of the Forum of Black Journalists.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you.

UNKNOWN: My name is Abie Makue.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you very much.  Gentlemen can I ask you to rise, to stand please, for the oath.

MONDLI MAKHANYA: (Duly sworn in, states).

UNKNOWN: (Duly sworn in, states).

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you gentlemen, please be seated.

CHAIRPERSON: Let me just extend a formal word of welcome to you and to say that we are pleased that you have taken the opportunity to come and give us a perspective of the Forum of Black Journalists.  We have heard submissions from black journalists in the two days that we have been here, giving the perspective of the UBJ, of MWASA maybe there is something to be said again about the Forum of Black Journalist giving a perspective.  Commissioner Hlengiwe Mkhize is going to facilitate your submission.

UNKNOWN: I would also like to add word of welcome.  As the Chair has indicated that for the past two days we have had an opportunity of interacting with journalists from, coming from different perspectives. One of the things which has been raised time and again is the question of the training of black journalists which, I hope, in your presentation you will highlight problems that were encountered or hindrances to proper training of black journalists.  Also there has been a question of the relationship of the media and the State which has, yesterday clearly with one witness actually admitting that he, in the media room, worked closely with security forces or to be specific, to be exact that he was also employed in that capacity as well.  So, those are some of the problems which we think it will help a lot if you can address as well in your presentation.  Thank you.

MONDLI MAKHANYA: Thank you, good morning and thank you for giving us the opportunity to make our submission today.  The thrust of the submission by the Forum of Black Journalists and the Black Editors Forum is that the newspaper industry in this country played a pivotal role in the upholding of apartheid system and that it colluded wittingly with the apartheid system, with successive apartheid Governments to perpetuate the system of apartheid.  This it did by enforcing discriminatory laws within their own institutions, by using terminology and language which was ideologically congruent with the National Party Governments and in conflict with the various liberation forces in this country.  	As a result of that, the, organisations such as the ANC, the PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement were known as terrorist organisations and they were demonised by the press, by the various media houses in the country and they were called terrorists and organisations which were operating within the country such as the United Democratic Front and the Azanian Peoples Organisation were coined radical organisations and extremist organisations and this served to demonise these organisations and paint them as evil bodies.	Within these institutions there were separate amenities.  There were different toilet for blacks, different toilet for whites, inferior canteens for blacks and better canteen for white staffers and newspaper houses also served to implement pass laws, job reservation requirements and preferential employment practices in the Cape for instance.  We believe by doing so the press houses served as an extension of the apartheid State.  They did nothing to oppose these, they did nothing to show that these acts were actually unjust and immoral acts, they merely implemented them as was.  	We also say that they took sides, openly took sides, in the apartheid conflict by saying that, by allowing white males to go and serve camps in the SADF, by allowing white males to be police reservists and, on the other hand, immediately anybody among other black staffers or white staffers who took part in anti-apartheid activity was victimised. If you were detained you would either have your salary cut off while you were in detention, if you were jailed you would be fired while you are in jail.  We have in our greater submission details of people who were victimised in this manner, and we say that by doing so the media houses, both Afrikaans and English, took sides and said that this side of the conflict was the legitimate side and the other one was illegitimate.  They actively discouraged active opposition to apartheid among their staffers by basically saying that once you took part in such activity you were taking part in illegal activity, but whereas if you were actively involved in establishment politics you were not victimised at all.	What they also did was to oppose all the activities undertaken by anti-apartheid forces and liberation organisations in opposition to apartheid. They opposed the arms struggle, they opposed sanctions, they opposed consumer boycotts, they opposed the stayaways which were all acts which the liberation forces and the anti-apartheid organisations were using to crush the apartheid system and we say that by doing so they served to perpetuate the apartheid system.  The only alternative which they put forward was that there should be peaceful negotiations, but these were all parts towards such negotiations and by doing so they actually helped to maintain the system. 	With respect to the advancement of black staffers, black staff were basically used, they were used by the system, by the media houses, basically to be running boys. They were used to go and cover the stories in the townships, the ones that white journalist, maybe, could not do because they were possibly scared of going into the townships, but in so far as career advancement there was none whatsoever.  There you reached a certain ceiling at some point and the racism in those institution was highly entrenched.	The pay scales were also basically determined by your race.  White journalists always earned better than black journalists. In terms of how far you went in the corporation was also determined by your race.  Mr Chairman, various people who will come to the platform later in the day will give further details of this. I will take questions at this point.

UNKNOWN: Are you going to assist in answering questions or you are going to talk to the Commissioners as well, Mr Makue?

MONDLI MAKHANYA: He will assist in answering some of the questions.

UNKNOWN: Assist in answering the questions.

UNKNOWN: Thank you very much for giving us your perception of the past. If I may ask you, can you just tell us a little bit about the Forum of the Black Journalists as to when was it formed and the thrust of this forum.