CHAIRPERSON: I am going to ask Mr Malan to assist you with your evidence and also for you to take the oath.
MR MALAN: Can you please raise you right hand.
JOHANNES STONE VAN DER MERWE: (Duly sworn in, states).
MR MALAN: Thank you and you may sit down. Mr van der Merwe you are going to talk to us about a hand grenade explosion at a roadblock by which you were, where you were involved and perhaps if you can just speak into the microphone for sound purposes then you may now proceed.
MR VAN DER MERWE: It was approximately ten o' clock in the morning and it happened on the road to Barberton. We stopped a car and we were told to watch out for a specific vehicle because they had AK47's in them. We did not know specifically which vehicle to look for though. We stopped a vehicle and when this person stepped out with the bag in his hand we saw that there were AK47's in this bag. He started hitting us and whilst we were concentrating on this specific one did the one who was hiding in the minibus. My friend saw the hand grenade and he tried to get rid of this by means of slapping it out of the way. This hand grenade then detonated, it exploded and I was hit in my hip.
This incident happened two weeks after my mother died. I was just trained as a Storeman, but as part of my camp I had to go out as a soldier. After the incident I asked to
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be reclassified because they did not know that I was not allowed to be there. I said that I was a 4K. After that I tried to enquire again, but they said that my folder had disappeared. At that stage my wife had already undergone two neck operations. We wrote a letter and have asked to be reclassified and said that my wife needed me. I just felt that the Defence Force was a bit irresponsible at the time. People were just able to walk past and even people who just lived in the nearby vicinity got injured. I, at that stage, was blinded in my one eye. I also had problems with my hearing.
The way by which they treated my wife was also not fair. I phoned them, in fact they phoned her and said that your husband was in an accident and that is all I really have to say.
MR MALAN: Is there anything else you would like to add?
MR VAN DER MERWE: I do not know if the new Defence Force is going to be a little bit more cautious, but I would just like to say to them that I would like them to be a little bit more cautious.
MR MALAN: Mr van der Merwe, your evidence is very interesting. We have read your statement before and as it appears to me to come forward, I gather the following. You were called up to do duties in the Defence Force. You were called up to do your National Service. You were sent out to do a task and which the Defence Force saw in the bigger picture as their battle against this bigger force. In a sense you were one of the doers on a side of the other people who were doing things before. The people on the other side who were also the victims, victims of the Defence Force was therefore in, clearly on duty and they were
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clearly busy with one or other offensive deed and they were, at the same time, also victims, but according to me is the whole picture just one conflict by which the actors involved were both offenders of human rights violations and also victims of what happened. Have you ever really thought of it in this sense and when I paint this picture to you what do you think of that? I am very sorry for the long explanation, but I do not how else to ask you this question.
MR VAN DER MERWE: I just feel that sometimes you get given orders and, for instance, with us we were told, you have to do it, you cannot pull out of it. So the same applies to people who came and, towards us. They were also given tasks and orders and they were told you will do this. It is like they told me in those days, if you are not going to report for duty then you will be locked up.
MR MALAN: Are you, do you have any bitterness?
MR VAN DER MERWE: No, I do not and all I am saying is that people must be very careful.
MR MALAN: You also said that we received orders. How did those orders come through to you? Was it locally?
MR VAN DER MERWE: Well, apparently they received a fax. I am not sure how it was received, but.
MR MALAN: My question is really who are these people?
MR VAN DER MERWE: We had a Captain overseeing us.
MR MALAN: So you are referring to the Captain of the unit where you were involved?
MR VAN DER MERWE: Yes.
MR MALAN: Are you saying that over the years you have healed?
MR VAN DER MERWE: Yes, but just subsequent to that I have suffered major nightmares.
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MR MALAN: Thank you very much Mr van der Merwe. I have no further questions, but my colleagues might have.
MR MANTHATA: ... aims of the people you were with in that vehicle that day. That is your fellow staff members.
MR VAN DER MERWE: Yes.
MR MANTHATA: Thanks. Did you ever make efforts to know the names of the people that you met with in that sort of a combat?
MR VAN DER MERWE: Yes, I did.
MR MANTHATA: That is even the ones who were killed?
MR VAN DER MERWE: Yes, I did, but they never ever came back to me.
MR MANTHATA: What I mean is those Africans who were, that is whether you call them, the ANC or the freedom fighters, that you had to contend with, that you had to, did you ever know their names?
MR VAN DER MERWE: They only on one occasion said the one that was shot and the one that had escaped. He was a sharp- shooter. They did mention their names, but I have forgotten their names.
MR MANTHATA: Yes, thank you. My, the thrust of my question here is that we are at a stage where we are saying the best way to survive all those traumas, part of that would be to know the names of the people that people at one stage considered enemies and this is one of the exercises of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bring those who were once enemies together. No further questions. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Mr van der Merwe. As Mr Malan has already indicated, your statement was a very interesting one for us. We read it with a lot of interest precisely because it summed up in many ways the nature of
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the conflict and also reminded us of what the exercise and the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is about. It is the conflicts of the past and that means looking at it in, as an all-sided, many-sided conflict. We are very appreciative of you coming forward because we think that it is, that there, perhaps, is a perception out there and a wrong perception that the Truth Commission is simply about apportioning blame and victimising and persecuting those who were either in the service of the police or the army because that was in the service of apartheid, but the work of the Commission is not that at all. It is to actually understand the conflict out of which we have come so that we can learn lessons and, hopefully, never repeat those mistakes again in the past.
So, hopefully, your testimony will be an encouragement to others who were in similar situations who were also victims and perhaps also even perpetrators as Mr Malan has pointed out. So we are very grateful and especially also that you have indicated that you have no bitterness, that you have come to terms with it and you understand what has happened and that is all you, that the main reason that you are coming to the Commission is to share those experiences so that in the future these types of things, in the army, do not happen again and that people are a lot more careful with how they deal with soldiers and the orders that they give and the instructions that they give. I realise that there is an awesome responsibility in that situation. So thanks very much for coming forward.
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