TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 4

Subsection 1

Volume TWO Chapter FOUR

The Liberation Movements from 1960 to 1990

■ OVERVIEW OF VIOLATIONS

1 The Commission has analysed the human rights violations committed by the liberation and mass movements by grouping the violations in the following categories:

a Violations committed in the course of the armed struggle by armed combatants;

b Violations committed by liberation movements against their own members or against suspected spies or dissidents within their ranks, usually outside South Africa;

c Violations committed by supporters of the liberation movements in the course of ‘mass struggle’, primarily during the 1980s;

d Violations committed by members of the liberation movements after their legalisation on 2 February 1990.

2 The overall findings in respect of the liberation movements follow. Other findings are located in the text.

IN REVIEWING THE ACTIVITIES OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS (ANC) AND THE PAN AFRICANIST CONGRESS (PAC), THE COMMISSION ENDORSED THE POSITION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW THAT THE POLICY OF APARTHEID WAS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY AND THAT BOTH THE ANC AND PAC WERE INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED LIBERATION MOVEMENTS CONDUCTING LEGITIMATE STRUGGLES AGAINST THE FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT AND ITS POLICY OF APARTHEID.

NONETHELESS, THE COMMISSION DREW A DISTINCTION BETWEEN A ‘JUST WAR’ AND ‘JUST MEANS’ AND HAS FOUND THAT, IN TERMS OF INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS, BOTH THE ANC, ITS ORGANS THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL (NEC), THE NATIONAL WORKING COMMITTEE (NWC), THE REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL (RC), THE SECRETARIAT AND ITS ARMED WING UMKHONTO WESIZWE (MK), AND THE PAC AND ITS ARMED FORMATIONS POQO AND THE AZANIAN PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY (APLA), COMMITTED GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE COURSE OF THEIR POLITICAL ACTIVITIES AND ARMED STRUGGLES, ACTS FOR WHICH THEY ARE MORALLY AND POLITICALLY ACCOUNTABLE.