TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 7

Subsection 6

■ THE PROBLEM OF PERSPECTIVES

45 It is important to state from the outset that emotions may run high when considering the actions of perpetrators, and that perspectives may differ sharply, leading to difficulties with reconciliation. Some will tend to blame, condemn and feel bitterness towards perpetrators while others are able to demonstrate empathy, understanding, sympathy or even praise for those who did some of these deeds. Given the divisions of the past, such varying perspectives towards perpetrators from the varying sides of the struggle are not surprising. It is neither simple nor easy to take a neutral or wholly objective stance towards perpetrators of evil deeds. Nevertheless, this part of the report needs to provide an understanding of dreadful deeds, without condemnation. At the same time, as Browning, a leading Holocaust scholar, puts it: “Explaining is not excusing, understanding is not forgiving”⁵ . The Commission, in this chapter, is seeking to fulfil its objective to –

… promote national unity and reconciliation in a spirit of understanding which transcends the conflicts and divisions of the past.⁶

46 In an effort to grasp and understand, rather than to condemn or excuse the actions of perpetrators, it is important to be aware of difficulties of perspective.

The problem of perspectives

47 The Act makes a clear distinction between “the perspectives of victims and the motives and perspectives of the persons responsible for the commission of the violations”⁷. Baumeister, in a recent major study⁸, describes this as the “magnitude gap”: the discrepancy between the “importance of the act to the perpetrator and to the victim”. This magnitude gap has a number of features:

a The importance of the act is usually far greater for the victim. Horror of the experience is usually seen in the victim’s terms; for the perpetrator it is often “a very small thing”.

b Perpetrators tend to have less emotions about their acts than do victims. This may be illustrated in the recent book by Vlakplaas operative Colonel Eugene de Kock⁹, where repeated acts of violence are described in a matter-of-fact manner:

I continued to shoot at him. He finally fell down dead.

Nortje shot him in the temple … he died instantly.

I took the decision to kill them because I was convinced they were armed.

We beat him very badly and for a long time. He was a broken man by the time we were finished.

I shot him with a .38 Special revolver. He died instantly.

The body was destroyed … Mabotha was utterly blown up.

I reduced the charges to about 60kg to 80kg. They were placed in the cellar. The explosion shook Johannesburg and we celebrated at Vlakplaas with the Minister of Police, Adriaan Vlok. [On blowing up Khotso House.]

c The magnitude gap manifests in different time perspectives. The experience of violence typically fades faster for perpetrators than for victims. For victims, the suffering may continue long after the event.

d Moral evaluations of the events may differ: actions may appear less wrong, less evil, to the perpetrator than to the victim. While victims tend to rate events in stark categories of right and wrong, perpetrators may see large grey areas.

e Discrepancies exist between victims and perpetrators regarding the question of motives and intentions, the crucial question of why? Victims’ accounts show two versions, one which emphasises sheer incomprehensibility – the perpetrator had no reason at all – and the other which presents the perpetrator’s action as deliberately malicious, as sadistic, as an end in itself. By contrast, the vast majority of perpetrators, even if they admit wrongfulness, provide comprehensible reasons for their actions, and almost never admit to being motivated by sheer maliciousness or the wish to inflict harm as an end in itself.

48 This perspective gap may be illustrated by the case of Mr John Deegan, a former member of the Security Branch and a Koevoet operative responsible for various atrocities. In a testimony dated 30 June 1996, he reports as follows on the recent death of his father:

He was cold-bloodedly shot dead and his murderers escaped. I cannot come to terms with his death in that it was a senseless act of violence in the pursuit of greed. This is the first time that my family and I have come so close to experiencing the horror of violence so directly in this country.

49 Here is the perspective of the victim. But this is the same man who, in a report dated 23 August 1993, appeared as perpetrator, a Koevoet member in then South West Africa, dealing with a wounded SWAPO¹⁰ operative:

Even at that stage he was denying everything and I just started to go into this uncontrollable rage and he started going floppy … and I remember thinking “how dare you” and then – this is what I was told afterwards – I started ripping. I ripped all the bandages, the drip which Sean had put into this guy … pulled out my 9mm … put the barrel between his eyes and fucking boom … I executed him. I got on the radio and said to Colonel X … “We floored one … we are all tired and I want to come in.”

50 From the point of view of the victim, violence is a “senseless act” and he experiences it with horror (the first time he claims to have had such an experience), yet as the perpetrator he has reasons and strong emotions, even expressing outrage (a moral stance) at the apparent defiance of his captive. The magnitude gap is a discrepancy between two quite different and irreconcilable positions.