TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 8

■ TOWARDS THE RESTORATION OF HUMAN DIGNITY: PERPETRATORS

33 Reconciliation meant that perpetrators of gross human rights violations must be given the opportunity to become human again. Ms Cynthia Ngewu, whose son was killed by the police in the ‘Gugulethu Seven’ incident, confirmed this crucial insight. At the forum on Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Economic Justice in Cape Town on 19 March 1997, Ms Ngewu was asked how she saw the notion of reconciliation. She responded as follows:

Ms Ngewu: What we are hoping for when we embrace the notion of reconciliation is that we restore the humanity to those who were perpetrators. We do not want to return evil by another evil. We simply want to ensure that the perpetrators are returned to humanity.

Ms Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela: Many people in this country would like to see perpetrators going to prison and serving long sentences. What is your view on this?

Ms Ngewu: In my opinion, I do not agree with this view. We do not want to see people suffer in the same way that we did suffer, and we did not want our families to have suffered. We do not want to return the suffering that was imposed upon us. So, I do not agree with that view at all. We would like to see peace in this country… I think that all South Africans should be committed to the idea of re-accepting these people back into the community. We do not want to return the evil that perpetrators committed to the nation. We want to demonstrate humaneness towards them, so that they in turn may restore their own humanity.

34 Similar sentiments were echoed at the amnesty hearing of Mr Brian Gcina Mkhize, a former Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) hit squad commander in the Esikhawini area on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast. Mr Mkhize was serving a life sentence for two murders. He applied, together with six other members of a Caprivi-trained hit squad, for amnesty for more than fifty-six incidents of violence. At the amnesty hearing in Richards Bay, Mr Mkhize drew attention to the need for the many IFP and ANC “foot soldiers” who committed gross human rights violations to “become human again”:

We represent IFP prisoners in reconciliation with ANC prisoners… There are a lot of people who are in prison who are responsible for actions similar to ours. But organisations today are not interested in those people. They are speaking about peace processes, but are not concerned about the foot soldiers who carried out these activities…

We need counselling because this affects you mentally, psychologically. Nobody has come forth to suggest how we can get this counselling; how the element of criminality can be rooted out; how we can become human again.

35 Testimony to the Commission underlined the profound challenges faced by perpetrators and victims in the light of the violations perpetrators had committed against their fellow human beings. The restoration of their dignity would be a painful and difficult process. The following testimony was given at the gross human rights violations hearings in East London:

Ms Bawuli Mhlawuli: After my father’s death, we went back to Oudtshoorn. That’s where my mother was teaching. There was this particular morning when we were all sleeping in one room... they would just kick it open you know, and my mother just thought there was nothing else she could do. She just went to open the door. She led them into the house, and as usual they came in and were searching for things that we didn’t know. They came across one big poster titled ‘Freedom Now’ and they took it. And they saw some sympathy cards from people who were very sympathetic and sent the stuff from all over the world… This one policeman whose name was Kroeter, he came across those, and he was making fun of them saying, "Dit is die kaarte van die doeie man" [These are the cards of the dead man], and they were kind of making a joke out of it, out of the death.

After that, this man Kroeter was like harassing my mother; he was screaming and yelling at her, asking whose belongings are these, why does she say everything belongs to my father? And my mother said, “because the stuff does belong to him”, and he doesn’t necessarily do what he does with her, because he was like barking, like talking to a dog. My mother said, "I’m a human being, so are you, so you don’t need to speak the way you do."

This man said, "The truth will come out one day", and that was very ironic because here we are today in the Truth Commission talking about this truth. And I mean I never expected him to say that because the truth that is coming out is based on him now, not us. We’re the victims. He’s the one that committed all this pain to us, you know. And after that my mother said, "I agree with you very much, I strongly agree with you. The truth is definitely coming out one day." And this man sat down, and for once ever since he entered the door, he sat down, and he asked my mother if he could smoke. My mother said, "Okay fine”, he could smoke. He lit a cigarette and he sat down and smoked. He looked quite withdrawn after that. And they had arrived at our house around about twelve midnight, and now it was around about six in the morning.

Mr Smith: So they were there for the whole evening?

Ms Mhlawuli: For the whole evening.

Mr Smith: Kept you out of sleep?

Ms Mhlawuli: Yes, and we never got to go back and sleep; we just had to get ready to go to school.

Mr Smith: How old was your younger brother at the time?

Ms Mhlawuli: He was three years.

Mr Smith: Three years! How was he affected by this?

Ms Mhlawuli: We used to go to town with my mother or just go out, but my brother, immediately he saw the policeman or a white person, or he saw whoever was non-black, he would say, "Here are these dogs who killed my father".