TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 2

Subsection 16

Skirmishes with police

149. Skirmishes with police usually occurred when operatives were in possession of weapons and wished to avoid arrest or were being pursued by police.

150. Mr Wilson Mokotjo Sebiloane [AM1701/96], a former COSAS activist, left South Africa to join the ANC in 1986. On 25 May 1991, one month after his return fro m exile, his vehicle was pulled over by the police. Fearing arrest, he attempted to shoot his way out, injuring both police officers. He was captured, convicted and sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment. Sebiloane was granted amnesty [ AC/1997/0035] .

Possession and distribution of arms and ammunition

151. Thirteen applicants applied for amnesty for the possession of arms and ammunition, while another seventeen applied for the infiltration and supply of arms.

Shell House shooting

152. Perhaps the best-known case involving ANC trained personnel in this period was the shooting outside the ANC headquarters at Shell House and its offices at Lancet Hall in Johannesburg on 28 March 1994. The event, in which IFP marchers were shot dead by ANC security guards, took place one month before the first democratic elections of April 1994.

153. Ten ANC security personnel applied for amnesty for the Shell House shooting, and three applied for the shooting outside the Lancet Hall offices. Two of the latter subsequently withdrew their applications.

154. Although it is clear that the applicants believed that they were under attack, the Amnesty Committee found no evidence of an attack on Shell House by the IFP m archers. Objective ballistic and medical evidence indicates that the shooting was without justification as most of the deceased were shot after they had turned back. The applicants admitted that they might have shot at the marchers as they were running away. All eleven applicants were granted amnesty [AC/2000/142].

SELF-DEFENCE UNITS 1990–1994

Background to self-defence units

155. In the period 1990 to 1994, self-defence units (SDUs) emerged in many urban townships in the PWV, Eastern Cape, Transkei and Ciskei, Western Cape, Orange Free State and in both urban and rural areas of KwaZulu and Natal. In the PWV and KwaZulu/Natal, the SDUs clashed primarily with the IFP. Elsewhere, a range of localised conflicts involving different protagonists took place. These included clashes with gangster and vigilante groupings (sometimes linked to the IFP), with more anonymous groups and with the police.

156. As violence engulfed many areas, it became increasingly clear that communities could not rely on the security and legal structures of the state to protect and defend them. As a result, many felt compelled to take steps to protect themselves. At the Durban hearing on 1 December 1998, amnesty applicant Jeff Radebe [AM7170/97] argued that:

These self-defence units in fact were imposed on us, by the inability of the security forces that were supposed to protect our people. Instead of protecting our people, they were the ones that were guilty of atrocities against our people. As a result we had no choice but to make sure that we assist our people in defending themselves. I believe that it is a right of anybody in South Africa to defend himself or herself when attacked. That is the background against which we operated as the ANC.

157. The ANC submission to the Commission is frank about the direction SDU activity took:

B e fore long there were two kinds of SDUs in existence: genuine community defence groups, and violent gangs presenting themselves as ANC-aligned SDUs … Some SDUs became little more than gangs of criminals at times led by police agents, and inflicted great damage on popular ANC aligned-community structures.

158. Then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki told the Commission that:

t here was a basic assumption … that there would be in those communities local political structures, local structures of civil society strong enough to be able to constitute these committees that would then take charge of the self-protection units. I’m saying that was an assumption … when that didn’t happen and we moved in a different direction, its clear that we should perhaps have reviewed the matter of that control but we continued to proceed as though you could as ANC arm the units and surrender them to these local civil and political struc t ures to control. An attempt was made to keep an eye on them. I am talking now from the national leadership, from headquarters, and there are instances where we had to intervene when there were all sorts of crazy things that were planned. It may very well be that we should recognise that the situation having changed from the original conception we needed to have taken steps in terms of a con trol which would be consistent with the changed circumstances, but there was a carry through of a particular concept of self-protection units which was perhaps then not founded on reality with regard to the control and so on within those communities. (Oral evidence at HRV hearing on ANC.)

159. It is probably in the supply of weaponry by MHQ that the strongest case for a link between the ANC and SDUs can be made. According to Mr Ronnie Kasrils [AM5509/97; AC/2001/168], the ANC established an MK unit to assist in arming the SDUs. The unit was made up of himself, Mr Aboobaker Ismail [AM7109/97; AC/2000/153] and Mr Riaz Saloojee [AM7158/97; AC/2001/128]. This unit created DLBs (‘dead letter boxes’, or arms caches) in the areas badly affected by violence – including Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Vaal Triangle, East and West Rand, Eastern Cape, Ciskei and the Western Cape. Kasrils liaised with other MK personnel including Mr Jeff Radebe in Natal, Mr Robert McBride [AM7032/97; AC/2001/128] in the East Rand, Ms Janet Love [AM5509/97; AC/2001/028] in the Transvaal and Ms Felicity ‘Muff’Andersson [AM6210/97; AC/1997/0057]. Mr Chris Hani also played a crucial role in passing on DLB diagrams and sketches to those responsible in the areas concerned. All of these persons applied for and were granted amnesty. According to Kasrils, the supply of weapons to SDUs throughout the country had ceased by the end of 1993.

160. Aside from three applications from KwaZulu and Natal, the Amnesty Committee dealt with applications from MHQ personnel administratively as they were not directly linked to gross human rights violations. There is, as a consequence, little detail available on the quantities of weaponry involved, the frequency of handover or the subsequent management or retrieval of such weaponry. There are indications that the distribution of weaponry to SDUs by MHQ was done in a fairly limited way. According to then Deputy President Mbeki, who gave oral evidence at the human rights violations hearing on the ANC:

T h e re was not a big massive distribution of weapons by the ANC or MK to ordinary cadres, there wasn’t. As that violence from 1990 onwards was mounting one of the strongest demands that came from within the constituency of the ANC was arm the masses. Many of us sitting here had to do very stormy and rowdy and heated meetings contesting that, saying that there are no masses that are going to be armed. But it was a demand to say here we are, you people in the midst of all of this violence you decide to suspend armed action and therefore you demobilise or deactivate MK, and then here we are being killed, and where are the weapons, arm the masses so that the masses can defend themselves. As I say, that many of us sitting here participated in many public meetings where this demand was made very strongly and then we said no, there a re no masses that are going to be armed because we are concerned about the consequences of arming everybody. … As a movement we resisted the notion of a rming too many people.

When weapons were distributed by people from MK … they were in fact distributed to specific people. It was not like sort of handing out sweets in the street, and clearly the people to whom those weapons would be given would be people that in your best judgement are people who have got the necessary political capacity and the discipline to handle those weapons properly.

161. This assertion is to some extent borne out by the amnesty applications received from MK Command personnel and operatives. Testimony from amnesty hearings indicates fairly strongly that SDUs acquired the majority of their weapons fro m private sources¹⁵² and not from the ANC.

162. Although the ANC kept its distance from the command and control of most of the SDUs, it was forced to intervene in several instances when SDU structure s drifted into criminality or internecine conflicts.