TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 2

Subsection 2

OVERVIEW OF APPLICATIONS

9 . A N C - related amnesty applications far outnumber those from other protagonists in the political conflict, yet it can be seen from the figures that the number of applications was not large, fewer than a thousand in all. It is of some interest why people did or did not apply for amnesty.

Loyalty to the ANC

10. One reason ANC members gave for applying for amnesty was that the very idea of a South African truth commission originated from within the ranks of the ANC. Hence, many ANC applicants expressed a desire to participate in the amnesty process in order to support the new democratic government and its programme of political and economic transformation.

11. Yet, although the ANC had promoted the idea and led the legislation through parliament, the party appeared divided on the issue. Some of its leadership stated publicly that ANC members need not submit amnesty applications, on the grounds that the ANC had engaged in a just war against apartheid. Finally, following a meeting between the Commission and the ANC leadership, the ANC agreed to persuade its members to submit amnesty applications. This opened the road to substantial numbers of amnesty applications from MK operatives, as well as the ‘collective responsibility’ applications by ANC leadership figures.

Desi re for reconciliation

12. For others, amnesty applications represented a commitment to reconciliation. Mr Frans Ting Ting Masango [AM7087/97] told the Amnesty Committee at the Pretoria hearing on 8 June 1999:

We are all South Africans and the past should remain what it is, the past. There should be that reconciliation. We should go forwards with our lives and try to build together South Africa. That’s why I basically applied for amnesty.

13. At the same hearing, Mr Neo Potsane [AM7159/97] expressed himself thus:^{1 1 3}

Well I want to put it this way now, when this idea of Truth and Reconciliation now first came into this country and was in actual fact adopted, I’ve always supported it. I supported it because I felt we cannot stand at one place pointing fingers at one another, looking at the past as something that is – should dominate our lives … I felt that was the opportunity that I will never let … pass me. I had to jump in and actually now also extend my hand of friendship to the victims or the people that suffered because of my actions in pursuit of democracy and I’m happy today that I’m here, sitting here explaining my actions so that you know, other people can understand why I did those things.

14. Some operatives expressed a wish to take responsibility for their actions, particularly towards their victims. In Pretoria on 14 June 1999, Mr Lazarus Chikane told the Amnesty Committee:

My motive for being here is to actually show that the family finally knows who actually was part of the activities of eliminating their brother, their parent, their father and for that reason, I felt motivated to come here, simply because it wouldn’t have been fair on them not to know who actually carried out this attack on their father. For that reason I feel that because there was no (indistinct), there was no investigation, or suspicion against me, it really touched me deeply, to have to come out and expose myself, to say I was part of that type of activity.

Criminal and civil action

15. Many ANC members and MK operatives had already served prison terms and even spent periods on death row for the offences for which they sought amnesty. Some who had received indemnity from criminal prosecution during the early 1990s wished to avoid or prevent possible civil claims that might be brought against them.

16. Some who had already faced convictions and punishment expressed a desire to have their criminal records expunged, although many applicants appeared unaware of this dimension of the amnesty process.

17. Although few amnesty applicants for MK actions in the period 1960 to 1989 appear to have been motivated by fear of prosecution, political violence between 1990 and 1994 was the subject of ongoing prosecutions during the life of the Commission and provided a genuine incentive for amnesty applications. A number of ANC members had been sentenced to prison terms in the post-1994 period for incidents relating mainly to SDU activities or the political conflict in KwaZulu and Natal, and made amnesty applications as sentenced prisoners. Where charges were pending or trials were in progress, cases were suspended pending the outcome of their amnesty applications.

Problems experienced by MK operatives applying for amnesty

18. The dissolution of MK as an organised formation and the disintegration of its networks made it difficult to trace operatives. The Commission’s founding Act, the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, Act 34 of 1995 (the Act) required individual applications, and MK operatives were faced with making the d i fficult decision of whether or not to apply for amnesty – separated as they w e re from their former comrades, operating without structures of any kind and trained in a culture of underground work and secrecy.

MR LALLA: What you must take into account, that now we were at home, there was no Umkhonto we Sizwe, there was no structure, there was no command and control. We are now left on our own to pick up the pieces. How do I have responsibility of an individual when the structure legally has folded? (Durban hearing, 4 April 2000.)

ADVOCATE BOSMAN: And do you know whether anybody else in that group had applied for amnesty at all for this incident?

MR MDLULWA: I don’t know, because we are all over South Africa, we are not communicating with each other. (Johannesburg hearing, 22 May 2000.)

MR BUHALI: When the thing of the TRC started, first I was not fully briefed as to what is going to happen considering the TRC, and when I made the application I had not met my Commander then because I did not know his address . (Johannesburg hearing, 13 July 2000.)