TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 5

Chapter 3

Subsection 7

53. The Commission based its findings on the evidence it received both through the human rights violations and the amnesty processes. However, partially because the UDF had already disbanded by 1991, and because no central structure existed to encourage amnesty applications, the number of amnesty applications received do not tally with the figures that the Commission received in respect of violations. The Commission received eighty-five applications, which included fourteen acts not considered to be gross human rights violations. The remaining seventy-one applications dealt with offences ranging from arson affecting government property to gross human rights violations in which people were killed.

54. Whilst it was not UDF policy to kill, there is no doubt that the targeting of certain individuals and their families for killing and arson involving their property was tolerated and encouraged in certain quarters. Some of the most shocking incidents took place during this era. Many organisations targeted those they regarded as traitors and collaborators. Police officers, councillors in the former local government, informers and their families were regarded as fair game.

55. For example, in the amnesty application of Mr Mziwoxolo Stokwe for the killing of Mr Skune Tembisile Maarman, Stokwe testified that COSAS identified Maarman as a police informer and stoned him to death. Later he was necklaced. Eight people including Stokwe were charged for his killing. Stokwe and his group also launched attacks on the homes of perceived collaborators, including a school principal and two councillors.

56. When Stokwe discovered that one of the comrades, Ntiki Fibana, had agreed to appear as a witness for the State, the group decided to deal with her in the following way:

We got information that Ms Ntiki was at her home together with the police with intention of removing her property. We rushed to the place and when the police saw the crowd they drove away, they left Ntiki inside the house. We took her out and set the house alight. Thereafter we stoned her to death and set her alight with the tyre on her neck. No meeting took a decision to kill Ms Ntiki, but we had to deal with the situation immediately as she was there during that conflict moment. After we killed, we had a meeting where we took a decision to cross the borders of South Africa, to Lesotho for military training and to join Umkhonto weSizwe.

57. Whilst these kinds of incidents are considered to be gross human rights violations, they need to be contextualised. At the time, the country was engulfed in violence in which the apartheid state was the primary actor. It had established covert units, including death squads, whose main intention was to assassinate those considered to be political opponents, and was using all its might to crush opposition. Youth were targeted and enticed into entrapment operations. It would have been quite impossible for the UDF leadership to control the violence and actions of groups within communities all over the country. While the leadership may have uttered words of restraint, it is unlikely that they would have been heeded. This context of violence gave rise to some of the worst excesses in our country.

58. In testimony before the Amnesty Committee, Mr Stokwe stated the following:

As a member of Cosas, when it was said that the country must be ungovernable, those were the means to try and send a message to the government. That is why we are in this present situation today. In a war, if you focus on a certain target and there are stumbling blocks in front of you, you would start with them because we would not be able to reach our goal because they were informers. So in order to reach our target, we had to start with them, so that was our strategy.

59. Amnesty was also sought for an incident in which a police officer, Mr Benjamin Masinga, was killed by members of UDF affiliated organisations. Masinga was taken from his house, attacked with sticks, stones, bricks and axes rendering him unconscious. He was dragged to a nearby school, was doused with petrol and was then set alight.

60. These and other incidents reveal that the perpetrators believed that they were acting under a broad political directive to eliminate those considered to be a threat to the struggle and the movement. In some instances they had contact with members of MK and the ANC but, even where this had been the case, they testified that they were not acting under orders. They saw it as their role to make the country ungovernable and to eliminate those who were perceived to be ‘collaborators’.

61. T here is no evidence of UDF leadership encouraging killing or the commission of gross human rights violations. It is also clear from the testimony before the Commission that they did not play an active role in the commission of gross human rights violations. However, the general clarion call that they made to make the townships ungovernable and to eliminate those who collaborated led to the commission of gross human rights violations for which the leadership of the UDF must accept responsibility.

62. Information that emerged from the hearings of the Amnesty Committee strengthens the findings made by the Commission in its Final Report.