| |
Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
|
Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
|
Special Report
Transcripts for Section 4 of Episode 24
| Time | Summary | | | 16:27 | White people were the privileged ones in the old South Africa, but there was one way in which the repressive apartheid government touched their lives: young white men were forced to join the army to fight fellow citizens and freedom fighters in neighbouring states. Wallace McGregor was one of many of thousands of young conscripts who died in the conflict in Namibia an Angola. His mother and brother gave statements to the Truth Commission in Paarl this week. They asked questions many other whites have been afraid to ask over the years. | Full Transcript and References | | 17:05 | Wallace McGregor was 20 years old when he died on 9 March 1987. It has been 10 years since Anne-Marie McGregor last saw her son and 9 since she buried him, but she is still unable to come to terms with her son’s death. | Full Transcript | | 17:20 | Then they told me, but, it is Wallace. Then I said, ‘oh, he was in an accident. Yes. Oh Wallace was in an accident Okay’. Then I said, ‘but…’ And everybody just kept quiet. I also realized at that time how terribly difficult it must be for people to bring this kind of news. Mr. Jordaan is a big man and he stood close to me and then I realized, Oh, it is an accident, Wallace, yes, it is Wallace. ‘Is he dead?’ And his wife said ‘yes, Anne-Marie, he is dead’. I just got such a terrible fright. Now, I just felt at that stage it was as if Jesus came inside me, and I held onto dominee Jordaan. And he asked me, ‘Anne-Marie, are you all right?’ and I said, ‘yes, I am all right’. And Wallace was dead, what can you do? | Full Transcript | | 19:02 | Perhaps the most difficult for Anne-Marie is the nagging feeling that she should have seen the body of her son, but it arrived home in a plastic bag with instruction that they were not to open it. She did not see him before he was buried. She struggles to accept that he is dead. | Full Transcript | | 19:21 | If my child was killed by a car in the street, then I could see, there he was, killed in the street, and I could see, he was hurt here, or maybe I could be with him to hold him, because all the time I wondered, was he afraid, did he get a fright, was he hurt, did he call out, who helped him, what was done to make it easier for him? We know nothing about this. | Full Transcript | | 19:48 | What Anne-Marie did also not know was that the war in which Wallace was one of many casualties was futile, but Wallace’s brother, Owen, did know. His statement, like that of their mother was read out during the hearings. In it he questioned the war on the borders, in the townships and the makers of that war. | Full Transcript | | 20:09 | I want to ask the National Party if they thought they could get away with these lies. I want them to know that we all know the truth today. I want to ask Pik Botha, the nights you got drunk and rounded up some troops to go and shoot some SWAPOs,did you think it was all a game? Today you say you were against the war all along. Magnus Malan started a help centre for former soldiers just last week. I don’t think any of the former soldiers want your help. To them you are nothing but a lie. To PW Botha and his cabinet of those days, why did my brother die? Explain to my mother and my father and to all South Africans how and why my brother died. | Full Transcript |
|
|
