| Time | Summary | |
| 09:35 | Amnesty hearings like that of Jeffrey Benzien dominate the Truth Commission process at the moment. The South African amnesty law is the most generous one ever offered to perpetrators of political crimes in the world. Receiving amnesty for a crime means that the person may never again be prosecuted criminally or civilly for that crime. Let’s take a look at the process. | Full Transcript and References |
| 09:57 | These are some of the faces of South Africa’s political killers. They want the Truth Commission to grant them amnesty. But why should they be set free instead of going to jail? The answer lies in the political settlement that brought us our democracy in 1994. | Full Transcript |
| 10:15 | That negotiated settlement which was our miracle would not have happened without the very key critical element of amnesty. | Full Transcript |
| 10:31 | Over the past 18 months the Truth Commission’s Amnesty Committee has heard 250 applicants tell their stories in hearings. They include the men in uniform who served the previous government and the liberation forces as well as right wingers and civilian supporters of the ANC and PAC. Many of them are already in jail for their crimes; others fear prosecution. The Amnesty Committee makes its decisions according to the promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. This law requires that four main criteria be met for amnesty to be granted. Applicants must have been a member of a publicly known political party or organisation, liberation movement or an employee of the state or its security forces. Applicants also have to tell the whole truth about their crime. Technically therefore they can lie or hide facts regarding other issues but have to make a full disclosure of all the relevant facts about the crime they want amnesty for. Applicants must have committed their crimes with a ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 12:36 | My father believed that the white race is a superiour race on the earth and he believed that other races were mud races. | Full Transcript and References |
| 12:50 | The Committee refused them amnesty saying ‘race is not a political motive…’ and that the ‘Partisane’ was not a publicly known organisation. | Full Transcript and References |
| 13:00 | In 1981 the four right wing Van Straaten brothers killed two black night watchmen during a robbery at a transport company in Vereeniging. They claimed racial hatred as their political motive. | Full Transcript and References |
| 13:13 | Are you saying to us that you don’t distinguish between murder committed through a political objective or motivation on the one hand and murder committed as a result of pure racial hatred? // That is correct. // Are you serious? // The Committee refused them amnesty, again saying that race was not a political motive. | Full Transcript |
| 13:48 | Phillip Matela, Thami Hlobo and Jeremiah Moikabi applied for amnesty for the killing of four white motorists who had ventured into Mshenguville township near Odendaalsrus in 1990. The applicants said they killed them because they thought they were IFP supporters and wanted to protect their community. | Full Transcript and References |
| 14:07 | You were there to protect not to attack, not to kill. // Yes it is so sir. // Again the Committee refused amnesty saying this was a case of mob violence falling outside the provisions of the Act. | Full Transcript |
| 14:24 | But then this year the Committee made an interesting finding that seemed to deviate slightly from their earlier positions on race as a political motive. These three men belonged to the AWB and Orde Boerevolk and attacked a bus of black commuters in Durban in 1990 killing seven passengers. The applicants said this was a revenge attack for an earlier attack on white pedestrians by youths wearing APLA T-shirts. They chose the bus as a target because it was transporting black people. The Committee granted amnesty to the two junior members of the cell, Adriaan Smuts and Eugene Marais. They said ‘the conflicts among certain sections of the community was to a great degree a racial conflict…this is one of the truisms of the past’ which is also often avoided or denied but which ‘has to be faced squarely.’ The Committee however refused amnesty to David Botha, the leader of the cell who ordered the bus attack saying that there was ‘no evidence that he had received instructions to ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 15:34 | Maybe these interpretations give an indication of what might happen in two of the difficult amnesty applications the Committee must still decide on: the killers of Chris Hani and the killers of Amy Biehl. Janusz Walus is the man who killed Chris Hani; he acted on instruction of Conservative Party MP, Clive Derby-Lewis. Both are in prison and want amnesty. Derby-Lewis however will have to prove that he was acting on behalf of his political party and not off his own bat. Is it possible that Walus might get amnesty but Derby-Lewis not? Another question is whether the racial motive for the killing of Amy Biehl by PAC youths may now be accepted as a political motive by the Amnesty Committee? It will be fascinating to see how the Amnesty Committee handles cases like these in the time to come. | Full Transcript |
| 16:22 | Over the past year and a half the faces on the Amnesty Committee have become well-known. We have seen them listen, probe, question and debate in hearings across the country. To date 53 amnesties have been granted and 39 refused. But the process is not only about hearings. Amnesty applications that do not concern the gross violation of human rights can be processed on paper. These include crimes like the illegal possession of firearms or public violence. Often applications also fall clearly outside of the requirements of the Act and are turned down without a hearing being necessary. To date 43 amnesties have been granted on paper and almost 2000 refused. Amnesty hearings are not court cases, but the process is a legal one. All Committee members have legal backgrounds and are led by a judge of the supreme court. Every hearing also has its posse of lawyers who represent perpetrators, implicated persons, victims and the family of victims. The legal teams for perpetrators from the old ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 17:54 | Can you now proceed with your witness please? // Chair no, we would argue against this. Our argument is that we want to be wholly prepared by investigating these documents, obtaining the cassette tapes, consulting conclusively with our client. // One can’t help getting the impression that here you seem to be engaging in some kind of fishing expedition as well. // We have lost a great deal of time in this matter and seeing videos and so on can’t take a great deal of time apart from whatever entertainment value they may have. | Full Transcript |
| 18:37 | But some of the delays and adjournments like here in Bloemfontein recently must in some cases be blamed on the sometimes less than efficient administrative side of the Amnesty Committee. The South Africa amnesty process is completely unique and the form it has taken here has not been tried anywhere else in the world before. | Full Transcript |
| 19:00 | Only in South Africa have they offered an amnesty in the way where they require something in return, where they of course require the full truth and limit as to who or what kinds of crimes that amnesty would be given to. Certainly that’s a better model than having a blanket amnesty where it applies to everybody and you get nothing in return, so you’re not even quite sure what you’re amnestying for. | Full Transcript |
| 19:25 | Our amnesty process is not designed to find perpetrators guilty, nor is it about legal justice or about revenge. It is a process designed to encourage perpetrators to tell their stories truthfully and to give them freedom in return for that truth. | Full Transcript |
| 19:43 | Justice … OK it’s very difficult. Well a lot of harm was done to Cradock. He wasn’t just my father, but he was the father of Cradock. They were actually the fathers of Cradock. Justice to me would certainly not be justice to Cradock as a whole, but I would like the people who have killed them to come forward so that people could know them. An eye for an eye wouldn’t do anyone any good, but at least honesty would be one form of justice. Honesty. | Full Transcript and References |
| 20:27 | Another unique feature of our amnesty process is that perpetrators are not required to show remorse or ask forgiveness to qualify for amnesty. // My impression was that an apology was not necessary and not part of the whole function of this Committee. | Full Transcript and References |
| 20:50 | It’s a strange dynamic and as I speak internationally about this, it’s always a surprise if you state that simple fact that remorse is not required and someone can feel no remorse and get amnesty. However I agree with those persons here who have explained and I think it is right that you can’t require that, it doesn’t make sense. And if you required it then of course people would say they were sorry and you would never know how honest of a dynamic that was. | Full Transcript |
