Special Report Transcript Episode 8, Section 3, Time 09:40

If you look at the Lewis Sikisiki rape case in the Transkei, those sentences were stiff and correct for the crime committed there. But our people, the question they will ask is, is there still a difference between the life of white people and those of black people? The message out of the court today is simple. In the new South Africa the life of a black person is as cheap as it was in the Verwoerd era. // Mister Jack, if Gideon Niewoudt had gone to the Truth Commission and got amnesty for exactly what he was sentenced for today, how would you have felt about that? // I’ll be happy with that, the majority of people will be happy about that, that is the thinking of the government , that is the thinking of the majority of people who give their full support to the Truth Commission. What is happening here … what is happening now, this case and the appeal, these guys would not spend a day in prison, is going to make the generals to retreat form their own commitment already. Because the reason why they have made the decision of going to put their case and take responsibility, was based on the fact that they realised that the net is closing on them. Now they’re going to go back on that. I can tell you those generals are not going to come forward. And all of them, the security police are going to move back and say that the courts are still on their side.

Notes: Mkhuseli Jack (Community leader) interviewed outside Supreme Court

References: there are no references for this transcript