| Time | Summary | |
| 09:25 | Or those still haunted by the horror of a death at the hands not of the enemy, but comrades. The smoke of the necklace or the shining panga still sticking through their dreams. | Full Transcript and References |
| 09:37 | Then my father was on the ground. They gave him a blow with an axe on the neck and they put a tyre around his neck. | Full Transcript and References |
| 09:48 | No one screamed twice. Each one screamed just once. Then I’d hear the next one, and another one, until they finished them all. | Full Transcript and References |
| 10:05 | From the small dusty schools and churches of the platteland to the big, imposing halls in the cities, the voices of victims tugged and tore at those who were prepared to listen. Their dignity and strength, their sadness and pride and when pain threatened to overwhelm there were always those who were amazed with forgiveness. | Full Transcript |
| 10:30 | ‘The Violators’ // Dear fellow South Africans, this is a cry from the heart. I appeal to all of you right across the political spectrum, please take this golden opportunity to apply for amnesty. Please come forward. Because this is an opportunity to put the past behind you, to help in the process of your own healing and the healing of this beautiful land. Please come. | Full Transcript |
| 11:45 | And they did come, more than 7000 of them. Far more than ever expected. But the perpetrators did not come voluntarily. They were drawn to the hot seat of confession by fear of prosecution. In a unique South African compromise the killers, murderers and torturers of the past were offered pardon in return for the whole truth and proof of a political motive. Boy Diale and Christopher Makgale were the first men to ask for amnesty. Both men belonged to the Bafokeng tribe and in 1990 they murdered this old man who belonged to a rival tribe. But the most notorious amnesty applicants were men of a completely different tribe, the apartheid foot soldiers, like these security policemen; the men who ruled whole communities by fear came to confess about their brutality: the torture and murder of activists during the 1980s. | Full Transcript |
| 12:42 | What I’m saying is that we didn’t kidnap them to interrogate them. We kidnapped them to kill them. | Full Transcript and References |
| 12:54 | There’s one thing that I will have to live with till the day I die, it’s the corpses that I will have to drag with me to my grave, of the people whom I’ve killed. Remorse, I can assure you a lot, a hell of a lot. | Full Transcript |
| 13:07 | Although the amnesty process has often been hard to accept it has finally led us to discover the truth about many mysterious murders carried out by the security police. The Motherwell bomb attack, the killing of Matthew Goniwe and three others, known as the Cradock Four, Siphiwo Mtimkulu, Sizwe Kondile and the Pebco Three. These men have finally told the families how they kidnapped, tortured and murdered their loved ones, before their bodies were set alight and their ashes strewn here in the Fish River. After more than ten years their families find nothing but painful memories in these waters. | Full Transcript and References |
| 13:43 | But there were also the killers from the other side. APLA soldiers who had attacked soft targets like restaurants, pubs and the St. James Church where 11 churchgoers died. For victims the long wait for the truth often ended in an emotional showdown with those who had pulled the triggers and yield the bombs. | Full Transcript and References |
| 14:07 | May I ask the applicant to turn around and face me? This is the first opportunity that we’ve had to look at each other in the eye and talk. I want to ask Mr. Makoma, who actually entered the church. My wife was sitting right at the door where you came in, she was wearing a long blue coat. Can you remember if you shot her? | Full Transcript and References |
| 14:53 | The horror of civil war also came to the amnesty chamber with IFP and ANC perpetrators, confessing to brutal slayings of political opponents. | Full Transcript |
| 15:03 | All those people who were being killed were IFP members. Now we were told that we must come back to Pietermaritzburg and kill everyone who belonged to UDF or ANC. | Full Transcript |
| 15:13 | The cause was just but in the process people lost their lives. And I ask of you to please, please consider forgiving me. Asking forgiveness from you would be something else. But I here now plead with you, I know it’s difficult, but I plead with you to please consider forgiving me. | Full Transcript and References |
| 15:45 | Often the truth was difficult to accept as was the case with the racist acts of violence perpetrated by the ultra right wing. | Full Transcript and References |
| 16:05 | The streets of white residents would be patrolled from 9 pm in the evening and that all blacks would be removed from the town, if not willingly, forcefully. | Full Transcript and References |
| 16:16 | The AWB in view of some of their statements, saying for instance that a kaffir is a kaffir. This appeared right to me, since this was the way in which I grew up, I could understand this. | Full Transcript and References |
| 16:37 | Perhaps the most high profile and dramatic amnesty hearing was that of the killers of Chris Hani. From their cells in Pretoria Central prison the English speaking Afrikaner and the Polish immigrant came to face four weeks of gruelling cross examination. | Full Transcript |
| 16:58 | There’s a difference, is there, between killing people in war and killing people by assassin. // There is Mr. Chairman, there is. // Is that a form of your conservative party logic Mr. Derby-Lewis? // Mr. Chairman, assassination is an act of war, it can occur during a war situation. // Murder is a crime Mr. Derby-Lewis. | Full Transcript and References |
| 17:23 | Part of the amnesty deal was that remorse was not required. This application brought home the harsh reality of trying to trade truth for freedom. | Full Transcript |
