The Truth Commission Bill has slowed down in committee over the issue of secrecy in amnesty hearings. The parliamentary justice committee is unlikely to accept the cabinet agreement that those applying for amnesty should be free to do so in camera, and so the Bill will probably go back to the executive.
While this issue is being debated, the truth is coming out anyway. Former security policeman Craig Williamson has revealed, remarkably frankly, his personal involvement in some of the most high-profile murders of the apartheid era.
And in kwaZulu/Natal, former Inkatha paramilitary “chief- of-staff” Daluxolo Luthuli is talking to investigators about his role in the violence of that area — and word has it that these are quite some beans that he is spilling.
These people are talking mostly out of a fear of prosecution and a desire for indemnity, but also — in the case of Williamson — because of an anger that their political bosses are not taking their share of the responsibility for issuing the orders and granting the powers that led to the assassinations and bombings.
The lesson is poignant: you do not get the guilty to speak by protecting them — as the cabinet is proposing in their draft Bill — but by instilling a fear of exposure.
But it also points to the dilemma that the political leaders will face. Fingers will be pointed upwards, and the signs are that they could point all the way to current members of the cabinet.
President Nelson Mandela will have to decide how far he is prepared to take the issue. Is he willing to confront members of the previous government, for example, and force them before the Truth Commission? Is he prepared to rock the government of national unity for this?
Of course, the answer to this may lie in the fact that by the time this happens, well into the government of national unity’s term of office and closer to the next election, he might be more than willing.
But it raises a question of some importance to a president who has expressed concern over cabinet discipline. This is the issue of cabinet responsibility – – the extent to which a minister must be held responsible for the activities of his or her department. It is a line that Mandela needs to draw, and hold firm on.
Last words
* “When I was a child, I was a shepherd. Getting the sheep and goats to do what you wanted taught you planning, organising, and how to understand the behaviour of animals different from yourself.” — Wits University Deputy Vice-Chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba on his preparedness to deal with campus transformation Snakes and ladders at Auckland Park