President Nelson Mandela has been ill-advised in allowing his political opponents to score so many points around the Shell House massacre. He would have done better to clear the air around that terrible incident a long time ago.
What is emerging, at least from the full eyewitness account that we carry on Page 7 was that the action of the African National Congress security guards who opened fire on the street was a mixture of self-defence and panic. Any inquiry will have to weigh up these two
The self-defence factor, invoked by Mandela, is relevant. Marching towards ANC headquarters was a large impi of belligerent, armed opponents who had left a swathe of bodies behind it as it moved through town. The security forces which should have been containing it, ensuring it came nowhere near Shell House, were nowhere to be seen. It was inevitable that the ANC had to defend its headquarters and the people within.
The way this was done, however, is open to question. ANC headquarters was reasonably secure and the security guards would have done better to draw a line that the impi couldn’t cross at the entrance to the building. They could have defended the foyer of the building without too much problem. They could also have done it without mowing down people in the street in a state of blind panic.
Having said that, one must question the moral indignation of the ANC’s opponents, many of whom have a not insignicant amount of ANC blood on their hands. Why is it that Inkatha Freedom Party marches almost always lead to deaths? Why does the IFP not take blame for allowing, even provoking, a confrontation in front of Shell House? And surely the bulk of blame must lie with the failure of the security forces to prevent a confrontation that would inevitably have led to
But all these questions remain up in the air without a full inquiry. A police investigation is never going to get to the bottom of it with much credibility. Mandela might find that a proper, independent inquiry helps him bury an issue which has now haunted him for months.