/ 15 March 1996

Go to truth commission, ANC tells members

Eddie Koch

THE African National Congress has instructed its leadership and members to go to the truth commission if they committed human rights abuses during the anti-apartheid struggle — and, in a gesture of support for the truth process, has withdrawn temporary immunity given to its members by the old government.

“The ANC renounces the temporary indemnities (designed to allow exiled members back into the country before the 1994 elections) as they no longer serve any purpose. The ANC will submit its record, leaders and members to the scrutiny of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” said a statement issued on Thursday.

“We have nothing to hide. Instead we want to help create a climate in which the healing process of our nation is enhanced.”

This week the Mail & Guardian asked senior officials and Cabinet ministers from the party how it would deal with amnesty applications from its own members to the truth commission and found the ANC grappling to come up with a consensus policy around a number of sensitive issues.

It emerged there is concern in the organisation about groups of Umkhonto we Sizwe commanders who are anxious that they will have to shoulder the blame for the guerrilla movement’s attacks on civilian targets carried out in the 1980s.

Members of these groups, said to include some senior MK officials, are demanding to know whether ANC political leaders now in government will go to the commission and accept responsibility for issuing the orders that led to these attacks.

Thursday’s statement makes it clear that the ANC leadership will support its rank and file by accepting collective responsibility for actions during the anti-apartheid struggle. The M&G has also established that Joe Modise (now defence minister) is willing to go to the truth commission in his capacity as a former MK commander and member of Umkhonto’s political military council subject to policy guidelines currently being drafted by the ANC.

“The ANC will never condone any human rights violations which may have been committed by freedom fighters during the heat of the struggle.

“The ANC has already made public the findings of the Motsuenyane and Skweyiya commissions (which investigated abuses at the movement’s detention centres in various parts of Africa), for which our entire NEC has taken collective responsibility,” the statement said.

The national executive committee of the ANC recently set up a powerful sub committee including heavyweights like Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Defence Minister Joe Modise, Intelligence Chief Joe Nhlanhla, Justice Minister Dullah Omar and Transport Minister Mac Maharaj.

This subcommittee has set up a truth commission desk at ANC headquarters to handle a range of issues relating to the truth commission which operates at national and provincial level. Officials in this department have to provide members with advice about how the truth commission will work and has been flooded by requests from victims of abuse at the hands of the security forces.

However some officials have, somewhat unexpectedly, found themselves dealing with requests from members who want amnesty for abuses they committed during the struggle. There were two commissions of inquiry by the ANC into human rights abuses in its detention camps during the 1980’s.

“We are hearing some quite shocking things about what people did at this time and it is clear that a lot of people in the organisation are worried about this. We are hoping that the ANC will use the truth commission to finally come clean and deal with these skeletons in its own cupboard,” said one official who asked not to be named because the matter is so sensitive.

Early this week Justice Minister Dullah Omar told SABC radio the ANC would instruct its members who feel they committed abuses to approach the truth commission and would adopt an open policy about this. The M&G then submitted a number of questions to the ANC’s Department of Information and Publicity and also to the ministers who sit on the NEC subcommittee dealing with the truth commission. These included:

l Will the ANC make public the names of its members who apply to the amnesty committee of the truth commission and the nature of the abuses they committed?

l How many ANC members have already applied for amnesty and what categories of human rights abuse are these applications for?

l Has the ANC stipulated that members who feel they have committed abuses must go to the commission or is this a voluntary/individual decision?

l Will the ANC provide counselling and support for members who decide to approach the truth commission?

There is a general consensus in the ANC that

the organisation was fighting a just struggle against an immoral system and, as a whole, does not have to account for the kind of human rights abuse committed by those who created and fought for the apartheid system.

“Apartheid was a crime against humanity and the struggle against humanity was pronounced by the whole international community to be just… The actions of those who fought to maintain apartheid cannot be equated — morally and politically —with the actions of those who fought for democracy,” according to the ANC statement.

However, within this broad moral framework, there appears to be two main tendencies within the organisation.

One group reacts with indignation at the suggestion that they have anything to account for at the truth commission. Its proponents tend to say attacks against civilians were the exception during the guerrilla struggle and explain the detention camp abuses as the result of heavy infiltration by Pretoria’s security forces.

Another section of the movement — which appears to have swayed official policy — believes the ANC should use the truth commission to deal, in an open and cathartic way, with the abuses committed in the camps and to compensate victims and families of victims who suffered in these detentions centres.