Eddie Koch
THE lesson from this week’s truth commission hearings in Durban is that the effects of the organisation’s work can never be easily predicted.
Instead of hearing evidence from mainly ANC- aligned victims — as was widely expected because of an Inkatha boycott — the commission ended up strengthening its non- partisan image and its prospects of helping to reconcile divided parties in the war-torn province.
Three important happenings caused this sudden turnabout for the fortunes of the process of truth and reconciliation in KwaZulu-Natal: Magoo Bar bomb victims’ demands for ANC-bomber Robert McBride’s government post to be withdrawn; requests from Stompie Seipai’s mother that Winnie Mandela’s role in the murder of her son be more fully investigated; and a dramatic decision by the Inkatha Freedom Party to take part in some of the commission’s hearings.
Commission chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu hinted strongly at a press conference on Wednesday night that perpetrators of human rights violations should not be rewarded. “We would obviously want to be as consistent as possible with that objective” he said. “We want to promote a culture of human rights which shows respect for victims and does not add to their pain.”
Tutu was responding to requests from relatives of Marchelle Gerrard, one of the three people killed in the 1986 bomb attack on the Magoo’s Bar in Durban, for McBride to removed from public office. “The fact that we are contributing to his upkeep (as taxpayers) is inconceivable,” was the way one of Gerrard’s sisters, Sharon Welgemoed, approached the commission this week.
Tutu also indicated the commission would adopt a tough line of inquiry in the case of Stompie Seipai, a young ANC activist from Tumahole in the Free State who was killed by members of Winnie Mandela’s bodyguard brigade in the 1980s.
Responding to questions about whether the commission’s investigative unit would probe Winnie Mandela’s apparent role in the murder, Tutu said: “There is no reason why we are not going to look into this with the most rigorous concern … If we need to subpoena the president we will subpoena the president. No one is above the particular laws the commission has been set up under.”
Then Ziba Jiyane, general secretary of the Inkatha Freedom Party, seemed to underscore a realisation that the truth commission wasn’t simply going to dwell on cases in which people involved in the ANC’s struggle against apartheid suffered persecution. He announced this week that the IFP would make use of the commission’s ability to recommend compensation for victims of human rights abuse and to grant amnesty to IFP members already convicted of political crimes.
Jiyane told the Mail & Guardian, however, that Inkatha would not appear at public hearings of the commission to defend its position because the truth body had “been set up without the consensus of all parties”.
Tutu welcomed the move but responded by saying it was not possible for any party to participate selectively in the commission’s processes. He pointed out that all amnesty applications required full disclosure of all human rights violations before they could be considered. Applications for reparations could also, in terms of the law, only be considered after being referred by the amnesty committee or the human rights violations committee.
“No party can avoid public scrutiny once it uses any of the committees of the commission,” said Tutu. “It is in the interests of all parties to tell their side of the story. We are keen to stress we want to tell the whole story.”
The unexpected ability of the commission to bolster its non-partisan image in the wake of this week’s hearings in KwaZulu-Natal may just give it a chance to promote a bit of reconciliation. He told the M&G that Inkatha’s decision would have important repercussions for the commission’s objectives. “Once victims come to the commission they relate with each other. They begin to see each other as all victims of the same process and that is a beginning for reconciliation.”