clean
Eddie Koch
AT least six police brigadiers and colonels, named in the trial of Eugene de Kock, have broken ranks and approached the truth commission about the possibility of applying for amnesty as they are disillusioned with the way the generals are handling their submission to the organisation.
The truth body has also taken a top-level decision to scale down its public hearings and speed up findings that identify perpetrators of abuse. These developments lie behind a statement by its chairman, Desmond Tutu, that the institution has now reached a turning point in its history.
Ordinary people have had their chance to tell their stories and the commission will now use its subpoena powers – its “steel fist” – to answer the burning questions that have been raised in the public hearings, Tutu said this week.
Sources inside the commission confirmed that the brigadier-and-colonel cadre of leadership from the police force had been jolted into approaching the commission by the string of allegations emerging from the De Kock trial.
The police generals have so far tried to hold their camp together by offering to make a general submission to the commission about the role of the police in some 50 unsolved political crimes committed in the apartheid era.
At least six of their colleagues, likely to be followed by more, are disillusioned by the inability of the generals to come up with a comprehensive submission and strategy that covers them.
They also fear that further trials being prepared by the Transvaal attorney general’s office will increase the prospect of their being linked to human rights abuse – after the December cut-off date for amnesty.
But while it appears that a united front in the ranks of senior police commanders is beginning to break down, there is little sign of a similar development in the military.
Military generals have been able to delay their submission to the truth commission without prompting panic among colleagues lower down the rung, as it appears that General Magnus Malan and his fellow accused in the KwaMakutha trial have a good chance of being let off when the Supreme Court makes its judgment next week.
The military generals are clearly waiting for the court’s decision so that they can use a not-guilty verdict to maximum effect in their submission.
Such a ruling will also bolster a belief, currently circulating in some ranks of the security forces, that the state does not have the resources to pinpoint perpetrators of past abuse and prosecute them – especially as the Malan trial was investigated by a crack police unit and an experienced team in the AG’s office.
The critical lesson in these developments is that the most powerful mechanism for forcing the candour out of the men who ran the death squads is an effective and well-resourced criminal justice system that can follow up the promise to punish those who don’t come clean.