investigation
Piers Pigou
A Second Look
Barney Pityana’s call for a halt to investigations and prosecutions of those who committed gross human rights violations during the pre-1994 era coincides with the end of one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) longest amnesty hearings, regarding the massacre at Boipatong in June 1992.
The TRC Act prescribes that the offence committed must have a political objective. The stated political objective in Boipatong that night was to attack members of defence units, whom KwaMadala hostel residents held responsible for attacks on Inkatha Freedom Party-aligned men and women based at the hostel. When the special defence units could not be found, the attack degenerated into a free-for-all as the impis descended on to the unsuspecting township.
The TRC must also decide whether the results of the attack were in proportion to the objective. The applicants painted a picture of a community under siege, in a state of desperation, and acting in the spirit of proactive self-defence. While it is evident that a number of KwaMadala residents were targeted by Vaal special defence units and on occasion other residents, the numbers killed reflect only a fraction of the number of murders attributed to hostel residents from KwaMadala. This was not the revenge of the innocents.
The attack on Boipatong was indiscriminate and excessively brutal. When asked why children had to die, one applicant responded that “a snake gives birth to a snake”. While the attack on a community perceived as partisan to the African National Congress may provide motive, it remains unclear what the precise political objective was, apart from spreading further fear and terror about the infamous hostel and its residents. The attack was condemned by the IFP leadership. More than 200 men were involved, yet when asked to provide names of others who participated or were part of the leadership structures inside the hostel, only the names of dead men and other applicants were disclosed, with one or two exceptions. Testimony appeared contrived to limit disclosures.
The issue of police complicity is pivotal to the committee’s decision. All the applicants, with the exception of Andries Nosenga, denied the police were present or involved in the attack.
While the committee’s final report found that they were directly involved, this finding was made largely based on existing information and statements submitted to its human rights violations committee. No further investigation was conducted by the commission.
Rian Malan informed readers (Mail &Guardian, May 28 to June 3 1999) that “three exhaustive investigations rendered the [allegations of police complicity] ridiculous” and that the TRC relied on biased and slanted propaganda as the basis for its findings. This is simply untrue.
The “investigations” referred to were those conducted by British police expert David Waddington, the Goldstone commission and the trial of the 16 amnesty applicants. Waddington, at the behest of the Goldstone inquiry, spent two weeks investigating the police response to the massacre. He was never asked to nor did he direct his investigations into the allegations of police involvement and collusion. This investigation was conducted by major Christo Davidson from the unrest and violent crimes unit based in Pretoria. Davidson, a former long-term member of the Natal Midlands security police and close associate of Basie Smit, was implicated in the watershed Goldstone report of March 1994.
Davidson’s investigation was tailored to disprove the allegations and within a couple of weeks he claimed that the allegations were false. Judge Richard Goldstone was largely dependent on Davidson’s investigation and, on that basis, he deferred “judgment”. No mention was made at the time that the investigations were inadequate and biased. The amnesty committee’s own investigations into the massacre focused on Nosenga’s allegations and were largely inconclusive. They did, however, strongly support the need for a broader investigation into the dynamics of violence in the area.
Despite the Vaal townships being an epicentre of violence in both the 1980s and early 1990s, the TRC has been unable to investigate most gross human rights violations there. Apart from the limited Boipatong inquiry, the murder of 19 residents of the Sebokeng hostel on the night of September 3 1990 was the only other matter in the region to have received any sort of scrutiny. In that case Themba Khoza and 137 IFP members and supporters from the KwaMadala hostel were arrested after they were trapped in the hostel compound and weapons supplied by Vlakplaas were found in the back of Khoza’s security police vehicle.
Senior members of various police units, including the head of the Vaal security police, have applied for amnesty for securing Khoza’s acquittal by fabricating evidence.
This matter has far greater implications than simply getting Khoza off the hook and proving another relationship between the security and IFP establishments. The fabrication of evidence and lacklustre investigation into the Sebokeng killings effectively meant that there was no forensic evidence secured which could be used to link those arrested with the 19 murders.
Those arrested with Khoza must have been aware of the special relationship that existed between themselves and the police. Add to this the consistent allegations from a variety of sources regarding police bias towards the IFP; a systematic failure to secure convictions against IFP supporters in the area until late 1993; and recent revelations that the head of the IFP in the Vaal was a member of the returned exile committee, a security-police project.
Although this does not prove police collusion in the massacre, allegations of this collusion were repeated across the Reef, and they reveal a relationship between the police and the IFP that requires further inquiry.
We now know that the context in which the Boipatong investigation occurred was one of cover-ups and collusion. A month before the massacre, police chiefs were appealing to the Pretoria High Court to prevent further disclosures by the M&G and the Vrye Weekblad about police involvement in political violence.
Many of the then incumbent police chiefs, including the former commissioner of police, Johan van der Merwe and general Gerrit Erasmus, who was charged with searching the KwaMadala hostel after the Boipatong massacre, have now applied for amnesty for sanctioning murder and torture in other matters they feared could result in prosecution. These can hardly be regarded as individuals who were predisposed to validate allegations made against the very organisation or supporters they had committed criminal acts against.
Coupled with concerns and evidence that Davidson’s investigation was neither impartial nor thorough, other major discrepancies occurred, such as the mysterious wiping out of police tapes and the destruction of important ballistic evidence. It is reasonable to conclude that further investigations are warranted.
The amnesty committee must now make far- reaching decisions about the Boipatong massacre based on a set of contradictory and inconclusive versions, as well as its own limited and inadequate investigations. This is by no means the only case where such problems confront them.
If the option were available, I am sure that they would refer the matter for further investigation. Whether or not the versions presented by the applicants or the victims are believed remains to be seen.
Whatever the committee’s finding, the debate on what to do next regarding this or other matters will continue. Given the seemingly contradictory need to avert being bogged down in the conflicts of the past, the development of reconciliation at all levels of society, and the quest for the truth, all solutions appear flawed. But perhaps the most flawed is to do nothing. However painful, the subject must be addressed and solutions must be found.
Pityana says the country cannot afford this: investigations and prosecutions should be stopped and there should be some sort of mass forgiveness. While it is true that investigations will mean the use of resources, this issue should not be seen as an all-or-nothing situation. Like many other challenges in South Africa, it will be a long process, based on priorities and available resources. Suggesting, as Pityana does, that this is a solution to the failure of TRC efforts to establish a “legacy of reconciliation and unity” is bewildering, especially coming from the chair of the country’s leading human rights institution.
Considerable investigation and research are required to ensure the dynamics of the past conflict are properly documented and understood.
Current inquiries are only at the stage of infancy. Reconciliation is only possible if based on a strong foundation of truth. In terms of the past conflicts, the TRC has revealed that we have only scratched the surface of that truth. Consequently, the prospects of sustainable reconciliation and healing will remain elusive for many, including the people of the Vaal Triangle, if Pityana’s counsel is heeded.
Piers Pigou is a senior researcher at the Community Agency for Social Enquiry and a former TRC investigator