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Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report VOLUME THREE Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was presented to President Nelson Mandela on 29 October 1998. Archbishop Desmond Tutu Ms Hlengiwe Mkhize Chairperson Dr Alex Boraine Mr Dumisa Ntsebeza Vice-Chairperson Ms Mary Burton Dr Wendy Orr Revd Bongani Finca Adv Denzil Potgieter Ms Sisi Khampepe Dr Fazel Randera Mr Richard Lyster Ms Yasmin Sooka Mr Wynand Malan* Ms Glenda Wildschut Dr Khoza Mgojo * Subject to minority position. See volume 5. Chief Executive Officer: Dr Biki Minyuku I CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction to Regional Profiles ........ 1 Appendix: National Chronology......................... 12 Chapter 2 REGIONAL PROFILE: Eastern Cape ..................................................... 34 Appendix: Statistics on Violations in the Eastern Cape........................................................... 150 Chapter 3 REGIONAL PROFILE: Natal and KwaZulu ........................................ 155 Appendix: Statistics on Violations in Natal, KwaZulu and the Orange Free State... 324 Chapter 4 REGIONAL PROFILE: Orange Free State.......................................... 329 Chapter 5 REGIONAL PROFILE: Western Cape.................................................... 390 Appendix: Statistics on Violations in the Western Cape ......................................................... 523 Chapter 6 REGIONAL PROFILE: Transvaal .............................................................. 528 Appendix: Statistics on Violations in the Transvaal ....................................................... 741 Volume THREE Chapter ONE Introduction to Regional Profiles 1 The regional profiles provide an overview of gross violations of human rights as they were reported to the Commission, in both chronological and thematic nar- rative. It was not possible to include every case brought to the Commission; rather the stories that illustrate particular events, trends and phenomena have been used as windows on the experiences of many people. 2 The primary sources for this report are the statements of individual deponents, as well as submissions by political parties, institutes and professional bodies. Reliance has also been placed on the transcripts of the hearings of the Commission – both human rights violations hearings and amnesty hearings – and on the transcripts of in camera hearings. Documentation from Commission enquiries, such as police dockets, court transcripts, inquest findings, post mortem reports and so on have also been used. 3 In presenting these stories, background details have been used to situate the cases in their proper context. Hence, researchers and writers in the Commission have made use of secondary source material. The reports and publications of research institutes and monitoring bodies, both at home and abroad, have been extensively used. Affidavits collected for other enquiries and investigations have been used where they apply to the cases before the Commission. Published monographs, press reports and ‘unrest reports’ of the South African Police (SAP) have been extensively used. 4 Each regional profile is organised chronologically and divided into four distinct periods: 1960–1975, 1976–1982, 1983–1989 and 1990–1994. These periods correspond roughly with patterns of violations and shifts in the nature of resis- tance and repression in South Africa as identified from the evidence before the Commission. 5 Within each period, violations have largely been considered within one of two groups, namely ‘State and allied groupings’ and ‘Resistance and revolutionary groupings’. While many events and issues defy such divisions and indeed VOLUME 3 CHAPTER 1 PAGE 1 demonstrate a close interaction of violations by each grouping, certain forms of violations were most strongly associated with a particular grouping. 6 ‘State and allied groupings’ comprises reported violations associated with public order policing, detention and torture, covert actions of the security forces and contra-mobilisation. ‘Resistance and revolutionary groupings’ comprises, for the most part, violations perpetrated by such groupings, including attacks on ‘collaborators’, necklacings, armed actions and sabotage, inter-organisational conflict and so forth. Where the history of violations occurring in the mandate period of the Commission was not amenable to these categories (particularly in the 1990s – the years of political transition), a thematic approach has been used. 7 The evidence before the Commission reveals a complex interaction of events. It has been difficult to separate entirely the stories of victims from the stories of perpetrators. For this reason, there is an inevitable degree of overlap between the regional profiles and the chapters on perpetrators in Volume Two of the report. 8 Findings in the regional profiles focus mainly on events or issues that shaped the nature of gross human rights violations in each region. The regional profiles do not, on the whole, make findings on individual cases. Individual findings are to be found in the summary of statements given to the Commission. Because the findings on individual cases have a bearing on the applications for amnesty still pending, these will become available in full at an appropriate time during the continued work of the Amnesty Committee of the Commission. For the purposes of this report, a full list of the names of persons found by the Commission to be victims appears in Volume Five. 9 It should be emphasised that fuller versions of the profiles are available in the documentary archives of the Commission, as are the full transcripts and audio- visual recordings of all the public hearings convened by the Commission and the original versions of all statements and submissions made to the Commission. To facilitate easy retrieval of primary source material, the reference number for each individual case quoted in the profile has been included in brackets. 10 Finally, every attempt has been made to check and recheck the names published in these reports. If there are errors, please forgive us. VOLUME 3 CHAPTER 1 PAGE 2 National Statistics Introduction 11 The Human Rights Violations Committee gathered 21 296 statements during the course of its work. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the Commission) asked all South Africans who had suffered in the political conflicts of the past to come to the Commission and make a statement. In an attempt to reach all sectors of the community, especially those that were hostile to the Commission, it made special appeals through the media and through hearings to ensure that all voices were heard. 12 These statements were analysed by a team of data processors in each of the four offices, who then loaded the details of the violations onto a computerised data- base. These details included the names of the victims, the names of the alleged perpetrators, the date and place of the violation and a description of what happened. Violations reported in the Free State were recorded by the Durban office and the statistics for the two provinces are combined. Violations reported in Kwa-Zulu Natal account for the overwhelming majority. The table below shows the total amount of information gathered by each office: Office State- Violations Gross Number Average Average ments (gross and violations of victims victims per violations taken associated)1 of human statement per victim rights Cape Town 1 780 4 267 3 122 2 350 1.3 1.8 Durban 10 292 19 383 16 803 14 207 1.4 1.4 East London 2 843 6 380 5 460 3 252 1.1 2.0 Johannesburg 6 381 16 666 11 550 8 941 1.4 1.9 Total 21 296 46 696 36 935 28 750 1.4 1.6 1 Gross violations of human rights are: killings, torture, severe ill treatment and abduction. In addition, a number of violations were reported which did not fall into these categories. These were called ‘associated violations’ by the Commission. VOLUME 3 CHAPTER 1 PAGE 3 13 It should be noted that a statement may describe more than one violation, and that a victim may have suffered more than one violation.2 On average, 140 victims and 160 violations were mentioned in every 100 statements. In total, 46 696 violations involving 28 750 victims were reported to the Commission. 14 Note also that none of these figures includes information from the Amnesty Committee. The work of that committee is perpetrator-focused, and was far from complete at the time of reporting. This volume considers only the violations reported to the Human Rights Violations Committee. 15 After the details were captured, each statement was corroborated by the Investigative Unit and passed to the Human Rights Violations Committee, which made findings on the violations. The tables and analyses which follow are based on 37 942 viola- tions reported by victims who were found by the Committee3 to have suffered a gross violation as defined in the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. Of these violations, 33 713 are gross violations of human rights. Types of violation 16 The figure below shows the numbers of violations in each category, grouped into the four areas covered by each regional office. FIGURE B1-1 17 The greatest number of Number of human rights violations reported, by type and area in which the violation occurred violations occurred in the area covered by the Durban office where 8 923 cases of severe ill treatment and 4 820 killings were reported. This is nearly double the number of violations from the area with the next highest figure – the area covered by the Johannesburg office – even though the population
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