Remorse and Beg for Forgiveness
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EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a FREE SOUT~~N AFRICA 339 Lafayette Street Phone: (212) 477-0066 New York, N.Y. 10012 Fax: (212) 979 ... 1013 #184 founded Z2 June Z956 20 September 1997 vv e atanJt· intend to kill Biko. I feel THE DAILY TELEGRAPH remorse and beg 11 September 1997 for forgiveness . Steve Biko: shackled By Alec Russell In Johannesburg :¥ WHITE former police standing position against a rather than Sept 6. This had him . I feel remorse and major admitted yesterday grille door for an entire day. been done. he believed. to beg for forgiveness." that there had been an offi He claimed that the scuffle hide the fact that doctors Among the co-applicants claT cover-up over the death broke out as an interrogation were not called to treat ~r was a former police colonel. in detention 20 years ago of became increasingly con Biko until two davs after the Gideon Nieuwoudt, then a the black rights activist frontational. incident. Howeve-r. his over detective sergeant. He is Steye Biko. "I am not sure who hit him all version of the sequence of serving a 20-year prison sen Harold Snyman. one of five and who got hit. .. ~lr Soy events was little different tence for his role in a 1989 policemen seeking amnesty man· s statement said. :\s from the account that he and bomb that killed three for~.tr Biko·s death. said he police tried to handcuff ~r other policemen gave at the policemen and a police had lied to the inquest to Biko. one officer fell on him. inquest. informer. spare the apartheid govern sending his head against a :\iany left the hearing bit Mr Biko is widely seen as ment and the police wall. terly disappointed as. far the greatest martyr of the embarrassment. "He fell to the ground ... he from accepting full responsi anti-apartheid movement. He was speaking at the said. "If was clear that the bility, Mr Snyman merely His black consciousness phi· start of one of the most sensi knock on his head had left reiterated previous claims losopby, that political free tive hearings to come before him dazed and disorientated. that the police had not dom could be ac~eved only the Truth and Reconciliation He was slurring. intended to kill Mr Biko. if blacks ceased to feel infe Commission. which is "I kept in mind that he "I feel badly about these rior to whites, re-ignited pro charged with investigating might be trying to deceive us actions - that we acted in test i.n the mid-Seventies human rights abuses during in order to escape further this manner against this per when the African .:'llational the last years of apartheid. interrogation.·· son." he told the hearing in Congress leaders were either The proceedings, which :\1r Snyman admitted that :-.lew Brighton township. out in prison or exile. were attended by Mr Biko·s under pressure from his com side Port Elizabeth where The announcement in Jan· widow. :-.itsiki. and son. :-.lko mander he had lied to the ~r Biko was detained and uary that the five policemen sinathi. in a packed township inquest about the date of the beaten before his death. were applying for amnesty communitv hall. had an scuffle. giving it as Sept 7 ··we never intended to kill was hailed by the commis added resonance as tomor· sion as proof that its quest row is the 20th anniversarv for the truth was working. of the activist's death. · But Mr Biko's family But the policemen stuck to opposes the amnesty bid. their original story that he George Bizos, their lawyer bad died after bitting his and an old friend of Presi bead against a wall. prompt dent Mandela, yesterday dis ing'murmurs of disbelief. puted the policemen's claims Mrs Biko said last night: that they had made "full dis ·'!fhere is nothing new. He closure" and that their [Snyman] is lying even more actions were political - two now than in the inquest." of the prerequisites for Speaking in Afrikaans in a amnesty. subdued voice. Mr Snyman ·'Torturing a helpless shed some light on Mr Biko ·s detainee for the purpose of harsh treatment during his extracting information from last days alive. them to the point that they He said that :\ir Biko. finish up dead is not a politi despite being "disoriented" cal objective that any civi and displaying "slurred lised country can accept ... he speech" after a fight with his said. captors, had been shackled ~r Mandela will unveil a by his hands and feet in a Mr Biko's son and widow at yesterday's hearing statue to Mr Biko tomorrow. THE GUARDIAN 11 September 1997 Mr Snyman admitted yes and disorientated." They had David Beresford terday that there had been a immediately shackled him. In Johannesburg cover-up of the true story. On George Bizos, counsel for instructions from the then the Biko family, which is try OUTH AFRICA'S truth regional security police chief, ing to block the granting of an commission yesterday Colonel Pie! Goosen -- who amnesty, s:tid two professors S began trying to lever has since died- he had fabri· and a pathologist had found o~n the true story of the cated the date on which Biko that abrasions on Biko's borly death in detention 20 years suffered his inJuries. The had been inflicted over a ago of the black conscious scuffie in which Biko was fa· period of four to eight days. ness leader Steve Biko, as tally injured had taken placP Mr Snyman dPnierl having crowds outside the hearing a day earlier than claimed. seen one of the other police· demanded justice. Although badly hurt, he was men, Gideon Nieuwoudt, Police officers began ~estify kept standing for most of that attack Biko with a piece of ing to the commission in an day, handcuffed to a security hose-pipe. "Its use woulrl attempt to win amnesty for gate. · have been irregular," he said. the killing, but lawyers for Mr Snyman, who admitted After the day's testimony. the Biko family accused them that the use ·of torture was Biko's widow, Ntshiki Biko, of offering only a modifica police policy at the time, said said: "They're going to lie tion of the original cover-up. Nkosinathi Biko, son of the the interrogators had been even more so they are granted "We never intended to kill black leader Steve Biko, trying to soften Biko up by amnesty. I am feeling bad be him. I just want to be forgiven listens to evidence depriving him of sleep. Naked cause they know what the\· for my past," Biko's chief In· and forced to stand, he had are saying is not the truth." · terrogator, the former seen· account of his death, although "gone wild" and attacked his • Katiza Cebekhulu. who has rity police major Harold Sny accepted by an inquest, has interrogators. Four police alleged that Winnie Manrlela man, told the hearing in a always been disbelieved. men joined in the struggle. "I personally took part in the township hall outside Port Five former security police am not sure who hit him and killing of Stompie Seipei, Elizabeth. men are making an amnesty who got hit," he said. emerged in London from six · Biko died on September 12 application, the success ·or He claimed that one of the years in hiding yesterday to 1977. after being driven 750 which depends on whether policemen stumbled. causing urge her retrial. The truth miles -- naked, handcuffed the truth commission is satis· Biko to hit his head against a commission said it mav hold and badly injured :..__ in a fied they have made full dis· wall. "He fell to the ground. It a session outside Smtih Af· 1 police vehicle from Pretoria closure and that their crime was clear that the knock on rica to listen to Mr I to Port Elizabeth. The police was politically motivated. his head had left him dazed Cebekhulu. -C/) ·-a>o >.:::t:. C·- ::Jal C\1'+-- -0 Q)Q) c -o::J ::c0 c......, -oE"D caca :!g........ -·...::1111 oc ~1i) ~- ~ :, ....... '..,. Participation in the apartheid ju Ronald Suresh Roberts w:gues that diciary was a personal, moral and political choice and can be judged as .those lawyers who subordinated their . such. Such joiners cannot, as judges oJ?ligatwns to an apartheid. .~7::. ___ _ often do elsewhere, moral justify their individ ~gislature.should be held accountable ual actions by refer ence to the overall le gitimacy and morali he~tsbould Later, Mandela and his Rivonia ty of the system. be. in the dock;· not co-trialists, in refusing to plead Apartheid judges · me,"saldNelsonMan- guilty explicitly refused to ac- who claim to have . · dela. In State vs Man- knowledge moral guilt. "All right, subordinated their 'Tin 196'2 objected being deJa he to tried let us forget about moral guilt," re individual moral by a white supremacist court and spondetlpro-apartheid prosecutor opinions to a legisla called on the magistrate to recuse Percy Yutar. ture that was busy himself. The magistrate declined: The commission must choose be with Its crimes against humanity, "There is only one court today and- tween these creeds. Yutar's creed merely increase their difficulties. that is the White Man's Court." sees the doctrine of parliamentary . · Judges owe the commission more In asserting that the apartheid sovereignty as the end of debate on than broad-brush theoretical expla state could not dispense justice in judicial morals, not the beginning. nations, irrelevantly imported from IUlY legitimate sense, Mandela is sup.