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EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a FREE SOUTHERN AFRICA . C 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y Ef EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a FREE SOUTHERN AFRICA . C 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y. 10012-2725 S (2'2) 4n-0066 FAX: (212) 979-1013 A founded Z2 June Z956 #173 12 June 1.996 19 May 1996 The Observer South Africa learns that truth hurts Desmond Tutu's efforts to exorcise the ghosts ofapartheid are creating legal and moral dilemmas. David Beresford reports from Johannesburg The hearings were particu­ 'SHOW me a hero and I will somethingofan obsession with Another of the COlUltry'S law larly effective for the voice they write you a tragedy,' Scott Fitz­ McBride and the Magoo's officers has also been pursuing and others in the legal estab­ gave to the 'little people' whose gerald once observed. There bombing, because the fatalities 'the truths' of apartheid by lisbment. are expected to meet simplicity of language brought can be few heroic figures offer­ - all women, one of them conventional criminal prose­ shonly to try to iron out their home with almost brutal effect ing quite as much potential for pregnant '- were white. The cution in competition with differences and thrash out a the depravities of the times. tragedy as Robert McBride, car bomb, aimed at a popular Archbishop Tutu and his com­ joint strategy. It is highly un­ Voices such as Haroon Aziz who has become the personifi­ watering hole for security per- missioners. The Transvaal's ImeIy that the commission. describing his torture at the cation of South Africa's trou­ sonnel, was clearly a murder- impressive attorney-general. wbich has a constitutional hands of security police who bled search for 'truth' in the ously reckless act. But McBride Ian D'Oliveira. has been quietly mandate, will retreat from its made h.im S!'. for I<.!Tlgt.hy p~rl­ apartheid era. inves!lgatory role. Neverthe­ ods on an 'invisible chair' and paid a heavy pice fa, it - woddng to crack the '1hild Archbishop Desmond Tutu's less., there must be a suspicion battered his head and penis: 'I including years waiting on Pre- Force' - the political conspir­ Truth and Reconciliation Com­ toria's death row before his acy involving police and army that it has already discharged mission, that brave effort by used to scream and shout and they used to laugh' like mad eventual release in 1992 as part generals to abort South Africa's Ike task for which it was best the new South Africa to come of the political settlement. constitutional settlement by qualified. hyenas'; the mother of trade to terms with its past, is run­ His conviction and sentence In his opening speech at the unionist 'Professor',. Sibanlrnlu, ning into trouble. The courts by the courts put McBride be- destabilising the country in the Nuremberg trials, the US pros­ whose bodywas returrted to his are cracking doWn on it for yond any further legal action late 1980s and early 1990s. ecllllfOl, lustice Robert Jackson, disregard of 'due process'. family without arms or legs: 'I and the archbishop had He has been concentrating would like to know where the told the tribunal that its task Quarrels are breaking out be­ brought the bombing before his efforts on the prosecution wastoputthe law, 'its precepts. other parts of his body are so tween it and the country's law his 'rruth Commissionas a ges- ofColonel Eugene De Kock, the its prohibitions and, most of officers. Families ofsome ofthe that I can bury them together ture ofeven-handedness to the former commander of a police with the rest of my son'; Thuli all" its sanctions on the side of most famous martyrs of the white population. But it was a ~,sass~ation squ~d who re­ peace' so thaI people of good­ Gabela weeping as she told anti-apartheid cause are fight­ gesture which blew up in the JOlces In the ruckname of 'may have leave to live how she buried her parents, wm ing it with the determination commission's face. 'Prime Evil' and boasts ofhav- uooerneath the law'. that they once reserved for the her daughter, her four brothers McBride - a man ofconsid- ing been the apartheid state"s and sisters - all'victims of the I The question for Archbishop country's racist oppressors. erable courage who enjoys he· most proficient killer. D'Oli" Tum is whether his pursuit of security forces - within But, above all, it is in danger of roic status in South Africa's veira appears to have 'turned' the tnIth is not compromising months ofeach other. falling victim to the subjecton De Kock, who is now travelling that fine principle. which it was the supposed au­ The impact of such testi­ black townships - has been the country giving evidence thority: questions ofmorality. mony found expression in a tormented by the constant evo­ against his former colleagues. The 17 worthies who make letter read out at one stage of cation ofthe Magoo's bombing He is to appear as a starwimess up the Truth Commission are the hearings by Archbishop whenever the atrocities of ap­ in a pending prosecution of artheid are debated. travelling tomorrow to the Tutu, from a 33-year-old minis­ senior members of the Inkatha town of Rustenberg in the Last week, McBride went on Freedom Party, which is ex­ ter in the Dutch Reformed national television to answer western Transvaal to begin the Church: 'How is it possible no­ pected to throw light on the second phase of their investi­ his tormentors, and in the involvement of Chief Mango­ body knew' what was happen­ course of the interview said gations, with the first of the ing and nothing was done? suthu Buthelezi's Zulu-based amnesty hearings atwhich per­ that he had planted the bomb organisation in the Third How is it possible to atone for on orders from his African petrators of human rights the guilt and shame and to live Force. abuses are expected to 'teU all' National Congress command­ D'Oliveira and McNally, as with it? I don't know what to ers. The remark immediately in exchange for indemnities do. I beg for your forgiveness, I legal 'professionals', show a against prosecution and civil raised a parallel between the degree of disdain for the arch- am sorry for all the pain and culpability of McBride's com­ litigation. ._e ~bhup' grief. i say this with a wOlUloed, manders and that ofthe former wid u'1e (amdteur=tt 0; As they make the journey, broken heart. Forgive me the the Truth Commission. It is the commissioners have Minister of Defence, General times 1turned my head and the Magnus Malan, and other re­ seemingly shared by others in grounds for satisfaction with times I turned away.' the legal establishment con. what they have achieved so far. tired military officers currently But there was also testimony on trial in Durban for allegedly cerned at what they see as me The first phase ofthe inquiry­ from the other side of apart­ bumblin,g interference ,of regional hearings of victims' authorising a police massacre heid's political divide which ofcivilians in 1987. 'happy-dappies' in the juditial accounts ofatrocities - was an pointed to looming difficulties process. The Supreme Court unashamed theatrical exercise The parallel was not lost on for the process of 'truth and the chief prosecutor in the has already slapped down the which succeeded brilliantly. reconciliation'. It came from commission over its disregard Far from exhaustive, it never· Malan case, the Kwalulu-Natal Cher and Sharon Gerrard, the of due process. by failing 1,0 theless confronted the white attorney-general. Tim McNally, sisters of a commercial artist, To the consternation of the allOW. alleged perpetratOrs of population with the horrors of 28-year-old Marchelle Gerrard, human rights ahusetthe op­ the apartheid era which had who died in what is known as Truth Commissioners, he I portunity to prep;lre their Qe- \ been obscured both by censor­ the Magoo's Bar bombing on promptly announced he was ' fence against ptlblicly \ airelt\ ship under National Party rule Durban's beachfJ:ont in 1986. preparing a prosecution charges of atrocity, A leading and by a refusal, born of social They appeared before the com­ against McBride's command­ civil rights lawyer is 10 mount a conditioning, to acknowledge a mission to dem"nd 'justice' of ers. McBride has refused to challenge to the commission shared humanity. the bomber, Robert McBride­ identify the people who gave shortly in the constitutional 'a cold-blooded murderer who him the orders, but McNally's cou" on behalf of Steve Biko's can never wipe away the pain, office is believed to be gunning family and others who are de­ sorrow, anguish and destruc­ for the former commander-in­ manding that the murderers of tion he caused', as the young chief of the ANC's military their loved ones be subject women put it. wing, loe Modise. ironically to straightforward criminal White South Africa has now Malan's successor at the prosecution. Defence Ministry, Representatives of the com· mission, the attorneys-general NOTES ON THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION (TRC) by an ANC observer I. Why The TRC? 1. The Constitution of South Africa makes provision for amnes!y for acts associated' with a political objective. It reqU"ires legislationto proviCIe for meChahismg criteria, and triDvnals (if any) for this purpose. The cut-off dates in the Constitution is 5 December 1993. 2. There is therefore a constitutional requirement that a law be passed to provide f~ ~esty.. The choice Defore the ANC was to pass ail amnesty la.w. pure. and. :5' p e. This would have provide.d for ancLta.keI:L9gre Qf ~rpetrato;r,Q_Ljt wot!ld have tQtally igIlQred victims.
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