bones of memory

experiences and memories lay bare the pain and bravery of apartheid's victims

I certainly have very considerable butterflies in the pit of the tummy…

Desmond Tutu

…But I … I also have a tingling sensation, you know. Just being in this [church] service and seeing so many people and sort of the wonderful generosity of the people that they do want this thing [the Truth and Reconciliation Commission] to succeed and that the stories must be told and that this process must end…

Oh, God of justice, mercy and peace, we long to put behind us all the pain and division of apartheid, together with all the violence which ravaged our communities in its name. And so we ask you to bless this Truth and Reconciliation Commission with your wisdom and guidance as it commences its important work of redressing the many wrongs done both here and throughout our land. We pray that all those people who have been injured in either body or spirit may receive healing through the work of this commission, and that it may be seen to be a body which seeks to redress the wounds inflicted in so harsh a manner on so many of our people, particularly here in the Eastern Cape. We pray, too, for those who may be found to have committed these crimes against their fellow human beings, that they may come to repentance and confess their guilt to almighty God and that they, too, might become the recipients of your divine mercy and forgiveness. We ask that the Holy Spirit may pour out its gifts of justice, mercy and compassion upon the commissioners and their colleagues in every sphere, that the truth may be recognised and brought to light during the hearings and that the end may bring about that reconciliation and love for our neighbour, which our Lord himself commanded. We ask this in the holy name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen.

Amen…

Please sit…

We welcome all those who will be telling their stories, as well as their relatives and friends. We will want to hear their stories. That is the basic reason for these hearings. For the Human Rights Violations Committee to help the commission [the TRC] determine whether particular persons have suffered gross violations of their human rights and for those persons then to be declared victims who will thereafter be referred to the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee of our commission, which then must make appropriate recommendations to the president of our country for the nature and size of reparation to be given. Thank you, all of you here in South Africa and round the world who have prayed and are praying for the commission and its work. We are charged to unearth the truth about our dark past, to lay the ghosts of that past so that they will not return to haunt us. And [so] that we will thereby contribute to the healing of a traumatised and wounded people – for all of us in South Africa are wounded people – and in this manner to promote national unity and reconciliation. We want to indicate that those who testify before this commission will enjoy the same privilege as would happen in a court of law for the testimony that they give, provided what they say is the truth as they understand it and provided what they have done is done in good faith…

I now declare that the hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is now in session. We will now sing "Lizalis’ idinga lakho".

[Leads audience in singing "Lizalis’ idinga lakho"]

We invite Mrs Nohle Mohapi … uh … to take the stand…

Alex Boraine

…Mrs Mohapi, do you wish to take the oath or to make an affirmation?

Yes, I will take the oath.

Thank you very much. Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you will give before this commission will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

So help me God.

Thank you very much indeed. Do be seated. In welcoming you as the first witness in the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we are mindful of the sufferings that you have endured in the past. Many of us remember as though it was yesterday when Mapetla [Mohapi] died in police custody. We remember the anguish and the horror of those days. We know that you, too, have been detained and were in solitary confinement and we salute you as someone who has witnessed to great courage, and you coming here today is a testimony to your commitment to truth, to justice, to reconciliation and to peace between you and all South Africa. Uh … Tiny Maya, who is sitting on my right, will lead the questions which the commission would like to ask as you give your testimony. You are very, very welcome.

Thank you, Alex. Before we begin, I would like to indicate that my witness would be more comfortable with presenting her testimony in Xhosa. So I would like everybody who does not understand Xhosa to put on their headphones so that we can begin…

The first week of Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in East London was an exceptional one in South Africa. Nothing like the miracle election of April 1994. Nothing like the Government of National Unity. And nothing like South Africa’s unifying sport victories. Mid-April 1996 was a week in which the country and its people came face to face with their past for the first time. Darren Taylor and Zola Ntutu reflect on the dominant themes that surfaced in the first four days of the Truth Commission’s probe into gross human rights abuses during the apartheid era.

…During the time when the Herald was being delivered, I looked at the h… headlines. And one of my children said: "Mother look here, the car belonging to my father is burnt."

Nomonde Calata

…At that moment I was trembling because I was afraid of what might have happened to my husband. Nyami [Goniwe] was always supportive and I was still 20 at the time and I couldn’t handle this. So I was taken to Nyami’s place. And when I got there, Nyami was crying terribly…

[Leads audience in singing "Senzeni na"]

The wailing cry of Nomonde Calata ushers in the Truth Commission. She’s the widow of Fort Calata, one of the Cradock Four activists. Wave after wave of stories, best expressed in a mother tongue, are told and shared with pure forcefulness. Stories that unlock the horror, the suffering, the pain, the injustice and the brutality of South Africa’s past. Not with frigid facts or courtroom coldness, but with gripping memories.

…Next to the bench there was this small plastic, which is like a tube of the tyre. It was taken off from this water and then it was put on my head…

Joe Jordan

…You can imagine that… How can you breathe if you have a plastic over your head? The water was then thrown over my body and I was electrocuted. I tried to struggle, but I was unable to do anything about this. The electrocution continued for a long time. I was screaming all the time and I realised that I was losing consciousness. They asked me if I want to tell the truth. I said: "I do not know Steve Tshwete." They continued with the electrocution. Even in my genitals they did this. Even through my anus they did this. They electrocuted me through every hole that they could find in my body. And on my head there is this tube. I was suffocated. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t do anything…

Various themes are flung to the forefront. The strongest highlighting that the Eastern Cape province of South Africa has been riddled with disgusting deeds. But why? And why the Eastern Cape? The Eastern Cape has a history of oppression and resistance. It’s also the birthplace of some of the country’s well-known leaders, like Steve Biko, Oliver Tambo, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Nelson Mandela. No wonder it was said in security circles: "He who can destroy the Eastern Cape will rule the country."

…The response of the state was to bring in its forces to try and intimidate and break the community resistance. Violence escalated and the community decided to embark on a school boycott…

Nyami Goniwe

…The demands of the students were the immediate reinstatement of Matthew Goniwe. Matthew’s unpopularity with the security forces intensified. He was hated and regarded as an enemy of the state. The whole family bore the wrath of the Security Police, which took the form of harassments, early morning house raids, constant surveillance, death threats, phone buggings…

But there’s a deeper reason why atrocities that have haunted people with previously unknown horrors were committed here. It appears that the Eastern Cape was the best dumping ground for those who got out of hand. Like former policemen and soldiers, black and white, from the counter-insurgency unit Koevoet and the Defence Force’s notorious 101 and 32 battalions.

The names of several alleged security force perpetrators crop up time and time again. Gideon Nieuwoudt, Albert [Bahlekazi] Tungata, Eric Winter, Chris Labuschagne, Spyker van Wyk and Gert Strydom, as well as men known only as Hattingh, Fouché and Ngcayi. The connection? Torture and murder. Bland and mild words.

…I read the documents about the postmortem…

Nombuyiselo Mhlauli

…In the upper abdomen were 25 wounds. These were the wounds explaining the fact that different weapons were used to stab him or a group of people stabbed him. Now in the lower part, he also had wounds. But the wounds in … in total were 43. One other thing that we understood: they … they … they poured acid on his face. After that they chopped off his right hand. I don’t know what did they do with that hand…

…At Louis le Grange [police station] there was a bot… a bottle. It contains water. I don’t know how does it smell…

Fezile Jacobs

…That is where I was showed this hand of Mrs [Mr] Sicelo [Mhlauli] and then they said this is one of the baboon hands that is kept in this bottle. And I knew that Sicelo was buried without hand … his hand…

Who showed you this hand? Was it the policemen?

Yes. It was Mr Hattingh. There’s another one, [Gideon] Nieuwoudt. He is the one also who showed me this hand…

The public perception that stories of gross human rights abuses will only come from one side of the political spectrum is proved wrong. All parties are accused and all sorts of people come forward. Every black victim is accompanied by his or her family. But not Karl Webber. He was disabled when the PAC’s military wing, Apla, attacked East London’s Highgate Hotel with AK-47s and grenades in May 1993. His only refuge as he sits all alone is the black woman who guides, soothes and comforts every single victim.

…It took me plus minus a year to teach myself how to get dressed … um … to feed myself. Uh … there are things I can’t do. Um … I can’t get to the right-hand side of my face because of the fixtures in my elbow. Um … I need assistance when I need to be shaved. I need assistance when I need to be bathed…

Then there is the audience which packs the town hall in the heart of East London every day. But virtually no white face. This doesn’t escape a black resident, Richard Somlota.

…It is a great concern that the white communities didn’t turn up, even those who were the victims of the … the resistance of the apartheid…

Then there are the women. Sixty per cent of the victims who testify are women. They weave their household chores into almost all their agonies.

…In June I was arrested. I was taken from my place early in the morning when I was busy preparing breakfast for my children…

Nomali Galela

…There was a big policeman, a huge man and I could see that there were so many boers next to my door. And he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and they broke in through the ceiling and obtained so many grenades, but we were not aware of them. Photos were taken about the house. It was searched all around. We were taken into custody. Mr [Albert Bahlekazi] Tungata was amongst them and the whole system was outside because I was r… labelled as a terrorist. And I just left a message for somebody to look after my children…

What towers over everything for most of us is the web of sorrow, spun around the maimed and the dead. But not for me, says Truth Commission Chairperson Desmond Tutu.

…The oppressive system of apartheid did not stand a chance. The people who’ve come forward here are people of quite extraordinary character. [Thank you] very much for your hospitality. The world is amazed as it hears the harrowing stories that you have been telling. That there can be this willingness to forgive, this humaneness. On the one side you have a Mrs [Beth] Savage saying the traumatic experience she’s had has enriched her life and she wants to meet the person who did this in a spirit of forgiveness…

…What I would really, really like is I would like to … to meet that man that tsu… threw the grenade, in a … in an attitude of forgiveness…

Beth Savage

…And hope that he could forgive me, too, for whatever or for whatever reason…

…And then the people from Cradock saying now something like a heavy burden has been removed from them…

…But now that I’m here I’m sort of humbled by the experiences of the others…

Nyami Goniwe

…I’m happy to say that I’m happy that I came…

…All of your stories are stories that are going to inspire us and inspire our people for many a long day…

[Applauds]

I want to read from two letters that I received yesterday. "As an ordinary member of the public I would like you to know that I have been intensely moved and inspired by the testimonies heard at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in East London last week. My pain and inspiration have come from the awesome, horrific and humbling stories and the extraordinary forgiveness of those wounded people. We are all wounded. I wrote a poem to try and understand what all this means and I would like you to know that there are many people out there who feel with those people. The pain belongs to us all. Thank you, all of you, for your own humanity and for helping us all towards healing." And the poem:

"The world is wept.

Blood and pain seep into our listening,

into our wounded souls.

The sound of your sobbing is my own weeping.

Your wet handkerchief my pillow

for a past so exhausted it cannot rest.

Not yet.

Speak, weep, look, listen for us all.

Oh, people of the silent hidden past,

let your stories scatter seeds into our lonely frightened winds.

Sow more.

Until the stillness of this land can soften,

can dare to hope and smile and sing.

Until the ghosts can dance unshackled,

until our lives can know your sorrows.

And be healed."

The next Truth Commission hearing into gross human rights abuses at Athlone in Cape Town was also filled with protracted pain. But it was a week flavoured and characterised by the undertones of the Western Cape, where tensions were still entrenched within communities. The victims of the 1993 St James Church massacre echoed the forgiveness of the Cradock Four widows in East London. But the Lubowskis, whose son and brother Anton was assassinated in Windhoek in September 1989, mirrored the lust for justice of Steve Biko’s family. Angie Kapelianis and Darren Taylor look back at that mind-blowing week.

…I feel what … what has brought my sight back … my eyesight back is to come back here and tell this story…

Lukas Sikwepere

…But I feel what has been making me sick all the time is the fact that I couldn’t tell my story. But now it feels like I got my sight back…

[Sings "Thula sizwe"]

Mostly unknown are the majority of victims who appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at Athlone during the second last week of April 1996. Simple people with calluses etched on their hands, from hard work and poverty. Their faces are still lined with contempt for the brutal police and the injustice of the justice system. They’ve been treated worse than the scum of the earth.

…When the music started for the news… Okay, in the news I was told that there are these seven children…

Eunice Miya

…And one of the children was shown on [SABC] TV who had a gun on his chest. Only to find out it was … it’s my son Jabulani [Miya]. I prayed, I said: "Oh no, Lord, I wish … I wish this news can just rewind." They were treating people like animals. That’s what makes me cry right now. But even a dog you don’t kill it like that. Even an ant, a small ant, you … you think you have feelings even for an ant. But now our own children they were not even taken as ants…

You hear of your child’s death by accident. When you send him to buy fish, a passer-by says: "They’ve shot your boy." When you go looking for him, you find him in the most humiliating and degrading situation.

…And Ginana [Vellem] was sent to the shop by one of the neighbours to buy cigarettes and matches…

Thelma Melane

…When my brother was taken to the police station he was still gasping. Now at the police station nobody took care of him. They simply ignored him. So my father followed to the police station. When he got there, he found that my brother was on a bench. He held his hand. My father s… could see that he was already dead. He closed his eyes and then my father fainted right there in the police station…

The abnormal society of South Africa’s past catches Truth Commissioner Mary Burton off guard.

…When your children were late home, you knew right away that there was a real problem. And you knew the places you had to go looking for them. One of the things that we hope for in the future is that we can create the kind of society where, when your 15-year-old children come home late, you know why it is, they are with friends and not in danger. And maybe that’s one of the things that the TRC can help to do is to create that better society for our grandchildren…

The inquest is a joke. But loathe and mistrust for the whole justice system means that some parents don’t even want to fetch simple documents like death certificates.

…Yes, sir. When I got there, I can’t remember whether it was a magistrate or anyone. I … I don’t know who usually sits in court. I don’t know the proceedings in courts…

Edward Juqu

…They asked me: "Is this your son?"

I said: "Yes he is."

He said: "Ja, he’s dead."

So I said: "So what should I do?"

He said: "Oh, we’re very sorry."

So I said: "What are you sorry about?"

At that time I was already confused. And I ju… but I told myself: "No, let me just stand here and listen."

And this magistrate said: "Okay, there’s nothing we can do."

I … I didn’t give a damn what he was thinking about me, I simply left…

The images are still unforgettable, sketched with crystal clear memories and language. Looksmart Ngudle, one of the first activists to die in detention in 1963, stumbles up the prison stairs. Half his face is covered in blood. The hairs of his beard have been pulled out one by one.

…And then one day, Looksmart [Ngudle] came from behind me and said he was going to drop a note for me…

Govan Mbeki

…I saw him drop what appeared to be a ball, a rolled paper. I knelt down and got it hidden. I need not say where…

[Laughs]

When we got back to the cell – we were in single cells – [I] opened the note and in the note he wrote that he was being heavily tortured, that his whole back was full of sores and weals. The following morning before breakfast a voice came from under the cell door to say: "They have killed Looksmart Ngudle."…

Sonny Boy Zantsi, the unknown Guguletu equivalent of Soweto’s Hector Peterson, is shot in the head. The policeman buries his brains in the ground.

…We saw a … a white man…

[Laughs slightly]

This white man shot with something.

Did the white man have a … a rifle in his hand?

Yes.

Regina Gwayi

After that we heard this sound "grrr". We saw him dragging two of these children. One was already dead.

How was he dragging these two children?

He was holding them with their legs just like dogs. He was dragging them. The other one was just about to die, he was still foaming. We saw him digging up a … a hole for the brains of this other boy.

When you saw this hole, did you see these brains?

Yes, we did.

Whose brains were these?

They were Sonny Boy’s brains.

A policeman deliberately fires bullets in between the legs of Nomatise Tsobileyo. Eleven years after the shooting they’re still lodged in her vagina.

…We were running through the shacks only to find that also the boers were going through these shacks after us. I turned back alone. I was trying to find other comrades. I couldn’t see them. I could feel the [tear] gas coming through my eyes. And I … I went to the toilet to hide. When I got out of this toilet, I saw one boer, only to find out he also saw me. He shot at me.

Where did he shoot you?

He shot me on my left leg. Then I fell.

That isn’t the only place where you got injured, is it?

No.

Some of the bullets are still in your body?

Yes, I have several bullets in my body. Some are somewhere in my body, some under … some of the bullets are in my vagina…

And all Busisiwe Kewana wants is to bury the bones of her mother, Nombulelo Delato, at Colesburg in the Northern Cape. The comrades necklaced Delato in the mid-eighties.

…And then they started igniting her feet. They were beating him up … her up…

Thomzana Maliti

…They beat her up and they put … put a tyre on her. There was nobody who could stop this. The police took her to Bloemfontein. In Bloemfontein she stayed for three days. She started to mention everybody who did this to her. Then, after that, she died. They didn’t allow her to be buried in Colesburg because they said she was an informer. They said if she was buried there, they were going to burn the church…

Another graphic image is the night of terror when Athlone Umkhonto we Sizwe hero Anton Fransch is blasted to death in a gun-battle with the police. Pieces of his flesh plaster the walls. His neighbour, Basil Snayer, vividly remembers that night in November 1989.

…I heard: "Kom uit, jou vark. Vandag is jou laaste…"

Come out, you pig! Today you’re dead!

"…Vandag is jy dood!" Things to that effect. They took seven hours in what could only be described as declaring a residential area a war zone and terrorising not only Anton [Fransch] and … but also residents in the area whose lives were … were constantly in danger. I … I am convinced that if the will was there, Anton could have been gassed out, starved out if it took seven days in order to gain intelligence for whatever purpose. The wall … the walls … walls and ceiling were blood-spattered all … all over. Bits of what I … I can only describe as … as hair of some sort and flesh were also strewn around and smeared or whatever on to the wall. That ended a … um … I suppose an episode in our lives as a family which we will never forget…

The well known are also in Cape Town: the Lubowski family, who is opposed to amnesty for the killers of their son and brother, Swapo activist and lawyer Anton Lubowski.

…I am requesting the commission to help us to take away the hindrances so that our child’s murderers can be tried in a court of law…

Molly Lubowski

…The assassination was planned here in South Africa by Afrikaners and was committed in Namibia when it was still under South African jurisdiction…

…I require the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to fully investigate the assassination…

Wilfried Lubowski

…in order to finally expose those responsible and to restore the good name and memory of Anton [Lubowski]…

And then there’s one of the many survivors of the 1993 Apla attack on the St James Church in Cape Town.

…I curled myself up to sort of hide my face from the gun firing…

Paul Williams

…but … uh … soon after, I just felt the thud of the bullet hitting my lower back. It was like a tension-wire snapping and with that went a lot of pain. I just … I stretched my body and … uh … my lower body just became very numb. I feel I have forgiven them. I bear no grudges against them. There is absolutely no bitterness within my heart towards them. If I come face to face with them, I’ll be prepared to … to hug them…

As more and more South Africans continue to narrate, remember and relive their experiences of gross human rights abuses in public, the faces of Truth Commission Chairperson Desmond Tutu and his deputy, Dr Alex Boraine, begin to furrow with exhaustion. Keeping the focus sharply honed on the victims of Gauteng and violence-torn KwaZulu-Natal over the next two weeks can only take its toll.

[Sings]

Where do they come from?

Tell me, tell me where do they come from?

Tales so brave. Tales so strong.

Some are so funny, so crazy, unbelievable.

Some are so funny, so crazy, unbelievable.

They come from the bones of memory.

Watch my eyes, hear my voice, I tell you true.

These tales are from the bones of memory.

These tales are from the bones of memory.

These tales are from the bones of memory.

Of memory. Of memory. Of memory.

From the bones of memory.

From the bones of memory.

From the bones of memory.

From the bones of memory…

The Truth Commission’s symbolic hearings into gross human rights abuses moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg between April and May 1996. Again a number of themes were raised under the ceiling and the cross of the Central Methodist Church, where the hearing was held. For the first time an ordinary apartheid policeman came across as being sympathetic towards the comrades and opposed to the free rein of the notorious Security Branch. South Africans of Indian origin were finally recognised for their role in the liberation struggle. But some of these shifts in the Truth Commission script were lost on all but those paying the most undivided attention as the pain first experienced in East London resurfaced. Darren Taylor and Antjie Samuel return to the Johannesburg testimonies.

[Sings "Thina sizwe"]

…They put two chairs on either side of the louvre window and one policeman got on either chair and they dragged me to the window. And then they said: "You can now jump…"

Abdulhay Jassat

…When I said I refused, they grabbed me by my shoulders and lifted me physically up and pushed my head out of the window. And they were holding me by my ankles. All I could see was the concrete floor at the bottom. We were three floors up. And all of a sudden one of them would let go of one foot. As he’s about to catch my foot, the one that he had released, the other chap lets go. And they played like that and you know, you thought, God, this is the end, because there’s no way you can get out of it. Now this is an important factor, because I think when they said, for example, that Babla Saloojee "jumped" from the window, I think it’s a lie! I think they s… did the same thing to [Ahmed] Timol at John Vorster Square [police station] where he too "fell" from the tenth floor…

The torture of activists in cells and in township streets continues to dominate the Truth Commission. There are fears that people listening to the testimonies of victims every day will become desensitised. Yet each new disclosure further exposes the degradation, humiliation and dehumanisation that the apartheid security forces instituted and cherished. South Africa, for many, was hell on earth.

…I saw him connecting this earphones. He didn’t hear me, because this last thing I said to him: why doesn’t he put it on to the hi-fi so that I could also listen…

Sepati Mlangeni

…I don’t even think he even heard a thing of what happened, what was in the cassette, because within seconds, I heard a big explosion, big noise. I thought it was a gun. The last thing I saw, I just saw him falling down slowly…

…My daughter-in-law came rushing in and just said: "Bheki [Mlangeni]!"…

Catherine Mlangeni

…I just said: "What’s wrong with Bheki?" My daughter-in-law just said: "Mama, Bheki at the garage." I was surprised what’s this garage story about. When I came out, they held me. They said: "Please don’t go in there." I just skipped through their legs and went in. I found Bheki. He was in pieces. He was hanging on curtains. He was all over. Pieces of him and brains, all of it was scattered around. That was the end of Bheki…

Truth Commission member Hugh Lewin is still haunted by the sounds of fellow political prisoners being led to the gallows. Lewin says there was a marked difference in the methods of torture that the apartheid government’s lackeys used in the sixties, seventies and eighties.

…There was a clear move from the sixties, where it was a sort of free and open house for the police or the Security Police. They had 90 days, then they had 180 days, then they had virtually, you know, as much time as they liked. Then, through the instances, for instance, of Neil Aggett’s death, that was a watershed…

…In February, Neil [Aggett] was found hanging from his cell. And the question, really, for everyone: Was he killed in interrogation and hung up or did he in fact take his own life?…

Liz Floyd

…I think with … with Neil’s death … um … people’s worst fears about detention were confirmed. Everyone knew this could happen, but I think it’s still very shattering when it does happen. And what was a bit unusual about Neil was that he was the first white person to die in detention…

…The next watershed came with David Webster, whereby they saw that they had to be very careful in terms of how they interrogated people and what they did. That didn’t stop them doing it, but they had to be more careful…

…The assassination of David Webster and the subsequent attempt to identify the perpetrators and planners of this can’t be seen in isolation nor viewed as an individual incident…

Maggie Friedman

…I believe that assassination of selected opponents of the apartheid-based state formed part of a carefully planned strategy…

The Truth Commission has so far allowed victims to name their torturers in the apartheid security forces. But this small measure of justice is shattered in Johannesburg. Here the Truth Commission advises them not to name their torturers following the successful court application of two former security policemen. So, when George Oliphant is asked whether he knows who killed his brother, Benjie, he comes across as a man muzzled.

…Do you know the boy who informed the police that Benjie [Oliphant] and them were in a car?

Yes, I know his name. I know him very well.

Do you know the person who said when they see Benjie they would kill him?

Yes, I know him very well.

In the Eastern Cape, the response to such questions is unequivocal. "It is former security policeman Gideon Nieuwoudt."

In the Western Cape, the name of the security policeman with the red scarf around his head who roamed the townships in his red Valiant touches almost every victim’s lips. "Barries Barnard."

But it’s in Johannesburg where a uniformed policeman active during the apartheid years first separates the wheat from the chaff.

…Those atrocities were done mainly by the Security Branch…

Gregory Beck

…And the Security Branch had full reign of anything that they wanted to do. And, you know, they excluded the rest of the police force out of what they done. They were like a … a law unto their own…

The oral testimony of Cornish Makhanya is arguably the most disturbing. He buries his head in his arms and sobs and sobs. At the age of 18 he was one of his school’s top athletes. But he was also an activist.

…They took this stick. They put it between my knees underneath and they took my hands and handcuffed them. And I … and when I asked them what they were doing, they said I’m talking a lot. I know a lot. They took off all the cords, those cords on my head. They took these two cords. They put them on my private parts. After they put these … uh … cords on my private parts, they put this machine on. I got torn underneath…

The only person with appropriate words for all these harrowing accounts is Truth Commission Chairperson Desmond Tutu.

…There’s been a lot of evil. I mean, there’s been a lot of evil in this country. It’s being exorcised, but there’s been a lot of evil. Eh … for goodness sake … eh … let’s not try to be justifying what happened. It was bad. It was evil!

[Reads poem]

One witness

has a dark suit and waistcoat and a glove on his hand

to help with the arthritis – and a stick.

Thirty years before he didn’t need a stick

to stir the streets, him and the other kids.

They picked him up, he said,

and roughed him up a bit in Alex

before taking him to Pretoria

– Kompol, the big house, their house,

with the warrens of offices like cells

in corridors where they do what they want –

and they start giving him the treatment,

pausing only to bring in another pick-up

(looking dazed) to watch,

while they batter him, and batter him, and batter him.

But I was lucky, he said, I shat myself

and they said: Yussus, maar die kaffir’t gekak en – vat hom weg –

They start instead on the spectator. He is from Cape Town.

His name is Looksmart [Ngudle]. By morning he’s dead.

Another witness

tells how she heard about her teenage son;

how he’d been in the street with friends

when a passing hippo shot him

then they collect him, she said, still alive

and batter his head against a rock.

Twenty years later, tall and high-pitched,

she spits fury

red-hot.

Maybe, she says, crumpling into her pain,

he’d still be here

if they hadn’t hit his head against the rock.

Three witnesses together –

grannies, with doeks and darting eyes –

take it in turns to weep

as they tell of their children across the border in the safety of

Gaborone.

So many details: of the cars they took to get there,

the scenery along the way, all the details.

The soldiers, they explain, shot anything that moved

and raked the cupboard (where the overnight visitor hid)

tore even the cupboard to pieces, pieces, to pieces.

There was this large white sheet at the funeral, she said,

with all the names listed – and his wasn’t there

but there, right at the bottom … ah, Joseph [Malaza].

Afterwards, the hall echoes

with the laughter of kids in the square outside

and we sit

wondering about these lists of bodies

and the glistening eyes of mothers

The evening shadows ring with the sounds of the children

and you have to think of tomorrow

The Truth Commission wrapped up its symbolic round of public hearings into gross human rights abuses in Durban on the 10^th of May 1996. Evidence heard at the Jewish Club provided some insight into the violence that was still ravaging KwaZulu-Natal long after South Africa’s first democratic elections had brought peace to most of the country. Many ANC members and supporters blamed the Inkatha Freedom Party in absentia for abuses they had suffered. A glaring gap was that the experiences of IFP members went untold in the same week that South Africa’s democratic Constitution was adopted. And in the same week that the National Party walked out of the Government of National Unity. Kenneth Makatees and Darren Taylor bring to mind what happened in Durban.

[Leads audience in singing "Lizalis’ idinga lakho"]

A simple hymn in honour of the estimated 15 000 people killed in KwaZulu-Natal’s political violence since 1980. A simple hymn for the estimated one million people turned into refugees in their own village, town and province. As their homes are razed to the ground and burn to ash, they flee in fear into the darkness.

…The only thing he said was if you don’t want your houses to be burnt, leave all the things that you are doing…

Mandla Cele

…Listen to what the Inkatha leaders are saying. Forget about what you are doing because that’s nonsense…

…We went to [the] mortuary where we found that his body was burnt…

Veli Sibankulu

…It was only the head that had remained and the upper body, up until the beginning of the lower legs. That was the body we found. The eyes had bursted. He didn’t have arms. He also didn’t have the lower limbs…

Everyone anticipates that the Truth Commission hearing in Durban will be different. The Security Branch’s torturous reign has ended in the Eastern Cape. Forced removals are no longer the order of the day in the Western Cape. And the streets of Gauteng are long silent from exploding bombs. But carnage and political killings still plague KwaZulu-Natal.

…We do want to express our deepest sympathies to those who are suffering as a result of the ongoing violence in this province and express our distress that violence should seem to be endemic in these parts. We hope that the work of the commission may make some kind of contribution to the ending of violence and to the promotion of reconciliation in these parts…

KwaZulu-Natal is where the state-sponsored third force becomes recognisable. With its face of deceit, it is called by many names, such as the amabutho.

…And one of the amabuthos, the warriors, said: "Let me see who’s got an axe." And I heard they were chopping down our doors. And they got inside…

Mama Phungula

…I don’t know when Khumbulani [Phungula] died, because at that stage I was hiding. I didn’t hide under the bed because I realised that if I hide under the bed, they’ll kill me cruelly. So they’d better kill me standing. So I stood behind the door and I was hiding and they got inside. They chopped him. They chopped him in his face and on his chest. They opened up his chest with an axe…

But the third force, comprising policemen and vigilantes, doesn’t only plunder the lush hills and valleys of KwaZulu-Natal. It also stalks the dry Free State veld in search of its prey. Here it’s known as the A-Team.

…I was bleeding. When I fell down, this knife was still in my body and when I fell, it went deeper…

Sello Nhlapo

…I don’t know who rescued me, but w… when I woke up, I saw pipes. While I was breathing, the blood would come out of my body into a bottle. I only heard that there was an organisation called A-Team. They were people against us, I mean, the UDFs. They used to drive in the township in their cars. They started this organisation working together with the police because when the police were together with the A-Team, they would put them at the forefront so that they kill and the police would never appear in court…

Members of the apartheid security forces are richly rewarded for orchestrating what is deliberately and conveniently labelled black-on-black violence. Images of barbarians slaughtering one another are beamed across the world to prove that the apartheid government is not persecuting activists. And in all of this the IFP plays a major role.

…It was quarter to five. I was still asleep because we couldn’t sleep at night. We used to sleep during the day. At night we’ll be on guard against Inkatha…

Nomvuyo Msizazwe

…We used to alternate guarding and … and we’d put off the light and just guard. We’d keep on opening the curtains slightly and check if Inkatha wasn’t coming. I cried a lot because it was the first time I saw my child taking a knife and stabbing somebody. I cried because this violence taught our children to kill, because Inkatha was attacking us…

Halfway through the Durban hearing, the IFP does a volte-face. First, it brands the Truth Commission an ANC witch-hunt, forcing its members and supporters to stay away.

…And we said that the IFP as IFP decided that we’re not going to participate in the … in the Trr… Truth and Reconciliation Commission because from the very word go, we suspected that what is happening now was going to happen…

Mangosuthu Buthelezi

…Because clearly some of the actions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as we see them are acts where the ruling party we think is targeting their opposition, their opponents, by using the Truth and Recon…ciliation Commission as apparatus to conduct witch-hunting…

When the accusations begin to pile up, the IFP finally indicates a willingness to co-operate with the commission.

Ziba Jiyane

…To the charge that we have discouraged people, nothing could be further from the truth…

The most historic landmarks coinciding with the Durban hearing are the adoption of South Africa’s first democratic Constitution and the National Party’s decision to walk out of the fragile Government of National Unity.

…The Constitution has been accepted by an overwhelming majority in Parliament. Nearly unanimous, only two votes against, which is a wonderful thing … uh … uh … and I … I think those over there [in Parliament] deserve a clap again, I mean, ja…

[Applauds]

It’s during these significant political developments that apolitical victims share their immense suffering with the Truth Commission, the country and the world. Like those who lost loved ones at Magoo’s Bar in Durban in 1986 when former convicted ANC member Robert McBride planted his lethal bomb.

…Just because we happen to have white skins doesn’t mean that we agreed with apartheid and all the horrors an… and terrible things that went with it…

Sharon Welgemoed

…Mr [Robert] McBride cannot justify his position in the Government of National Unity as he’s a cold-blooded murderer who can never wipe away the pain, sorrow and anguish and destruction he caused. We want Mr McBride removed from public office. The thought that we are contributing to his upkeep is … is inconceivable and, in our opinion, if … if he’s been indemnified then why should the government even try to prosecute other people for any other horrendous crimes because surely the same principle should apply for everybody?…

But explosions motivated by hatred and defiance of apartheid don’t discriminate against victims. Anti-apartheid activist Gary Govindsamy lost his brother and sister-in-law in the 1984 bombing of Durban’s esplanade.

…The perpetrators were not blowing up pylons, they were not blowing up bridges, they were not blowing up government offices, they were not blowing up the army barrackses. Innocent people were being killed. And I know for a fact that in a struggle like this, innocent people get caught in the crossfire. It was unfortunate that my brother, who supported a struggle for liberation in a peaceful means, got killed. He believed in a free and just society for all South Africans. A society where everyone, black and white, could live in harmony…

Since the 15^th of April 1996 South Africans have gained a terrifying insight into their past. Many didn’t know the extent of the atrocities. And a lot chose to ignore what was happening around them. But the Truth Commission’s greatest victory so far is the voice it has given to the voiceless.

…I think at the time when her father died, when she was five years old, she used to come to me: "Are you missing Daddy?" And … and I would also say: "Yes, I’m missing Daddy." But one day, what was very sad to me, she said: "But why don’t they come and shoot us so that we can be with him in heaven?"…

Philisiwe Khuzwayo

…She said the same people who killed the father must come and shoot her as well so that she can be with her father in heaven. She was very much fond of the father. Anything she wanted, the father would run around and get it. When her father had gone, she wrote a letter. She put it at the office. She said: "Dear Father Christmas, could you send me all the nice teddy bears because my father who’d buy these things for me is no more?" I went and bought the teddy bear and I wrapped and folded [it] nicely. I said: "Here is your teddy bear from Father Christmas for you…"

Many questions remain. Who should get amnesty for all these killings, tortures and bombings? What sort of reparations should be given to all these victims and survivors? And is it only the rough, big men in their blue suits with guns on their hips who are guilty?

We have been shocked and filled with revulsion to hear of the depths to which we are able to sink in our inhumanity to one another. Our capacity for the sadistic enjoyment of the suffering we have inflicted on one another. The refinement of cruelty in keeping families guessing about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones, sending them carelessly on a run-around from police station to police station, to hospital and mortuary in a horrendous wild goose chase. That is one side. The ghastly and sombre side of the picture that is emerging thus far. But there is another side, a more noble and inspiring one. We have been deeply touched and moved by the resilience of the human spirit. People who by rights should have had the stuffing knocked out of them, refusing to buckle under intense suffering and brutality and intimidation. People refusing to give up on the hope of freedom. Knowing they were made for something better than the dehumanising awfulness of injustice, oppression. Refusing to be intimidated to lower their sights. It is quite incredible the capacity people have shown to be magnanimous, refusing to be consumed by bitterness and hatred. Willing to meet with those who have violated their persons and their rights. Willing to meet in a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. Eager only to know the truth, to know the perpetrator so that they could forgive them. We have been moved to tears. We have laughed. We have been silent and we have stared the beast of our dark past in the eye. And we have survived the ordeal. And we are realising that we can indeed transcend the conflicts of the past. We can hold hands as we realise our common humanity. The generosity of spirit will be full to overflowing when it meets a like generosity. Forgiveness will follow confession and healing will happen and so contribute to national unity and reconciliation…

[Sings]

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