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Vlok on his hands and knees
| Date: |
10 September 2006 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Victoria Cullinan
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Last Sunday one of the most reviled politicians of the apartheid era made his way to a church in Soweto. Adriaan Vlok had been invited to attend a service by Reverend Frank Chikane, Director General in the Presidency and pastor of the church.
Reverend Frank Chikane (Director General, Presidency): 'The fact that Mr. Vlok is here with us in this service today is in itself a miracle. And his self-humbling act of washing my feet is the talk of the town.'
On 3 August this year Adriaan Vlok kneeled at Frank Chikane's feet and begged his forgiveness for the sins he had committed against him 20 years ago.
Adriaan Vlok (Minister of Law & Order 1987-1991): 'But you know, 12 years ago we were fighting here in Soweto. It was a war. I am quite honest when I say to you that I hated your pastor.'
It was a few weeks ago when Chikane first spoke of Vlok's gesture.
Rev. Chikane: 'I shared it with the congregation and people just broke down and cried. And there is no way that you can have that experience and keep it quiet. I said to him that what you did was not meant for the media but I think we should let the world know... because if it leaks it could be misunderstood. And secondly, having seen what happened in the congregation, I now believe that it would help other people.'
Adriaan: 'I am really surprised by the reaction. I am absolutely flabbergasted. I feel uncomfortable about it.'
But there hasn't been universal appreciation of Chikane's readiness to forgive the person described as one of the most evil men apartheid created.
Shirley Gunn (Activist): 'It is a step in the right direction. But he has many, many more steps to take.'
Shirley Gunn runs a support group for victims of apartheid.
Shirley: 'If I visualise Zapiro's cartoon where in the next frame it is like, well you have got another 100 000 feet to go. And that's the reality.'
Rev. Chikane: 'Of course saying sorry does not substitute for disclosure. So Mr. Vlok still has to disclose things that he knows. Let's separate the two things - there is a legal process and a spiritual liberation.'
There are many apartheid era criminals who still face prosecution and Vlok could be a key witness. He served as minister during one of the most repressive eras in South African history.
Ruda: 'Adriaan Vlok was appointed deputy minister of law and order and of defence in 1985 and the following year took over as minister of law of order, that is, the police. His department more than any other was in charge of suppressing resistance to apartheid.'
Rev. Chikane: 'Ja, he was the minister in charge of the machinery... the killing machine.'
And Chikane was one of the targets of the killing machine. He was a founder member of the United Democratic Front and a priest on the frontline of the campaigns. Vlok stated in parliament that clerics who took part in protests chose violence and communism above Christianity.
Adriaan: 'But you see, that's the kind of stuff we had to deal with .[He is referring to a photograph on screen]. The communism flag... The flag is flying over SA, and there's the clergy.'
Ruda: 'But the SACP is now part of the government.'
Adriaan: 'Yes, but that's now.'
Ruda: 'What did you read into a photo like this?'
Adriaan: 'The communists wanted to take over.'
Rev. Chikane: 'It was a crazy situation. They were prisoners of the system. They believed in that ideology, they were indoctrinated in that history. They were brought up in that way to believe it and up to close to the end they believed it.'
In 1985 Chikane was arrested and charged with treason. Nine months later the charges were dropped. Over the years he was arrested and detained five times.
Rev. Chikane: 'Two of those detentions were the worst because they involved the worst kind of torture.'
Ruda: 'Chikane and Vlok met face to face for the first time in 1989. Three hundred detainees had gone on a hunger strike and Rev. Chikane was part of a delegation that went to the government to try and mediate.'
Many of the hunger strikers, including Trevor Manuel, were close to death. Chikane managed to persuade Vlok and his colleagues to release the prisoners before the country exploded.
Ruda: 'How did you experience Adriaan Vlok?'
Rev. Chikane: 'Mr. de Klerk chaired the meeting, and the difficulty was more with Mr. Vlok and Mr. van der Merwe. They were not going to move or show weakness. They had to show that they were strong. I don't think that I reached him because he would say why don't they just stop the hunger strike? And so it was a cold approach [into] the problem... it was not his problem, it was their problem.'
Ruda: 'Those were some of the darkest days in our country's history. There were as many as 15 000 people detained. People disappeared. All the things we later heard at the TRC. And it was on your watch... '
Adriaan: 'That's correct. At that stage the country was in flames. In those years there were 80 000 incidents of unrest.... stone throwing and arson. It was chaos. We had to restore law and order at all costs.
The eighties was one of the most violent decades in South African history. As the struggle intensified, so did the State's attempts to suppress it.
Adriaan: 'That's why we said we had to declare a state of emergency to give the authorities the power to detain people without taking them to court, because there's no evidence against them. Now you had people that were taunting the police by throwing stones and petrol bombs at them and running away. Then the police shot at them, and things just got worse from there on. But during this process there were people who organised these incidents. And it was with these people who didn't want to give out information where things went wrong.'
Ruda: 'What do you mean?'
Adriaan: 'People asked them: 'What are you planning?' And they didn't want to reveal anything. And then the police would become too heavy-handed with them.'
Ruda: 'Then they killed some people.'
Adriaan: 'Yes, they did kill some of them. They did kill terrorists because that's how they were defined by law, that's true.'
Political troublemakers were abducted, murdered or simply disappeared without trace. The security forces were given free rein and were seldom called to book for their actions.
Adriaan: 'At some stage I asked one of the Generals: 'What are you up to?' And he said to me: 'I'm not going to tell you because, if I tell you, then I will also make you responsible for it. We will carry the responsibility for it'.'
Ruda: 'Sorry, Adriaan but, as the minister, you couldn't accept that. He is practically telling you that he is busy with something that you wouldn't condone.'
Adriaan: 'That's true. That's true, but that's how we accepted it. The fact is that I wasn't told everything and they lied to me about certain things.'
Ruda: 'And you preferred not to ask too many questions?'
Adriaan: 'I preferred not to ask too many questions and that was my mistake.'
In 1987 Chikane was made General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
Rev. Chikane: 'From there on it became difficult for them to attack me directly or detain me. That is why, I believe, they decided that they must use extra legal methods to deal with me and that's why Khotso House was bombed.'
It was a massive bomb blast. No one was killed, but it almost destroyed Khotso House, the headquarters of the SACP.
Rev. Chikane: 'Now we know that Mr. Vlok says P.W. Botha gave the instruction, he carried it out and got the police to bomb Khotso House. And then what do they do? They bomb this place... the first policeman who arrives to investigate is the one who commanded the unit to bomb it... and who do they arrest? Poor Shirley Gunn.'
Shirley: 'A huge net was thrown around, trying to get me, because I had apparently been responsible for the bombing.'
Shirley Gunn was an activist and a member of the armed wing of the ANC. She was also the mother of a 16-month-old baby.
Ruda: 'I mean, the woman was tortured... she was busy breast feeding; her baby was taken from her. One can't begin to comprehend it.'
Adriaan: 'I am very sorry for her, but let me just give you the background to this situation. There's a bomb explosion. We deny it. We say it's not us. You have to deny it, you can't blow something up and then admit it. So you need to find a cover story. And what is the story that the police gave to the media? We saw a woman entering the building wearing a big coat under which things could have been hidden. And that was Shirley Gunn. So this was the cover story. So I lied with them, because I knew it wasn't her and that's why I feel sorry for her.'
Shirley: 'Two senior social workers came with a warrant of arrest for my baby and they took him to a place of safety in Wynberg. The security police then went to him and they came back to me with tapes in the prison... and they would say to me, 'If you listened carefully enough, you could hear him crying for you', and 'you are a useless mother and you are putting your child through this' and 'why don't you just co-operate and why don't you just speak?' '
Gunn and her baby were locked up for two months. Ten years later, when Vlok appeared before the TRC, he confessed that he had ordered the bombing and apologised to her.
Shirley: 'You know, now recently there is the thing of Vlok saying sorry, he is all 'I have already said sorry to you'.'
Rev. Chikane: 'You torture her, you torture the baby. You don't expect Shirley Gunn to say, 'this is wonderful'. Shirley Gunn has questions to ask.'
And so has Chikane... In 1989 his clothing was laced with poison.
Rev. Chikane: 'I just began to sweat, I felt bilious, I could feel I was losing energy. Within an hour I could not walk.'
Chikane came close to dying. Seventeen years later he is still seeking answers about the crime.
In 1999 Vlok was granted amnesty for the Khotso House bombing. In the past ten years he has become a committed Christian.
Adriaan: 'And I spent a long time wondering what was the sin, the root sin of apartheid. The Bible says that you must love your neighbour as you would love yourself. But we loved them less than ourselves. And then we happily sit in church and say that we love our neighbours as we love ourselves. But I loved myself more. And from this came all the other sins; out of it comes the discrimination and the other sins that goes with it.'
On the 3rd July he was inspired by an article in a newspaper...
Adriaan: 'When I read this it hit me. If there was one person whose feet I would like to wash, it would be Frank Chikane.'
Rev. Chikane: 'I got a call from Thandi during June saying that Mr. Vlok wants to see you and it's personal.'
Adriaan: 'I wanted to say to him that I am very sorry about everything we did to you.'
Rev. Chikane: 'He kept on coming back and coming back. By July Thandi came back to me and said: 'I listened to Mr. Vlok's voice, I think you should meet him'.'
Chikane called Vlok and set up a meeting.
Adriaan: 'Then I went to Makro and bought myself a bowl, a plastic bowl. I stood there and saw there was nice metal bowls, and plastic bowls. Then I thought to myself if I arrive with a metal bowl, they won't let me through security.'
Ruda: 'On 3rd August Adriaan Vlok returned to the building from where the National Party exercised its power for forty years. Then, this was his office; he was a senior member of cabinet. Now it was quite different.'
Rev. Chikane: 'So he arrived in my office. He had a bag, took out his New Testament with a message on the first page: 'Dear Frank Chikane, I have sinned against God and against you. I am asking for forgiveness.'
Adriaan: 'And then I started speaking to him about apartheid; about the pain we caused him.'
Rev. Chikane: 'He then opened his bag, took out a bowl, and said, 'I am going to ask you to allow me to do what I prayed in June, you know... I felt I must do, to wash your feet.'
Adriaan: 'That's how you humble yourself, stop thinking of yourself. You step away from your sense of superiority. You stop thinking that you are superior to others.'
Rev. Chikane: 'I stopped him at that time and we argued about that matter.'
Adriaan: 'And again we spoke about it. We... I hurt you and I played a big role in hurting you, hurting you. And I really want to make amends.'
Rev. Chikane: 'Then I realised that this is a critical moment for him, he needs liberation. And I must do this thing that I would never do and I have never done to give somebody my feet to wash. And once he did it, he said thank you.'
Chikane is not the only person who Vlok has approached.
Adriaan: 'I'm involved in a project with some mothers in Mamelodi - people who have lost their children. They were killed. And I got involved with them 18 months ago.'
They are part of the Khulumani support group in Mamelodi. Twenty years ago their teenage sons were abducted and brutally murdered by covert security agents.
Maria Ntuli: 'I think it was in 1996 when I said I will never forgive him and I wish the spirits of all the young men would haunt them until they die.'
Despite this, Joyce Hlope, Maria Ntuli and eight other mothers agreed to allow Vlok to beg for their forgiveness and wash their feet.
Joyce Hlope: 'He took out his bowl with his two towels and he went to each mother, washing their feet.'
Maria: 'You can't hate a person for the rest of his life. You must forgive him.'
Ruda: 'Why?'
Maria: 'No it is important. I know that he killed our children, but he must also be forgiven so that he can live in peace.'
Adriaan: 'I feel freed, I feel that I've done it for my fellow man.'
Rev. Chikane: 'What Vlok did opened the doors. It is now time for South Africans to really confront the past and finish with it.'
Adriaan: 'It moved me deeply and it will stay with me for the rest of my life. That moment, that moment...'
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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