If they grant them amnesty it makes a mockery of the TRC

“If they grant them amnesty it makes a mockery of the TRC.”The small group of right-wing supporters – including Derby-Lewis’s wife Gaye, 58, who was acquitted of Hani’s murder – was furious when the Hani family’s counsel, George Bizos produced statements made by Walus and Derby-Lewis in detention which apparently contradict their claim that they acted alone. The statements were not used in the original court case and are crucial to the Hani family’s contention that full disclosure has not been made and amnesty cannot be granted.Walus’s lawyer claimed the statements were inadmissible because the police had plied him with alcohol. Victims’ families, barred from taking legal action against perpetrators if amnesty is granted, are expected to be comforted with the knowledge of how their loved ones died. Amnesty is, therefore, supposed to be granted only if full disclosure is made.The Hani case highlights growing disquiet that the TRC is failing to reveal enough truths to justify depriving victims’ families of redress through the courts.”Hani was prepared to forgive,” said Sam Tsiane, a local SACP official. “It is fine to grant amnesty, but only if they tell the truth We want to know who gave them their instructions. The men are already serving life for the murder.Central is the belief that Walus and Derby-Lewis were part of a wider political conspiracy.

The most credible theory is that other extreme right- wingers were involved in the murder although the National Party and even Hani’s ANC comrades have been accused of involvement.The TRC balances its controversial power to offer amnesty with a promise to expose the truth about the atrocities of the apartheid era. It is the most politically sensitive case to have come before the Commission. According to Cheryl Carolus, the ANC’s acting secretary general, it is the case which truly tests the credibility of the controversial TRC.The Hanis, the ANC politicians and the SACP came to oppose the application of Walus, who pulled the trigger, and Derby-Lewis, who provided the gun and masterminded the assassination. In the days leading up to his funeral, South Africa threatened to explode.Yesterday Nomakhwezi, with her mother Limpho, watched Walus and Derby- Lewis ask the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for amnesty Prominent ANC figures and SACP leaders joined them.

As she gazed at Polish immigrant Janusz Walus, 42, and at Clive Derby- Lewis, 61, former South African Conservative Party MP, her mind must surely have drifted back to 10 April 1993.
That was the day Walus pumped four bullets into her father in the drive of their home. As her father’s blood spilled across the paving stones and Nomakhwezi ran screaming for help, South Africa, in the middle of its precarious political transition, looked into the abyss.With the murder of Hani – leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP), former head of the African National Congress’s military wing and darling of the townships – the peace talks that promised to make Nelson Mandela the country’s first democratically elected president hung by a thread. But I also wonder whether many aren’t seduced by the recently released figures that, today, one in 500 men is a millionaire. Which only leaves 499 who seriously aren’t.Miles Kington is on holiday. Nomakhwezi, the teenage daughter of the late Chris Hani, one of South Africa’s towering political figures, sat quietly in the front row of Pretoria City Hall yesterday looking at her father’s killers just feet away. How could they pull off this trick, when we – with all our advantages – find it so hard?Part of it is due to settling down later, I suppose. You can always kid yourself that a 20-year-old man will become more mature, but 10 years on it is obvious that he won’t be changing.

After all, our grandparents and parents endured two world wars in which millions of young men died, and still managed to propagate the species. Any road, excusing his rather controversial family circle, Ms Lee-Potter comments that “the more important thing, surely, is that Dodi seems to be kind, in love and seriously rich”.Oh surely Test one: is he kind? Tick Test two: is he in love? Tick Test three: is he seriously rich? Tick If he were simply kind and rich, that wouldn’t do Nor would being in love and being rich And neither – Karl – would being kind and in love At which point we may be coming closer to the truth. These picky women seem to want guys over 6ft tall, under 13st, with buns of steel, called recently to the bar and driving a convertible Merc. And, if they find a man like this, they expect him to be anything other than infantile.The columnist Lynda Lee-Potter – whom I read whenever I want to understand what’s wrong with British women – reveals all in her comments about Di and Dodi (incidentally, what might a child of such a phonetically basic union be named? Dodido? Didodi? Didodo?). If women thought less about arbitrary targets such as age, height, looks, build, job and car and spent more time on the qualities of the person behind it all, they might actually meet someone suitable.”My heart goes out to Karl. In Jayne’s terms he is clearly more “desperate” than “bastard”. As far as he can tell, the problem is nothing to do with the emotional maturity gap, but rather the other more tangible elements of attraction.

If it’s emotional maturity you’re after, gal, spend more time with grandma.In the same edition of the same newspaper, the letters page carried this sad missive from Karl in Cheshunt. That is why you may occasionally see a 40-year-old man on the bus – his temples greying – slap his forehead with enlightenment as a phrase used by a long lost girlfriend makes sudden sense. Perplexed by the suggestion that there were too few chaps around, Karl (his own experience clearly in mind) wrote that “the problem is not that there are not enough eligible men, but that many women are way too choosy. “I haven’t found anyone who is emotionally mature – who can communicate on the same level as me.” Well of course you haven’t Jayne, they’re men, and men do reach the “same level” of emotional maturity as women have attained, but only about 15 to 20 years later.