RONNIE KASRILS
Well could I actually respond by saying that the National Peace Accord recognised the right to the  self defence units and in fact in our discussions with government at Kempton Park - and I was in the security commission with the then Minister of Law and Order as it was called, Mr Hernus Kriel.  He accepted that the self defence units could be created and that indeed perhaps they could be provided with weapons by way of licensed firearms.  We took that up but unfortunately the government very quickly forgot about that and we couldn't pursue that course.
	The document goes on to assist people with how to go about discussions with the community in creating the self defence unit and stresses that there should be a non-sectarian approach, it shouldn't be an MK unit or an ANC unit, it should cut across the political divides to try and unify the community and indeed we had in mind the hostel dwellers being part of this and part of the community but unfortunately, the circumstances at the time, the beleaguered nature of the way hostel dwellers saw themselves, the way their mindset was exploited and clearly the role of the third force played it's role and they remained as cocoons or fortresses against the community. 
	 In brief the document details the following.  Organisation of a unit and it's structure, a street defence system, how to recruit, how to train, the question of weaponry, communications, intelligence, observation, barricades, support groups and very important, a chapter dealing with working with hostile forces.  The hostile forces being referred to as perceived hostile forces such as police and military and hostel dwellers and in that chapter it articulated the need to make friends with those forces to win them over and come to solutions together and search the political solution.  
	There's a final chapter on tactics.  Now I would simply like to add that we did not see MK members as constituting the entire defence unit, that the ordinary people needed to be recruited into the units and given discipline and training, that it was an MK members duty to do everything possible to assist, to train, to arm, to educate and so on.  That's basically what this document refers to but what I would like to say in conclusion to this is that and as a writer of this document, it's one thing to have an ideal, an objective and to write very nicely about it from a discussion group or in a study or at a desk.  It's quite another thing to place people in the real situation.  It's the tremendous gap between theory and practice, between what we are attempting to do and should be doing as between what actually happens on the ground and I want to make this point here very honestly, not simply to find a way of coming to plead for defendants, I'm also an applicant, not in this court but I have put in an application and I'm sure I will be called at one stage or other in relation to the self defence units, the arming of the people for self defence and so on but the enormous difference sir, between the theory and what actually happens on the ground and all the problems that develop on the ground particularly in the most demanding situation that a human being can find themselves in and that is the struggle to survive against somebody who is attacking you with all guns blazing.  In other words a war zone, a battle field situation and not a situation of an organised mighty army of the British in the Falklands or the Americans and the Iraq army in the gulf and the Second World War but a battle that rages, that any moment and any time and any second of night or day in a sprawling, depressed area such as this where people have got the flimsiest of shelters, where people are living cheek by jowl with one another, where suddenly an outbreak of violence occurs and young people who are driven by the most noble of sentiments and that's to defend their mothers and their fathers and their neighbours and their children and the brothers and sisters, are prepared to do that, have been prepared to do that, they've been prepared to go to jail or to die for that.  They've had to in that situation whilst we have the leaders with perhaps a more mature view of documents such as the one I've indicated and policy are not at hand and they've got to respond and find a way of responding.  I think this is the most essential point that I believe I can make before you here today.