MR CLAASSEN COMMITTEE
Thank you Mr Chair.  Mr Chair, having looked at the applications and I mean the applications that was submitted by the three applicants, with specific reference to the convictions and also the evidence given by the three applicants in chief today, Mr Chair, it is true that, as far as it is true that in the application mention is made of the possession of illegal firearms, the attempted murder as well as the specific murder of, I think it was Miss Govender, the deceased.
   Mr Chair, I think one would be more than naive to say that if one takes into consideration the requirements for the granting of amnesty and specifically the proviso or the provisions that is made by the promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, if I may just start, Mr Chair, by, I think that it clearly strikes on the three main considerations that being the objective had to be politically associated, there had to be full disclosure and obviously the question of proportionality of the act that they committed.
   Mr Chair, maybe even before getting to the evidence of the applicants and their version of what had occurred, surely the question stands to be argued or was what they did, indeed politically motivated or even vaguely associated with a political objective.  Mr Chair, maybe if I could just get to the letter which you specifically brought to the attention of the second applicant and it's clearly stated by both the applicants that the situation in Dube Hostel was such that they deemed it necessary to commit this act to relieve the immediate situation and their immediate pressing political turmoil in which they found themselves.
   They acted, it is the version of the applicants, on the instruction of Mr Wiseman Kanyele, yet they only know him to be a member of the IFP, not a senior member or a member who holds any rank of significance within the IFP.  And they say that had this robbery gone according to plan, that the money would be given to the IFP, yet in stark contrast to what they alleged they wanted to do, they admit that this is very expressly not the policy of the IFP and the IFP goes so far to, in writing, distance them from what has happened.
   Mr Chair, if one looks at Section 20, and it is very broadly defined, and even if one looks at it very broadly one would be naive not to say the question remains, was there any mention whatsoever, that higher structures in the IFP knew of this and had they known would they have condoned it, which by their own account is not the situation, Mr Chair, and ...(intervention)