MARY BURTON
Thank you, before we ask the witnesses to come forward to give their testimony, I would like to welcome everybody here this morning and to welcome particularly some of our special guests.
I see that we have Bishop Damant with us again this morning, you very welcome.  I am not sure whether the Mayor of George is here, he was yesterday and we were very glad to have him.
Then we have had other pastors and church leaders and we are very grateful indeed to them and to all of you for coming.  It is enormously important and part of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that we should make very evident the events that we are talking about here and that they should be heard and recognised by as broad a cross section of the public as possible.  It is part of achieving that reconciliation for  which we aimed that we should be able to understand one another and our experiences.
I would also like to thank particularly people who have given us their help in setting up these hearings in George - we just welcome some more of the people who will be giving their testimony and their families.
We often say that the work of the Truth Commission can't be achieved without the help and support of the entire community and we are grateful for people who have come forward to support us - we think particularly of  [indistinct] who has helped us with some additional driving and will continue to do so.  Of Nadine and Mia who have been helping us in the kitchen to provide the sustenance of tea and coffee and meals and to all the people who helped with the background work that needs to be done.
We thank particularly the people who provide the sound service for us, we don't always make their life easy, but it is very important that you should all be able to hear what people have come to tell us.
We thank also the interpreters who day after day are providing a simultaneous translation of the stories and you will have the headsets I hope that will enable you to - to hear the translation.
The service is in the three different languages, I hope I have got the channels right, I think it's Channel 1, Afrikaans, Channel 2 is English and Channel 3 is Xhosa.
We are a little short of the headsets, so yesterday people were enormously helpful to one another and shared them when the various different languages were required.  So if you have people sitting next to you who don't have a headset and you get understand the language that is being spoken, please continue  to share them as needed.
We thank the South African Police Services for their protection of the building and the people involved and we thank the Press for their support and their coverage of these days.
I hope I  haven't left anybody out, but if I have, I'll have other opportunities to thank you  all.
I think we ready to begin with the first witness.