CHAIRPERSON
We thank you Minister for opening this hearing with a prayer in Grahamstown.  We thank what we heard in your scripture hearing as you mentioned that the truth is to be revealed to everybody, and I think our meeting here in Grahamstown, we are here to listen to what people are going to say to us, things that happened in the past, today we are going to hear them in front of everyone.  Thank you Sir.
 We greet you all here in Grahamstown.  We apologise because it's cold today, but people from Grahamstown are used to this weather.  In the past two weeks we were in Pondoland, in Lusikisiki.  They told us there that we brought rain because when we arrived in Lusikisiki there was no rain but when we were there it rained.  People couldn't attend our hearings because of that.  We were happy because we brought rain to Pondoland.  Here in Grahamstown we brought cold.
 We thank everyone who came here despite the weather to listen to what is going to be revealed.  I don't think you came here just to listen but you are here to help us to give respect to the people who are going to testify to this Commission.  I think that your presence here shows clearly that you are united with the victims, that you are supporting them in their pain that they experienced in the past.  They were fighting for everybody in this country, South Africa.  We thank you for coming here.  We will now start with our proceedings for the day.  
 We, as the Commission, we are disturbed when we see the victims.  They are opening their arms and their hearts to their perpetrators, and the perpetrators and those who benefitted in the apartheid system they are not like the victims, they are not opening their hearts to the victims.  In our hearings, as we are coming to the end, we started in April last year, from town-to-town we were very disturbed to see that those who are interested in the proceedings are the victims and the people who suffered due to the apartheid system.  Today we can see that there are people from the White community, they are here today and we thank them, and this shows that here in Grahamstown it is different from other towns.  We thank them for being here with us.   This shows that here in Grahamstown reconciliation is possible.
 We welcome you all, especially the Bishop here in Grahamstown, one of the heroes who fought for this country, who fought for the human rights.  We remember in Dimbaza where he was from the privileged community and he went to stay in Dimbaza with the people who were suffering, he became one of them.  We want to acknowledge as we are here in Grahamstown as a symbolic gesture for being here in this hearing today.
 I am not going to mention everybody here but we welcome you all with our open hearts.
 Our hearing in these three days we will be dealing with human rights violations here in Grahamstown and other regions.  I will hand over to Tiny Maya to introduce witnesses for the day.