Human rights activist and lawyer George Bizos was disappointed that he encountered the same lame police excuses at the Marikana inquiry than at apartheid procedures. Picture: MOELETSI MABE
Bizos had lived and practised law through all of these — from 1960 to 1994. He thought he would never witness similar inquiries again. He was wrong. And bitterly disappointed. He would recall the familiar excuses of the police: they were under attack; it was self-defence; the protesters were a dangerous and armed mob; the prisoner jumped through the window of a 20-storey building; and so on — a litany of excuses but never responsibility.
At Sharpeville, the evidence was that most of those killed by the police had been shot from the back. But the official police line was that they had acted in self-defence, despite the most probable version being that they had been shot while trying to run away from the police. “My superiors told me to do it, Mr Bizos.” “You know Mr Bizos, there was a war.” “No, Mr Bizos, I cannot recall.” These were standard police responses at the TRC.
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