The sad news of the passing of apartheid-era former Minister of Law and Order, and Minister of Correctional Services, Adriaan Vlok, came via intrusive and disruptive calls from journalists who disturbed me while in a church service. After the service, I was preoccupied with calls for two to three days of my life.

What was dramatic about these calls was that almost all the journalists, national and international, wanted to know how I “feel” about the death of this terrible man – a former Minister of Law and Order, and later Minister of Correctional Services, in the apartheid government – who attempted to kill me, or who presided over killer machinery that was meant to “eliminate” me! One could feel online that some were huffing and puffing.

The questions arose within a context of vitriolic emotions and anger on Twitter and other media forms, with some saying that Vlok was “beyond atonement” – meaning that he could not make amends for the wrongs he did or injury he caused. Others said he was “beyond redemption” – meaning that he could not be saved or save himself. There were more graphic and unsavoury things that were said that cannot be printed.

Join the chorus of anger and bitterness?

It is within this context and with the history of what the man did during the apartheid days that journalists rightfully seemed to expect me to join the chorus of expression of anger and bitterness against the man. My response was deflating for many.

Firstly, I started by expressing my condolences to his family and indicated that whatever the story is about him, he has children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who have suffered a loss. We need to express condolences to them, which I did.

Secondly, for me, his passing at the mature age of 85 did not raise any historical anger as I had passed that stage. Anyway, he was too old now to cause any further harm.

The reality though is that Adriaan Vlok presided over the security apparatus of a violent, repressive regime that caused enormous pain and suffering to many during the worst time of our struggle for liberation. Thousands were detained, many were tortured, others died in detention. There were brutal killings and assassinations: some died mysteriously, others just disappeared. Families lost their loved ones, especially children.

Then South African Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok greets members of the army in 1985. (Photo: Gallo Images)

In the late 1980s, towards the end of the life of the apartheid system, they resorted to desperate methods, including using the largest bombs (explosives) ever against the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference.

The regime went as far as using chemical and biological weapons, which were classified as weapons of mass destruction and prohibited in terms of international protocols.

I was not an exception. I went through many detentions, and torture – including the use of third-degree methods, which caused irreparable harm and brought me close to death. I survived the poisoning experience from apartheid’s chemical and biological weapons by God’s grace.

My profile at the time as the General Secretary of the SACC was helpful as I received immediate and urgent attention whenever the chemical hit me, first in the north of Namibia, and then three times in Wisconsin, US. I also got the best treatment available, and interventions beyond the normal, including being lifted out of Namibia by a jet to Johannesburg for urgent attention. The details about this near-fatal experience can be found in No Life of My Own, and The Things that Could Not Be Said. But I survived. The three scientists who produced the chemicals came to ask for my forgiveness, which I acceded to.

Read in Daily Maverick: “The bare-knuckled TV showdown that helped push Adriaan Vlok off his apartheid Cabinet perch”

Damn lucky to survive

But what I can’t forget about that encounter is what one of them said at the beginning of our conversation, that I was “damn lucky to survive that material as it was meant to kill”. In this regard, I often call myself “a miracle” because when I opened my eyes after losing consciousness for about twelve hours, I found a bishop of the Anglican church in his priestly regalia right in front of me for the “last prayers”. I never knew then that he was done with the last prayers by the time I’d regained consciousness.

What mitigated this experience to treat Adriaan Vlok’s passing in the way I did was my attitude about how one handles adversity and the brutes who caused me enormous pain and suffering without any human feeling. I accepted that this was “a war” and that one had to stand against it and remain strong psychologically to be able to defeat the system.

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If they “got me, they have got me”, but if I got “a chance, I will bring them down together with the system or collapse it”. Based on my faith, I also had one superior weapon in the spiritual realm. Forgive those who caused me harm before I even ask for forgiveness for my own health. “Forgive them for they know not what they are doing” was my operative weapon. They were children of their time and “honestly believed they were doing the right thing”, as Vlok said later. Vlok reflected the views and thinking of those who enslaved, colonised, oppressed and exploited us over centuries and even those who benefited from it.

How on earth was I supposed to deal with a deacon of my church, who supervised my torture around the clock for 48 hours, before I was driven to a prison more than 100km from Krugersdorp, and then dumped there, without being given any medical treatment? How does one deal with a prison doctor who just looked at me and said “take him back to his cell, he will be OK” without even giving me a painkiller?

It is this “forgiveness” that confuses many. “How can you forgive such brutes?” My faith and learning in counseling others is that bitterness and unending anger cause more harm to one’s health than to the person who causes that harm. I did not want to remain a prisoner of my tormentors by living continuously and permanently in my hurts. This is double jeopardy.

Forgiving liberates me

Forgiving liberates me and leaves the guilt with the perpetrator. That is why, when Adriaan Vlok came to me to ask for forgiveness, I told him that I had forgiven him before he asked for it and that he did not need to wash my feet for that. But he pleaded that I allow him to wash my feet –  for his own healing. He wanted to show his remorse.

What concerns me though is the fact that I am still the only one who is known to have been attacked by chemical and biological weapons. The decision of the feared apartheid National Security Council, chaired by President PW Botha, was that the military would use chemical weapons against opponents outside the country and that the security police would target those in the country.

In August 2007 during their court case in the Pretoria High Court, Vlok and others submitted a document as part of an exhibit that showed a “Record of Orders for Chemical and Biological Substances, March – October 1989, with the one used against me, that is, Paraoxon, dated 04.04.89C, whatever this “C” meant.) They were all packaged in a way that could be used for offensive purposes. About 49 orders for a period of seven months, and Frank Chikane is the only one known for being attacked by these weapons? Against whom were the rest of those chemical and biological substances orders used? Did they survive or are they all dead?

Frank Chikane on 17 August 2007, the final day of the Pretoria High Court trial of former apartheid Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok, who was charged with Chikane’s attempted murder. (Photo: Deaan Vivier / Gallo Images)

These lingering questions

As I got to know about the passing of Adriaan Vlok my “feelings” were not about what he did. I was more concerned that no one, not the media or my government, has asked these important questions referred to above. The court also never interrogated those who made the confession about these chemical and biological substances orders, maybe because it was a plea bargain case where the judges just accepted the arrangement between the prosecutor and the defendants. This, to me, is the unfinished business the country should be worried about rather than just Vlok himself. For ease of reference, this list of chemicals and biological weapons ordered officially and signed for by the security police can be found in my book The Things that could not Be Said, under Appendix 1.

(Photo: Supplied)

The irony that characterises our transition from a violent apartheid system and the post-1994 democratic society is that I, as Secretary of Cabinet and as Chair of the National Security Council in democratic South Africa, had to be part of the management of the process of developing a policy to manage  chemical and biological weapons for defensive purposes, rather than for offensive purposes, in terms of internationally agreed protocols. The victim of these killer substances had to also participate in the design of a system of controls to ensure that they never got used again for offensive purposes.

On his part, Adriaan Vlok went through a Damascus experience after the suicide of his wife, ironically at the time of the transition from apartheid to a democratic order in 1994. He went out of his way to ask for forgiveness from me, the mothers of the ‘COSAS 10’ (Congress of South African Students) whose children (students) were killed by the apartheid hit squads he presided over and from former police officers for leading them on the wrong path, among others. He tried to atone for what he did by going to poor black areas and offering groceries and so forth.

Former Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok, with former Police Commissioner Johann van der Merwe, Gert Otto, Hermanus van Staden and Christoffel Smith on 17 August 2007, after their trial in the Pretoria High Court relating to the attempted murder of Frank Chikane. (Photo: Johnny Onverwacht/Gallo Images)

Former South African Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok talks about forgiveness at a conference on 25 November 2006. (Photo: Rowyn Lombard / Gallo Images)

How I wish this was done by those who perpetrated the atrocities against the people as a collective, which could have had more impact than a lone actor. How I wish that FW de Klerk would have followed Vlok’s steps as well and called on the beneficiaries of the apartheid system together to make a contribution to atone for the damage apartheid had caused to its victims. How I wish that the international community would have had a Marshall Plan for South Africa, as they did after World War 2 to rebuild Europe.

But this was not to be. Instead, and after benefiting from the apartheid system over centuries, and with our miraculous political settlement, they just walked away and continued enjoying the spoils or benefits, nationally and internationally.

The reality is that we are on our own, as Steve Biko said. Instead of turning against each other in a corrupt struggle for scarce resources at the expense of the poorest of the poor among us, we should together do everything possible to make this country a better place in which to live. DM

Chikane is presently the Moderator of the Churches Commission on International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of Churches (WCC), an Emeritus Pastor of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa, a Veteran of the African National Congress (ANC) and a member of the National Task Team of the ANCVL. He is a former General Secretary of the SACC and former Director General in the Presidency and Secretary of Cabinet.