TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION HEARINGS, PORT ELIZABETH
PRESIDING OFFICIALS
DAY 3 - 23 MAY 1996
Reverend Bongani Finca - Chairperson
Ms Yasmin Sooka
Dr Mapule Ramashala
Mr Ntsiki Sandi
Ms Tiny Maya
Reverend Mcebisi Xundu
Ms Pumla Gobodo
CHAIRPERSON: We will all stand to show respect to the witnesses as they come in. Could we all rise. I wish to declare that the meeting of the Human Rights Violation Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is now in session. As it is normal I would ask us all to stand to honour those who in the witnesses of today are going to mentioned who have either died or disappeared.
We remember Siphiwo Mtimkulu, Topsie Madaga, Sizwe Douglas Mazungula, Abraham Tamsanqa Tyhulu, Glen and Allister Whitley, Mtutuzeli Michael Heshu, Thozama Fibi Mani, Lundi Bekwa, Monwabisi Kwanda Mbeki. May they rest in peace.
SONG IS SUNG
PRAYER: God of our ancestors, we have come again today in this house because of Your will and because of Your power. We thank you for Your greatness and the way You have kept us in a safe place. We thank you, Lord, for giving us democracy in our country and the freedom that we have achieved. We also thank you for the blood that was flowing at the time so that we can get this freedom. Here is a Commission, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it is meeting here again this morning. Please, Lord, have Your mercy on us. Have grace on us. Be at the tips of our tongues and the tips of the witnesses tongues when they are about to expose a lot of events. Soothe the wounds, the wounds that have been caused during this struggle. Make them heal, Lord, so that all those who have died may please rest in peace under Your wing, Lord. [Information lost due to recording] ...the deliberations of this Commission this morning particular the Chairperson of this session and those who assist him so that justice can be done and the stories can be heard. Bless them as they deliberate. Give them wisdom, Lord. Go before them so that whatever they are going to decide will not emanate from their own qualms and wishes but from Yourself as the truth, the life and the way. So bless us. Give us time, for time is in your hands. Lord, we are answerable to You for the way in which we use Your time. So be present, protect us from the evil one.
May Your Holy Angels be with us now. We ask all that in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, God, three bodies in one, forever, amen.
CHAIRPERSON: Ladies and gentlemen, we warmly welcome you to this sad and last session of our hearings in Port Elizabeth. The last two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, have been moving days with a lot of pain and also with a lot of... the joy of the possibility of healing. I think we cannot thank the people of Port Elizabeth sufficiently for the wonderful support that the community of Port Elizabeth have given to the TRC hearings. We have now had five hearings throughout the country. This is the sixth one and nowhere, throughout South Africa, has the turn out been as wonderful as the turn out we have had in Port Elizabeth. You have put to rest once and for all any thinking that the TRC does not have the support of our communities. You have demonstrated very clearly that you stand behind this process of reconciliation through the process of telling the truth. I also want to pay tribute to you, the people of Port Elizabeth, for the manner in which you have conducted yourselves in our hearings with dignity, order and respect for the proceedings of this Commission. I read in the newspaper, I think it was yesterday, that they were estimating that we had, in this hall, close to 4 000 people, maybe a bit of exaggeration, but the dignity that this audience have accorded our hearings has been outstanding.
It is not so easy to have so many people in one place and still feel that you are maintaining the spirit which should be maintained in these hearings of dignity and respect. For that we thank you very much.
Today is going to be a difficult day. We are having more witnesses who are coming to the podium today for this hearing and we are going to find it strenuous perhaps to try and control the time in time for this hearing to be finished possibly by 17h00. We will again appeal for your co-operation, that you continue to behave yourselves in the manner in which you have done in the past two days.
I wish to welcome, on behalf of this region, those who are visiting, Commissioners and Committee members. Dr Mapule Ramashala who will be co-presiding with me today. She comes from Cape Town. She is a Commissioner. She was here yesterday. She loves the Eastern Cape and we are delighted to welcome her. It is this very beautiful lady next to me. On the extreme end of this table we have Mrs Joyce Siroke who comes from Johannesburg. She is a Committee member of the Human Rights Violations Committee. She has come this morning to attend our hearings. Joyce, we are most grateful that you have taken the time to be with us. I will now hand over to Mapule to call on the first witness to take the stand.
Dr M RAMASHALA: Chairperson, I invite Mr Mkhuseli Jack to the witness stand please.
Mr MKHUSELI JACK D.S.S.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Jack, you may be seated. We welcome you and we are indeed very delighted that you have taken the time to come and testify before us. You are very well known to many people in this hall. Your contribution is recognised, it is well documented and it is respected. We look forward to hearing you as you testify about your torture and detention. You are aware, and I wish that all the other witnesses who are coming after you may also take note of this, that we had a court order which was issued yesterday. According to that court order we are required to put a question to each witness at the beginning of the testimony. The question that we are required, according to that court order to put to every witness, is to ask whether that witness intends to name Gideon Niewoudt as a perpetrator. If a person says, "Yes, I intend to name Gideon Niewoudt as a perpetrator", we then have to warn that according to that court order we are required to ask him/her that him/her does not name Gideon Niewoudt.
We have decided, and we thank the witnesses for co-operating with us in this regard, to honour this court order because we think it is in the interest of the work of the Commission not to defy it. So we will ask you that question now, Mr Mkhuseli Jack. Do you intend to name Gideon Niewoudt as a perpetrator in your testimony?
WITNESS: I think 70% of my testimony would have dwelled on the matters relating to the person you have mentioned. However, in the interest of the country as a whole, particularly in the light of the international interest, in our contact in our land, I will set an example personally of trying to show that in South Africa we respect the courts of the land and I will try to do this under very difficult circumstances because I believe it would have been very good for me to come and put this story across. But in the interest of the justice system of our land which is the backbone by which the international community looks upon us, it is important that I abide by this as a citizen of this land under the Constitution that I fought so hard for. I will not mention him.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Mr Mkuseli Jack. The record will show that Mr Mkuseli Jack intended to name Gideon Niewoudt as a perpetrator and he has accordingly decided to abide by the order of the court. Could you proceed, please? I will ask Ntsiki Sandi to lead the witness.
Mr N SANDI: Mr Jack, good morning. Are you going to testify in English or Xhosa?
WITNESS: I beg your pardon?
Mr N SANDI: Are you going to testify in Xhosa or English?
WITNESS: I will use both languages.
Mr N SANDI: I would prefer that if you decide to testify in Xhosa you do that consistently and if you testify in English you do that consistently, but I understand that this morning when we had a conversation you said you are going to testify in Xhosa.
WITNESS: Yes.
Mr N SANDI: Fine, thank you. As you have said, Mr Jack, that 70% of your statement you are not going to touch it now, then it means that you are going to speak to us for a short time. Because if you take 70% from 100% you are only left with 30%. Is that correct?
WITNESS: Yes, that is correct.
Mr N SANDI: I will then be wasting your time and everybody else's time in here, if I could just ask you now to tell us who you are because everybody in here, in Port Elizabeth, not just in Port Elizabeth, in the whole Eastern Cape, and I also think even nationally people know you. Is that correct?
WITNESS: Yes, correct.
Mr N SANDI: Could you briefly tell us now, as you are here now before the Commission, where do you live and what do you do for a living?
WITNESS: As we speak I am staying at Mount Pleasant. I am a businessman, or I should say I am trying to be a businessman. I studied in Economics which has helped me now to contribute into the economy of this country.
Mr N SANDI: You said you had a B.Com degree. Where did you do this?
WITNESS: I obtained my degree at the University of London.
Mr N SANDI: What did you say you are doing for a living?
WITNESS: I am a consultant.
Mr N SANDI: You did your studies after you have been in and out, being tortured in prison because of your contribution and your role in certain organisations?
WITNESS: In 1990 after we had been released from prison, in 1989 I applied to study in Canada, Britain and America. I was accepted in Britain. I started there from 1990 up to 1993. During 1993 I came back to Port Elizabeth. Let me go back a little. Let me go back to where I was supposed to start in the first place.
Mr N SANDI: The lady next to you, please tell us who she is so that we can accept her?
WITNESS: She is Sindiswe Shume. She is my cousin. We have been together since I came back to Port Elizabeth. My mother was supposed to come here, but she did not believe that one of the perpetrators was going to be here so she was actually scared to come. Because of my mother who could not be here I asked my cousin to be here.
Mr N SANDI: We also welcome her, thank you. Mr Jack, let me let you start. Tell us about your detention between 1977 to 1989. From now on, now you will be only one speaking. I will not have to lead you about this.
WITNESS: As I had to re-arrange all the documents that I had with me because the situation was not quite convenient for me, because the people who were torturing me still continue to use the ways that they used before, to torture us. I am going to try and say this very briefly. From 1976 when I used to be detained a lot I would be singled out from a group of people. That time I was still very young. Because I looked very young at that time I would lie to them and tell them that I am very young and lie about my age. That is how I got out of the situations.
That used to happen during 1978 and 1979. Again this happened during the funeral of the leader of the PAC, Mr Sobukwe. At that time there were a lot of criticisms against Nkosi Buthelezi. In 1979 there was a lot of unrest at that time because at that time there were not just fightings. People were planning. Those who were politically aware of things simply disappeared one by one and that was the time I was starting to be aware of politics. In 1979 when I was writing my examinations, I was first fetched by Mkoduka. He was with Mtselu. I was taken to Sanlam. It was called Sanlam at that time. I was interrogated for a long time. They were trying to do it softly though and I was told to leave, to just disappear in front of everybody. Then I was made to choose. This person who made me to choose was the person whom we are not allowed to mention. He said to me, "If you want to take my advice you should disappear, and the ball is in my court." During that year, like I said I was trying to write my examination I failed everything. It was the first time for me to fail anything.
During 1980 there was also unrest by the students. Students were boycotting at that time. I was one of the leaders at that time and that is when I became well-known. I was also quite well-known by the person we are not supposed to mention here.
Something that was not liked about us was that we were organising the people. We organised the churches. We organised reverends. This Centenary was full of people that we organised. After I have been arrested, just for a short while at Walmer, I was accused of breaking in. In the documents I saw that it was written "theft", but some of the things I cannot mention here now. What was written in that document was that it was "theft". That was the reason why I was arrested. After I have been arrested three times I was released. I spent three weeks there which was at that time called Section 22, and of course it was now added by a week. After that I went to the Initiation School. While I was still there in Humansdorp I saw a police van approaching. At that time when a police van approaches you people would think that their livestock was going to be stolen or maybe even rape. Now there was this policeman who was known for mischief who came to pick me up. That policeman spoke to one of the men here in Port Elizabeth and this man said that I must be left alone. Then I came back to Port Elizabeth. The point that I am trying to go to now is the way that they used to torture at time. I came back here into this Centenary Hall. I was still wearing the khaki attire that people from the Initiation School usually wear. I was standing over there speaking.
The following day they came to fetch me again. It was Roelofs Ntselu Tsungata and this other man whom I am not supposed to mention. They interrogated me as usual. They were just asking me a lot of nonsense. You must remember that if you are new from the Initiation School you do not really have a lot of clothes. It was around 19h00 at that time and people who were coming from this meeting were waiting outside for taxis and busses to go back to work. I was put right in the middle. There was another man who had my cap, the cap that I was supposed to have on. Roelofs was driving and so we left. We went to Veeplaas Township in the Crown Shop. We approached the people. They were pretending as if we are having a good time in this car, just talking to each other like we are all friends. They would pretend that they are lighting my cigarette for me. They were doing that the whole time. I was laughing at that time, but people started to say that they do not trust these Comrades because they are our friends and all of a sudden they are with these boere. People started not to trust us anymore. I was so fortunate because I was not named as one of the informers at that time, but there are people who actually lost their lives. One of the things I like about the Commission is that the Commission lets people to come and tell their stories, people who did not have that opportunity before.
What I think what is most interesting now about the text that were used at that time to torture, it is amazing and unbelievable the way they used the law. They had all the powers. They would come to us and ask us, "Hey, when are you starting your meeting? We want to go and watch a soccer match." They would park their cars here and interrogate people out of the blue. Most of us were lucky at that time because most of the things that these people did were documented. They were on record. At that time people like Molly Blackburn was well-known. We were not really taking these things into our heads because we were used to it. Being tortured by these boere was very common at that time. There was nothing we could do because of the powers that they had.
During the time of the State Emergency Act in 1985... I am going to try and be brief. I do not want to waste your time. I am going to try and start with 1985. I am only going to mention one incident. I was arrested on the 2 August, arrested by the police. One of them was Loots who is in this case and another man called Van Zyl and Jam and Tungata's brother. His name is Mzikayise. I was taken to Berry's Corner. They were still treating me well at that time. They were explaining to me how lucky I was at that time because I escaped through the window. It was during the day. There were these policemen with guns.
When I tried to look back, just to look at them, when they were about to shoot me Van Zyl stopped them. He said he regretted all this even when he was talking to his friends he regretted for not shooting me. They used to shoot people if you just turned you back. I saw Brimmer just passing quickly. Obviously, he was from one of my brothers who was also tortured in a room that was full of blood. You could see that people were just relieving themselves in this room. Jam just made me peep into this room. There was another white man who was well-dressed. He had very large boots on. You could see that he was very happy about this torture. When he came to me he tried to advise me about what I should say in court. He took me into a place that was used as a police station at that time but it was now used for us to be tortured and interrogated. It was also used for screening. Jam was hitting me with his fists on my face and on my head even though he was told not to beat us up. They asked, "What are you doing to Tungata? Mr Jack, what are you doing to Tungata?" I said, "Why are you beating me up without the boere watching? Do you not want to wait for the boere to come and watch this?" That was the time they were taking fingerprints. If I made one mistake he would beat me up and say, "What are you doing to Tungata?" He did this for a long time. From there I was taken away after a long torture and I was thrown into Algoa.
I slept there for a whole night. What I am trying to say to you is, I have been lucky most of the time. When they came to arrest me they would not get me. Some of the inmates would say it would be easy to get Jack, but some of the Comrades were just arrested on the first day that they were wanted by the police, but I was lucky. I used to want to find out what happened to people like Reverend Tshonga and Reverend Gcina. There was another young man which was obvious that he has been here for a long time. He used to say to me, "Brother, it is very difficult in here. Things are bad in here." In the morning a certain man arrived. Like I said I am a lucky man because I know all these security policemen. I know all their names. You can notice that I have been in and out of jail since 1979 with no break which means it is very easy for me to know these people. When I say "a certain man" you must know that I am trying to obey the court's interdict.
They transferred me to Louis Le Grange and I was now taken by W/O Coetzee who was alone in that office. He put handcuffs on my wrists and said "We have you." He took a towel and wrapped it neatly around my wrists. He was doing this softly. He said, "I do not want you to have any scars. He screwed these handcuffs. These are not the usual handcuffs. Those ones you had to screw on.
Then he took a knobkierie and said, "He must do what he is doing now." I was tied in this position then I was made to sit like this exactly in a certain corner. While I was tied like this another man arrived. This man helped Coetzee. I was put on two tables and I was hung there. I was then told that this type of torture is called "helicopter" and Comrades enjoyed it. I was told that people like Snqokwana, Ngoyi, Dennis Neer, have been through this. I was told that this kind of torture was "Comrades favourite". I was tortured in that way for a long time. What hurts the most is not the physical pain, it is psychological damage that is being done during this whole period. Coetzee took certain documents. He read through them and in the meanwhile he was asking questions to me. I was crying because I was feeling pain. Coetzee simply ignored all this. This did not affect him at all. He said, "You have come to the room where you have to tell the truth." He said, "Duma, you are going to tell the truth, this is now the moment of truth." He said, "You have come to the room where you have to tell the truth." Meanwhile a certain Sergeant Dyani arrived. He was with Strydom. This Strydom is not the same person as Eric Strydom who used to be the Head of the Murder and Robbery Squad. This Strydom was a hefty man. It looks like he was a body- builder. Sometimes it used to be very difficult for him to have a jacket on.
He would just have a short sleeve shirt on so that we could see his muscles and we could be afraid of him. If he grabbed your neck you are not be able to breathe at all. He was very powerful. It looks like this body-building that he was doing he was using to torture us.
Bezuidenhout was also part of these boere. This Bezuidenhout is not the same Bezuidenhout known as Qwathi. This one was working for the National Squad. He came to help as well.
Mr N SANDI: Sorry, Mr Jack, what are Mr Bezuidenhout's full names?
WITNESS: I am going to give it to you now. It is Piti. His first name is Piti. I met him recently at the Highway. We had a good chat. I did not even touch the fact that I am going to talk about him in the Commission. My position was now changed and then I was tortured and beaten up again. There was another question. This question was, "Mkhuseli..." I cannot remember how early this was. They said, "Jack, you have said something at one of the universities in Cape Town." You said, "Policemen from Port Elizabeth are Gestapo. They are even worse than Gestapo. They are even worse that Ivan the Terrible, who was torturing the Jews." This is true. It is something that I said but I flatly denied it.
I said, "I have never said anything like that." There was this other man who was watching me the whole time. He said to me, "Mkhuseli, you are asking for trouble now and you are going to get it." Then he grabbed a knobkierie and he was on me. He beat me up for a long time. I screamed and screamed until I gave up. I was trying to deny the fact that I said that they were Gestapo. I said this in Cape Town. I was trying to give a picture of how powerful the security policemen from Port Elizabeth were. They simply had all the powers. Nobody could do anything against them. This is why I said they were more terrible than Ivan the Terrible. What I have written here is something that has been written in 1985. You can see from the ink it is already faint. At that time I was a bit unconscious. I could not hear properly. I could not even see properly. They poured water over me trying to wake me up just to regain my consciousness. They said, "We are very nice to you. You are going to go for a shower." So they took me into the showers. Now listen to this. Listen to what Bezuidenhout said when they were dragging me because I could not walk. They were dragging me on my stomach. He said, "What is going on with you?" I said, "Please just look at this I cannot even walk." Bezuidenhout said, "Give him a microphone to address the people." They said, "Let us pretend you are in Centenary Hall. Give him a microphone."
From there I was taken into another room. When I got there there were no showers as I was promised. There was another tin who had a black, very dirty towel. I saw a mixture in it. When I looked at it I thought no, hell is going to break loose here now. My body was black and blue with bruises. My bums was so swollen, they were so big at that time, even my head was swollen. My clothes were taken off. They put something that I could not feel at that time. Now what I thought for myself, I thought it was a certain herb. They asked, "Why is she so prominent in the Black organisations?" I said, "No, Molly can feel peoples struggles. They said to me, "You are lucky." When I said that I was told that I was going to beaten up again and they did. Then I was sent back to Algoa Park. I was going to give a picture of how this room was. People must know that this person we are not supposed to mention, must know how active he was in the torturing of people. You could see even when he was walking he would just walk as if he owns the world. What I am trying to come to now is, when I was going back to this place they said to me, "With your big mouth, if you can just once say that you have been beaten up by the police you will be starting trouble for yourself. The disappearance of Godolosi Hashe and Galela, it was because of their own problems. They were the ones who were stubborn.
They died because they were very stubborn just like you. You are as stubborn as them." The State of Emergency at that time allowed the police to do whatever they wanted to do to people and nothing was going to be done to them of course. You see, Dennis Neer, Alex Hara and others they have been tortured a lot, beaten up. Even then they did not lay charges against the police. He said to me, "What I went through yesterday was just a tip of the ice berg. They were just warming me up, there is still more coming."
I was taken to St Albans the following day. I was picked up there by members of the Reaction Unit. They took me to St Albans. I was put with other inmates from other prisons. What is funny here now is that Koen asked all the warders to come and look at me. He said, "Look at him. Can you see how well he has been beaten?" What I am trying to show you now is that we have gone through a lot of torture. Unfortunately, I am not able to tell the details and various methods of all the torture that I had to go through because most of those details were psychological. That is how I suffered. Another thing that was interesting is the way the police tried to destroy the role that the white liberals used to have in the struggle. They used to portray them as abnormal people. They used to have different tactics.
They used to think that working in the townships would be a promotion because they did not want to go to the White suburbs. Because going to the White suburbs meant to be a demotion.
Mr N SANDI: If I hear you correctly there was a link between, a rift between the White and the Black policemen at that time?
WITNESS: Yes, here is an example. The man we are not supposed to mention said to me, "I am going to disgrace you because it looks like you like the crowd a lot. You like to be known by people. You want to go to Robben Island because of politics. I am going to make you a criminal. When you go to Robben Island you will go to jail." I had three cases, attempted robbery, attempted murder and the other was intimidation and assault. In all those cases... a person who was a State witness was Hlongwana, but I was not found guilty in all those cases. Mr N SANDI: Mr Jack, was there a time when you laid a charge against the police? Did you at any time take them to court?
WITNESS: Yes. Another man arrived at St Albans. That is when I started to make my statement to one of the people who came to us. He said, "Do we have anything we wanted to say?" I said, "Yes." I was told to call the journalist now. I have one of the documents with me. I am going to give it to you just now. They wanted me stop the accusations of the police because they did not want this to happen.
They did not want to be accused. There was another one, I cannot remember whether it was Colonel Paulsen, there was another officer, Colonel Paulsen, on the 24 August there was a docket opened in my case.
Mr N SANDI: How did that case end up, the one that you laid charges against the police?
WITNESS: It did not go anywhere. It simply disappeared. This other one refers to when I was beaten up in New Brighton. Fortunately there were other people. When I was beaten up when there were people walking up and down. Some of my Comrades were walking up and down. They could see what was going on with me. When he saw what was going on with me Du Plessis was taking charge of my beating up. He asked me, "What am I doing with Hlongwana?", then I was beaten up again.
Other than that, some of the names that I have mentioned in my documents are people like Zuzi, another one from Ciskei, his name is Nongwanya. Nongwanya was very good in interrogating a person. He just did something that he liked.
Mr N SANDI: Can I just interrupt you there. I noticed, Mr Jack, when you are talking to us you keep on referring to certain papers in front of you. Do these documents have all the details that you are talking about? Are you going to bring them forward to the Commission?
WITNESS: Yes. I want to tell you something. The demolishing of people's houses, the disguise of the police by AZAPO clothes, the torture of people in Maqina's house, I went there myself to try and negotiate with Maqina so that he could release these children. When I got there I was told that they were not kept in that house. Maqina told me that he had kept them in Kleinskool. I tried to go and look for these children. People in the township knew that these four kids have been kidnapped by Maqina. All the details are here in this document in front of me.
What I am trying to say to you now is, if you are through with the torturing that I have been talking about now, which is just the same as other Comrades, I would like to have some recommendations from the Commission. Recommendations about how the Commission can help to ensure that its aims can be carried out. To unite the country, for the country to reconcile. I have recommendations on how the Commission can do that if I am through with these details about my torture.
The details that I spoke about regarding my torture are the same as other Comrades even though I was a little luckier than my other Comrades. Presently I am paying R800,00 for the treatment of my body because I stayed in St Albans. That really affected my back and I am still trying to treat it now. I still consider that as luck because there are some Comrades who cannot even buy a disprin. We know that these people are also humans. They were people who had some assets, but today they cannot even buy themselves a single disprin. I would really appreciate it if the Truth and Reconciliation Commission can emphasise on those people, but I can see that it is doing that already up to now. It has really touched me a lot to see there have been people who had the opportunity to come whether I liked those people or not. Whether I was on good terms with them or not, I liked the fact that they were given the chance to come and say their piece in front of the Commission. I would like now the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to please use its powers to investigate. It must please... This is very painful for us especially us, the Comrades, who went through all this. I know I am not now a politician, but I am now looking at things as a businessman and not as a politician. I have done my role in politics in the struggle, but now I am an economist.
But now it is still very painful for me to see all the people who tried to make the change that has been happening in our country to be just forgotten. One man used to say to me that your bread can be buttered on both sides... [Information lost due to recording]. That is why you heard that I said I would support the Truth Commission insofar as to making this country work because...
Mr N SANDI: Perhaps, Mr Jack, I would like you to know something. Perhaps you already know this. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission does have its own committee. It is called the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee whose very difficult task is to try and give reparation to those victims. Do you have any recommendations on how that Committee can work so that some of those people who are here can also have their contributions to the victims you are talking about?
WITNESS: Like I have said before, something that is very painful right now is that when you look at my statement here, this is going to be the backbone of what I am going to talk about. Many people here can never believe that I will obey an order of the court, but because of the change in South Africa I want the country to work. If we are going to do that we are going to put ourselves in trouble. Like I said before, just recently...
I am going to say this to the Commission, I want one of the families, the Hashe family... When Hashe started with the struggle he went to Robben Island and came back again. He had his own assets. He had cars, house, etcetera. I am challenging anyone to go to Hashe's house. It is absolutely empty. The Truth Commission, if I have a truth to say, and that truth is this, that hurts me and I am prepared to go to every length if that is not, [Xhosa not translated] if it comes to that, I think I am taking what you are saying and I hope you will do it. I trust you will do it and I know you are going to do it. Thank you.
Mr N SANDI: Thank you very much, Mr Jack.
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Are their any questions from the panel? Mkhuseli, it is not allowed of us to applaud the witness, but I do not think the rules of the Truth Commission makes us to be insensitive to the truth when we hear it. We have broken our own rules and we have applauded you. You have spoken to us as a leader, as a patriot, as a Statesman, and we are proud that in the country of our birth we have men like yourself. You have set a tone for today. This day is going to be very difficult for us.
We have just been told now that in Cape Town a court is sitting, the lawyers representing Jan du Preez and Nick van Rensberg have filed an application that Mrs Mtimkulu must not climb that podium. We are waiting for that judgement to come any time this morning and we have been ordered to wait until that judgement comes. That shows the difficulty we are facing as this Commission. We are lucky to have people like yourselves who are so able to tell the truth and at the same time to be sensitive to the problems we are facing as this Commission. We salute you.
WITNESS: Can I just say something about the... You see, coming back to the point I made earlier on about the fact that we have been beaten up and had all those bruises we had a choice. We were asked whether we wanted to be informers so that we can have something to eat. Something that they were talking about is that... [Xhosa not translated]. We are not supposed to change this Justice Department that we have created now. That wealth is being enjoyed by those people who were against this change.
APPLAUSE
WITNESS: The reason why I am saying this is because our Constitution, unfortunately we cannot move around now. What I am trying to say is, what we could do here in Port Elizabeth...
We are the only people in this country where we can show an example of what people did in this country, especially here in Port Elizabeth. [Xhosa not translated] there are many and I want to appeal to support the Commission on things like, let us not break our rules because should we do that we are going to make ourselves a laughing stock. One of the persons who was here ran away. He did not even stay one hour in jail. He is now enjoying freedom. [Information lost due to recording] ...but the State is paid every penny. The value has gone up to R5m that has been paid on the various cases that are taking place in the country and yet we, the victims, we cannot have a lawyer like many people who are here. This is the thing that is worrying us. These people have been using the very benefits which they stood against in terms of the principle for the land. That is worrying us. I am appealing to people that we let us show that dedication, we have shown throughout the struggle. First we started by freeing it. We are free, so what must we do now? Please let us make sure that we make ourselves the nation we are. We deserve that. Let us leave those people enjoying and abusing our Constitution to protect themselves, because that is what they are doing. They can do it. I think we have fought for their freedom and we have always said so.
I know, I have spoken to the gentleman four weeks ago for 45 minutes and then I pointed out to him that I would mention his name in the Truth Commission. He agreed with me on certain things because we had one thing in common that unfortunately the task masters were not on the podium, it was just the few soldiers that were the victims who were called to come and give account here. There are people who at the top places enjoy all the benefits and the glamour of a free South Africa and yet most of our people they will come and crawl here in poverty etcetera.
APPLAUSE
WITNESS: Anyway, I say this with the greatest respect for all. Everyone let us now, we are tested, the mother of Mtimkulu, I am going to go and sit next to her and say to her, she has a case, she does not need to put it here in order to destroy her credibility and her integrity because the nation will watch that and it will be flashed all over the world; "South Africa do not even respect their own Constitution or their own Judicial system, how can you go to that country, it is a risk". Thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, you can stand down.
WITNESS IS EXCUSED
CHAIRPERSON: We call the next witness. The next witness was supposed to be Mrs Mtimkulu. We are going to hold back that case until lunch time today. We call Dr Maqina.
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Order, please. Quiet, please. Could you please sit down. Ladies and gentlemen please sit down.
Dr MAQINA D.S.S.
(?): Dr Maqina, I have been assigned the role of guiding you through your statement, but I believe that I do not need to do that because you have prepared the statement in a way that it can guide itself. Am I correct, sir?
WITNESS: Yes, that is true.
(?): Please proceed, sir.
WITNESS: Greetings to the Commission and its members and the whole crowd in Centenary. Firstly, I would like to speak Xhosa so that everybody in here are able to hear what I am going to say. My Xhosa will be both Xhosa and English. Some of the terms will be in English. I am a District doctor here in Port Elizabeth. I arrived in Port Elizabeth 1981. I have been working at Laleni from 1981. I left Laleni in 1993. I am now working for the Western District Region. I am the Director of Health.
The details I am going to give you today are about the work that I have been doing at Laleni. This is not the kind of work that I am only doing by myself. Other doctors are also doing it. The nurses, psychologists and social workers are also involved. We have our own organisation called NAMDA which was formed in 1982. So I am going to give you briefly its history so that people can see what it was doing. What I am going to talk about today involves those colleagues and the Comrades who were doctors at that time, things that happened to them.
WITNESS'S MICROPHONE WAS SWITCHED OFF
I termed my report as Mission Medical Files. Yesterday, we saw General Holomisa who had lots of documents. Unfortunately, I do not have my files here with me. The boere had taken them away. I want to explain why I do not have any files which I think could have helped in some cases especially even this one who is now Mr X, the one we are not supposed to mention. This man we are not supposed to mention I am going to call Mr X.
Firstly, NAMDA was formed in 1982. Like I said it was formed by doctors, dentists and some of the people in the health profession. They were worried because of what was happening in South Africa at that time.
That organisation which is still existing, which is now MASA, this is an organisation for doctors of things that involve doctors. People will remember that when Steve died, one of the doctors who were examining him, when everyone was crying out about the way that Steve Biko was handled in jail, and MASA at that time was not involved at all. People were worried because MASA was not involved in handling these cases according to people's wishes. This was not supported by the people at all. There were people who resigned at that time and then these doctors did not have an organisation that was taking care of their wishes. We formed this organisation called NAMDA and our motto was "Apartheid is tantamount to ill health". The only thing that makes our people to be ill is apartheid and nothing else. We would now take care of how people will be living, the economy, we used to check out the economy. This organisation was formed in 1982. When it was formed it was working amongst the community. It used to have a lot of people. Even people who testified here, yes this is true.
We went overseas in places like France, especially in Germany and Netherlands we asked for money. We asked them to help us form this organisation. We asked for ESG which is called Emergency Service Group. This was formed in 1986. What this organisation did, we thought it should do three important things.
The first thing was to train people in doing first-aid because people used to be shot and beaten up by the police and used to be thrown with teargas in the townships. So I thought to help people to have first-aid so that they can help these people especially here in Port Elizabeth. Red Cross was also involved. What is was supposed to be it was also used by the government. We trained people to do this first-aid so that they were able to heal and treat themselves.
Secondly, we formed a group who was responsible to counsel people. That is now to help people emotionally if a person is stressed out, just like Mkuseli has said. There were people who were from detention, others were from Robben Island. Our role was to counsel all those people who were released from these places so that they could be able to take up their lives as normal citizens.
Thirdly, we had what was called Crisis Response. Especially when events like the shooting and the massacre. We would go there and help out even though it was very difficult, but we did give help to these people especially we helped out with Red Cross people. It was very difficult to rely on Red Cross and some of these hospitals. Most of our people in the townships have gone through such difficulties.
I am going to start with something that was very common in our township, the funeral of our Comrades. People will remember that at time we would bury six people at a time and when we come back from that funeral we will hear that 10 people had died. When we bury that 10 we would come back and be told that 15 had died.
I am going to talk about one particular funeral and this is the one of TaTa's funeral here at Limba. We thought these boere were being instigated by these young men. So we thought, let them withdraw and then we will take up. I was told to wear a uniform. The best thing to do is to scare satan by a cross. We pretended to be from a church. I was holding a cross so that they could think that we do not have any evil. We had another clinic at Kwa-Zakhele but we thought of having another clinic next to my surgery. You see, I am a coward. I thought to go in this Red Cross car. I got into this vehicle. We went right in the middle of the crowd. When we got there we realised there was a hippo which was followed by some of the Comrades. There was throwing off stones and there was shooting at the same time. I did not like this at all. I was very scared of these bullets. I thought to go quickly and try and help out people. This is something that used to happen every day. We were very blessed to have people like those.
Nobody could stop these boere. They threw tear-gas at the women. We knew that there will just be mild injuries. Our Comrades used to treat themselves and take care of themselves. People had asthma, diabetes, there were so many diseases at that time. What I am coming to now is that I am trying to show the brutality of the police. It was not discriminating at all. People like Reverend Tshonga and Reverend Thandala, they were taken from their missions.
We had two hospitals, Livingstone and Dora Nginza Hospital. They were like prisons. Livingstone was worse. There were police staying at the Livingstone Hospital for 24 hours because there was no security. They were there to arrest people who were injured and shot. We decided if there are people who were shot we will say to this men, "Look, do not say your real name. You have uncles and some relatives. Do not tell your real name. Just mention one of your relatives." Really people changed their names. For example if he is Mcebisi Xundu he will say he is Mcexu just to shorten it. People used to be afraid of the police at the hospitals. Even the sisters had a certain system that they used to use but I am not going to tell you that. I am not going to give you those details because I do not know how this Commission is going to handle this.
They used to say to the patients, "If you are feeling a bit better you must please go, give this bed to another person who is more injured than you." Even here in this hall there were people who were experts in extracting bullets from bodies. I could myself, but really there were Comrades who were experts in this. There were many doctors who used to use their own rooms for this, but I am not going to mention their names. One of the doctors who was in this group died in Motherwell. Even today we do not know what happened to him but he died. He was very active in the struggle.
Coming to the campaigns we embarked on against the then government, there were places like Rini, small towns like Grahamstown, Cradock, etcetera, we used to go to such places and told people what they could do and told them how we could help them as doctors. We used to treat victims in these small towns. Sometimes we would find that situations were really bad and Black doctors were very scarce at that time. There was only one doctor at Cookhouse for example, and the rest were White. Some of the White doctors were suspicious. At night they would wear their uniform and be part of the hippos. They would go with these hippos. During the day they would be doctors. That is how they were suspicious.
We would go and campaign for support. We would go to places like Wits, UCT, trying to get support. Most of these people had what is called the stress syndrome. They would help us with the registration. We used to use a document for everything that we used to do. If a person came in we would write their names, the treatment the person is getting, this is why I am saying to you I am worried because I do not have all those files. The reason why we documented everything is that we wanted to have our history on record that is why the police wanted to take our files. They were interesting to the police because they were about them.
We ended up overseas. What we got from overseas is that the doctor can treat anyone without fear of arrest. There are treaties like Toyko Declaration, those are the things that reassured us that we have a right to treat whoever was injured. This organisation I was talking about now had nothing to do with us. If you have been shot that is your own baby. We came back and we told all the doctors who were part of our organisation that they could treat whoever was injured without fear. If a person has been a victim of political violence he has all the right to be treated. When we came back we told that to all the doctors who were part of our organisation.
In 1988 when the struggle was going on, luckily we organised a conference here in Port Elizabeth. The theme was "Peoples health - The Way Forward". What I am trying to show you is that we engaged into the system gradually but we did not realise how angry they were about what we were doing. In that conference, Mr Govan Mbeki at that time was just released. He was the guest speaker. I am sure people will remember this. He was silent before the conference. There is a letter here in front of me that I will not read to you. We had a conference at Dower College. We were told that everything will be okay and we should go ahead with the conference. At the last minutes we had a telegram from the House of Representatives saying "Do not give those communists accommodation." I am not uneducated but there is nothing wrong with those people were not educated, but we read that letter from the Parliament. One of the speakers who was there at the conference was the Minister of Justice, Mr Dullah Omar. I still have his speech. During that excitement we were not aware that chaos was going to start after that.
We had a meeting after that conference. While we were concluding the conference there was a knock. When I opened the door there were men who just rushed in taking photos.
When I asked what was going on... There used to be people sleeping in a certain place just here and there was a guy who was short-tempered. He wanted to go to the cameraman. I had to stop this. There were about five or us and these people were about 15. We were so shocked. We thought now what was going on. I was actually in the file cabinets because obviously they wanted those files. The conference was legal. They opened our cabinets. There were a lot of whisky in those cabinets. They said, "Are you drinking a lot?" We said, "No, we were given this whisky. It is not ours." They did not get the files. Their rushing in was in vain.
There were just five doctors. I thought that there was something that was going to happen here. Fortunately, we had an alarm system that was on 24 hours a day. We used to say to our neighbours, "Please, if there is anything happening, please notify us." Our neighbours could not notify us. The following day, we saw the office had been burgled. Everything was taken. Typewriters, faxes, everything was taken. We realised there were so many people who came in here. When I made my own analysis it looked like they really wanted those files. Unfortunately, they could not get these files in a legitimate way.
There are things like confidentiality between patient and doctor so they could not get the files legally. I asked my neighbours what happened. They said that they did not hear anything. You must know that that alarm was quite noisy. It is amazing that the neighbours did not hear anything. One of my neighbours though, heard the alarm and when he got out he saw vans and trucks of the police. That was as if these people did not get enough the previous day. We decided then we should not have our files in one place but to scatter them so that they could be safe. They were about the people who have been injured during the struggle and people who were injured in Robben Island. They went to my surgery and broke in. They took some of the medicine. I did not know that some of the policemen were so sick. When I went to report the burglary of my office the policemen asked, "Who do you suspect?" I could not say that I suspect them so that case did not go anywhere. These trips that I used to make overseas, there was another case that was very difficult here in Port Elizabeth. There was another guy who was shot but he was outside the boundaries. He was trying to shoot at the police. The police shot back. I tried to treat him until he was well.
Now on a Wednesday police arrived at my surgery. One of the policemen was Bezuidenhout. He was usually called Mqwati. I do not know why he was called Mqwati because Mqwati is a Xhosa clan name. They asked me whether I treated a person who had been shot. At the time I had a long list of people who had been shot. I said, "People get shot here in the townships, people from AZAPO or UDF." They said, "Look, do not play games with us. You know whom we are looking for." I said, "No, I do not know whom you are talking and unfortunately you cannot get the files." They asked me whether I knew this Comrade so I thought because this man has crossed the border I looked through my files and thought they were nice and safe.
The following day when I went to my surgery I arrived the same time as them. They said to me, "We asked whether you know this person, but we have just come to tell you that we have killed this person." They said it in such a calm manner as if they were having breakfast. It was so easy for them. He was killed with his girlfriend and another young boy who was doing Std 10. When I was still shocked it was shattering to me. When I got my strength back I called the police and they gave me some advice and the matter was resolved. We tried to fix it according to my records.
I felt I was suffocating because I could not go anywhere to report this. I was called to go and see him. The reason why they wanted me to see this person at the mortuary is because they wanted me to be psychologically damaged as well. When I got to the mortuary in New Brighton, the one who was shot, I saw him just before he passed on. They opened all the drawers in the mortuary. There were people who have been necklaced, people who had been burnt, and this other man, Dr Laing, who was a district surgeon at that time, who did a postmortem said, "Look at all these people. Look at how the people in the townships use to burn themselves." I could see with my own eyes there were these burnt corpses. Even if you are a doctor, if you see that kind of sight it makes you very weak. Eventually he took me to this Comrade and half of his face was missing. They said to me that they have shot him themselves. They said that they wanted me now. On that day when they came to fetch me, this man who does not have a name, they said they are going to put me in a dark place. When they said they want to meet with me in a dark place I did not trust it at all. They said, "We can see you are a doctor and that you are stubborn." I told my patients that I was leaving them. I have to leave. Unfortunately I wanted to drive my own car. I will tell you how fortunate that was. When we got there I stopped next to my club.
I got in, I phoned in Major du Plessis, Bezuidenhout who was known as Mqwati, they insulted me. They insulted me, "You devil doctor." I was so used to these insults. It was not affecting me at that time.
As a Comrade you did not even understand these Acts, Section 29, etcetera. They said, "You are playing games. You will not get any lawyer." I realised I was going to be released after a very long time here now. So I told them how I treated this Comrade because that is exactly what they wanted me for. They wanted me to tell them how I treated him. At that time, Chairperson, people like Mrs Ngona was already inside. I thought I was going to follow them in a few minutes. At that time there was going be march at St Georges. These policemen said to me, "If you are not going to tell the truth now you are going to miss that march." My wife came in the afternoon to look for me and they said, "No, that man is not here." She said, "No, he is here. His car is outside." When I got out, I am going to agree now with Mkhuseli because as he had said your bread can be buttered on both sides. Fortunately I was a doctor that is how my bread was buttered on both sides. Reverend Tsonga and Reverend Xundu asked me how I knew these people. I said, "People, could you just write this down. Tell me, how much am I going to get if I tell you about these men?"
I said to them that I want to discuss this with my wife. They said, "No, do not tell your wife. This is just between us and you." I thought these people are crooks. I said, "Oh no, you guys, my father was also a policeman and he told me that I must never trust anyone. So I cannot help you." They said, "We will get you. You will also end up in jail." They used to harass me for a long time. They used to come to my surgery. One day my fuse blew. I told them they must never come to my surgery again. I do not want to see policemen anymore. After I showed my anger they stopped now trying to make me part of the system.
I also want to go back to Mkhuseli's point when I see all these people in this hall. Something was announced earlier this year that all those people who had been shot must come forward to claim some money. I have never seen anything that hurts most. I went to work for the Western District surgery. I saw people whom I had not seen in a long time. There was a long list of Comrades. People were compensated. People were reparated. There were people, I did not trust about this reparation. I had no trust of all this. I remember in 1985 when I had bullets all over...
sit down with me to recollect or repaint the events around the injuries... [Information lost due to recording]. Chairperson, I think what we should concentrate on is... and I hope this Commission will have power to assist or do something about that. Secondly, about you having a chance to ask me questions. I would ask the Minister, Sidney Mafumadi, to please get hold of those files, but I am sure they have been destroyed or maybe they have been kept in a certain place. I need those documents back because in those documents our history is written there. We need it for our children. We want our children to know what happened to Reverend Goyi and everybody else.
At that time, Chairperson, we were not allowed to see people in detention. We were not allowed at all. We had to use other means to go and send lawyers to go and see these people. I remember one time some of the guys who were getting old, now our culture was broken because a man is not supposed to be too old before he goes to the Initiation School. They were getting old before they go to the Initiation School. If we could get those documents, records, or files we will be able to do a biography.
Lastly, Chairperson, there is a boy who died in front of my eyes. This boy was killed by Butler Tungata. He killed him right in the middle of his forehead. His brains was scattered all over. The initial charge was defeating justice but it was changed and now they charged me for misconduct. That boy is dead and I have a criminal record. What do you do about that? Can they not come at least to give evidence that I killed him? He was charged criminally. He just appealed in the Supreme Court, if I am not mistaken, and he received a bail. Where is he? Is he alive? Is he in the police's hands? What is he doing? Those are the things that are frustrating us. Our system of justice should be seen to be working and fair as well. People who are charged cannot be assimilated to police force or to any other force. He must actually serve his sentence. Those are the three things that I want to put forward to the Commission if you do not have any questions.
(?): Doctor, thank you very much for your very extensive testimony. I have a question. I want to take you back to the role that was played by the Medical Association of South Africa and get your thinking about what you think was behind their neglect of those patients who were shot by the police, and then, bring you back and say what has MASA done to address what I call negligence of the patients. Then I will ask you other questions a little later.
WITNESS: Thank you, Chairperson. I think now they call it gross human rights violation. I think historically MASA was formed like most Afrikaner organisations, the Broederbond. It was around those Afrikaner male doctors who formed that association. To them it was really to support the status quo. What they used to say very clearly, separate politics and health. Health is separate and politics is separate. These days we are talking our own language. It is so funny. They talk about this Human Rights, Bill of Rights, Constitution, you should enshrine poverty rights, which they did not have any regard for. What they did, it goes back a long way. Neil Aggett was a doctor by profession. They never cared for him. They said he jumped or something. Steve's death was even worse because doctors were involved there. Actually, they reminded us of the Nazi in Germany, where the doctors will actually examine you and say you are fit for torture. After they have examined a person they would just say to that person, no, he is still fit for more torture, and they did that repeatedly. They should be charged with gross human rights violation. But MASA as I said was a boy's club, in actual fact a Broederbond belonging, so it did not see anything wrong with that.
And just to give you some international background, MASA was belonging to what was called "World Medical Association, and because of that action of MASA a lot of countries pulled out of... because they were disgusted that MASA was still part of that. I usually speak on radio this is why I am saying DJ. I am sorry. Now MASA has already changed itself now. MASA has changed itself. These people are talking our language. We are very sceptical on them. We do not think that these people have parted from that past. For instance some of the district surgeons and some of the prison warders, I have a document here, I am sure Comrade Malghas would remember Dr Kotze. That guy discharged them from the prison hospital just to make sure that they could take more intake on people who are on hunger strike. Such doctors we put to MASA and asked what do we do with this guy because there is no authority over them. There are a lot of cases, Chairperson, where MASA was very negligent to say the least.
(?): There are several doctors who have been identified throughout your testimony, for example a doctor Labuschagne who apparently played a significant role not only in guiding the torture but in giving instructions to tell whether somebody was fit for torture or not. The question I would like to know is, do you know if these doctors were members of the Medical Association of South Africa?
WITNESS: I will say 99% of all the White doctors belong to MASA until after the Steve Biko inquest or occurrence. Many White doctors left. Especially what [Inaudible...] called liberals, from English institutions they came out and joined, but the majority of the White doctors were belonging to MASA. They were given protection, even how MASA operates, even the Medical Dental Council, if you are a doctor you cannot lay a charge against another doctor. So if you remember Professor Heyns at Cape Town became the dossier as to what these guys did around Steve Biko and that was kicked out by MASA and the Medical Dental Council. So really there was this real network around them to protect them, but I think I can say 99% was part of MASA.
(?): Thank you. Could you give the Commission the benefit of your wisdom since we are after the truth. Do you think that these doctors should also be invited to appear before the Commission to discuss their role in general, their role in specific with respect to these cases?
WITNESS: Thank you, Chairperson. I think I will be very specific and actually target one doctor. I will tell you the reason why. Dr Laing, he was part of Steve Biko's death as well as the inquest and eventually being found guilty and sentenced. After that he is also involved with the detainees at St Albans. Laing was in charge of...
Definitely, Chairperson, he must come in front of the Truth Commission even if he is an old man, even if he has retired, he must come. At some stage he said in the newspaper he said his piece. I think he should rather come and say it here so that it can be documented, so that people can hear what sort of person he is. I cannot believe that if you are a trained doctor to look after people's spiritual healing and you could be one of the doctors who torture other people. I even know where he stays. I can go and call him for you.
(?): In the other testimonies it has frequently been said that the hospitals in South Africa have played a role that is, and I quote, "an extension of the prisons." Examples were given that when people were shot by the police with very serious wounds, some of them not fatal, and then when they were admitted to the emergency rooms in the hospitals that they were made to sit for hours on end and most of them did not survive when they could have survived if treatment had been provided immediately. What is your thinking about that?
WITNESS: Thank you, Chairperson. Here in Port Elizabeth we had then two hospitals. The third one which is Provincial Hospital was out of reach of the people. Unfortunately the Dora Nginza Hospital did not have any facilities where I also work. As I said initially we had police 24 hours at Casualty.
Those days people would just sit right at the entrance of the Casualty. I do admire the nurses who used to work at the hospital at that time. What used to happen there is, the first thing they wanted to know was whether you have been shot. If you had been shot you immediately would be under arrest. Sometimes they had to drag you out of the hospitals to St Albans then you will be arrested. It was obviously so. It was doing what the State wanted it to do. [Information lost due to recording] should then try and enforce medical ethical standards and they had the backing of the Medical Council, but one was not sure because Chairperson knows they were Whites. So one was not sure whether it was part of the extension of the system. Really it was terrible. People were admitted to hospital with serious injuries. You find people chained to the beds and a warder would be present at all times giving orders to the patients. I would say they were definitely part of that system at that time. It was possible that if you were shot in the township they would just go around with you in the township until it was too late for them to take you to hospital.
(?): Similarly, would you advise the Commission to ask these hospitals to also appear before the Commission to talk about their role?
WITNESS: I think so, Chairperson, to have a comprehensive picture so that everybody knows what happened, the truth. I think there were some guys who were not senior superintendents but who are still working for the Provincial Government. I think that guy can testify because we went to him many a times to talk to him. He told us that he is also helpless, there is not much he can do. So I think that guy can give us a better picture of what was happening. As I said, it was very strange for a doctor to advise people to run away from the hospital. We had to result in smuggling people out of hospital because we were trying to save them from going to prison. We had our own network at that time to change that kind of culture. The time when there was the riots at the Northern areas it was the same situation. The township was sealed off. When we got to Red Cross there was another man called Kruger. He was very scared of us. He said he could give us an ambulance but he is not going to give us the personnel together with the ambulance. When I got there there were two ladies. They were really fighters at that time. It was Thembeka and another lady. We said we are just going to take a ride around the township. At that time there were shots all over the place in the townships. We could not go there. I am just trying to talk about this hospital. We took the hospital eventually and we forced ourselves. We went exactly to where the shots had been fired.
When we got to the hospital with the first load the policemen were standing outside. We told them we were staff we could not go in there. They said, "Who is that?" It is the PEM. We told them that people are dying there, do something. Some of the people from the hospital tried to go there. One of the doctors was Pat Naidoo. We briefed him. At that time it was the first time for Livingstone to play its role now. I am trying to tell you how some of these hospitals could be involved. I feel they should come over and say how they were involved.
(?): The last question. Yesterday we heard testimonies that fire services were frequently withheld whenever there were fires in the townships. I want to ask you for your observations specific to ambulance services and the withdrawal, withholding of ambulance services particularly, and I quote, " politically related injuries".
WITNESS: Initially, Chairperson, ambulances had access to the townships but then what used to happen is that the police will define the situation. So the ambulances had to go to the police station at New Brighton and on the [Inaudible...] escort because they wanted to monitor the movements of the ambulance. As the result we went to Red Cross to assist to move people into the hospitals.
I remember just briefly one occasion. These boere shot a lady in her yard. She was wearing a nightie and a gown. There was a funeral obviously. So they shot this lady and took in a vehicle of the Red Cross to my rooms. The police at that time were really very violent. They used to arrest people inside the surgery when I was busy stitching up people and they would arrest them. We thought that we should get a flag of the Red Cross and put it in front of the surgery. There was nothing else that I could stop him with, only that flag from the Red Cross. So we were trying to protect ourselves. They would come, they were tall with riffles and I thought to myself I am going to be stubborn as well. They used to ask, "Who is your leader?" I asked them back, "Who is your leader?" Van Wyk said he was. I said that Van Wyk was going to take responsibility of everything that was happening here. One of the patient who they brought was a woman who only had a nightdress on. They had shot her in the stomach. I asked, "Did you shoot her?" I asked Van Wyk, "Take this patient and take her to hospital." It was the first time for me to see the police actually taking care of a patient and taking her into a van and taking her to hospital.
What I am coming to, ambulances could not move freely. If you wanted an ambulance you had to start at the police station. So yes, I think there was a system of control on ambulances in our system.
(?): Very early in your testimony you mentioned that there were White doctors who used to function as doctors during the day time and at night used to dress themselves in police clothes. It is not clear to me. Were they functioning as policemen at night? What exactly what was going on?
WITNESS: Chairperson, this was very common, it is a sort of rural interlink where you find what you call army reservists and police reservists. So you will find that a guy was a doctor during the day and at then 17h00, especially Cradock. I am sure if there is any Comrade who could testify from Cradock he will elaborate as to who was those doctors. 18h00 at night they put on camouflage, a sjambok and he is also part of that shooting and killing. The following morning he is in hospital supposed to treat patients. That was very common in the rural areas. Especially Cradock, I was aware of two doctors who were reservists.
(?): Chairperson, I would like to ask if Dr Maqina could supply us with the list of the people that he said might be destitute and might need our follow-up. Indulge me, Chairperson.
I would like to thank Dr Maqina, but the comments in our profession when we take the hippocratic, our goal is to save lives and that is very unfortunate in South Africa that doctors who have taken the hypocritic oath have participated in very nefarious ways in the perpartration of human rights violations. I also would like to say special thanks to Dr Maqina for his bravery, not only in the presentation of his testimony, but the role you played, a very risky role you played during the struggle. Sir, on behalf of the Commission, I salute you.
WITNESS: Thank you.
APPLAUSE
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS
WITNESS IS EXCUSED
CHAIRPERSON: We are going to take a three minute break so that we can just stretch ourselves and then sit down again.
ADJOURNS RESUMES
Mrs NOSISANA CELIA LOUW D.S.S.
CHAIRPERSON: My colleague will lead the witness.
(?): Thank you, Chairperson. Good morning Mrs Louw.
WITNESS: Good morning all of you.
(?): We are going to talk together about this case. Please relax, settle down so that you can speak freely. Tell us about yourself, your home and your son you are going to talk about now, Sizwe Mazungula. Just take a minute and then you can talk.
WITNESS: My name is Nosisana Celia Louw but my surname is Plaatjies. I am from Kirkwood. At the moment I stay at Moses Mabitya at Ethembeni No 26, but my real home is at No 4 at Ethembeni. Sizwe's home, the one I am going to talk about now, my first born, is at 35 Ethembeni Street. I was born in 1946. I gave birth to Sizwe in 1964 on the 13 October. At that time I was married to the Mazungula family.
(?): Is there a story that you would like to tell the Truth Commission, Mrs Louw? If you do, please start now and tell us about Sizwe. What happened to Sizwe?
WITNESS: Point number 1, Sizwe was very politically minded. In 1980 I could see that Sizwe was now being arrested many times by the police.
I sat down with him and asked him, "What is going on with you now?" He said, "No, Mama, I cannot withdraw now. I am already too deeply involved." In 1980 a young man, in the morning, arrived at my place. He told me that my child was wanted by the giddies. I asked, "Who are these magiddies? If the giddies people wants my son they must come here."
(?): Please let me interrupt you here. Who are these giddies?
WITNESS: The giddies people are these detectives. We call them magiddies.
(?): Please continue.
WITNESS: He was now taken by one of the young men. His surname was Daweti. I walked out with him. I had his books with him. I was now walking with his uncle and my sister. We went to the Labour Department. I asked them when I got there, "Where are these policemen? Where are these giddies who are looking for my son?" We went in. They took him and put him in a certain room. When I got to that room they said that I was not allowed to go in there. I said, "I want to see these magiddies who are looking for my son." While I was still arguing with these people they were calling the police. The police arrived. They took my son and left with him.
When I left the Labour Department everybody in the township wanted to find out what happened to Sizwe. I told them that Sizwe was taken by the police. So I went to D S Bethani and I told them that Sizwe has been taken by the police but I do not know why they took him. Students from D S Bethani met with other students from Bongolethu and Glentana. They all came together and went to town where Sizwe has been taken to. Before they got to town they were stopped by the police. These policemen were wearing these bright green clothes. I have never seen so many police vans and hippos in my life. At that time I was walking at the back. I was alone. My sister was one of the crowd who was right in front of me. They took my sister and they brutally beat her up such that she was swollen and her whole body was full of bumps. They met me. When I was just going around the corner I saw this hippo coming towards me. They were chasing a certain boy. Only to find out that my son was in this hippo. They beat me so much in that corner, I had to lie flat on the ground. There were just policemen all over the place. There were hippos and police vans all over and people were beaten up by these police, even dogs were being shot at. After that I tried to relax. I was given a break from the police.
(?): After Sizwe was taken by the police, when did you see him again?
WITNESS: At the time when the police were beating me up Sizwe was in this van. He was taken to Uitenhage and was beaten up there. When he came back from Uitenhage he said to me, "Mama, I have never seen people as big as those White men. They put a plastic over my head and I was brutally beaten up." When my son came back he had puss coming out of his ears. He said he had this consistent pain in my back. I was so afraid to take him to the doctor because even a doctor, boere from Ngqweba were boere from the farmers. I cannot even mention the doctor who was there because the things that he used to do are unspeakable. During the night he would be a policeman and during the day he would be a doctor. We did not have a Black doctor so we all depended on this White doctor who was our doctor. During that time I had to endure. When my son was brought back I remember it was around 17h00 when he was brought back. He said to me, "Mama I was released by students from Uitenhage. When they went there to fetch some of the students I was part of the students who were released." The students forced the people in the prison to release me and that is how I was released." They escorted that car from these giddies people to my home saying that my son should be at home at 17h00. When he came in I hugged him.
He said to me, "Mama, where I come from it was very difficult." I said, "Please just do not say anything. I am just grateful for the fact that you are back."
In 1985 when there was this unrest in Uitenhage, during the time when children used to die in Uitenhage, I used to look for my son and I could not find him anywhere. I looked for him for two weeks. Sometimes he would sleep in the bushes. Sometimes he would sleep in different houses because he was hiding from the police. For a long time, when I did not find him, eventually it turned out that he was found by the police at No 8 at Ethembeni, only to find out that they were not looking for him. They were looking for someone else. But because the person who was looked for by the police was also hiding at the same place as my son they took him. Instead of this young man who they were looking for, they took my son, Sizwe. One of the detectives who was Xhosa speaking said, I am not going to say his name now, but I am going to mention his name because I know him. I am going to mention his name because this young man told him his name. He said to me, Thobile Bona said to me when I was just about to be released by the police he said, "Do not release this one because he is the most dangerous one."
So they took my son. At that time he was only wearing white shorts. They put him into this hippo then they locked him up. While he was still arrested, that time when there was this unrest in Uitenhage...
Witness: Fikile Kobese
[Information lost due to changing of cassettes]
WITNESS: Now I started trouble for myself. The Special Branch people used to come to the venue where we used to rehearse the play. When we used to go and stage this play they would be there and we had to disguise ourselves so that we could go home safely. After that I wrote a second play because I was very angry by the fact that people died in detention. It was titled "Cry, The Innocent Blood". It was against the death of our people in detention that causes the Special Branch to strengthen their torture towards me. When I registered at UNISA, because I wanted to do my BA, they confiscated all my books. They would do that five or six times a year. They would be kept by the Special Branch. I would only get them back when I used a lawyer. Then I thought that this is the very first step for the killings. They were now trying to cripple education.
During the many strikes of the workers again, I wrote another play which was the third one. It was titled "The Time". That one was showing the strikes and the anger of the workers.
After every two weeks I would be questioned by the police. The questioning would take from five minutes to two hours and then you could just see that they are disrupting your programme for the day.
One of the policemen whispered something to me. His name was Nzingu. When I asked them, "What exactly they want from me because I will not be able to divorce myself, I cannot separate myself from myself. What am I supposed to do?" He said, "Point number one we suspect that you are not writing your plays yourself. Somebody else is writing it for you." I was never a member of ASASCO. These are the things that the police were thinking for themselves, but that was not true. They used to think things about a person and act on them even if they were not true. Even if I was trying to write a play I had to make two copies. There was a copy ready to be taken by a Special Branch and another one I would keep for myself. They found that out. They found out that what was actually on play is not what they had in their documents. They discovered that. That is what would change my plays three to four times. If there was another thing that one of the Special Branch, one of the tortures would do I would change it and I would even play it as it was. My cast at that time were students who did Std 9 and Std 10. I joined the Uitenhage Black Civic Organisation.
(?): What year was that?
WITNESS: It was 1981. We were organised by Comrade Thozamile Botha, who is now a prominent member in our government. That was the beginning of the Civics. We were following Port Elizabeth at that time. I was also nominated. We had an anti-removal committee within the Civic. I was the Chairperson there. When we were campaigning against the forceful removals of people to Kwanobuhle, we said that if a person does not want to go to Kwanobuhle the government must not force that person. Unfortunately, that campaign put me into this kind of trouble which I am going to tell you about now.
On 12 January 1981, it was 00h25, my home was bombed. This bomb destroyed a 12-roomed house which we built. My whole family was a church going family. I was the only political person in here. The only things we had left were those we had on our bodies. We almost forgot our grandmother during this fire because at the time she was blind. It was only people who went through the windows who got her out. That time the house was in flames. A few minutes after that a police van arrived. I did not even notice what time it got there. One of our neighbours, her name was Mrs May, she was coming enough saying that I was the first one to go out. That case was given to Mr Putu who was also a policeman.
This woman also forwarded her statement. Putu was standing behind the fence when he was taking the statement. His name is Putu. We heard that he is in one of the government structure in Port Elizabeth. It was only once, that he tortured us over a fence and we never saw him again. We only heard that he has been shifted from Uitenhage. Now we were forced to go to Uitenhage.
A campaign was started saying the same Kobese who said you must not go to Kwanobuhle is now living there. The Special Branch policemen used to ridicule about that. They used to ask me, "Now you are living in Kwanobuhle and yet you were the first one to say people must not go to Kwanobuhle." They ridiculed my stay in Kwanobuhle and they made that their propaganda up to now. I am challenging anyone from the government who is involved in the propaganda to come and tell the truth about the fact that tax had been used so much to promote propaganda. In Uitenhage that happened the most. I challenge anyone here who says their town has been used more than Uitenhage. Most of the money that has been used to promote that propaganda was also used in the Military Intelligence. They used to say to me, "Go into a certain place and take a couple of leaders so that the struggle of people could just die down."
I was target number one in that strategy. I said in the following organisation, I have reasons why I should mention these organisations especially when I talk about propaganda. I served on YOUTHCO, United Automobile Workers UCON, it was a branch of COSATU at that time. I served on AFROS as a director. I served on the UDF with Mr Ngoni whom I have seen in this hall. I was his Deputy-President. I served in MAKUSA and GWUSA which were trade unions. I served in Food and Allied Workers Union. The fact that I served in those organisations made that when these Special Branch would divide themselves they would come to me. If they are talking about trade unions, how involved they are with the communities, they would come to me because I was also in the trade unions. If someone is looking after the cultures and trade unions they would come to me because I was also involved there with the youth.
I was involved from 1981 to 1985 except for those times I was being arrested. I was building COSATU in the unity called talks, but all those things that happened in Uitenhage. Their style was, they used to say in the propaganda, everything that is happening and everything that was happening in Uitenhage, Kobese was doing it. That was their propaganda and their strategy.
The second strategy was, the reason of the existence of the UDF was Kobese because I was the Vice-President of the Eastern Cape region. So if we are expected to praise the police I can praise them because I can say to them, "They used millions of rands to promote propaganda."
On 28 November 1984 certain people arrived at my house. Number one, Johnson Straight. They were in a van that was used by the Council at the time in Uitenhage. It had rocks in it. You could identify where these rocks were from. There were white stones that used to be in a certain place where there was a bridge being built. Around midnight I saw this van and there were people in my yard. I quietly opened the window so that they could not realise that I was in there. They were taking out these rocks and then through my house, through the doors and the windows and then thereafter they left. During that time there were another five houses belonging to UDF people that were also damaged like my house, even on the second day around 08h15 in the morning. Now I am going to talk about something that is connected to Kinikini. I want to make these two points. The first one is, the reporters who are here, if they are going to report on what I am going to talk about Kinikini, they must report all of it so that it must not be out of context.
If they cannot report all of it, if they just want to report a portion of it then it will not be the real thing because it will not be what I have said. The second point I want to mention is, if the Kinikini family is in here they must just let them relax like everybody else. I do not want to say that they must be attacked. I am going to talk about a straight forward simple point about Kinikini. This is not a propaganda committee. At 08h15, on 29 November, the family of Kinikini arrived at my place. I did not even know Mr Kinikini at that time. If you were not working with the organisations that I have mentioned you do not know what I am talking about now. You cannot say you do not know everything directly and personally unless you are everywhere. You are not expected to know everyone who has a headache in Port Elizabeth, if someone has a swollen ankle some place you are supposed to know that, if somebody has been thrown by a stone somewhere in Soweto you are supposed to know that, there is no such thing. You are not expected to know all that.
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Please hold it.
WITNESS: So Kinikini arrived at my house with his wife and two daughters and two other men. They came into my yard. They were in a rush. They were using one of their business cars. It was a black station wagon. He was a Counsellor at that time.
He was not a Mayor. They came through the kitchen door. He was talking. He was saying, "We attack anyone even during the day." My whole house was locked and I was so scared, only to find out there were Rovers outside, half a dozen of them outside. They were patrolling around my house and just beating up whoever is trying to get close to my house at No 1, Nojola. If you were just passing by and were not even aware what was happening at my house you would be beaten up by these people. I did not even have arms with me so I decided to take a knobkierie. I used the small window in the kitchen. While they were busy knocking, I knocked the door and the window. We can tell the truth and I am going to tell the truth as we speak now. One of those daughters was cut by one of the glasses on her arm. She still has that scar. So I ran. I got out of one of the windows and then I escaped. These Rovers did not do anything to me. I could see them properly now what they were doing. I left and I ran to No 88. That is how I escaped. During the day there were people from Stoto who came to tell me that their house has been vandalised. When they saw my house was vandalised they could not even tell me their story now. Because of what happened I took my bedroom suite and hid it next door.
Now when we were going to Kwanobuhle I had my four room, No 1 Nogoko Street. My family, people like my brother's aunts were staying next door at No 2. I took out my bedroom suite from No 1. I wanted the police to investigate so that if the lawyers can be allowed to come back and just do so freely. I put my bedroom suite at No 3. I was guarded and I knew that I was under police eyes. If you are under such an eye, you are very sensitive. When I borrowed Fiksi's van he said to me, "If you get to Ngoli still alive you will be very lucky." It shows how sensitive you become, how radicalised you have become in many aspects of your life because of harassment. I knew that. I even had a certain solution in some instances. That is how I survived and that is how I am here today. The people who are my pillars are the people in this hall as we speak.
Now going on. The Council used to switch off the electricity of a certain area so that during that time certain people with balaclavas would come when it is dark and you would not even be able to see them. You would have to hide and then you would be given certain reports later. On 5 December 1984, my goods were still at No 3. The police did not even care about investigating the vandalising of our homes.
On 5 December, I am not sure of the time, I was not at home, my brother, Lesley Kobese was sleeping in my bed at No 3. No 3 was bombed by a firebomb and there was fire again. My house at the time was just walls. I was not in at that night and my brother was now hit by that bomb while sleeping next door at No 3. My brother died after five days at the Livingstone Hospital.
When this bomb was fired there were people inside. The policemen took Lesley and he was badly burnt. His body was swollen almost two times his normal size. They took him with a van. They did not put him in an ambulance. That was the last time the family knew where they were taking him. They did not even know whether he was getting treatment or not. This is a picture of his body, the one that I have here. This is his face. These are his legs and these are his arms. I am still going to use it again.
When this chaos of this bomb happened, Zolile Kobese was there in the house. During this whole chaos there was gas in the house which I could still smell, but I could not identify that gas. I am sure it was in that bomb also. He broke one of the windows and his left hand side was damaged, one of his hands was damaged.
He was taken to hospital. He saw Gerwel who was one of the Special Branch. He was standing next to him. Gerwel was one of the top prosecutors. I am sure he has now been promoted but at the time he was one of the security branches. He was starting to harass Zolile, who was in a hospital bed. As the result Zolile had to hide. He ran away from the hospital because he wanted to hide. He was afraid of being killed. Even today his arm is still damaged. It still does not work.
A man who had visited Lesley had also been suffocated by this gas. My mother who is here, I am with her, and my aunt, Violet, who has now passed on, they also had to be taken to the doctor for shock. We prepared for the funeral of Lesley. Le Grange, he was the Minister of Police, he issued a banning order of the things we are used to. I am not going to mention it, we are used to these things. I was not used to the fact that if we are in a vigil, that we are supposed to take this body into a cemetery. This body had been burnt, but people wanted to see how much he had been burnt.
(?): Please, let me interrupt you. Was there a postmortem done on Lesley?
WITNESS: Yes, there was, but we did not get the report. We were never given a report of the direct cause.
(?): Were you there when the report was done?
WITNESS: No, we were not there. The family was a soft target to the police. Whoever was a Kobese was a target for the police. It was very difficult for us to follow up anything. I only saw Lesley Kobese once at Livingstone Hospital because I disguised myself that is how I could do it.
When I went to Johannesburg I was with Thobile Mhlahlo who is now the MEC of Public Works here in front of us. He told me, just when we were close to Transvaal, the meeting has been cancelled. The caucus has been postponed and it will be called again. I said to him, "Please tell me something", after a minute of silence, "Has Lesley Kobese died?"
The day of the burial of my brother Lesley we had a vigil as usual. I slept at around 02h00 because it was very full there. There were people from Uitenhage and from other towns. Lesley was a disciplined breadwinner of that family and he was very famous that is why it was so full on that day. I slept at No. 8, No-Joe Skweyiya, Nojomba. While I was sleeping I was suffocated by tear-gas only to find out that this teargas that I am sniffing at No 8, it originated from my own house, from the house where the vigil was.
When I got out there were policemen all over and there were people who had guns. I could not even see this house even though it was not far from me. Policemen were kneeling shooting everyone, even small babies. They dropped down the ceiling. They pealed the tiles on the floor. They spilled all the food that was there, scones, because we were waiting for people from different places and we bought so much food. These policemen in the yard where the vigil was held kicked and killed one of the members of the Youth Congress, Bantom. They took me to Walmer Police Station.
(?): Do you know any of the policemen who took you?
WITNESS: I was taken by the people I thought at the time were people of the Rovers, but it looked like that was a mistake. I am sure the Special Branch had a supporting role in this, but I did not know the names of these police. I was taken to the police station in Uitenhage. We just passed Uitenhage and we went to Walmer. I was put in a very dirty cell. It had blood and I thought this is where they used to torture people. So I could not make it to the funeral. No, there was no one to bury anyone because 89 people were arrested. 89 people were put in a police truck and were put in prison. There was no one to bury anyone. We were all in prison.
The people who arrived there from the Eastern Cape, from Cradock, Graaff-Reinet, etcetera, those are the places where we used to work. When they arrived it was just like that. There was that mess. I do not know what happened. I think they just arranged themselves to go back because we were not there. When I got to Walmer they gave me food. You will not believe this. They said, "Here is your food." When you looked at what you were given you would not associate it with food at all. They would take...
(?): I am sorry, let me interrupt you. After the Kinikini family came to your house, did they come back when you were trying to make funeral arrangements?
WITNESS: No, the Kinikini family did not come back. Now Reverend, the policemen used to come during the day or at night beating up the family. We did not even know each other. We did not even know where we were. They will just beat up and harass the family. They would always be in the yard, day in and day out. Every night they would be there. Sometimes these policemen would be getting drunk in the same street. When they were drunk they would come to my house and beat up people.
Coming back to this cell. I would be given food that has "dungeon" in it. That was the time when I was still moaning. They would take bread and put it into dung. I was given that and expected to eat it. There was nothing else that was given. I would drink something that looked like coffee, take a short exercise and I would take that bread and make it my toilet paper. I was not given toilet paper. I was only given that kind of bread.
(?): Who was in charge at this police station at that time?
WITNESS: I do not know who was in charge there, but the people who were there at that time, it was Eric Strydom who was in charge of the Murder and Crime Robbery Department. The person who helped me get out of that mess was a lawyer, but I heard somebody said, at that time it was Saai who was here yesterday. He helped me so I was able to go and bury my family. I was told that I was held because I was the cause of this chaos in the townships, but I was never aware of why I was arrested. The police knew exactly where I was, when I was at a certain place and what I was doing there.
On 9 August, I was hiding in Sonki Kungwayo's house. He was the owner of the van, the same van that Comrades Gongolosi and Galela disappeared with.
Qhayiya was just an ordinary businessman. He had a tavern. He gave me a room so that whenever I come in, anytime, I must just use that room. At that time there was this curfew. Sometimes he would help me out with a car. While we were going to this house were arrested. We went into the Rovers. The Rovers said to us, "You cannot be on the road at this time. This car must be investigated and see if has not been stolen." When I got there I made the mistake of telling them the truth about my identity. I said I am Fikile Kobese. He said to them, "This man is just visiting me."
I was then arrested at Algoa Park. During the week of the funeral, Comrade Goniwe, Calada Kondo, I was now told I was going to be taken to Transvaal. I went to Boksburg station. I was arrested with other inmates, with double the number of people that were supposed to be in that cell. Instead of being asked about a curfew or a car I was asked about something that happened at Algoa Park. I did not know anything about that bomb and the police who were involved there. I tried to think about it, but I could not. While I was still going to the court I was told, "No, this one must go back to the cell." I was then taken back to Port Elizabeth and I was told that I was asked by Hatting. So I asked, "Why was I not taken to court?
Why was I not asked to plead guilty or not?" Then I was told, "No, forget about that, we are talking other business here now." I can understand Afrikaans very well, but I can only speak it to White men when I felt like it. They said, "There will be no trouble if we kill these people between Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth." They discussed this now that in the Free State there are fields and they can do anything they wanted to do. So I was taken to Port Elizabeth. I thought, if they do this in the car I was determined to tip this car over.
(?): What time was it now? Could you please summarize this? The time now is 13h10. Let us summarize it.
WITNESS: Thank you. I was arrested under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act. That is just a different language used. I was held at Jeffrey's Bay. At that time propaganda was at its peek. I was held at solitary confinement. These policeman was living happily at Kwamagxaki. No one knew where I was. No lawyer knew where I was. My cell was open for 102 days because I was guarded by the police. There would be a policeman with a gun 24 hours. I was under solitary confinement. If there was anybody from the ANC here the police would know that I know the movements by the ANC. Anyone who would be asking any kind of information I will give it to them. If that person who is sent by the ANC, that is the only thing that they would know.
I was not even allowed to whistle. If I did that they would call the Special Branch.
In Uitenhage at that time people were told not to ask for Kobese. People were told that Kobese is living happily in Kwamagxaki, but all the time I was in this cell. This day when I whistled the Station Commander asked, "What is going on?" I said, "I am nervous. If I whistle it calms me down." I did this for just three minutes. You were guarded by three guards. That was their job, just to guide you. I was given a tablet for my headache. It was 18h00 when I took this tablet and my whole body shocked until the following morning at 06h00.
(?): Do you know who gave you this tablet?
WITNESS: I know that person very well, but it is just that I cannot remember the name now. He was the Head of the prison at Jeffrey's Bay, just next to the beach, during August at that time. I used to see him.
(?): What is the name of this police station?
WITNESS: The name of the police station is Jeffrey's Bay. That is where people used to die one by one especially people involved in the Mkonto we Sizwe, they used to be held there.
(?): Please summarize Comrade because it is now quarter past.
WITNESS: Reverend, I am trying to summarize here.
(?): Please settle down.
WITNESS: Reverend, let us talk about the State of Emergency. I was set free without being charged, after being held under solitary confinement. In 1953, I was held under the State of Emergency. Out of all the things that have been told by people, I was taken to Caledon. I could not see it. I did not know it before. I was kept there for six months. I was not allowed to meet with the other political prisoners. The reason for that is because, on the 6th Floor at Le Grange, I think that was on 8 August when I was arrested, I was beaten up by Faku. There was this special clap that he used that makes your ear to bleed. All your nerves would be blown up. It was a special clap. The police were now angry because I was kept there for six months. I got out of the prison in 1989 and I was restricted. I was not allowed to speak to more than two people at a time. I had to go to the police station twice and I would be harassed by the police the whole night.
I am trying to summarize, Reverend. What I noticed in Uitenhage is that, what was going on was psychological suicide of the people, where people's minds would be damaged, they were not allowed to develop mentally because of this propaganda.
The pending of this propaganda depended so much on lying, twisting the truth. On the 6th Floor in August when I was arrested the policemen who were there, the Special Branch, while I was being beaten up by Faku. I was asked two things. They said there was another thing called "Flying men of Cholent". I said I did not know anything about that. They said that it means that we just want to throw you from this second floor. Secondly they said, "We do not know how you escaped our plan." They said, "If we could just get you now we know as the police, we would finish you."
I would like to make an announcement before I conclude, Reverend. There is an article that was published in the newspaper last year, published by Ben Conradie. Dr Conradie explained that he was a Ph.D doctor. This programme which Holomisa was talking about yesterday, the Adult Education Consultancy, he spoke about this article saying that, "The way on Black on Black violence was funded." I want the Truth Commission to dig deep into this. I cannot rest before I can find our more about this.
When I went to Somerset East, in fact in Cookhouse, I asked the Comrades. They said to me, "The journalists were here and some people confessed saying that we were paid by Dr Conradie." The files that had recorded the death of Lesley at Livingstone simply disappeared. We never got those. If the Commission could investigate that, what happened.
I have the name of the police whom I do not want to mention now because I do not want him to run away. He knows about the bomb that hit my house on 12 January 1991. I am going to tell the Commission about this man. I was hoping this policeman could come forward and tell the truth. I want the Commission to investigate about that. [Information lost due to recording]. To me it is a joke. I want the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to please investigate about the massacre that was said that it has been started by the UDF. There is no town, or even if there are few if there are any. There was nothing like a banning order. That used to happen in many towns in South Africa. People from Langa to Kwanobuhle used to meet us on the way. The SADF turned all the taxis away. Some people said, "We will just go there on foot." From Langa to town they would go there on foot. People got shot. It was said that the funeral has been burnt.
That is how the policemen used to explain the shooting of people. I do not know if the Kannemeyer Commission is just a farce. A second bomb that hit my house which was now investigated by Gerwel who was beating me, I want the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate about that as well. That is what I would like the Commission to do for me.
There are two more things that I would like to say. The first one is, African people have certain customs and certain cultures. If we as the Black policemen, if we say we have our say we will be lying. They used to be sent by White men. I am asking them to please come forward and talk because they know a lot. We are asking them to please come forward. I am dealing with police up to provincial level. They must show that they are not animals. They must come forward and tell that they were not doing this on their own, they were sent by these White men.
APPLAUSE
WITNESS: Last one, Reverend.
(?): Please hold, let him finish.
WITNESS: I have a solution here. [Information lost due to recording] ...with the Black people which takes the so-called Coloureds and Indians with ourselves as a group. Among us we must have the Truth and Reconciliation. We will tell a story and say we nearly got freedom. We must just come forward without any fear. I am a non-racialist to the extreme. I follow the communism which says, "Take the country. The country must be your first priority." That is what Joe Slovo used to say and... [Information lost due to recording] ...and seemingly the Truth and Reconciliation amongst ourselves. We have been used by people whose minds have been turned into animals. As Black people let us not fall into the trap. Let us free our chains. Let us free our minds. If you are in power, let us be in power. Let us go along with democracy. [Information lost due to recording] ...sacrificed, the Whites as well, but we must come together as a family and set an example. We are in power here. Thank you, Reverend.
APPLAUSE
(?): Thank you, Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Are there any questions from the panel? Mr Kobese, thank you very much for your testimony. We are challenged by the recommendations that you have put forward. [Information lost due to recording] ...taking each one of them very seriously.
I think I am not acting out of... I am not abusing my power as Chairperson for today. If I say the role that should be played by policemen who come from our societies, it is going to be crucial in discovering the truth about the kinds of things that we are being asked to investigate. When the Investigation Unit was launched on Monday we made a call them and to all policemen to come forward before they are named voluntarily. It would be sad if they wait until they are named before they come forward. So the call you have made indeed reaffirms the position of the TRC. I declare that this session of our hearing is now adjourned. We will reconvene as the Commission at 14h00.
ADJOURNS RESUMES
Witness: Roslyn Stratford
WITNESS: You understood the Xhosa culture and you are allowed to speak in the Xhosa language. They both loathed apartheid. I will repeat it, they both loathed apartheid and the violence and inequality in the country that apartheid led to. Allister in particular worked timelessly at ending apartheid because he understood the people's cries and had great sympathy for the people. Glen and Allister were my brothers. My brothers were ambushed at Sonongwana in the Transkei on 13 April 1993. My brothers were travelling with a friend, Keith Rundle and two young boys aged 11 to Sonongwana after returning from a day's fishing at Port St Johns. They were ambushed shortly before arriving at their cottage at Sonongwana. Their assailants used automatic riffles and in the attack my brothers were killed. Five assailants were arrested shortly thereafter. Two months after the attack all the five assailants appeared in court and were granted bail of R500,00 each. I do not know why bail of such a little amount was granted and at the time of the hearing of the bail I felt shock and despair at the amount. Ever since this murder took place the court case in which they were accused of murdering my brothers has been postponed over and over again.
During the initial stages of the case a special trip was made by the Attorney-General of the Transkei, Mr Chris Nel, to Canada to interview Keith Rundle who was a friend of my brothers and was a survivor of the ambush. Keith then made a special trip to South Africa to give evidence in the Umtata Court. Despite the efforts made by the Attorney-General and Keith the court case did not come to an end. I have now learnt that the earliest is that it is expected to end in September of this year. I cannot understand why it will take more than three years to bring the trial to an end when their assailants were arrested so soon after the attack. My family understands, from press reports, that one of the Accused is presently out on bail for R1 000,00 on another murder charge. This month one of the murderers was shot dead by police in [Inaudible...] after he left the Magistrate's office. The police wanted to speak to him on another charge. On seeing the police this Accused and a friend pulled out an R4 riffle and a pistol and in the insuring gun battle he was shot dead. What kind of people are these? Why are they still allowed bail? They do not show any attitude of responsibility towards mankind at all yet they are allowed to run freely on an inadequate bail. My brothers lost their lives a few days after Chris Hani's senseless killing and the Commissioners will be well aware that the Accused in that case were brought to trial without bail very very quickly.
Why is justice so slow for my brothers? My family and I have to wander what justice is all about and if one has to be an important public figure in order for justice to be served.
Earlier this year in response to outcries of justice with regard to the reparators, bail conditions, our President and the Minister of Justice said on National Television that people on serious charges would not be granted bail and allowed to be free until the respective court cases were heard in a competent court. We viewed the charges against the assailants in the killing of my brothers as being extremely serious. Is this Transkei above the National laws of our country? Is so, why? Do you not think that it makes life seam so cheap?
The matter of the delay of the trial have been raised on two occasions in Parliament and replies have been forthcoming that the case would be proceeding in the future. My family has felt so helpless and request the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to assist in firstly assuring that the Accused are held in custody or have a realistic bail set in relation to the charge. Secondly, to assist in bringing this case to finality.
My family and the wider families of Glen and Allister are infuriated, hurt and absolutely frustrated about the inconclusive court case and the obvious disregard for the laws of our land. We as a family have to start the healing process and this cannot effectively begin when one is continually reading about the delays in the case. I have forgiven these unfortunate men who were unaware of what my brothers stood for, but believe that justice must be done. Even they are fined a negligible amount I will not harbour the thought that justice delayed is justice denied.
I thank you, the Commissioners, and for listening to my requests and I trust the Commission will do everything in its power to assist me.
(?): Thank you very much, Mrs Stratford. To try and put your story in context, may I ask you a few questions. What was happening in Panda at the time?
WITNESS: At that time it was quite... They actually... There was nothing on the go at the time. My brothers were not aware of Chris Hani's death. They obviously have gone out quite happily fishing and were returning from a fishing trip, happy to get home to talk about the day's events when they were ambushed by these five men.
I just believe that it could have possibly been a political motive because they were the first two Whites attacked after Chris Hani's assassination.
(?): Before I go to the next question. Could you tell us a little about your brothers? How old were they when they were killed? Were they married? Did they have any children? How old were the children?
WITNESS: My eldest brother Glen was 48 years old and he had two children, Trevor and Debbie. Allister was an attorney, a very well figure head in the Grahamstown/Eastern Cape area who was very much for the Peace Commission. He actually on the day of his funeral was due to attend a meeting with regard to the Peace Accord. He was very well respected by the Black people. I just believe that if the people only knew who they had shot, they would have realised they made a terrible mistake.
(?): You say they were both well-known in the Black community?
WITNESS: Especially Allister. He understood their culture. He actually was a Xhosa teacher at St Andrews College for three years and then he became an attorney and he was very much, as I said in my statement, very supportive towards peace. He was anti-apartheid. In fact both were very strongly anti-apartheid.
(?): I know you may not have an answer to this question, but in your opinion, do you think that their killing was a coincidence that they were perhaps at the wrong place the wrong time, or do your think they were direct targets?
WITNESS: I believe serious deep in my heart that they were targets, yes.
(?): This investigation, how long has it been going on?
WITNESS: The investigation has been going for three years.
(?): And no progress has been made on the case?
WITNESS: No progress other than the court cases keep being delayed and there have been tremendous outcries about this delay of the court cases. Newspaper headlines, justice is too slow for the weaklies. There has been numerous and numerous reports in the newspapers, when is this court case ever going to come to an end.
(?): From your statement you are requesting that the Truth Commission facilitate the court hearing?
WITNESS: I would be very grateful, yes.
(?): Mr Ntsebeza is here today and I believe he will confirm that we will request that our lawyers facilitate the conclusion of the case perhaps of an estimate of about June/July. I am just giving you an estimate.
Mrs Stratford, is there anything else that we have not covered in your story that you would like to share with the Commission?
WITNESS: No, I just would like to really say that this Truth Commission has been a most wonderful experience and my husband and I were saying over lunch time it is such a pity that this hall was not as packed with Whites as it is with Blacks because I think the Whites need to have heard to what was said today.
APPLAUSE
(?): Chairperson, does anybody have some questions? Mrs Stratford, if the Arch Bishop was here he would say that we are a wounded nation, that there were no winners on either side. That the pain which we all have gone through has affected both Blacks and Whites. I think your coming here today confirms that the Truth Commission is not about just hearing stories from the Black communities or stories of Human Rights Violations which were perpetrated by the State. I think you being here today confirms very clearly that in its task, and in fulfilling its mandate, the Commission wants to hear stories from all sides, from all political parties, from all South Africans who have been affected. We hope that by being open and that by facilitating the truth that we will have as true a picture as is possible throughout the country so that we can very quickly go about the business of healing and reconciling our nation.
On behalf of the Commission I would like to thank you and say God's peace and promise that the Commission will do everything in its power to facilitate the court proceedings on your brothers. I believe that Mr Sandi would like to say something. Mr Sandi?
Mr N SANDI: Thank you, Chairperson. Mrs Stratford, coming from Grahamstown I just want to confirm that one of your brothers, Allister, was very well known to me. At some stage he had to teach me part-time one of the legal courses I was doing at Rhodes University. All that you have said about him is entirely the truth. I think the death of people like Allister goes to show the type of insanity we used to have in this country. Thank you, nice to know you.
(?): Before you leave the podium, may I say that the price we paid for our freedom is very deer indeed. The price was paid on both sides. For that reason we need to cherish that freedom. We need to respect individual and personal dignities. We need to respect life. And that if this country can go forward that we need to re-discover one another, both Blacks and Whites, and that we need to reconcile and move our country forward. Thank you, very much.
WITNESS: Thank you.
APPLAUSE
WITNESS IS EXCUSED
CHAIRPERSON: We call to the podium Sicelo Apleni. Let us settle down, please. We understand that this hall is packed today, but please people give us a chance so that we can try and summarize things up now. We do not have much time anymore. Sicelo Apleni, welcome. Mr SICELO APLENI D.S.S.
CHAIRPERSON: Reverend Xundu is going to try and guide you.
Rev N XUNDU: You are here to tell the story about your torture and severe ill-treatment in detention. Could you please tell us in short, where do you live? In organisation are you involved in? What are you doing? Just in short.
WITNESS: My name is Sicelo Apleni. I was born in Korsten here in Port Elizabeth. I live at 82 Mdali Street at Zwede. I specialize in karate. I have been doing karate for 33 years now. I am doing security work at SANCO. I am the Head of the Anti Crime in the whole region. Thank you, Reverend.
Rev N XUNDU: Thank you. In this torture and detention, in which organisation were you?
WITNESS: Reverend, can I just start before we get there. In 1976 I was here in Port Elizabeth. That was when the White people were shooting at SACS. In 1977 I was there.
I was one of the Comrades who were helping to hide all those African children who were shot by these White men. In 1979 I was here and I was one of the people who formed PEPCO. Now I would like to come up with this information bit by bit. It started in Zwede Township. It was led by Comrade Thozamile Botha and Mr May and other Comrades. We formed a branch at Zwede. From there we went to Dhako Hall. We as the community of Zwede agreed that we must form a branch of PEPCO in Port Elizabeth. Still during 1979 I was working at General Tyre. I was asked by the Comrades, some of them are here, that people of General Tyre were tortured. From October to November I organised a strike. At that time the workers were quite few compared to what they are now. Things started to be hot at that time. We went to St Stephen. We put across our demands. Unfortunately the security people at that time discovered me. They said that I am the one who is instigating this whole strike. They divided us as the workers. At that time we were only 19 who did not come back to General Tyre. I was one of victims. In 1978 I got a job. In 1980 when I got this job Dennis Neer, Government Zeni and Dumile Makanda, they said to me, "We have a job for you at Ford." When I got to Ford, at that time at the Engine Plant Department there was no trade union. The one that was there was FOSATU. It was only for White men.
At that time I was a member of PEPCO. I was in the Engine Plant. I formed a trade union. I was the first one to fill in that form and put it into the plant. The White boere chased me. They said I must leave. I must go and work outside. It was raining. I was told not to mix with the other workers. Fortunately, Chairperson, I met great Comrades like Thozamile Botha, Dumile Makanda and Comrade Tobo here next to me as well as Mr Zini. They said, "Comrade, go ahead." So I formed this trade union in the Engine Plant. It was very difficult.
I do not want to take a lot of your time. Let me continue. During 1980 at Zwede where I stay, this young man whom you are talking about today now, it hurts me, Reverend when you are talking about Mtimkulu. at the end of 1980 Mtimkulu was already sleeping at my house. I was hiding him. I was hiding him at Mdani at my own house.
Rev N XUNDU: Was he trusting you with your karate?
WITNESS: No, Reverend, I am not going to tell you about those secrets, but I was keeping him at my house. During 1981 when Mtimkulu was shot at Mjoli he fell right inside my own yard. He said to me, "Apleni, Tongata shot me." Let me repeat this, Reverend. Maybe you did not hear this correctly.
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Could you please control yourselves.
WITNESS: Reverend, it was Mtimkulu and Mjijwa, they are from Kwazakhele. I passed Mjoli only to find out that inside this tinted combi was Tungata, Faku and also Roelofs. They shot Mtimkulu. He staggered. Mtimkulu fell in my own yard at Mdani. I took Mtimkulu and I hid him, Reverend then I went to report that to his family and that was the last time I saw Mtimkulu. Now, Reverend, coming to 1985.
CHAIRPERSON: Please give him a chance.
WITNESS: During 1985 on 12 May it was on a Sunday evening we were from Konga, that is where my family lives. At that time SABC would only go up until 21h00. We were from another house where we watched TV. At that time I had a car. It was an Escort. It was only a year old. When I got into my yard my family was in the car. My family got out of the car. When I got into the kitchen I looked into the mirror. I could see that there were two people approaching me. There was already this conflict between UDF and AZAPO. Reverend, I got out of the car just as a confident person who has been trained.
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: People, please calm down. We are running out of time. Give him a chance.
WITNESS: Reverend, I closed my door. These two men came and they were in a rush. I do not know their names, Reverend, but I can still remember them even today. The first one had a blue top on. The second one had a maroon tracksuit on. The one who was behind said, "This is the one." The one who was leading put his hand on his belt. I thought he was taking out a knife only to find out he was taking out a 9mm pistol. When he was corking the gun. Yes, I have been trained karate. You must remember that. He shot, Reverend. While he was shooting he was already in my hands. At the first shot I had the gun in my hand. We were struggling with this gun. The first shot went off. He tried again the second time. He was missing me all the time. The third shot, it got me right here on this spot. This thumb was chopped off. After that he ran away with the gun. Fortunately of unfortunately, Reverend, much as this one next to me, she had already called an ambulance. At that time people like Comrade Fazi and Comrade Gcina and other Comrades as well as Mkuseli Jack and the police, it was the ambulance that came first.
I was then taken to Dora Nginza Hospital. When I arrived there Dr Hewana treated me. I had 45 stitches around my thumb. This thumb only started to work last year.
People cannot realise it when they are looking at it now. I did not even want people to know this. Excuse me just a little now.
The following morning I came back. I was told that the policemen said they wanted to see me at Louis Le Grange. I was scared now because my name was in all the policemen's mouths because I was one of the leaders of the organisation. Matshesi and I went to Le Grange. The first person who took me there was Mr Olifant who is right here in this hall. He was also here on Tuesday. He is one of the security police. They said to me, "Apleni, stand aside." They called my wife. The way they called her was as if they were calling a dog. Even the way they called me was much better than the way she was called. They called me Sen Sai because that is a respectable way of calling a karate leader. They asked me, "Where is the gun? When are those people I was shooting in my own yard?" Then they chased me. The asked me, they interrogated me until the end of the day. I was sweating. Then they released me and warned me. We went home.
The following day I received a telephone call. I was told I must just relax at home. The man who telephoned me was Mr Faku. They told me to stay at home.
On 18 July 1985, it was very early around 05h00 on a Monday morning, I just arrived at home. I had taken my brother to Good Year. He was working there. I had left Mike Tofile's wife in my house and I told them that I was taking my brother to work. When I got back I never saw so many policemen in my entire life. If I can just cut this crowd in half I would say this is just the tip of the ice berg. I am going to tell you now everything that happened.
CHAIRPERSON: Could you please keep quite.
WITNESS: The first person who entered was Mr Bill Dennis. In this Centenary Hall there is no person who is as big as he was. His more hefty than Comrade Ngoye. He said to me, "You see Apleni, your karate is just going to melt away my boy. The second person who entered, I can even identify them under his balaclava. It was Mr Mosharha. He said, "I want the key to the car. Go and open the boot." So I did. Bill Dennis took a gallon of petrol. He said, "Apleni, you are going to burn some people." I was questioned about everything that was happening at the UDF. I was asked where our meetings were being held etcetera. They told me now that they were arresting me so I left with them. My car was driven by Mr Mosharha. I was sitting at the back with some other policemen. We went to Louis Le Grange. There was also Mr X whom I am not going to mention.
They said, "We are going to castrate you today." That is what Mr X said to me. When we got on the 8th Floor, if I am not mistaken, we met Mr Roelofs. He asked, "Where is Edgar Ngoyi?" He said, "Where is Fasie?" Because he was the only one who was here. You must not forget, I still I those stitches on my thumb. They beat me up in Mr Roelofs's office until I was unconscious. Then I was taken by Faku, Olifant, Japhta who is also here, he is one of the security police in the building, McIntyre, Conway, Van Wyk, Bill Dennis and another group that I do not know which belong to the Security Branch. I was taken to Bill Dennis's office upstairs. When I got there they shot me a pair of shoes. Those shoes were burnt. It had somebody's bones in them. They said to me, "You are going to look like that." They said, "Just look on your right." I turned. He showed me somebody skull. That was Bill Dennis. Then I fainted. Though they did not beat me up in this particular office I just fainted. I got very weak. They took me to Algoa Police Station. They did not do anything to me there. That is where I slept. I slept for days on end. I was taken to a certain police station in the rural areas which I do not know. I was kept there for days on end. I did not even know where I was.
On a certain morning Bill Dennis arrived, Reverend. He fetched me. He brought me back to Louis Le Grange. He also interrogated me about Ngoyi because if was Ngoyi who used to kill people here in Port Elizabeth. All those things that Bill Dennis asked me about I did not know even a single one. Passing on, Bill Dennis took me to Rooi Hel. That is where I was kept at Makulukhutu where you do not even find a toilet. You will only get a bucket. I stayed there for four months at Rooi Hel. They did not empty this bucket for four months. They are the ones who told me that Goniwe and the rest were dead.
On this first day when they were teargassing me in my cell, I stayed for 15 days in gas and every day I was teargassed. I got very ill and nobody knew where I was. Some of the inmates knew that I was there. They were getting in contact with the UDF and my family so I asked lawyers, my lawyer was Comrade Nganulo, it was very difficult for him to come and see me and also Advocate Tshiti. I stayed in that cell until I recovered from my wounds. I was not charged for this whole period. I stayed there for six months. When I got to court I had already forgotten. If I can just summarize, I appeared in court 20 times.
Rev N XUNDU: When was this charge of rape, abduction and murder?
WITNESS: When I got to court I was told that I raped someone. I was told that I murdered someone. I was charged of kidnap. I was also told that I was Tungata's informer. Tungata's informer called Tungata Boyi and another woman called No-Mama, I was told I raped those women. I was charged five times. Lawyers like Somyalo Majodina tried quite a lot, Kanunu and the rest, so that I could get bail, but Dennis and Roelofs refused. I stayed in that prison until 1986. Immediately when I was released there was a State of Emergency outside. Then again, just after I was released I was arrested again. Roelofs was the one who arrested me. Conway and Mr X, Van Wyk, Faku and another very old man who was also white, he was called Qwati because he used to speak Xhosa like Xhosa speaking people, I was asked there where they could find Mkuseli Jack, Mike Xego and other UDF leaders. I denied, Reverend. I could not tell them because at that time it was really bad. They told me, "Now you are in our hands."
They took me to Bethelsdorp. That is where I stayed. I was not beaten at all. I stayed there happily. I was as if I was at home. I actually forgot that I was arrested. Mr Faku arrived and said to me, "Now you have come into a coup ditat. They arrived on Thursday, 18 July 1986. There was a convoy of cars full of white men.
Faku was the leader as well as Jam. They said to me, "Get into the toilet, we will be waiting for you here at the Reception." I was forced to go to the toilet even though I did not need to go there. When I got there I prayed. I said, "God, be with me today." I went to the Reception. I was then taken into a combi.
TAPE 3(b) - PE 3 - ENDS
TAPE 4(a) - PE 3 - BEGINS
WITNESS: They were trying to hide the handcuffs so that no one could see these handcuffs. If you were outside the combi you could only see oranges. Some would just hug and talk to me, people like Faku and this small one, Mr McIntyre. At that time I had already signed a certain form. It was my release form. This combi started at Kleinskool in a Coloured school. From there it went to Maqxaki High. Some of the Comrades cried. They said, "Apleni, can it be you who is an informer today?" Reverend, I could not even say anything.
From there we went to Soweto. I am sorry, Reverend, let me just go back. Before we went to Soweto we went to Ndzondelelo. At that time there was a 110h00 break. The first person to see me was Comrade Genge. He tried to stop the students. He said, "No, Apleni will never be an informer.
It is those certain conditions that made him be like that." We went to Johnson Road. When we got there we found one man who was trying to fix his van. He was also grabbed and was beaten up saying that, "Apleni said that you are one of the street committees." This man said, "Apleni, can it be possible that it could be you who could say something like that?" There was another man who was being nice to me and I could not even say anything to this man because I was afraid of this man next to me.
From Johnson Road we went next to Tangola Mani's home just next to the garage. When we got there the workers were busy going to work and students were going to school. The community now cried, saying, "Can it be you, Apleni, who is doing this to the community?"
From there we left. These White men at that time were hugging me pretending to be my friends. Mr X and his friends were talking to me. They were telling me, "Today, Apleni, you are going to burn with your family."
Reverend, our third stop was my home at Mdana Street. When I arrived my children saw me. They said, "Mama, here is father coming back again." My family were so happy. Then the combi just reversed. A third house from me, Mr Solwani who is my neighbour, when this combi arrived it was going at 200kms p/hr. I had this bag of oranges the whole time on me. People just asked me, "What happened, Apleni? Apleni, why did you point at me? I am not a street committee? Why did you say I am anything?" I could not respond.
From my street we went to Boyi Street. There was a girl and a young man, Mr Phukwana, this couple was arrested. The police said, "It is Apleni who said we should do this to you." Now the combi was full. This combi was now travelling at 10kms p/hr. It was going around Njoli and people were watching us.
From there we went to Centenary. When we got there there were a lot of people. It looked as if there was a show there. When people saw me like that they said, "Thanks." From Centenary I was taken back to Bethelsdorp.
Rev N XUNDU: From Bethelsdorp, what happened?
WITNESS: Reverend, when we got to Bethelsdorp...
Rev N XUNDU: When did you go to Jeffrey's Bay?
WITNESS: Reverend, I started at Bethelsdorp. When I got to Bethelsdorp I was taken out of the combi. All these people I was arrested with were left in the combi. I was alone with all these boere. At the Reception at the police station just before you get to the offices of the security it looked as if they were waiting for me for a long time. When I got in they put a sack over me. They removed the sack just when I was about to suffocate. They then took sunlight soap and pushed it into my nostrils. Mr Faku then stripped me of my clothes and then I was naked, totally naked. Again they put a sack over my head. They then said to me, "You know, today you are going to die." I was taken to the Security Department. At this time they were looking for Mike Xego, Comrade Fazi and Mkuseli Jack. I was beaten up. The first person to assault me was Mr X. He took my genitals, they opened a drawer, Faku was on the other side of the desk, he took my genitals and Mr X shut the drawer. At that time I was not taken to the bridge yet. All my genitals were in this drawer and this drawer was shut close. Faku squeezed my genitals. If you notice well I just turned and bend my neck and just look up. People who have been trained to assault people assaulted me on my neck. These are people who assault a trained person like myself.
While they were squeezing my genitals that is when they were beating the back of my neck. All my nerves at the back of my neck died and then I collapsed.
Reverend, I just missed one part. It is just one part. It is about Bill Dennis. While I was in court Mr Ngoyi was also in court. From the court I was put into the boot by Bill Dennis only to find out that on this particular day Mr Ngoyi was the one who was talking. He was put into the back seat. Then the case was postponed. After this he was transferred to this other police station. They called it Kinkelbosch. He did not know that I was in the boot at this time when he was taken to Kinkelbosch. He was being insulted by Bill Dennis. I was in the boot the whole time. I just wanted to tell you that, Reverend, sorry. Now let us go back to where we were and that is about my assault. I am going to stop anytime. I am going to summarize.
I was taken to Cell 8 by Mr X. He told me that I was going to die today. It was him, Faku, Jam and Van Wyk. I was taken to this cell here in Bethelsdorp. I estimated that it was around 18h00 in the early evening. I was taken back into a combi. There was a long line of the boere saying, "Now we are going to kill him."
The combi left with me. I did not even know where I was going. I just saw that I was taken into this area of George or Cape Town. They stopped at a certain bridge. They said to me, "You see this spot?" This place is called Van Staaden. I was taken out of the combi. I was naked. They tied a rope around my waist, right here on my stomach. My whole abdomen was blue with bruises. I could even see it myself. I cannot even explain what kind of rope they used to choke me. They said to me, "If you cannot tell us about Mike Xego and Mkuseli Jack we are going to kill you right now." I said, "You better kill me because I do not know anything about these Comrades at all." I was hung, Reverend, on that bridge like this. There was a big belt that they had tied around my waist. There was another rope that was tied next to the indicator of the car. They pulled me up. They did not beat me up at all, but I was a little unconscious at that time. Then we went back to Bethelsdorp.
When we got to Bethelsdorp... I am trying to summarize, Reverend. When we got there I met a group of Comrades, street committees who had been arrested. My Comrades saw me when I arrived from Van Staaden. It was just a minute after I had arrived. It felt like I was beaten by a machine. I was totally damaged and that is when I became totally unconscious. I came to after days.
I was already now in hospital. Now I would like to thank Dr Pat Naidoo, Dr Nyoka, an old man who resides here in Port Elizabeth, also Dr K Naidoo, the Damasa Reverends and all those Comrades who took care of my family during the hard times. I am very grateful to them and my family is also grateful to them. Reverend, I thought I was going to say what I am saying today when Faku was still alive. I, Apleni, is alive today. I am grateful to those Comrades who did not sleep, taking care of my family. I stayed for one and a half years in a place where no human being would sleep. I am grateful to Dr Heerans who gave me tablets at the time I was taken by Van Wyk and Mr X saying that I was alive.
When I left Livingstone I was wearing a gown. I have been guarded by the securities in the hospitals. They tied my legs like that. I stayed in that position for a year and a half, but I am here today. I am talking and I am alive. Thank you, Reverend.
APPLAUSE
Rev N XUNDU: Thank you, sir. You have told us your story in a way that we have now clearly see that we could not have had this freedom without people like you. My question is, what do you wish the Commission could do for you?
Do you want it to investigate or address your situation?
WITNESS: I have a question, Reverend. Is this not money which Mr X is using, the Africans money that he is using today, the money that he is wasting today, so that we are not able to mention him today? Is that not our money? Secondly, all those people who were the perpetrators, I want them to come forward and they must say their story here in front of the Commission. Thank you.
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Rev N XUNDU: Chairperson, he is all yours.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Apleni, did you go to a lawyer and made a claim for your assault?
WITNESS: Yes, I did lay charges for the first time I was shot, but that case did not go anywhere. About my assault, I also laid charges, but it also just disappeared in Bloemfontein at the big courts. That was the last time. My lawyer was Comrade Bam Fikile. I am also grateful to him. Thank you.
(?): After all this, were you able to work? Were you able to be employed by anyone?
WITNESS: Reverend, from 1989, I got out of prison in 1989. I was on hunger strike for 20 days with some of the Comrades.
I was on hunger strike for 40 days with some of the Comrades at Rooi Hel and again the leadership of the UDF, I also took part in the hunger strike. When I got out of prison I was banned from 1989, after two weeks after my release, I was picked up by Dan Sandi. This is only my second week after I had a job since 1989.
(?): Mr Apleni, [Information lost due to recording] ...characterised by high infant mortality rate particularly in the Eastern Cape, the lack of support for education, the neglect of people particularly in rural areas, and yet there was an incredible expenditure of money that was used for torturing people. In you I see a combination of rage and yet a proud description of strength and pride and an incredible resource. I do not know where it comes from, but clearly it is inside. Those of our people who are dead cannot now describe what happened to them. Those of our people who have disappeared cannot now describe what happened to them. Your incredible story represents the story of Siphiwe Mtimkulu, Sopsi Madaga, Sizwe Douglas Mzungula, Abraham Tamsanqa Tyhula, Glen Whitley, Allister Whitley, Mtutuzeli Michael, Thozama Fibi Mani and many others, it is through you that we are going to be able to learn the truth about what exactly happened because those who are silent are now silent for ever.
It is very important that there are many Aplenis to come forward to describe exactly what happened so that we can document the full history of what happened. You may not have paid with your dear life, but what you went through is tantamount to those people who have paid with their dear lives. I see rage, but you need to heal and what needs to come through for ever is the pride that you exude today.
The Commission continues to be touched. We will never be the same. We are very proud of you. We are grateful to you for not only telling your story but telling the story of those who have paid a dear price for our freedom. Sir, thank you very much.
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WITNESS IS EXCUSED
(?): Chairperson, we are going to proceed by inviting Mr Mtunzi Archibold Heshu to the stand.
CHAIRPERSON: Let us give a chance to all those who want to leave. They can please do so very quickly. Please calm down. Please settle down. Mr Heshu, good afternoon, sir.
Mr M A HESHU D.S.S.
CHAIRPERSON: Ntsiki, you can take over.
Rev N XUNDU: Mr Heshu, let me make sure. Are your full names Archibold Mtunzi Heshu?
WITNESS: Yes, that is correct.
Rev N XUNDU: Do you stay at 92 Madala Street?
WITNESS: Yes, that is correct.
Rev N XUNDU: You are here in front of the Commission. You are here to talk about the shooting of your brother, his name is Mtutuzeli Michael Heshu. Is that correct?
WITNESS: Yes, that is correct.
Rev N XUNDU: What do you do for a living?
WITNESS: I am a business development officer at BBC.
Rev N XUNDU: When did this happen, did you say you were in Cape Town?
WITNESS: Yes, I was in Cape Town.
Rev N XUNDU: Now could you please start with the story? Tell us what happened, just the way you told us before.
WITNESS: I will. What happened was, I was in Cape Town with the Rhoxo family. I was on vacation. We were at the beach having a good time. Out of the blue, I did not want to be with this group any longer, I decided I wanted to be alone in the car. Mbuyiselo Rhoxo asked me, "What is wrong with you? Why do you not stay with us?" I said, "No, I do not feel well, let us leave." So we left. We went to Brinton No 62, that is where they used to stay. When we got there we heard a hymn. This hymn was sung in the house, but nothing rang in me. I just thought it was women from the church singing. I got out of the car. We took all the things from the car which we have taken to the beach. He was with the man from next door so I thought of just going into the house. When I got in people were kneeling and praying. I also joined. When I joined I found that the message they were trying to portray was that they were trying to strengthen me. Obviously something had happened at my home. The men who were praying said, "He is asking the Lord to please be with this child when he is going back to Port Elizabeth so that when he gets there he must not be shocked of what he is going to hear when he gets there." After the prayer this man said to me that they received a telephone call. I was told to go back to Port Elizabeth.
When the plane ticket arrived, fortunately I was with another friend from Port Elizabeth, we swopped our tickets. His ticket was dated 29 December. He gave me that ticket. So on the Saturday I went to the airport and I came to Port Elizabeth.
When I arrived here in Port Elizabeth I was intercepted by the Special Branch. I was taken by Oosthuizen. We went into these rooms. I saw my uncle, Fezile Ngqombo, who used to stay at Stokwe, he was the one who fetched me from the airport, but I was taken into these White men's cars. They asked me, "Why do you come back with a false name? Why did you change your name?" I said, "No, I did not change my name, it is just that I used my friend's ticket." What surprised me with that question was, how did they know that I was using Monde's ticket? Anyway, that is not an issue. I am not going to dwell on that right now.
From there I was taken to Kwazakhele Police Station. When I got there they said to me, "Go into that room." So I did. When I got there I met Liziwe Nzimase who is my brother's girl friend. I noticed that there was a tape recorder which was covered by a towel and there were cords that went into the next office. I started signalling to Titi trying to tell her not to say anything because I was pointing at this tape recorder.
We spoke generally, just asking how was your Christmas and everything. We did not say anything about the death.
Later in the afternoon around 16h00, no, before that, Oosthuizen arrived. He just peeped into this room and he saw us sitting on the chairs. He said in Afrikaans, "You look like enemies." We were released around 16h00 in the afternoon. At that time I did not even know where my clothes were. At that time I thought we were going to be given VIP treatment, but we were told that we should go out on foot. The money that I had was amongst my clothes which was not with me at that time. Then we went home. I asked Titi, "What really happened here?" There was a Christmas party that was held at Dora, in Mr Mini's house. My brother had a house at Konika Street.
Rev N XUNDU: Sorry, can I just interrupt you. What kind of policemen were they who met you at the airport?
WITNESS: It was Oosthuizen who intercepted me at the airport. He was the one who took me to the police station at Kwazakhele. Did told me what happened. She said there was a party at Dora. When they left it was after midnight. When they approached Nguna Street, because they wanted to go to Konika Street 27, young men approached them from the school.
They said, "Where are you from?" We said, "We are from a party." They asked, "Who is this?" I said, "She is my girl friend." They asked Titi, "Who is this?" Titi said, "He is my boy friend." They said, "Where are you going to?" We said, "We are going home." The deceased was only shot because he was asked to make love to Titi in the middle of the street, at Konika Street, but he refused. They said it in Afrikaans. He simply refused. They started to beat him up. They had beaten him with the but of the riffle. He used to be more heftier than what I am. His right firma broke and according to the statement it was said that he fell. He had three bullet holes in him. We tried to arrange for the funeral but we were harassed. Since the day I arrived in Port Elizabeth until the day of the funeral, they would just come in anytime, even if we were having prayers they would come and teargas us. On the day of the funeral where people left everything at their homes to come and attend the funeral it was turned into chaos. People were shot at, people were beaten up, people were teargassed. The helicopter was just above us. It was so low we could even touch it. We had many problems because of all those things. Number one, my father was an ill man. His health deteriorated. The second thing is, the boere wanted to show us at that time that they were the ones in power and they were going to rule us the way they wanted to.
Before we buried my brother people from the police arrived saying that they are looking for the clothes that he had worn the day he was shot. I told my father about these clothes. They were going to come back looking for these clothes. I told my father, no, we must not give them these clothes. They are going to try and make stories around these clothes. When these police came my father tried to deny knowing these clothes but unfortunately he could not stand it anymore. He had to take the clothes and hand it to the police. They returned the clothes a day before the inquest. During the inquest it was said there was a leader of the group who was going to Masangwana Street. This leader was going to burn Masangwana. It was going to burn Molife School and they were told what this leader was wearing at the time. The people who did all that at the time, I know they are still in the police force.
Rev N XUNDU: Where is this one who was with him at the time?
WITNESS: Titi is now in East London. She said she could not come. Her name is Liziwe but her nick-name is Titi.
Rev N XUNDU: During the inquest, did you have lawyers?
WITNESS: We had instructed Solomon and Jackson and the Advocate was Dr Cooper who was from Cape Town. The family doctor was a friend to Dr Cooper who was in South Africa at that time, but when he left he was represented by...
Rev N XUNDU: Was it another lawyer?
WITNESS: He was represented by a State doctor. When Dr Cooper's friend left there was another one who was found who was... I cannot remember his name.
Rev N XUNDU: By the way, Mr Heshu, when did this happen?
WITNESS: It happened in December 1978. That is when he was shot.
Rev N XUNDU: What was happening? What were the events prior to this incident?
WITNESS: At time Port Elizabeth was in flames.
Rev N XUNDU: What are you trying to say by that?
WITNESS: There was chaos at that time. There was unrest in Port Elizabeth. There would be necklacing and burning of houses. It was just that period of unrest in Port Elizabeth. Just before I went to Cape Town things had already subsided in Port Elizabeth. Places like Rent Offices and other government offices at that time were guarded by the police.
Rev N XUNDU: Before I let you go, you had a request from the Truth Commission.
WITNESS: This is where I will end my report, sir.
Rev N XUNDU: Thank you.
WITNESS: Thank you.
(?): Mr Heshu, where is Liziwe?
WITNESS: She is at Rhodes University.
(?): How is she doing?
WITNESS: I spoke to Lizi on Friday last week. She said to me one of the reasons why she does not want to come here is she cannot forget what happened. She is still seeing psychiatrists. Mind you we were talking over the phone. We were not looking at each others faces.
CHAIRPERSON: This Oosthuizen, do you know what rank he held at the time?
WITNESS: From what I heard he was the Head of Kwazakhele.
CHAIRPERSON: You do not know whether he was a captain or a lieutenant? But was he a Head of Kwazakhele?
WITNESS: Yes, he was a Head of Kwazakhele.
(?): Mr Heshu, what I said to Mr Apleni applies to your brother. We have lost many lives in South Africa. We have lost many young men and women. Perhaps we shall never know what could have been in terms of talents and contributions of our people. Again I repeat what the Arch Bishop would usually say, "We are a wounded nation."
I know it is not easy for you to come and describe what happened to your brother, but we are thankful that you have and ask that you and your family heal and go forward and be proud that your brother paid the ultimate price for South Africa's freedom. Thank you very much.
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WITNESS IS EXCUSED
CHAIRPERSON: We call for Mike Louw to take the stand. Let us allow a few minutes for people who want to leave. Could you please lock the doors. You are Mike Louw?
WITNESS: That is right, yes.
CHAIRPERSON: Welcome and thank you for your patience. I understand that yours is going to be a very short testimony. You are here really to hand over information which is very vital for the work of this Commission and we thank you for that.
Mr MICHAEL LOUW D.S.S.
WITNESS: I will not take up much time. I think it has been a very long day. Thank you for letting us slip in at the end here. I am the editor of the East Cape News Agencies called ECNA which is an alternative independent news agency which started up doing the periods that is being described here. I was a State of Emergency detainee and many of the people who were in ECNA suffered from quite severe harassment, detention and the likes. Many of them are in the room today. Some of them are in fact working for the Commission. They are ex-journalists of ECNA and they are assisting. We thought to ourselves having...
CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, could you switch off the microphone please? I would like to make an announcement.
We have been co-operating the whole day together. I know now it is a little late. I would ask you, if the witness is giving his statement I do not want anyone going up and down. If the witness is through with his statement then people will be allowed to go out, but while the witness is still sitting at the table, let us give him a chance. Thank you very much.
WITNESS: We thought we would provide a kind of a record of that harassment as well as harassment of other journalists during that period who were trying to cover these stories. This involved journalists being harassed right inside their newspapers and as well as out in the field. We set about gathering statements. We also had good contacts with people who were working in the UDF, the End Conscription Campaign, the Black Sash, etcetera. We, over a period of three days, have gathered 20 statement from these sorts of people from all over the world, from London, Hong Kong, Canada, people who have left South Africa and they are incredible record of harassment that was not perhaps as extreme as some of the stuff you have heard here, but which was non the less vicious and malevolent. I also dugged up a few photographs which reminded me of that period. The one I thought would struck home for me was M C Mpanda whom I photographed after he was attacked in Uitenhage by the gillanties. It is a very disturbing picture.
Information lost due to changing of cassettes. ...particularly Lieutenant Carl Edward, his brother Lloyd Edwards, Richard John Rademan, Major Roelofse, there are a couple of... there are the names. We also hoped to have presented a statement from Molly Blackburn's husband, but that has not come forward. For that I think I will hand over these statements and they can be for your record and for your information.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for handing over this. Could I just check whether there are any questions from the panel?
(?): Mike, the mass media have been the object of attack from the left as well as from the right. I do not know whether that has been your experience. You will recall that yesterday part of General Holomisa's input was that some mass media were being used in order to carry the propaganda of the government of the day and I would like to know what your comment is on that.
WITNESS: I would like to talk about the period if I may, the 1980's. It is clear from these statement that the Security Police had very easy excess to Newspaper House and various other newspapers, but the one I am recording is Newspaper House. Lieutenant Edwards was seen often strolling through the Eastern Province Herald corridors and Evening Post corridors seemingly at whim.
My editor, Neville Woudtberg, who is still the editor, soon as I began writing about the schools boycott, called me in and told me that under no circumstances will I be allowed to report on Black people... Well, he said on political matters, sorry. I asked, "Does it mean that I cannot interview Black people anymore?" He said, "Yes". Soon after that the Security Police, I was told by the news editor, had been on to him telling him that I was a UDF radical and activist. I was called in again told that I was being sent out of the newsroom to the Sports Department where I worked under the Eastern Province rugby coach and I did not last long there. There are other testimonies there from other journalists like Joanne Becker, Gavin Adams, about the similar kinds of pressure that were placed on their editors. Sometimes Kosie Viviers was sympathetic but then later on predestined and cold, some of the journalists say. I think that is symptomatic of the kinds of orchestration that I think Carl Edwards was carrying on behind the scenes. There are also other testimonies slightly off the point of journalists being beaten in car parks in Port Elizabeth, Peter Dickson of the Herald, being smashed in the face and dragged off his flat presumably to be murdered by suspected CCV agents in Port Elizabeth. These are the kinds of things that I experienced that we know about.
(?): As I understand you, the context, in fact the whole tender of your testimony is that in the period covered by the Act journalists were usually preyed to a minefield of laws and harassments that made journalism a huge occupational hazard. Would I be correct in summing up the tender of your evidence as being that?
WITNESS: Yes, there were very severe legal restraints. It just was a question of how far would you go to break them because those laws were there to sensor a huge event, a huge upheaval, massive repression, etcetera. So editors were ethically bound to try and get around those laws. They were not just laws and it is a question of how far did they go.
(?): But do you agree that it was not only editors but also ordinary journalists? Peter Hani was one of those people who was incarcerated for instance in the Transkei, not so?
WITNESS: Sure.
(?): Tony Head was masers from publishing these sort of things. Donald Ludes, Percy Qoboza. You yourself were detained. Were you not?
WITNESS: Yes, I was detained for 83 days. We were attending a gathering of concerned White people of Port Elizabeth when the second State of Emergency was declared at a branch, people are named, came bursting in, they threw us in their cars. They were aesthetic. They were so exited. They drove us off to Algoa Park Police Station where I think one of the most horrific scenes greeted us. Long rows of people just whipped of the streets being shouted at, processed, etcetera. The thing took 83 days in which I landed up being held at Louis Le Grange square for 20 days. It was only after I went on a hunger strike and became very ill and a doctor saved me. I would like to put on record that the district surgeon, Dr Krige, did not tolerate the Security Police's attitude and invasion of my rights at that stage and he threw them out. He admitted me to hospital after I had a very severe asthma attack and I felt that I was going to die.
(?): Even though you were released, for two days you were restricted, were you not?
WITNESS: Yes, they banned me in terms of the Emergency Regulations, but we decided to ignore the ban. We did not think it was justified obviously and we just ignored it. We started up the agency again and we carried on reporting.
(?): Did it affect your work as a journalist in some ways?
WITNESS: It did. I kept a more of a low profile. I news edited. I sat in the newsroom. I sub-edited. I was working with free lance journalists from the townships, people like Mbulelo, Linda, Chris Kwazi and those kind of people. They did a lot of the reporting. Just for a while. I did the job for a year and I eventually left. The Security Police, Richard Rademan, had threatened to kill me if I did not leave Port Elizabeth. While I was in detention he delivered this threat and I stayed afterwards for a year.
(?): Did you ever find that the restrictions that were placed by Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act where you were being compelled to reveal your resources that that was one other way in which those reporters who were reporting violations of human rights were being targeted?
WITNESS: I think a whole range of laws were used against journalists, but I never experienced that. I think the police just decided to throw me in jail rather.
(?): Yes, but the newspaper community, as far as you know, will find that particular piece of legislation harrowing and hampering?
WITNESS: Yes, I think editors would preferred not to run a story than to even contemplate going before the law. Kosie Viviers was an exception, the Eastern Province Herald editor.
He did actually take a stance and had to go through long and legal procedures. He played it to the hill I think as far as he could, but at times I think he failed. Whereas on the other hand Neville Woudtberg was a frightened White editor who would do run the police version first. I would like to put on record here that the Langa shooting when it first took place I was in the newsroom of the Eastern Province Herald the editor, the stories of the shootings were being phoned into the newspaper and Woudtberg, I was told by the news editor, Cliff Voster, who was very agitated, bluntly refused to run the story about the police version. When that story came through it ran under the headline I think something along the line that stones fell like raindrops and alleging that people had forced the police to shoot. That was a constant theme of the police propaganda at the time was that some of the police had had to do what they have done whereas in fact Judge Kannemeyer did find that only one stone was found. That was an appalling editorial decision.
(?): As a group of people, how did you find the judiciary?
WITNESS: In my case they upheld our detention. I think the Judges found themselves totally restricted by the laws but I see there are debates about judiciary these days and I welcome more Black Judges being put on the bench to ensure that these kinds of situations does not happen again.
(?): But at that time were you of the view that they could have done more to assist journalists in exposition of gross violations of human rights than they were prepared to go?
WITNESS: Perhaps. I am not legal expert on these things.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS
(?): Chairperson, on behalf of the Commission I would like to thank Mr Louw for presenting us with not only a narrative history but also a pictorial history of the East Cape News Agencies reports at the time. It is not secret that during the time of the struggle the media in South Africa colluded with the State in frequently misrepresenting stories. In fact, the international community frequently received news that reflected Black people as killing one another. As reporting what was presented by Mr Holomisa yesterday as strikes between tribes of Black people and presenting us as ignorant, blood thirsty people. I think it is to be commented that you and those other journalists who, I dare say like fools who, [Inaudible...] wisemen, did not and took chances to report these stories. In fact, let me observe that White South Africans today say they either did not know what was happening in their own country or did not know the full extent of the human rights violations.
I think it is impart because the media did not present the information wholly so that all South Africans as well as the international world ought to know what was happening. In fact when the media began to change its direction around the late 80's and the 90's, and that the international world was beginning to see the truth about what was happening in South Africa. There were significant changes in the reaction of the international world itself. We know the reaction on the sanctions, diversement and other strategies. Perhaps we need to also examine the role of editors and chief editors during the struggle when young journalists collected stories and those stories were sort of snuffed out internally and delegated as not important to the community. I think what was said was that when White people were the victims of the violence that those stories were fully covered in the papers thus giving a very warped presentation of what was happening in South Africa.
To you, sir, and the other journalists whom you represent, I know I speak for the Commission when I say we commend you. It is important for you to continue this work so that we get as honest, as complete and as truthful narrative and pictorial history of the South African struggle. Thank you very much, sir.
APPLAUSE
WITNESS IS EXCUSED
CHAIRPERSON: We call Nombulelo Carefree Mani. Please settle down. Could you please close the doors. Mrs Mani is ready to give evidence. Welcome, Mrs Mani. It has been a long day and apart from being tired it has also been an emotional day. We wish to ask our visiting committee member, Joyce Seroge, to lead the questions on behalf of the Commission.
Mr N C MANI D.S.S.
Ms J SEROGE: Good afternoon Mrs Nombulelo Carefree Mani. It has been a long time for you to wait because you are the last one today. I hope that you understand the situation that we have to go through. I hope that you still have the interest in telling us your story regarding your daughter.
WITNESS: Thank you.
Ms J SEROGE: Are you Nombulelo Carefree Mani? Do you stay at 3 Mhlanga Street, Gxaki?
WITNESS: Yes, that is correct.
Ms J SEROGE: Are you Thozama Fibi Mani's mother?
WITNESS: Yes.
Ms J SEROGE: Please tell us everything that happened to your daughter just before she was killed on 10 December 1987.
WITNESS: Thank you, Chairperson. I am going to start where I want to start. Unfortunately I will not be able to start with Thozama's story because this is my very first time for me to be given the opportunity to talk about this and cry about it. I would like to start here in front of this Commission if that will not disturb you. If you give me that permission, thank you very much.
My name is Nombulelo Mani. I was born in Korsten. My father is Luthuli Mani. He was very much involved in politics. Our father used to tell us about politics especially the volunteers who are now called marshals. Now you can imagine when you are born in a house that is so politicised. Even in your own lives you would leave exactly the same way as you used to leave with your parents. Thozama was killed by the boere. I still have wounds of the apartheid era which I am so happy today to tell you. Please bear with me.
The first person to die who was killed because of the apartheid period was Mtimkulu in 1985. He was a journalist in Johannesburg. He used to work for World. He was stabbed by people who were sent by Charles Sebe. The funeral was on 7 January 1966 and the MC was Besi Gqoboza, he used to work at the Herald.
Because we were not so many at home, we were only three, I tried for him to be buried in Johannesburg. That was my first wound. Because I was the one who was taking care of all this I tried not to tell my parents. My brother was in King William's Town busy with the politics again. When we came back in 1972 after burying my brother we saw policemen who had clothes which had blood stains. We were told that my uncle was being brought back who had been killed at Robben Island in 1972.
The third instant, in 1980 my youngest brother, Mgcini, was also shot by boere at Daku. That was the time of the unrest. That was the time when busses used to be thrown stones at. He was knocked down by a bus and his brains were scattered on the ground. The things that the boere used to do at the time were quite painful. I still have those feelings inside of me.
When I am talking about Thozama the wound is very deep in me. In 1980 I found myself reporting. Now I started being a journalist. I was now a reporter of the Evening Post. I started during November, the Guy Fox day. I was from work at that time. I used to feel quite hurt when I used to see small children being shot at.
Children would just be playing Guy Fox, just burning tyres in a playful manner. I took a letter to Trevor because I was very angry because of the children who were killed just for playing around in the streets. I wrote a story and I took it to the Evening Post. Fortunately or unfortunately the person who was there at that time was Trevor Bisseker who was very impressed. He wanted me to keep on writing. At the time when the journalists were not allowed to go into the townships funerals turned out at that time to be mass funerals because they as Whites were not allowed to come to the townships. I was then used to go into the townships. At that time there was an organisation by students called PESCO. That time is was not COSAS yet. I am sure now that these students were taken up. I used to take reports for the Evening Post for people like Andile Yawa, Bantjie Klaas, Mzolisi, Nontlokwana, some of these kids went abroad. I was doing a clerical job at that time but in the evening I would take some stories because I did not want the people to see what I was actually doing. Nobody trusted me at that time. On days when they would go to meetings Thozama was 15 years old. If you would report the story exactly the story as it was the youth would like you very much. At that time Jimmy Matyu was overseas. He was on accumulative leave for three months.
Trevor Bisseker asked me to report for the Evening Post and they were impressed by the work that I did.
Another meeting which was held here at Centenary before Centenary was this beautiful students were complaining that they wanted this kind of education that exists today. When I was just about singing a song, my daughter, I looked at her, my daughter, Thozama, when we started to sing this song, "Mhlazibuyayo" which means "When they are coming back", I looked at her. Even the way she sang this song I could see that she was not here. That was the time she was beginning to be aware of politics.
When we come to her death, I am trying to tell the history of the politics that came to affect Thozama, my daughter. At the time Thozama was doing Std 9 or 8 when she was 15. She went to Vista University in 1985. Because at home it was only myself, Thozama and my mother, most of the people were dead by that time, it looked like we would not be able to give her money for education. She had to go and find work. She found a clerical job in 1987. Mrs Fawa helped me out and I am very grateful to her. At that time Thozama was going to do her second year at UCT.
She got a job as a clerk. She came back saying, "Sisi, I was told that I was going to get a bursary." She was everything to me. She was my daughter, she was my sister, she was my friend, she was my advisor as well. She was very brilliant and she was very beautiful. She was a very kind person. She was a peace-loving person. When I say she was advisor, sometimes she wound, when I usually blow my top, she would not answer me. She would just say, "Sisi, Koliswa was here." My mother then says, "You mean that one who did not borrow me money yesterday?" I would just say, "She said she missed you a lot." What I am trying to say to you is that I learnt a lot from her.
Coming to her death. Thozama had an affair with Mzolisi Dyasi when this happened. It is the incident that Dr Maqina was quoting. Because they did not know it Thozama met the cadres through Mzolisi. The boere arrested Mzolisi but were actually looking for the cadre. They tortured Mzolisi in prisons. They found some information that the real person who would know everything would be Thozama. They got this information through bribery. Thozama was given half day off on that day. When I came back on that day I found that she had been here and she was cooking but she was not in. So I thought maybe she is not far off.
When it was in the afternoon, when it became early evening, I wondered what happened to Thozama. We slept without Thozama.
The following morning I went to work and I thought this is not like Thozama. At that time she was quite exited about the job she got. I went to work. I met one of my colleagues. Her name is Nomtu Luzipho. I told her about my worry. I said, "Nomtu, I do not know what happened to my child." I did not have a car at that time. Nomtu had a car at that time. She knew what kind of people we were at home. Then we went to Le Grange. When we got there she was not there. Then we went to Mzolisi and we were told that she was not there either. We went up and down for about three weeks, going to Le Grange for so many times and we were told she is not there. On the third week, now it was during the week, when I got home, because I used to just come in at home at any time during the day, I saw Thozama. She was very pale and she was very nervous. She was a bit dirty. She was not the Thozama we used to know. I asked, "Where are you from?" She said, "Please Mama, come over here. I am from Le Grange." Quickly she briefed me. She showed me marks on her wrists, that is where they put electricity on her wrist, the torture she had gone through.
She told me that she had to go and hide because the policemen were coming back again. She told me that she did not want the policemen to find her at home. I said, "No, do not go." Then she told me, "No, Sisi, I have to go." I gave her a photo of a person who usually pray for us. I said, "Go my child, I am going to pray for you." I gave her money. She took a few clothes and she left. She used to come back to me but she would not go to work. She would just come home, take a few clothes and leave again. At that time they used to call this "scattering".
Three weeks later when we were still asleep I was with my mother, she is very old, my mother is suffering from high blood pressure, at that time it was not so serious. While I was still asleep I heard the shattering of windows, the breaking down of doors. My mother asked, "What is going on?" It was around midnight or 01h00. We were still staying at Kwazakhele at that time. When I looked out I could see that all the doors were broken. I was still in my pyjamas then. I do not usually show my emotions immediately. I have what is called a delayed response. They blinded me with a torch. I said to him, "Look, just switch on. Just behind you there is a switch, you can just witch it on." I said that in English. "Just behind you there is a plug. Just switch on the plug and do not use the torch."
I had electricity though in Kwazakhele there was no electricity amongst these other houses. There were more than 30 boere in the house. They were wearing soldiers attire. It was only after they had left that I started to respond to this shock. My shock started at that time. I had a large poster of a freedom charter but it was hidden under my bed. They said to me they were looking for Thobeka. I said, "No, it is not Thobeka, it is Thozama." I said, "The person who lives here is Thozama and she is my daughter. She has been at Le Grange. She has been there and has not come back." We argued. I said, "I am supposed to be the one who is supposed to come to you and look for her, from you." They did not search much, but they thought I am innocent. After they left I took that freedom charter and everything else that was written ANC on it and I burnt everything.
Thozama arrived the following day at the time she estimated that I would be at the house. I told her what happened the previous night. She packed everything that was hers. Then I said I was going to arrange for her to get money from me. I made these arrangements through my friend. I do not know if Koliswa is here in this house, but the part that she played during that time, during the illness and torture of my child, was enormous.
Koliswa Skweyiya used to own that shop which is now called "Pink Huis" at Zwede. When this started it was around July 1987. By now I was already used to it, but that was just the first visit of these boere. only two days would skip and they would come back again and ask for her and I would say that she is not back yet. Later they realised I was lying. Even now my door, we had to fix that door so many times because when they came they would just break the doors. Whenever they came in they would make this noise on my window and knock consistently on my window until the morning. Sometime they would through in something that would make me cough. I would tell my mother not to make any kind of noise so that they would not know that we were inside. My mother then got sick. She could not see anymore. She was now diagnosed to have diabetes. At time I still had to work. I was an insurance broker at that time. Even though I did not have a car I would go and see my mother in hospital and I would go back and sleep in this house that I am so afraid of. I was so afraid that these boere would come and find me alone. Nobody would let me sleep in their houses. I was so isolated at that time. I had no one to turn to in that whole street. The person who had just said here somebody used to switch off electricity in a certain area was telling the truth. I left Kwazakhele.
Now trying to make this story short, they harassed me for so long. Sometimes they would continue knocking consistently on the glass for a whole night until the morning. They would put something through. One friend, I can still remember, I used to say to her, "I do not want to go back to my house because I was so scared." I would pretend as if I do not want to go out when it was so late and yet I was just afraid of my house. Eventually I would go back to my house because I was even afraid that they would rape me. I had one wish that something which was going to shut this thing up and close everything up. I had that wish. My daughter was so strong. I was just trying to think about my daughter, the well-being of my daughter. I tried to give her money through Koliswa.
During some time in August one of my cousins, she was a daughter to my mother's sister, I was told now that Nombulelo was a go between myself and my daughter. I said, "Why can I not send money to Thozama?" We were both Nombulelo. Nombulelo is working at SANDF at that moment. Thozama used to write to me. I remember those boere arrived once when Thozama had written me a letter. In that letter she used to tell me what she had bought for herself.
CHAIRPERSON: Please let me interrupt you, I am sorry. Can I interrupt you? Please switch off your microphone. Brothers and sisters, please settle down. Can we have silence please. The noise we can hear from down there can it please subside. We request that if there is somebody in the witness stand that nobody must stand up and walk up and down. Thank you.
WITNESS: They said Nombulelo was the one who used to help them a lot, but I did not believe that at all. I had this premonition that there was something that was going on. I am not telling you that I was right at that time but she had things that made me suspicious. Even today I am still suspicious. I continued giving Koliswa R100,00 so that she could take it to my daughter. On these days when I would go and give them money there would be a hippo standing right opposite Koliswa's shop. Opposite Koliswa's house was a place called Nosisi, I would know that this hippo was looking at me but I would not get out of the taxi right in front of the shop. I would just pretend as if I am sending the money with a child to the shop. During all that time I was thinking of my daughter. My mother was having operations at that time in the hospital. She could not get proper operations at that time especially immediately because her diabetes at that time was quite high.
This letter she wrote just before the boere came my daughter told me that she had called Mama. "Please tell Mama that I am alright." She used to be quite concerned about my mother. My mother used to ask when she was coming back. I used to say that my daughter is coming back soon. Then I would try and collect some money so that she could skip the country but I could not. One of Mzolisi's brothers used to go and stay with Thozama just to accompany her. He was just making things better for Thozama so that she would not be alone.
On 10 December, no it was 4 December, Thozama wrote a strange letter to me. This letter said: "Dear Sisi, I miss you so much. Where is Mama? How is Mama doing? I do not know what is going on with me. Could you please pray for me? Please pray for me. I do not know the end of my life, how it will be. Pray for me and I am also trying to pray for myself." That was now on 4 December and Thozama was shot at dawn on 10 December. It was on a Friday when I got the news, but I could not even cry until the boere came because I did not want them to see me like that. I was lucky because these boere did not do anything drastic to me.
Thozama died on Friday and then on Monday, by Monday people knew about this but they could not come to me to comfort me. People who came to me very early on that Friday were Koliswa Skweyiya who is my friend and Nosisi...
[Information lost due to changing of cassettes]
WITNESS: ...at Veeplaas. They said to me, "The amazing thing was the way there were shootings. The noise of the shootings was like there was thunder." They said to me that during this process of the shootings Nombulelo had clothes with her. They said to her, "Where are you from? How did you survive these shootings?" She said no she was from her boy friend. Then they asked, "Why are you here?" Then she said, "I am here to tell you that Thozama is dead." Then they asked, "So why are you here?" Nosisi, the first one who was told, said, this man who was reporting about the death of my daughter, it was not like he was talking about a person. It is even worse if this person who was talking about the death is a relative. Nombulelo was a relative to Thozama. When they came to my house it was around 16h00, 18h00 or 15h00. That day I could not sleep. When they came to my house I was sitting up. I said, "Why do you come at this time? Is Thozama dead?" They said, "No, there has been an accident." I said, "What kind of accident? Is Thozama dead?"
They said, "No, we do not know what really happened, but in that area where she is there has been shootings." I said, "Who told you this?" They said, "We heard this from Nombulelo." They then told me the story. They said, "There is also a survivor. That person has gone to hospital." That was on 10 December 1987. So I asked, "Where is that Nombulelo?" They said, "No, they turned her back because they could not be with her because they suspected that the boere knew her, they have already seen her because of the clothes she had on." It is not easy to believe that your own daughter had died. I refused to believe that my daughter was dead so I thought that the one who survived is my daughter. I though Thozama was the one who was in hospital. I simply refused to tell myself that Thozama was dead.
Around 08h00 Nombulelo broke the news to me, very coldly, saying that Thozama is dead. She was with another girl. I said to her, "No, my daughter is not dead." Then she said, "Just tell her." So I said, "What must she tell me? Tell me what you saw." Then this other person came to me saying, "We saw Thozama being kicked by the boere. The boere said, this is the one who said she does know anything about this." The same day we could not go anywhere. I am sorry to call them boere because this is how I usually call them.
They arrived on Monday around 10h00. They asked me to go and identify a body and that they think this body is Thozama's. My uncle went there, the late Reverend Ngcogco. That was the only time we were able to cry openly because we were now formally told. He said to me, "Nombulelo, the only consolation I can give you about Thozama, Thozama looks in tact. She does not even have a single scratch." During the shootings they bulldozed their shack. Some of the people could not be identified but because of God's mercy and our ancestors' mercy Thozama had only one bullet hole which was through her heart. They did not give us the body. They came to me on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On the Wednesday the boere refused to give us her body. When we went to the Legal Resources Centre I met a lawyer, Pienaar. We got Thozama's body on Friday and we buried her on Saturday. When we received the body I went to our Reverend on Sunday. That Reverend was already quite an old man. I could not believe the things he said. Reverend Hoba said to me, "How can I bury a person who had died like that?" I got weak. I could not even cry. I was with Nobenguni Magwaca at that time. Nobenguni Magwaca was my colleague. She had a car. It was on a Friday and I knew that my daughter had to be buried. I could not even cry.
My mother was watching my mouth because I was had to cry she would cry as well so I had to keep calm for my mother's sake. I decided for myself that I was going to bury my daughter. We went to the Presbyterian Church. I went to see Tshitshi Watson. There was a Damasa meeting at the church's premises. Tshitshi apparently had already heard about this. He said to me, "Do you have a problem?" I told him that I do not know who is going to bury my daughter but I wanted a Reverend to bury my daughter. Tshitshi came back with Reverend Xundu. I told Reverend Xundu, at that time it was around 13h00. Xundu called Reverend Phatsha. Reverend Phatsha took our Kwazakhele address. It was very difficult at that time.
When we got home around 13h15, at 13h30 three policemen in three Skyline cars arrived at my place. I went to Struandale. Each time the policemen would visit you they would harass you mad. I spoke to Strydom, I do not even know his rank, they told me not to bury the following day. I said to them, "I am going to bury my daughter whether you like it or not." They said I should bury my daughter in the middle of the week. At that time I just answered him. I did not even care. I buried my daughter on a Saturday.
Reverend Phatsha could not bury my daughter because Reverend Phatsha went to Reverend Hoba to get permission. Reverend Hoba said he was going to bury my daughter himself. He just came to me and just passed and said he was not going to bury my daughter because no daughter is dead who looks like that.
Even after the funeral I was still harassed by the boere until 1989. During this time they were looking for Nombulelo and they were asking me about Nombulelo. I remember one time when I was so angry, Thozama at that time was already dead and they were telling me where Nombulelo was. Nombulelo skipped the country. I have never seen her again. The last time I saw her was the day that she told me that my daughter was dead. I would like to ask the Commission to find out where she is. Maybe she can tell me this frustration of these boere. I do not know the names of these boere. I am sure Dr Maqina knows them better. There is one detective, his name is Kwephi, I think. I think he was the one. They used to come with him. For me to have a little peace of mind I went to stay at Kwamagxaki. That is the end of my story.
Ms J SEROGE: Nombulelo, I would like to take you back a little. You said during the time when Thozama was arrested and came back she had scars. Did she tell you what caused those scars?
WITNESS: Yes, she told me through the letters. She said that she had been tortured. She said that she was being tortured by electric shock but she did not tell me in full detail because we did not have a long time together so that she could tell me all these details. She just told me these things in a letter. We could not talk face to face after she came back.
Ms J SEROGE: You said you have been harassed by police. They were breaking your doors, kicking your doors. Do you know the names of these police who used to harass you?
WITNESS: They used to come in in large numbers. These are the policemen that I am telling you that I do not know. Maybe Skwebu who was one of these policemen, he was a Black one, maybe they would know. Even Dr Maqina mentioned this case even though he did not know all the details.
Ms J SEROGE: Again you said this Nombulelo even though you were a relative to her...
CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry, can I please interrupt you. Could all those people who want to leave please leave now so that we can close the doors and continue. We need to respect the witness. Can we now please continue. Can we now please close the doors. Thank you very much.
Ms J SEROGE: This Nombulelo you have mentioned, you said there were things that she was suspicious about. What are these things you did not really trust in her?
WITNESS: Sometimes when I took money to her, because she was the one I used to use to take money to my daughter, on this day she would go to Koliswa and say that she was going to take the money at a certain time. When I went to her on this day there was this yellow mellow standing in front of her place. Every day when I would take the money to her I would get off the taxi at another street. Whenever we had an appointment with her for me to go and give her the money there would be this yellow mellow standing in front of her house.
Ms J SEROGE: In your statement you mentioned Tando Matsitsibana's names saying that she was one of the survivors during the shootings. Did she tell you the reasons why there were those shootings? What were the events that led to these shootings?
WITNESS: In the place where they used to stay they had a shack in Tando Matsitsibana's premises. In her statement, the statement that she submitted, there are incidents mentioned before the arrival of these police. She said a lot of things because she was there, but I am going to mention a few things. On one particular night, it was around 16h00, Nombulelo had told them to take a walk. It was Nombulelo and another child they were together with. After a short distance they saw a casper that belonged to the soldiers. Then she said that they should just turn back. So they did. At that time they did not suspect anything. She did not say what was happening. She just told the incidents that made a person to be suspicious. During that night of that same evening her shack was as close to Thandiwe's shack just like these glasses. This is the road from the township. The policemen could not use another route other than this route. You know in a shack area if there is a big vehicle you could easily hear when it is approaching, but there were other people who were on foot, they had torches in their hands. At the time when they were taking a walk, when they were coming back, that casper was still moving and they went into their own shack. As you know shacks are very close to each other. They saw two people with torches. They started in their shack. They kicked the door and it was open. They blinded her with a torch then after that they just left her like that.
Then one of these big caspers approached and that was the beginning of the shootings.
Ms J SEROGE: Do you have any requests regarding this case of your daughter to the Commission?
WITNESS: Yes, I do have some requests. The first one is, since the beginning of the existence of this TRC... First let me take you back. There was an inquest but I was never called. I only heard about it when I saw Mketi's father. He said he wanted to come and see me because he came to this case. He was with one of my friends who worked in Stellenbosch. I was very shocked. He said to me that he was going to see me at this inquest. I told him that I was never told about any inquest. At that time it was already too late because the inquest was over. I would like to know who killed Thozama. I wanted to know at that time why Thozama was killed. I did not even have a death certificate at that time. I then opened a case.
Ms J SEROGE: Who was your lawyer at that time?
WITNESS: First I started with Mr Majodina. He wrote some transcripts which had nothing to do with Thozama. It was written in Afrikaans but Thozama was not mentioned at all in these transcripts. I was so curious because I wanted to find out who they were going to mention as Thozama's killer.
After that he did not proceed with the case. He just said to me that he was busy. I ended up taking Boyi Mkalipi's suggestion who said I must contact Husain. It was now Husain who took the case. I gave statement. I even arranged for video cassettes. I also submitted newspaper clippings. I told him everything about the funeral. I submitted everything to him. I would really want to know how my daughter died. Why was she shot? Because when I said this to the police they would say to me that they did not do anything. They wanted to know where is this Mkada they were looking for.
Secondly, I need protection from the Commission where I live. My premises is not even fenced so I am not safe at all.
Thirdly, I am this old. I am an old woman. According to the Xhosa tradition, if you have a child you know that on a certain day when you have no energy at all you know that if your child was as old as Thozama, Thozama was 23 years old, you know that you will not go poor, you will not go hungry because you have a child who can support you. At the moment I do not have anyone else who can support. I have absolutely no one I can turn to. I do need therefore financial help.
APPLAUSE
WITNESS: I have another request. I would like to request the Commission, I know there are many people like me whose children died, whose husbands died, who are so poor they do not even have bus fair to go and give their statements and evidence where they are supposed to which means that people are struggling. During the time of this whole sacrifice during this struggle, we were not expecting anything at that time, but now things are very difficult. People have no husbands. When you go around the township like I do trying to sell this and that, things like fruit, etcetera, you know that you are hungry but if you look at your neighbour you see that they are poorer than you are. Mr and Mrs Meyer died in a very poor state. Even your worries can kill you. What I am trying to come to is, if the TRC can please try and speed up thing it must bear in mind that we have no husbands, we have no children, we have no energy, we are hungry.
APPLAUSE
Ms J SEROGE: Nombulelo, we thank you. We have heard your requests, but let me just remind you about something. We are the Commission are only going to recommend at the end of all this to the government. It will not be us who will actually give you something, but we have heard your requests and we will take them very seriously.
WITNESS: Sorry, there is just one last request I would like to make. I personally as a victim would be happy, I know that there are so many victims here in Port Elizabeth, I think if there could be some kind of recognition of all the victims of the apartheid, is there anything that you as the Commission, get some advise if you may, is there anything that you as the Commission, I am going to repeat something which I have already said now, Port Elizabeth people's assets have been destroyed. There must be some kind of communication between you and the victims and hear their grievances because you will be killing the struggle here in Port Elizabeth. And Port Elizabeth is the nucleus of the struggle.
APPLAUSE
WITNESS: Thank you, I am now going to hand over to...
(?): Mrs Mani, I am going to ask you a very sensitive question. You do not need to answer it. In your statement you said Thozama, and I quote, "She was completely at her with end and frightened out of her mind. She was in continent of everything." Is that correct?
[Information lost due to recording]
(?): Did she tell you at all what might have frightened her so much, but more especially as a woman, do you have any idea what caused her incontinence all around?
WITNESS: Thozama talked to me. We talked through her letters and there were times wherever she was she would take a chance and phone me. Her fear, number one, she never wanted to be a fell out. That is why she was prepared to die. She knew that she did know the end of her life, but she did not want to be informed, come what may. Secondly, when she started to be ill, she started being ill after she was harassed and frustrated by the police. After she was bitterly tortured by the police, now you must remember that she was my only daughter, she was a very delicate girl, she was just a nervous wrack because to her that was very new even though she cared about politics, but she did not anticipate the torture by the police.
(?): Mrs Mani, you have done something wonderful. There is a tendency to think about men as having gone through this torturous period and the stories of women have not been surfaced and told. We know that there was a special breed of torture for women. Women were raped. Women were not given the toiletries they needed during menstruation. Women were beaten and psychologically sort of dismantled by the police. We have not heard those stories yet and I think your coming here to describe what your daughter went through, and I hope that is an encouragement to other women who went through this, to come before the Commission to talk about it.
There is also another section of victims and perhaps survivors of women who have presented stories about their husbands, their sons and their daughters who have not focused on the harassment, the psychological breakdown and torture that happened to them, because women tend to say that is secondary, their families comes first. I think it is very important that as the women describe what has happened to their husbands, their sons, their daughters, that also they give testimony to what happened to them. South Africa, I do not know if you are aware that there is a high incidence of diabetes and high blood pressure among the women who have gone through the torture, the women whose husbands were tortured, the women whose children were tortured. Two psychiatrists, Cobbs and Grea, in their book "Black Rage", observe that the torture and the rage that people feel affects them significantly. We have yet as South Africans to determine what happens physically, not just psychologically, physically, to the people who are enraged by what has happened to them.
Again I would like to thank you, not only for speaking on behalf of your daughter and presenting the story of your daughter, but for representing all the women dead and alive who also paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Thank you.
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Ladies and gentlemen, we are getting worried now. It is getting dark outside. We are getting worried about the security of this building. We have requested that two cases that were supposed to be heard today, we had to postpone them. We thank the people who have co-operated with us on that one. We would have loved that these hearings could be over today. I would like us to call the last witness. When the witness is coming up on stage, those who want to go out can leave so that we can be able to close the doors. Thank you.
WITNESS IS EXCUSED
We call Olive Mpahlwa. Those who want to leave can please do so quickly so that we can close the doors. Those people who are deciding to leave please leave because we are going to close the doors at any time. Thank you. We are now going to close the doors. Could you please be seated. Please calm now and settle down. We are going to close the doors. We have to finish up. I will give you 30 seconds. Mrs Mpahlwa, welcome.
Mrs O N MPAHLWA D.S.S.
(?): Nokwanda, we thank you for your patience, for waiting until it is this dark. We know that you are not quite well, but I am going to let you speak freely after you have confirmed your names, that your name is Olive Nokwanda Mpahlwa who was born at Idutywa at a place that we used to know as Transkei? The evidence that we have here in front of me is about Monwabisi Mbeki who was born on 8 October 1959 who disappeared in 1981. Could you please continue. Please tell us who was Monwabisi.
WITNESS: Thank you. Because I know that I am not so good at recalling history I wrote down even though you do have the statement in front of you. [Information lost due to recording] ...elaborating a piece of statement than you have in front of you.
(?): Please feel free to read it.
WITNESS: It is the same version as yours. My name if Olive Nokwanda Veliswa Mpahlwa. I received my primary eduction in Idutywa and further eduction outside my home town. Our family house was +/- 3kms away Mbeki's. When I say the Mbeki's I am talking about the Mbeki's. The Mbeki's ran a general dealer store which I visited quite often. Our families were very close especially our fathers. Almost daily one of us, I must say on my right hand side sits my sister. One of us had to go to the shop to fetch the Daily Dispatch for my father after Mr Mbeki had finished with it.
In 1959 whilst still at school I fell pregnant and I gave birth to a son whom I name Monwabisi Kwanda Mpahlwa. Most of you know what the name means. Monwabisi means "the one who makes you happy." My parents took care of the child until he was about 8 - 10 years old and I was sent to further my education. After consulting with me which I considered a very great honour indeed, my father and I agreed that Monwabisi should go and live with his paternal grandmother, Mrs Mbeki as requested by the grandfather who at that time was at Robben Island serving live sentence. At this time Mrs Mbeki was staying alone. The husband was in jail, the sons were in exile and the only daughter was living in Cape Town.
I was nursing at that time at the Baragwanath Hospital during 1960 to 1964 and also in the other areas in the Transvaal. In 1976 I took up a post with the Cradock Municipality. During this period I saw Monwabisi regularly during school holidays. He also wrote to me regularly. He did exceptionally well at school and was always in the top section with his marks. He was a mathematic wizard. He qualified in welding and metal works at the Zwelethemba High School in King William's Town. Monwabisi last saw his father when he was two years old. Not knowing him hurt him very badly especially when his friends were visited by their fathers at boarding school. He complained bitterly to me about this. I even remember one incident when he used to say his best friend used not to go to the diningroom because the father was a businessman and he had enough money and he could not go to the diningroom to eat the junk in the diningroom. So this was a very sore point with him because he did not know his father. Although he applied for many jobs he could not get one due to racial discrimination. Three times he was given a aptitude test at three different firms. Each time he passed the test brilliantly only told be told that because he is black he could not be employed.
In 1980 Monwabisi spent his June school holidays with me in Cradock and that was the last time I ever saw him. In 1981 his letters suddenly stopped. Letters I wrote to him stopped. I sent him a registered letter which was returned to me. I am certain that he was involved with the ANC because he idolised his father but we never spoke about politics. He idolised him to such an extent that one time somehow he received a watch from his father which was inscribed with his name at that back. This was a very beautiful watch, a complicated piece of stuff that I had not seen before, but it was not working. He gave it to me and I tried everything to get it working. I took it to the best jewellers, I took it to the best places in Johannesburg, Katz & Loerie, the best, but they could do nothing about it. I remember when I gave it back to him and I told him that it could not work he just could not believe. The way he looked at me he showed that... it seemed as if I did not know how much he was hurting inside. It showed I was not giving enough. I was not aware of how much he idolised this person, his father.
During his disappearance I made no enquiries. This would surprise many people but of course if you are a Black person you will know why. I sat very tight. I kept very quiet. I could not do it.
I knew how they were harassing his grandmother because of the sons having gone into exile. I just could not. I just kept quiet and I left it at that, but I was hurting terribly. I really was petrified if I can use that word. I suspected that there may be Security Police involvement in the matter. Why I said that is because he told me that when he was introduced to others and at the mention of the name Mbeki, which name he assumed when he went over to stay with them, there would be rising excitement which he called by saying it differently...
[Information lost due to chaning of cassettes]
WITNESS: ...In 1990, after the release of Mr Mandela that I made tentative enquiries. I visited the home of his school friend in Idutywa and spoke to his father enquiring about the whereabouts of his son, Phumelelo. I am not so sure about the surname now. I think it is Rhulumente or Rhuluneli. At that time Phumelelo was in London studying. Phumelelo referred me to another retainee also in Idutywa, Gay Rhayile, who at first did not know who Kwando was until I said he was Phumelelo's friend. Immediately I said this he jumped with excitement and asked if I meant Monwabisi, and you can imagine, I was stunned. He had see Monwabisi and Phumelelo in exile in Tanzania. He himself went into exile on or about 1985 and they were there before him.
Later in 1990 when I phoned Idutywa, that is Phumelelo's home, I was lucky to catch him at home but he became very evasive when I asked him about Monwabisi saying that he last saw him in Europe and of course they do not give the whereabouts of their colleagues if they do not wish so. He promised that he would ask him to get in touch the next time he sees him which of course never happened.
In 1992 I spoke to Monwabisi's father telephonically and gave him the information I got from Gay and Phumelelo and he promised that he would make enquiries about that and that I should keep in touch with his father, that is Monwabisi's grandfather, as he was terribly busy. When I spoke to the grandfather he was worried and deeply concerned to find Monwabisi. Monwabisi had often visited him at Robben Island and they had a very good relationship. I made enquiries through the Port Elizabeth offices of the ANC and believe that his grandfather did too. All that I got told was that they were investigating through Shell House in Gauteng or that there were many who still had not returned from exile. In the end that channel yielded nothing.
In 1994 Monwabisi's grandfather contacted me and said him and his younger son felt it was time to give up the search and to have three members of the family declared dead. This included Monwabisi and I do not think his father was consulted about this decision. I was aware that I was dealing with a faceless monster here.
I employ you to put an end to our agony. Remember my name is Olive. I am not unforgiving. I have already begun to extend an olive branch if only you should show yourself, meet me and maybe tell me the story.
To the Truth Commission, with whom do I reconcile because I do not know what happened. I humbly ask you to investigate what happened to my son. What happened in Tanzania. What happened in Europe or maybe South Africa for that matter. What stood between him and his father who intercepted him. I know his interest in the ANC was double proned to fight for deliberation struggle and meet his father in exile. My son would never let me worry like this if he was alive. He was brilliant, he was loving, he was considerate, he was my joy.
In my culture a main member assumes responsibility in the home. I had hoped that one day he would take over from me. We would be a family. I would see my grandchildren...
(?): Please take a minute and try to calm yourself down.
WITNESS: I have suffered a lot of stress since his disappearance. I now suffer from a number of strain related deceases. I am a diabetic, I am asthmatic, I am hypertensive as well as arthritic. I am on the verge of leaving my work due to ill health. I am in a financial gloom as I have already been told that I shall receive no monthly income when I leave my work. I am responsible for my late daughter's eight year old son. I therefore further request the Commission to assist me in not only with the investigation of my son's disappearance but financially as well as I already find it difficult to make ends meet. When I come to this point I become terribly ashamed to make this request. I am a communist. I have visited a number of homes. I know how much suffering my people go through. In fact, as I sit here I complain of being in a financial gloom, but I know what situations there are in homes. When I walk into those homes I sometimes feel I am almost a Queen as compared to their destitution. However, I cannot but put this request to you because I know what things will be like.
I am 34 years in the nursing profession, but today, because of the apartheid laws, I am going to leave the profession with no monthly income. Why, because whenever you left your job and start at a new place you start at day one at the next place but the other people continued with their service. Today I am only nine years old in the nursing profession and hence, according to the rules and regulations and the whatever, I am not entitled to a monthly income. So when I do leave as I am in the process of being boarded off work due to ill health I shall receive no income.
May I use this opportunity to thank my family, my friends as well as my brothers and sisters in Christ for their support during the 16 year period of mourning because I have been mourning all along. A special thanks to my Pastor who sits with me at the back there. He has been a tower of strength to me. May God bless him. I wish to thank this Commission, in fact, I am thrilled that the government has set up a structure like this for people like myself and many others to come forward and put their cases and in fact the very fact that I have spoken today makes me feel better. Already I feel some weight off my soldiers today. I have been weeping and crying for 16 years. I would dearly love to know what happened to my child.
I would dearly love to know where he lies because I do not believe that he still lives, but I do not know who is responsible for his disappearance. Thank you.
(?): Thank you very much, Nokwanda. I have two questions that I will ask at once. It is up to you, you will choose if you want to answer these questions. If you want to do so please answer me. You said somewhere at the beginning that your father's family is Mbeki's. Your son's family is Mbeki's. Please explain to us who are these Mbeki's exactly and please tell us who is your son's father because we have noticed that you talk about him so many times. It looks like his name is very important in this case but you have not mentioned him. If you would like to answer this question please do so.
WITNESS: I refrain from answering the question.
(?): I did not hear you clearly, Nokwanda. Please repeat your answer so that everybody can hear.
WITNESS: When I talk about the Mbeki family I am talking about Gavin Mbeki's family. About the second question, please I ask to refrain from answering that question.
(?): Thank you, Nokwanda.
CHAIRPERSON: Are there any questions from the panel? Can you please settle down so that I can be able to thank the witness.
Mrs Mpahlwa, thank you very much for coming here with the story of the disappearance of your son. We can see the pain that you are in just like any other parent who has a son who has disappeared. You are lucky because you have your sister next to you who, when you were crying, also cried with you. It is obvious that you share this pain. Like all the cases that have been submitted to us we will do our utmost best to find out what happened. If we can be able to get his bones we will bring them back to you. Thank you for coming and thank you for your testimony and we hope that if your son is alive he will be reunited with you. If he is dead we will bring the remains back to you and you will be able to bury them. Thank you very much.
WITNESS IS EXCUSED
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Could you please settle down so that I can thank you and then we can go home. We have now come to the end of the hearing in the Port Elizabeth district. I knew that because of the big number of witnesses that we had we knew that when we close we would have a few people in this hall, that is why I thanked you right at the beginning, thanking the way that the Port Elizabeth community supported these hearings. [Information lost due to recording] ...which have been so well attended throughout the country in all the hearings that we have had.
We thank the Port Elizabeth Mayor and his Town Council for giving us this Centenary Great Hall for free saying that what we are doing is also their duty as well. We also thank the NGOs, the CBOs, the church organisations from Port Elizabeth for all the help that they provided to us throughout the time of preparation of this hearing. Most especial thanks goes to our witnesses those who came forward to give their evidence and testimonies of their pain. Each one of them is very special. Lastly we thank you for what I think has been the best behaviour I have seen in a crowd as large as this one. We salute you.
We announce that our next special hearing will be here in this house just like we have announced after lunch. The next normal hearing will be in Umtata in the Transkei, from 18 to 20 June. I would like to say that those people who said that Port Elizabeth has had the greatest contribution in our struggle, but now even tiny villages in Transkei especially in the Pondo area, in Engcobo, Cofimvaba, people stood up against the monster there, a monster, and they opposed it and they died for it. We have then to go there and listen to their stories. Thank you very much. May God bless you all.
APPLAUSE
CHAIRPERSON: Just thank the press again for the very good coverage you have continued to give our hearings and this one has been no exception. You have, in my opinion, reported us and covered the stories of victims very well and thus helping to make this process a peoples process that people participate even if they are not here in hearing the stories which have been covered. We thank you for that. I think I must take questions.
(?):No microphone.
CHAIRPERSON: Mr Maqina was not called today. We were aware of the anger generated by the announcement that those who are mentioned in the testimony of Mrs Mtimkulu have again gone to court to commission from hearing her evidence. In our opinion that generated a lot of anger in the people whom I think you have witnessed. We thought that if we call in Mr Maqina that he testified in a situation which was likely to be extremely hostile it would defeat the purpose of having a fair hearing for him. We consulted with him. He was of one mind with us and we mutually agreed that it would not be proper to take that hearing today. We will re-schedule it possibly for the next time we come around here.
(?):No microphone.
CHAIRPERSON: We will have to consider that one very carefully. He may want to go to any other of the hearings in the region or he may prefer to wait until it comes back to Port Elizabeth. There will be hearings for instance in Transkei next month. There will be a hearing at a town next door here in Uitenhage, Queenstown, etcetera. He may decide to go there or he may prefer to witness in his own community here in Port Elizabeth.
(?):No microphone. ... situation with Van Rensburg... I understand the judgement is tomorrow to explain exactly they want...
CHAIRPERSON: I am not sure of the exact details of the application. We received notification this morning from our lawyer's office in Cape Town advising us that an application has been made seeking to restrain the TRC from calling Mrs Mtimkulu to the podium. Originally we thought that we were to call Mrs Mtimkulu not to mention the names but this morning we were informed that we are actually being asked not to call her. I understand in the legal field when you know that the matter is already in court you are supposed to respect the fact that it is in court and continue to act at that stage was going to be considered to be unacceptable. So we were advised not to take it.
(?):No microphone.
CHAIRPERSON:XHOSA - No interpretation. I am not threatened my bringing where I come from. You do not stop people by force. You actually talk to people and try and have the matter resolved. This is exactly what we did and resolved the matter. I you are asking me whether we are going to have a tensed security situation where we have buck-wire surrounding the Commission, keeping people out, at this stage I do not know. At this stage I do not see the need for that. I believe that people are reasonable.
(?): How tensed do you think the situation was today?
CHAIRPERSON: It was extremely tense. We required cool heads. There was a lot of anger, but we are lucky to have a very clearly defined leadership in this area, incredible leadership. As soon as we sat down with the leaders and put through our point of view reason prevailed. Otherwise I must say that there was potential for disruption.
(?):No microphone.
CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps violence if we had handled it badly. If we had handled it badly it could have led to violence, but I think I knew from the beginning that with the approach that we were going to adopt on the matter we should be able to avoid a violent situation.
(?): How many hearing are you planning in the Eastern Cape altogether?
CHAIRPERSON: We are planning to have 12 hearings. I do not have the schedule in front of me here, but we have already scheduled where they are going to be and when. In addition to that we will have special event hearings which will cover the massacres that have taken place in the region, Uitenhage, Bisho, Transkei, Pondoland, all the major massacres that have taken place in the region. Those will require special event hearings.
(?): That will take place in those particular towns?
CHAIRPERSON: They will take place in those areas. Thank you very much.
THE COMMISSION ADJOURNED
