FIKILE KOBESE:: (sworn states)
MR SANDI: Mr Fikile Nkobese let me first thank you for the evidence you are going to give because this Commission has got to get a full picture as much as possible and of the details and to know everything about what happened in every part of the country. Firstly I must ask you these few questions. By the way, are you a resident here in Uitenhage?
MR KOBESE: Yes I am a resident here.
MR SANDI: Even at the time this incident of the shooting occurred in 1985, were you a resident here?
MR KOBESE: Yes I was even here at that time.
MR SANDI: I understand that in your brief statement that you submitted to us, you were one of the people who participated in various organisations that were fighting for the human rights and that there should be some improvement to the life of the people.
MR KOBESE: Yes that is true. I was the vice president of the Eastern Cape UDF. I was the organiser of the Trade Union.
MR SANDI: At this point in time, I would like to give you an opportunity to give us a full picture as you promised about Uitenhage at the time when these people where shot, so I hand over to you Mr Nkobese.
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MR KOBESE: Thank you officials, parents, comrades and friends. I feel privileged that I should give this brief summary about the incident that occurred here in Uitenhage at the time of the shooting of the people in Langa. Firstly I would mention that it is of importance that we would see that the struggles and all the other incidents here in Uitenhage are not isolated from those that occurred in the country as a whole but the main aim was to change what was happening at the time. Those times there were some reasons that made people to have the perception that there was war where South Africans were being attacked, which he refers to as the onslaught of the downtrodden. They used to use some guns and also to tell lies and also to disturb peoples minds to cause conflicts and all this lead to the killing of one another.
Many people were killed and these people used not to be able to explain why they were killing one another. They would even feel embarrassed to tell what was the cause of their human right of living was taken away from the people. Is was no longer a right, it was as if people did not have the right to live but is was as if it was a privilege that was granted to the people by the White government.
Lastly, what happened people were greatly affected. Besides the 20 years of struggle from 1986 to 1986 which was divided in phases as people were trying to liberate themselves, we now have got to go back and look at the situation at the time of the shooting in Langa.
In 1983 to 1984 the regime of the time made an indication of his determination toward the onslaught of the people and the UDF was published in 1984 and 1985, and therefore in 1985 the UDF was established and here in the
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Eastern Cape the UDF was seen as an obstacle and thought they could see who had established it with the aim to protect the people so the government was against this.
In 1985 to 1986 the Uitenhage UDF became the target of the government of the time and when the PTSA's were established they became targets and the enemy of the government.
In 1986 to 1987 then there was a united force here in Uitenhage. So this was the sequence of the phases which lead to all this. The enemy of the people was making programmes according to it's needs at the time. There were no policemen operating, the were no CID's, instead everybody who was employed by the government was made to fight against the people. There were no divisions but they were fighting together against the people of Uitenhage.
MR SANDI: Mr Nkobese sir, without interrupting you in your explanation, you made mention that in 1984 to 1986 the UTA in Uitenhage became the target and victims now could you expand on this matter.
MR KOBESE: Thank You Mr Chairperson, I would like to expantiate and say the youth became the target in this way because whenever you want to destroy any nation you have to focus on the youth and then on the females and then that's the end of that nation and you would be able to control them. So it started off by the youth that was made to fight against each other and this lead on to the parents and no one knew what the cause of all this was but it started in school and it spread over to the locality to the parents and the education was disrupted. This was the time when the PTSA's were being formed and then the enemy of the people became very jealous and then decided to disrupt this whole
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operation.
MR SANDI: Before we get closer to the main issues and to the incidents of the 25 March 1985 could you explain what the grievances were of the people.
MR NKOBESE: Thank you Mr Chairperson. The main issue started in 1979 up to now. People did not like the committees that where formed by the previous regime. That was before Samcor was established and so people were against some committees that were formed by this committee, and this committee were resisting whereas the people were not recognising them.
MR SANDI: Could you explain to us about this particular funeral that people were attending. Who's funeral was it, and what had happened? I see here there is a summary where you have made mention that this funeral was prohibited twice and could not go on, could you expand on this matter.
MR SANDI: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Firstly this funeral was for the 8 victims that had been shot, those were even people from Despatch, and the funeral was going to be in Nogoblhe in one house in Mabahle in a family the Sisile. So the government of the time sent a banning order that stated that this funeral was not to take place over the weekend when the people where all at home, but it had to be conducted on a week day. So these families came together and they talked to their leaders and then they decided to abide by this banning order and the funeral was not going to be conducted on a weekend because they were in fear that the police were going to arrest and kill the people so they chose a week day for the funeral, according to the banning order. Mr Chairperson, it happened that if we were to investigate we will find that this was a rare occurrence
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that though there was this decision that the funeral on week day and people were not going to work. A day before the funeral some people were trying to counter the banning order that had been given out by the government and this is what led to this commotion. At the time I was at the Mekosa office Comrade Denier who is the head of the security here in Bisho gave me a car and there was a telephone call that informed him that some people in Langa had been killed so I drove away. Now the police gave this report that these people were shot because they were attending a funeral that was not there and yet there had been a banning order that had been read in Tsotsobe, Qwanubuhle and the people decided to abide by this banning order because they were in fear that they were going to be arrested.
Then the other day at night this banning order was changed that the funeral should be conducted on the week end so when people woke up ready to attend the funeral there was a committee, a burial committee that was making arrangements and they talked to the taxi man to transport the people then they talked to the bus company to transport the people and there was a lot of transport to carry the people so on this particular day the SADF stood down the road towards town and then they asked the people to alight from the taxis they blocked the taxis, they blocked the buses and then there was a conflict because people wanted to find out why they were being made stranded. All this time as they were walking they were accused as people who were intending to kill the White people. So that is what happened.
So I am now going to address the questions that are going to be posts, and here with me I have some people who are going to give more detail. There are questions here
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like, who gave out the first banning order, and according to what reasons. Secondly is, who compiled the second banning order and according to what law was it set? And what was the reason for the issue of the second banning order? And why was this second banning order issued despite the first one that had already been issued and why was it given just a day before the funeral?
How did it happen that the people in Uitenhage were made aware that there had been some changes that had been done over night? Why therefore could the people in Langa not know exactly what was happening, who's fault was it? Why was the committee that had been appointed by the community which was the burial committee not made aware of this second arrangement, and asked that they should go and explain to the people? Why were the people who had boarded buses and taxis asked to walk and then implicated as people who were walking to town to go and kill the White people? This came to us as a great surprise and we feel that is was sort of a big trap that had been set, because in a military style since there are many eye witnesses of this massacre why therefore was there a strategy that there should be ambulances, there should be some helicopters, there should be some policemen standing on guard, there should be some soldiers.
MR SANDI: Did these people of Langa carry any firearms?
MR NKOBESE: ...(inaudible) cannot say these people were armed, even the policemen cannot say they saw anyone carrying a pistol but these people were shot and killed.
MR SANDI: Where are the other bodies of the people who died, because their number does not tally with the number that the police said they killed? They said they killed 29
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and the community said 43 people died.
MR NKOBESE: When all this happened some people disappeared, they ran away with there lives, some were injured and they had to escape from hospital because the hospital in Uitenhage at that time was the base of the defence force. I went into the Officials Department and before I could be allowed to see anyone there I would be blocked by a lot of soldiers that were dressed in uniform. They were all over the place, you couldn't even see the nurses and doctors. It was just full of soldiers. Then I was going to the ICU and I met a White policemen and he said he is the one and I then escaped and ran away without visiting the person I had intended to see so the hospital at the time was sort of a base for the soldiers that was after the massacre. So the number of the dead people stated by the soldiers is just their choice. I now pause. We have those questions that we need should be addressed....(tape ends) ...yes, I have left the rest for the enemies, for the witnesses.
MR SANDI: We thank Mr Nkobese for giving us the full political background that led to this massacre in a very explicit way.
I have a question here, I have a report here in front of me, which I suppose is an excerpt from the Herald Newspaper which deals with the judgement of Judge Kannemeyer where he - what happened at that time?
MR NKOBESE: The police mentioned 19 people dead and then the community kept on keeping records and they brought up a death toll of 29 because it was sort of some volunteers who were investigating about the people who had died, and so when they came to 29 the police decided to keep to the number 29 and yet this death toll rose up the 43. The
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presiding commissioner said it was nobody's fault that these people were killed.
If there could be someone coughing here and yet many people could have coughed, you can not tell exactly who coughed so I don't know where they got this formula from. If therefore they say no one was held responsible then it would mean all of them therefore were responsible for this death. Our people do not understand this and therefore if we as committee members cannot understand all this what more to an ordinary person, and those people therefore were all discharged. This was allowed by the previous regime.
MR SANDI: Thank you Mr Nkobese, it is very pathetic that people have gone through various commissions who didn't come with anything. We give hope that we are going to go beyond this.
I would like to ask you to expantiate about the banning orders, the two different banning orders you received. We understood the first one that was stopping the people from conducting the funeral on the Saturday and then we want to know more about the second banning order. What were the actual words and how did it affect the incidents of the following day.
MR NKOBESE: Thank you Mr Chairperson. The first banning order was delivered to the burial committee and the families and then this was discussed in the various meetings that were held and explained that the funeral should be conducted on a week day so they obeyed.
Then the second one which lead to the killing of the people stated that this funeral was not to be conducted on a week day but instead over the week end, which was accounted to the first banning order. So people did not
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know anything about the second order and they were getting to the funeral and yet the South African defence force members knew that it was no longer in force.
MR SANDI: Where was is read out, this second banning order?
MR NKOBESE: It wasn't read out anywhere. It is only the first banning order that was read out in churches, in halls in meetings. We did not actually see the second banning order but we got to know that these people had been shot because of the second banning order that had been issued out.
MR SANDI: So you never actually saw this banning order?
MR NKOBESE: It may have happened that the families may have received these but the community in general which was shot and which was working according to the first banning order were not aware that there had been a change. Thank you Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Firstly I would like to say you are lucky that you are still alive. Now I have this question to you, firstly, there was something that they used to say that the papers and people used to say there was no better judicial system than the one in South Africa. Commissioner Kannemeyer gave a report that the people shot were the SADF and the police.
MR NKOBESE: Chairperson, according to the report we got it became evident that the people were not armed but they were shot. Various firearms that belonged to the South African Defence Force and the police. Now the Judge said he was not going to lay any charge against the police. He accuses no one, he says no one is responsible therefore he discharged all of them.
CHAIRPERSON: Now do you think this charge, you would feel
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that this charge should come forward and explain.
MR NKOBESE: Yes, the leaders have asked me that this charge did all this and he should come forward to explain some of the issues that we do not understand that are related to this incident.
CHAIRPERSON: Referring to the hospital, you say a Coloured policemen, do you know that Coloured policemen.
MR NKOBESE: No, I don't know him, but I know some of the policemen who were there, I can even name them, because they only spotted me when I was on the second floor.
CHAIRPERSON: Let us now hand over to Mr Sandi.
MR SANDI: Mr Nkobese, how do you interpret that police were discharged and yet the governmnet of the time issued out some money to the victims of this particular incident, now how do you interpret this, when Judge Kannemeyer actually said the policemen were not responsible?
MR NKOBESE: At the time we were under the state of emergency, the government did publicise that he was going to pay those victims. Secondly, when he asked the people to come and get this money he was trained to cover up all this that had happened and therefore it becomes ironic that there should be an investigation and thereafter people should be given a small amount. It is just a way of taking responsibility that people were actually killed according to the instruction of the government.
MR SANDI: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: We thank you Mr Nkobese.
