MS SOOKA: Mr Mazibuko we would like to welcome you to the Commission. We would like to apologise for the fact that we are taking you much later than we actually promised you. Before you begin to give your evidence I would like you to take the oath.
FANYANA MAZIBUKO: (sworn states)
MS SOOKA: As is customary we have assigned a Commissioner to assist you with the leading of your evidence. In this instance it is Hlengiwe Mkhize and I now hand you over to Hlengiwe.
MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much Chair. Mr Mazibuko welcome, again. I will ask you to tell the Commission a little bit about yourself particularly as a teacher in the 70's in the area of Soweto.
MR MAZIBUKO: Commissioners I shall be very brief. A number of things that have been said need not be said by me. What I would like the Commission to know relates to my being at Morris Isaacson High School and what I saw there, and my activities and those of my colleagues in the Teacher's Action Committee.
I will divide my presentation to you into three parts. The first part will be to create an impression of what it was like at Morris Isaacson before 1976, and the second part will be a period '76 to October 1977. And the last portion will be what happened after 1977.
Morris Isaacson was a highly disciplined school, almost military in its discipline. The other side of Morris Isaacson is that it was politically aware. In my arrival at Morris Isaacson a number of things happened which indicated this. Examples of this political awareness and the leadership of the principal as a politically aware person is firstly the Tiro case. In the Tiro case the principal decided to employ a person who had been expelled from a university, Umgoputsitire(?) against the wishes of the Department of Education. And secondly there was the allowing by the principal of the formation of several organisations on the premises, including for example the formation of the organisation which was first called the Azanian People's Writers Association, which was initially AZAPOA, but later changed to Medupi Writer's Association. And also the principal was not easily compliant with instructions from the Department, example, when we were instructed to teach in Afrikaans he invited the Inspector who was giving this instruction, and he told him it will not be done.
And again there was a special relationship between teachers and students. I want to refer specifically to Tsietsi Mashinini himself. Tsietsi lived to the north of where I lived and had a friend who lived to the south of where I lived, and in a day they would pass twice or thrice where I lived, and occasionally they would find me doing garden and they would join me, and the discussion would start with academic work and it would end with political discussion. That was the environment in which Tsietsi Mashinini went to school. He was my student. I was his physical science teacher. He was not bad at physical
science but he loved more the languages and other social sciences.
Now because of this, just prior to the occurrences of June 16, to be more precise about three weeks before, I remember him and myself and Mr Matabata having a meeting in Mr Matabata's office wherein he briefed us on the intentions of students and he asked for advice wherever he wanted to have advice. I must say that he gave as much as he wanted to and kept away from us what he wanted to keep away from us. So by June 15 when this was publicised we had an inkling of what was going to happen. But what really did happen we had no idea it would really happen.
On the morning of June 16, now I will be very brief on June 16 because a lot of things have already been said, at assembly we went through the normal procedure, at the end of the praying Tsietsi Mashinini climbed onto the platform and he started a song and placards went up and he led the students out of the school. Because we expected there was going to be a march we simply stood aside and we were in agreement with this.
We remained for a few minutes and then followed the march. I drove in a Volkswagen through the column of students just to see what would be happening there. When I realised that nothing serious was happening I made a U-turn and headed back for the school, but when I got to school I arrived at the same time with a message which was on radio that a shooting had occurred in Orlando West. I immediately got into my car to go and see what was happening there, but unfortunately it was difficult to travel through. I finally had to find my way back to school, but on my way I remembered I had a wife who would probably be stranded in
town. I quickly drove to town to fetch her, dropped her at home and then went straight back to Morris Isaacson.
I passed a spot where people were congregated and when I asked what was happening there I was told a White person had been killed there. I continued to Morris Isaacson, and as I approached the school I remember meeting a policeman who was training a gun on a group of students, fearing that he might actually shoot I stopped, got out of the car and I told him that I knew these students, they would not do anything out of order. He turned around, aimed at me and because I immediately got scared I went round the car, he fired and I remember my Volkswagen used to drive around with a bullet hole in the door. So I ran back into the car, drove off, and I remember as he turned around a brick landed on his head. I didn't wait to see what happened to him.
I drove into Morris Isaacson, I found there was chaos there. I was told that police had been there and fired teargas and everybody was rushing to the taps to try and wash teargas from their faces. Some students were bleeding and we, together with other teachers, ferried some to Baragwanath. Several trips were made and I remember feeling very tired at the end of the day and going home completely confused as to what the next step would be.
There are many other things that one saw during that afternoon, but I would like to move onto the next day and the days after.
The next day few students came to school, and we hung around with the principal and other teachers and a few students milled around the school. Police came chasing some young people who went into the yard and it became clear to us that they were shooting at, the police were shooting at
these young people at random, and some of the teachers wanted to move away but the principal gave instruction that no one move. So we stood there, faced them and I think they got unsettled and they moved on.
By the next week on Monday the students started coming back to school, and we witnessed this procedure of police coming to school, harassing students, and when students started running they would fire at the students. So we had a system of young people who would patrol around the area. I remember one student called Pinda who was on a bike most of the time and who would give me information as to the movement of police around the school, and would vacuate the school whenever there was a chance they would be at the school.
During those days a number of students were shot and we used my car and Mr Matabata's car to ferry them either to Baragwanath or where we thought there was likelihood of students getting into trouble we took them to Dr Givoa or to Dr Asmad who treated these students without questions. I remember Pinda himself and a student called Homre and Trafoma who once had to come to me with some of my students, I didn't know him at the time and they asked for transportation because Traforma had to go out of the country. I gave them a car to take Traforma wherever they wanted to take her to, and they did bring my car back.
In the days that followed it became clear that Tsietsi's life was in danger, and he had to be advised to leave the country. I remember that before the principal was detained he had been with Tsietsi on the Sunday night where it was being planned that Tsietsi should leave the country. Now what convinced us that his life was in danger is that on SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
one day the police came to the gate and as I saw them approach the gate I locked the gate, and there was a serious confrontation between them and the students which was short of shooting. And what scared me the most was that as I was having an altercation with the police, telling them that they will not enter the gate, I saw Tsietsi pass between me and the police wearing a balaclava and an overall and he was singing very casually, pushing a wheelbarrow like one of the people who were busy building the laboratory in the school. And he announced that it was tea time and he had to go and have tea in the township. He went through a hole in the fence and off he went.
At that point I became convinced that these fellows, the police, were looking for him and they were not going to arrest him. Secondly he was reckless enough to play games like what he had done. And it was decided that he has to be advised to get out of the scene. And also we felt that if he got killed the morale of the students would go down.
Then beyond that an incident which I think the Commission ought to be aware of, in September after the police I think had attempted several times to arrest students in the school they ultimately surrounded the school, I think around the 21st or 22nd of September, in fact they had been in the houses around the school because we didn't see them. As I emerged out of the school cottage where I had been drinking morning coffee I realised that the students and the teachers were already being ordered to stand in line and there were police around every inch of the fence. And the students and teachers were ordered to get into a police van. There were about 120 students and about 16 teachers. We were all driven to Protea Police Station
where students were initially interrogated and they were very badly beaten up. We remained there for the entire day and at the end of the day we were distributed in various police stations. I was taken together with some teachers to Dobsonville. Some teachers were taken to Jabulani Police Station, most of the students we learnt were distributed in various police stations. We were subsequently on various days also interrogated and with some strong arm tactics here and there.
But one day which really got us worried was when teargas was thrown into the cells and we could not get out of the cells because we were locked in there. However, somehow it was luck that made the commanding officer arrive just at that time, and we managed to scream our voices hoarse until he heard and ordered the cells opened.
MS MKHIZE: Maybe I need to assist you there, just to ask one question as to, you are describing a very complex process which was occurring within school grounds, were there any efforts on your part and any other leaders in education to meet and discuss the situation? Because you have just described how students on a daily basis were harassed, then it reached a point where you as teachers were also involved, you were arrested, taken to the police station, what did the leaders, you know, from the government department and many other leaders do with the situation?
MR MAZIBUKO: During all this there were various people and organisations that got involved. However, I must shamefully say the teaching profession took long to get involved. I remember that the very same year I went to a conference of the Transvaal African Teachers Association and at this conference I tried to get the crisis discussed. It was
relegated to a commission which was never given an opportunity to report back. And after that the organised teaching profession said nothing about the crisis. This went on right into 1977. In fact parents' organisations and other organisations were much more active than teachers. Church organisations, priests, were much more active than the teaching profession. However, I must give credit to certain individual teachers, specifically to Legoa Matabata and Mr Curtis Nkondo, who was introduced to me by Mr Matabata. At the time I thought it was by coincidence but hindsight tells me that it was deliberate so that when Mr Matabata was detained he assisted to give me political direction and assisted in interacting with the students. In my interaction with the students Mr Nkondo was always available for assistance.
As the harassment by police moved from students to teachers it became clear that teachers could not just shut up for ever. On one occasion I came into the school after I had been on an errand, I found one of the teachers at Morris Isaacson bleeding, a teacher called Jeff Leghetu. He had been assaulted by police in my absence and I decided that this was a time to take action by teachers. As I was considering the matter Mr Nkondo came in and we phoned Mr Matabata who was lying in bed ill at the time. He had been released from detention and was very ill because of the tension. However, we thought this was serious enough for us to contact him and he agreed that we should have a meeting among the three of us. In the meeting which took place at about ten in the morning we took a resolution that we need to organise the teachers outside the existing organised teaching profession. So we decided that we will call a
meeting the very same day. It had been our practice that we should move very fast when we call meetings to avoid the police knowing about these meetings. So by 12 o'clock all notices had gone out to all the schools in Soweto because we teachers on standby whom we had briefed before we started with the meeting to help workers to deliver the notices. At 2 o'clock the meeting took place at the Methodist Youth Centre. At this meeting we were to discuss what action teachers should take to support the students to stop the harassment of students and teachers.
At the meeting there was general agreement that some action had to be taken. Various actions were suggested but we ultimately came with one decision, and the decision was that in order to shake the Black community into confronting government we had to resign en bloc. And we also had to give warning to the Department that if the Department and the government in general did not give an undertaking that Bantu Education would be scrapped we would resign in 14 days.
We wrote a letter which we submitted to the Department and we called a meeting at this place where we were explaining to the community what our intentions were. At this meeting the community decided to back us up. In fact a fund was set up that should teachers resign the teachers should at least get something to live on. The 14 days past. There was no reply to our memorandum directly but we got the idea that the Department was not going to do what we were suggesting, instead the Department called a meeting of all teachers in the region, where it cynically told the teachers that Bantu Education has been scrapped. There was no more Bantu Education, there was Education and Training. We regarded this as arrogance. Shortly thereafter we went
round taking letters of resignation to teachers, and the teachers signed these letters. Of the 750 teachers who were at the original meeting 503 teachers signed letters of resignation which were taken by me and Mr Nkondo to the Department and we submitted them to Mr Jaap Strydom, who I think in an attempt to discourage us he made us sign every letter we submitted that it was submitted by us. And we almost walked out but we decided we will call his bluff and we signed the letters. We signed all 503 letters. By the next day we got from our informers within the Department, by the way we had already set a network of informers within the Department, that certain teachers had actually withdrawn their resignations, and we got copies of some of these letters. And some of these letters suggested that Mr Nkondo and I went around toting guns and forcing teachers to resign. If some of you remember Mr Jimmy Kruger jumping up and down on TV, waving guns that there are some teachers who were threatening teachers to resign. This was totally untrue. I never waived a gun at anybody. I never forced anybody to resign, and we persuaded people to resign.
We also saw on television, which many of you may remember, three of our colleagues who appeared on TV stating that they had been forced to resign. They had their backs to the cameras of course. However we got to know who they were.
Soon after we had handed our resignations in these incidences we realised that we were about to be detained and we got this impression because at several points where we went to we got messages that the police had been there looking for us. At the time we had a kind of informal office where we met and unfortunately Mr Nkondo made one
mistake of scheduling an interview with an overseas TV programme. I think it was the BBC if I am not mistaken and they were traced by the police to this place which was a kind of underground office we had. When they came to this place they questioned us what the meeting was about. We said well we are teachers meeting about teachers things and they radioed their back-up and luckily we told them that we will continue with our meeting whilst they wait for their colleagues. We had a back exit and we left. We met the police coming to the place on the way. I must say that Mr Nkondo was an expert at escape and evasion of police.
The first stop was a police station where we parked so that the heat got off. Then the next stop was Mr Strydom's office where we knew no one would look for us there. Unfortunately a few days passed, I had this burning feeling that I had to go and see my family, I had not been sleeping home for a number of days, and that was the evening of the 18th of October. I went home, waited at a neighbour's house until it was dark. I was persuaded that I should stay a little longer, so at about ten to four a.m. I went home. At 4 o'clock they knocked and they took me away. When I came to Protea Police Station I found Mr Manthata relaxed there together with Dr Motlana and others. And then I realised it was a very big round-up of people.
People stayed various times in detention. Coming back from detention we found that various organisations had been carrying on the struggle. An unfortunate thing I think happened that Curtis Nkondo who had been elected as Chairman of AZAPO had his brother, who had been travelling from Maputo to Lesotho, had the plane brought down by the South African Airforce and Curtis and I had to do everything to
try and get him released. In our attempt to get him released we contacted all people we knew, Helen Suzman, other people and people in (break in recording) .... disciplinary hearing by AZAPO, I was made to Chair part of that hearing. So Curtis and I decided we would recuse ourselves from that activities of that organisation at that time.
From that time on we concentrated with Curtis on the publication of articles in newspapers. A conscience decision was made that we publish articles which would keep in the minds of the people a focus on what the problem was. Fortunately some newspapers were cooperative and I think that strategy did not go far because sooner than we had started that both of us were banned and then thereafter we could neither work nor publish nor do anything.
By the way I had not mentioned that this before our detention we had got letters from the Department of Education and Training which said we should never, ever enter any premises of the Department, which meant for life we were banned from teaching. So even when we came back from detention we knew that we would not be able to enter any school.
MS MKHIZE: Looking back today where do you think things went wrong? I suppose when you started off being involved with students you didn't anticipate that schooling in Soweto will come to a standstill over many years?
MR MAZIBUKO: Just before the meeting at the Methodist Youth Centre we had met with Matabata and Curtis and we had decided that perhaps certain action was at that point much more important than our consideration of being in the schools. We really did not foresee a total breakdown of
education. But at that time there was no real education in schools anywhere because of the activity of the police. So we decided that we needed to take drastic action to correct the situation. So we had at that time decided or accepted that there was no education going on. So that we would disturb education perhaps is something that we cannot answer.
MS MKHIZE: I thank you very much. I will ask the Chairperson to take over.
MR MANTHATA: Mr Mazibuko at that time were there efforts made perhaps to provide an alternative education to the students who were almost out of control?
MR MAZIBUKO: If I get your question correctly you want to know whether something could be done to continue the process of education?
MR MAZIBUKO: Ja, as I said in my written statement, there are a number of things that I have left out because there is so much to write about. We started a programme at the YMCA where teachers volunteered to give their service free of charge to teach those students who missed out. Later on when money came from Holland to pay these teachers we managed to give them a small token for the service they were giving. This programme went on for several years. It stopped when we thought students were moving back to school. And also when, I think it was around the time of the formation of the UDF, when we thought it was not correct to have a multiplicity of organisations all over the place, so that kind of thing disturbed that programme and it stopped.
MR MANTHATA: At that time what would you estimate the
support of Teachers Action Committee to have been nationwide?
MR MAZIBUKO: The Teachers Action Committee was not nationwide in its immediate activity. However, the Teachers Action Committee did, on an informal basis, get in touch with teachers in various other schools in various other provinces. Our focus really, if you remember the Teachers Action Committee actually was called The Soweto Teachers Action Committee because it focused its actions on Soweto, and because of that later on a number of other new teachers' organisation which were provincially or even regionally based came up, because the Teachers Action Committee was not in any, or did not pretend to be national, although it did discuss national issues.
MR MANTHATA: What support from the community did the Teachers Action Committee enjoy?
MR MANTHATA: I believe in Soweto and later on amongst teachers, particularly high school teachers, the Teachers Action Committee enjoyed quite a lot of support. I remember that in most of the meetings which took place in this church and commemoration services which took at this church the Teachers Action Committee was in fact part of a structure which probably is very little known which we referred to as "Mximbe" and it participated together with other organisations which were part of this structure which coordinated things around protest, around meetings which involved the community.
However, I can also say that on its own it also drew quite a lot of following from the general community, for example the meeting I referred to earlier on which was at this church, this church was packed with supporters.
MS SOOKA: Mr Mazibuko we would like to thank you for coming. You have given us a submission, a written submission which is quite lengthy. There are many aspects of it which we would like to touch base on, but as you yourself have indicated other people have touched on those as well. We will, however, be considering your submission and may in fact ask you to supply us with further information which will be relevant to the whole role of the teaching profession in what actually happened during that particular time.
We thank you very, very much for sharing your experiences with us, and we are sure that lots of what you experienced in those days has helped you to shape whatever is taking place in the education field today. Thank you very, very much.
I would also like to ask you, is there anything that you would like to suggest in terms of the recommendations that the Truth Commission should make to government in terms of the educational system?
MR MAZIBUKO: One of the most important things which we highlighted about the shortcomings of education in this country was that there was this glaring material difference between Black and White provision of resources. Whilst teachers, academics and people are busy putting the content and the philosophy around education in order unless we create an environment where teachers can actually teach properly by providing proper resources and ensuring that the children who go to these schools realise that they have now to take advantage of the victory that they have won by actually learning then that victory will slip through our hands. By this I mean the responsibility for government to
provide and government cannot provide unless we as people provide. And it is the responsibility for government to organise education and there can be no way in which government can organise if we people do not organise. There is a responsibility on parents to urge their children to take advantage of this new order.
There is also a responsibility on our young people, especially those who lived through this period to go back to their younger brothers and sisters who don't appreciate that this freedom they have won was won through the blood of those who died for it. Some of them may be taking this freedom for granted. It is important that we have educational programmes that include a clear exposition of how this freedom was won, lest we forget and take it for granted. Lest everybody forgets and we have a repeat of that cycle. Let this never happen again, and it will be avoided only if we know why and how it happened. This must be part of our educational system. And by this I don't mean only Black students or Black children, both Black and White. Whites in learning to approach Black children and Black children in learning to approach White children must understand that the past can not be allowed to be repeated. And this can only happen if we know what it was that happened.
In terms of resources I hear that we do not have the money in this country, but I also hear that we are at the threshold of a resurgence of investment and so on and so on. This shifts a little bit of the responsibility on those who will benefit by that investment, I mean the business world. It may not look obvious that the improvement of education, particularly that of Black people which was kept back, the
improvement of that education is in fact to their advantage as well, to the advantage of the whole country. My appeal goes to government, to the business people, to parents and to our children that let us work together to ensure that when we get into those classes the classes are fit to be used for education, and we as students are fit to be in those classes to learn. Thank you.
MS SOOKA: Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you.