TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
SUBMISSIONS - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
DATE: 25.09.1996 NAME: IRENE MODISE TLWAELO
CASE: 1571 KLERKSDORP
DAY 3
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PROF MEIRING: Good morning and welcome Mrs Tlwaelo. Can you please introduce the person sitting on your right-hand? Please introduce us to the person sitting next to you.
MRS TLWAELO: This is William Majeteka.
PROF MEIRING: Is he related to you?
MRS TLWAELO: This is my husband, Sir.
PROF MEIRING: I want to say very welcome to you, Mr Majeteka. Thank you for coming and assisting your wife. Before we start with your testimony, may I ask you to stand to say the oath, to take the oath.
IRENE MODISE TLWAELO: (Duly sworn, states).
PROF MEIRING: Thank you very much. Mrs Tlwaelo, is that the correct way to address you, Mrs Tlwaelo? You are going to tell us ...
MR TLWAELO: That is the correct name, Sir.
PROF MEIRING: That is correct way, thank you so much. You are going to tell us what happened with you and with your husband, but just before you tell us that, please introduce us to your family. You are married. Your husband is sitting next to you. How many children do you have and how old are they?
MR TLWAELO: I have four children and my husband. The first one is 16 years old. The second one is 13 years old, the
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third one is 11 years and the last born is four years old.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you so much. You are richly blessed with children. You want to tell us about what happened in 1991, when your husband, William Mateketa was going to ask for his monthly salary. Please relax and tell us your story.
MRS TLWAELO: In 1991, William Mateketa was working at Afrikanerweg No 22, very close to Klerksdorp. It was a place belonging to a certain Strydom. At the end of the month my husband didn't get his salary as people were getting theirs. He enquired from this person why he doesn't get his salary. The White man told him to be quiet and he ordered him to vacate the farm, otherwise he will call the police. My husband didn't argue with him. He was just surprised as to why he doesn't get his money. He told me that his boss told him that he should leave the farm and then he is not going to be paid.
He later went to see his friends. As I was away, I was together with the children. The last born was two months old and I heard a car coming. I could see it was a blue car. It had a lamp on the top. I said this is a police car coming to our direction. It was driving at a very high speed. It stopped at the house. Out of the car Willie Strydom, the owner of the farm, got out of the car, together with a White policeman and two White police women. They asked me as to where William was. I said I do not know. This policeman said how come you do not know the whereabouts of your husband. I said he just left, he didn't tell me where he was going. He said listen here, we do not want you on this farm before sunset, you should make it a point that you leave. The same policeman was so angry he was insulting KLERKSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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me and he said to me we belong to Mandela and we must never think that we would be controlling things, even if Mandela was out. He said we will listen to the others, we should go and tell Mandela to give us our own farms.
He was a sergeant. He had this name tag on his name, and his surname was Wessels. It was just the surname. I didn't see the name. He had a gun in his right hand and in the left hand he had a tear-gas canister. He said I can shoot you together with your children. I said why? He said you don't want to leave Strydom's farm. I said we don't want to - it is not that we don't want to leave Strydom's farm, Strydom has to pay my husband. Then he pulled out his gun and he pulled a shot. He said consider yourself lucky, because you are carrying a child, otherwise I would have shot at you. He grabbed me by my left hand and he said come on, take out your husband, you hid him in this house.
Then the two police women came into the house with me. We went straight to the bedroom. Wessels was standing on the threshold of the door and he had this firearm and the tear-gas. Willie Strydom, the owner of the farm, was at the door, leading to the outside. The two - he also had a gun. The two women were ordered by Sgt Wessels to search underneath the beds and they searched and they reported back that my husband is not anywhere in the house.
Wessels said to me tell your husband to vacate Strydom's farm before six o'clock. After some minutes my husband arrived and I told him that the police were here, together with the owner of the farm and they told me to tell you that we should leave the farm before six o'clock.
My husband said what are we going to do, because we
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have a baby and it is dark. The order from Strydom was that we shouldn't take anything with us, we shouldn't take our belongings, we should only leave with what we had on our bodies, that is the clothes.
As we were planning how to leave this farm, time was going by. At about something to six, we were not far from the road to Wolmaransstad, and as we were there we saw two police vans and the other two cars. Their lights were on and they were facing our direction. They shot. I took my baby, I abba-ed the baby and we ran to Jouberton where the brother to my husband was staying.
The next day we arrived here at Jouberton at about half past ten. We didn't have any transport to transport us in time to Jouberton. The next morning we wanted to take steps, you know, to report this matter to the police station. When we arrived at the police station, the policeman in charge of the charge office, after hearing that we have brought this matter, and he indicated that an order was given out by Wessels that anyone who comes to lay charges with regard to Strydom's farm, shouldn't be listened to.
Until this day I have lost my belongings, my clothes, everything. That is the end of the story.
PROF MEIRING: Mrs Tlwaelo, thank you for telling the story to us. It must have been a very difficult time for you. How long have you been living on the farm when this incident took place?
MRS TLWAELO: We moved into that farm on February 1991 and in October this incident started.
PROF MEIRING: So it was not that long that you lived on the farm with this Strydom family?
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MRS TLWAELO: No, it wasn't a long time.
PROF MEIRING: I can imagine that you have talked about this very often afterwards. Why do you think was Mr Strydom so angry with you? Was there bad blood between you, was there all sorts of trouble before the time?
MRS TLWAELO: There was no bad blood between the two of us. There was no problem at all. And at times he would come to my house to pick up the children to go and give them food. There wasn't bad blood between us indicating a fight of some kind. The problems started when my husband was supposed to get his monthly pay.
PROF MEIRING: What was the pay, how much money did he owe him for the month's work?
MRS TLWAELO: My husband was getting R150,00.
PROF MEIRING: So for R150,00 you had to leave the farm and everything that you had behind you.
MRS TLWAELO: It so happened, Sir, that a mere R150,00 made us lose our belongings.
PROF MEIRING: The police did not allow you to lay a charge about this thing that happened?
MRS TLWAELO: No, they didn't allow us to lay charges, because when we arrived here they said that Wessels gave out an order that no policeman should take any statement that is brought forward with regard to Strydom, even at Rusfontein no police would listen to our case.
PROF MEIRING: So there was no investigation by nobody afterwards.
MRS TLWAELO: Nothing.
PROF MEIRING: Have you ever seen this Strydom family after the incident took place?
MRS TLWAELO: Can you repeat your question, Sir?
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PROF MEIRING: Have you since seen the Strydom family? Did you see them or speak to them after you left the farm?
MRS TLWAELO: I last saw them on the day of that incident, because we never went back. We were told by the police in the presence of Strydom himself, that if we go back to his farm he should shoot us. That was the last time I was on that farm.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you so much, Mrs Tlwaelo. Those are the questions I wanted to ask, but I can well imagine that my colleagues have a few questions to add.
MR MANTHATA: Mrs Tlwaelo, before you moved to this farm, where were you staying?
MRS TLWAELO: We were living in Bophuthatswana at Madibocho, it was a place called Madibocho.
MR MANTHATA: What made you leave that area?
MRS TLWAELO: We were unemployed and we wanted to be close to cities so that we can get jobs. I wasn't working and my husband wasn't working and that is where he was appointed on the farm.
MR MANTHATA: When you moved into this farm, what was the argument between yourselves and the owner of the farm?
MRS TLWAELO: The argument was that my husband was now working for him and my husband said to him we are far from the farm, wouldn't it be better to bring my family and he said that's fine with him, we can come to stay on his farm.
MR MANTHATA: Now that was the agreement that your husband will get R150,00?
MRS TLWAELO: Yes. We were suffering, nobody was working.
MR MANTHATA: In other words, this monthly salary is the cause of everything?
MRS TLWAELO: Yes.
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MR MANTHATA: In other words, would you reconcile with this White person if he can be approached to pay you the R150,00?
MRS TLWAELO: I don't mind the money, I am just worried about my furniture, my belongings, everything. I wonder what state are they in now, because they have been left unattended. I am just concerned about my furniture.
MR MANTHATA: I thank you.
DR RADERA: Mrs Tlwaelo, thank you very much for coming. You too have come all the way from Ventersdorp. Many people have, as we travel through particularly the farming communites of the North West Province, have come and asked us what about this incident or that incident that happened on the farms. Your story, I hope, provides an opportunity to all those people who have worked on the farms and who have felt that their rights have been violated, that your story gives substance to all those people. I thank you very much for coming and sharing your history with us today.
Thank you.
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