TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 3

Subsection 12

Personal gain

102. The Committee refused amnesty to any applicant who clearly appeared to be motivated by personal gain when committing a human rights violation. Mr Mdu John Msibi [AM0624/96] applied for amnesty for the killing of ANC members Mr Mandla Alfred Mgudulela and Mr Mphiheleli Joseph Malinga in Piet Retief on 9 June 1993, for which he had been convicted and sentenced.

103. Msibi testified: ‘The IFP contracted me to shoot the two leaders of the ANC as they were a threat to the IFP’. He told the Amnesty Committee that Mr Ali Msibi, an IFP leader and a Constable Mkhwanazi of the Crime Intelligence unit of the SAP had instructed him to do the killings. However, because he had had admitted in his trial^{1 8 7} that Mr Msibi had paid him R15 000, the Amnesty Committee found that he had acted for personal gain rather than with a political objective and he was refused amnesty.

Proportionality

104. Mr Phumlani Derrick Mweli [AM0599/96] was refused amnesty for the killing of Simphiwe Patrick Majosi in Imbali on 16 January 1989 (see above). Mweli claimed that he was instructed by Mr Jerome Mncwabe to do something that would ‘scare’ UDF people in Stage 1 and induce them to flee the are a .^{1 8 8} In the course of an indiscriminate attack, Majosi was killed. The Amnesty Committee found that the killing of a child could not be regarded as an attack directed at a political opponent. Ironically, the applicant at the time of this offence was himself only 14 years old [AC/99/0334].

THE RIGHT WING AND THE IFP

105. According to the statement of Patrick Dlongwane (known as Pat Hlongwane) in about February 1994, he, Mr Thomas Shabalala (IFP, Lindelani) and AWB members General Nick Fourie (who died in the Bophuthatswana coup), Mr Norman Starkey, Captain Schoeman, Brigadier van Vu u ren, General Monty Markow and others met at Ocean Green in Point Road, Durban. Here it was agreed that the AWB would train IFP members and the Natal Liberation Army (NLA) was formed.

Attack on the Flagstaff police station

106. On 6 March 1994, an IFP official and AWB members attacked the Flagstaff police station with the intention of obtaining arms for IFP self-protection units.^{1 8 9} In the course of the attack, they killed Constable Barnabas Jaggers and wounded Constable Wele Nyangana and Inspector Mzingizi Mkhondweni. They removed a police van, six police heavy calibre rifles, some rounds of ammunition, a metal trunk and about R140 in cash.

107.The following persons were charged and convicted of murder, attempted m u rder and robbery: Mr James Mkhazwa Zulu (IFP Regional Chairperson, lower south coast); Mr Harry Marvis Simon Jardine (AWB); Mr Andrew Howell (AW B ) ; Mr Morton Christie (Veld k o rn e t in the AWB and IFP member), and Mr Christo Brand (Lieutenant in the Y s t e r garde, AWB). Mr Robin Shoesmith (IFP) and Mr Roy Lane (AWB) turned state witness.

108. A c c o rding to the amnesty application of Mr James Mkhaswa Zulu [AM5864/97], who died before his amnesty hearing, Mr Robin Shoesmith approached him with the idea of forming self-protection units before the 1994 election. Because they had no firearms with which to train the units, Shoesmith’s plan was to attack the Flagstaff police station and steal firearm s .

109. According to the evidence led at the trial, Shoesmith approached AWB member Morton Christie and asked whether the AWB would be prepared to assist the I F P. Christie and Jardine of the AWB agreed. Flagstaff police station was selected because Mr Sipho Ngcobo, an IFP member, had told them that there would only be one police officer on duty late on a Saturday night and that he would probably be drunk. They were told that the weapons were kept in a steel trunk in the charge office. Later Howell, Christo Brand [AM6422/97] and Lane of the AW B joined the plot.¹⁹⁰

110. According to Morton Christie’s amnesty application^{1 9 1}, Nick Fourie¹⁹² and Patrick Pedlar were his superior officers in the AWB. Christie testified that the Security Branch in Port Shepstone encouraged the operation and monitored it while it was taking place. He also testified that Patrick Pedlar, the operational leader of the AWB, was an informer and that it was his role to ensure that the operation went ahead.