Special Report Transcript Episode 31, Section 3, Time 12:40

Now what happened here is that in 1987 around about the times of the floods which were in September a lot of youngsters from down below, form Edendale began to come up the valley and to encourage youngsters from around here to join the UDF, particularly on the right hand side of the road in that valley called Ntshongozima. And a large number of youth there joined the UDF and became Amaqabane, comrades. In fact, even a lot of the adults joined the UDF. About September, I think it was about October, the 9th of October Dave Ntombela who is very much against the UDF took a group of men and they went over towards that hill there, an area called Zondisto, and they murdered in one of the houses there that night a woman and a child and a young man belonging to a house which was seen to be UDF. Shortly after that Ntombela was arrested and he was released on bail but then he fled from the area. At that stage, those months of September, October, November, December, practically the whole area became UDF, almost overnight. And the Inkatha were really in retreat. 1990 was when Nelson Mandela was released, the ANC was unbanned and that increased dramatically the tension between especially this part, top of the valley and lower down. And then on the 25th of March 1990, that was a Sunday, we had a big rally in Durban. The buses on their way back were stoned and then here on Monday and Tuesday there were big Inkatha rallies especially at Ntombela’s place. Wednesday morning, the 28th they summoned everybody from this area to his home. They set off from Ntombela’s place down the valley and they began to attack the areas lower down. But then in the evening of the 29th at about half past nine there was an attack on this side here, Ntshongozima. We came out here with the police; we went around these huts which are just over the hill here, four homesteads that were burning. And we eventually found the two women who had been murdered and we took the children back. And as we took them back, as we drove into the mission at the crossroads there that’s where we met Ntombela and two white policemen. Ntombela heavily armed with ammunition belts and everything, two white policemen who said nothing, and we just explained to them what we’d seen and we drove on. It was so extraordinary to me that they would be waiting for me there, whereas if they were really interested in what had happened we would have met them there at the house but we had been at the house about an hour and a half after the attack and certainly we were the first people there, which makes a big question mark. Where were they? // Why were they waiting at the …? // Why do you think? Because they had been there already, they were the ones who attacked those homesteads.

Notes: Reverend Tim Smith