| Time | Summary | |
| 20:40 | One wonders why all the men who were named as the officers who planned and ordered these racial attacks on civilian targets were not criminally charged. It seems they did not apply for amnesty. Perhaps the Truth Commission should consider a special hearing on this, because these men are morally as guilty as these foot soldiers who did the killings. The point has often been made that senior police and army officers should also be hold accountable for the orders they gave to the men who killed. So certainly it should also apply to APLA. But the Heidelberg amnesty hearing was almost overshadowed on Wednesday and Thursday by another controversy. Shortly after the Helderberg massacre a middle aged Cape Town gardener with a standard two education, Bennet Sibaya, claimed he had seen young black men loading weapons into a white Audi in Gugulethu, an hour or so after the massacre. The type of car and registration number correspond with that of the Truth Commission’s head of investigations ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 21:56 | I would like to find out from the leader of evidence why my client is here? Why my client was served with a section 19 notice? On the evidence before us that we have been provided by the leader of evidence, by the committee, there is absolutely no reason why my client should be here. // Because he was implicated by a witness in these circumstances which suggested that his vehicle was used to convey automatic weapons away from the scene. | Full Transcript |
| 22:31 | We are here now, the witness is here and there’s at least one good reason, one compelling reason why we should ventilate this matter fully. And that is the public interest. Regardless of the decision that is going to be given, lots has been made of this. His, Mr. Sibaya’s, statement has been leaked to the press, it’s public knowledge and I think that’s a good enough reason for the matter to be ventilated properly here today. | Full Transcript |
| 22:58 | I want to state quite categorically on behalf of my client that I do not believe that my client should be put on trial here. This is an amnesty application; it’s not a place for my client to be vindicated. He should have been brought to trial if there was evidence that in any way he was implicated, which we deny, he should have been brought to a criminal trial. // I think I’m going to put a stop to this, please. Your client has not been compelled to come here, you understand? I have before me the notice which was served on him in terms of section 194. It says ‘take further notice that as a person implicated in the application you have the right to be present and to be represented by a legal representative at the hearing and to testify, induce evidence and submit any article to be taken into consideration.’ In other words, please understand, your client has not been told that he’s required to be here. This notice says that he has a right to be here if he chooses to or wishes ...more | Full Transcript |
| 24:15 | Then Bennet Sibaya told his story. With his friend, Mazibuko he was going to visit an old girlfriend in Gugulethu, but he got lost. // I saw these children coming. I thought they had pipes in their hands, however when they were closer I realized that those were not pipes but weapons. They then put these weapons in the white car. After they’d put the weapons in they argued. They were not talking loudly however the one said, Madasa you forgot the cap in the car. We then waited so that they go away. After a while I noticed that where the car was there was a paper. I picked it up. I read it. I realized that these people did not know their destination. It was a map that when you leave Observatory you turn right, then you go past Hartlyvale stadium. After Hartlyvale you turn left, you go past a bridge. After the bridge, Heidelberg is on your right. // Did you notice the registration of the white car? // The white car? // Yes. // I memorised it. I know it to this day. // Tell us. // The ...more | Full Transcript |
| 26:43 | The police took a statement from Sibaya a few days after the incident and he again made a statement to the Truth Commission investigators earlier this year. In her vigorous cross examination Christine Qunta pointed out several differences between the two statements and asked Sibaya about a house that he says his former employer bought for him. | Full Transcript |
| 27:04 | I want to put it you that what you’ve just said is not correct. That there was no diagram, there was no vehicle on that evening, there was no diagram. That diagram is a figment of your imagination at best or you were instructed, after the Heidelberg Tavern incident and the investigations began, to fabricate the existence of a diagram. // Who gave me that order? // Well I want you to tell us. You’ve said a lot about Superintendent Segal; he seems to have had a lot to do with telling you what to put in the statement and not what to put in the statement. So perhaps you can tell the Committee who instructed you in the first place to make the statement to the police and how and who coached you what to put in and what not to put in. Perhaps you can tell us now. // This is not clear to me, do you think somebody would just say you must fabricate, because that would come back to you. The truth always comes out. // Well we are trying to get to the truth now Mr. Sibaya and I can tell you ...more | Full Transcript |
| 28:47 | A bizarre twist is that the two men who could verify at least parts of the story, police superintendent Des Segal and Sibaya’s friend who was with him on the night of the tavern attack, one Mazibuko, are both dead. Segal died in a car accident recently and Mazibuko was shot and killed a few days after the tavern attack by township youths. But the most dramatic moment of the day came when lawyer Arendse asked Sibaya to walk around the room to see if he could recognize the driver of the white car. | Full Transcript |
| 29:20 | It is the man with the orange top that was in the car. | Full Transcript |
| 30:45 | I also want to put it to you Mr. Sibaya lastly that you’ve been put up, we don’t know who it is … rather let me use another word. Let me suggest to you that you’ve been put up by someone to point out Mr. Ntsebeza. // Are you saying somebody sent me? What do you mean? Elaborate. I don’t know this man. Why would I want to implicate him? And he does not know me either, why would I want to do that? | Full Transcript |
| 31:31 | Unfortunately we were left with more questions than answers after the hearing. If Ntsebeza was framed, who did it and why? | Full Transcript |
| 31:44 | That’s the area that I am finding a little bit difficult in giving a one and definite answer. I can only say, since I say also in my affidavit, that this is not new to me. I’ve just been handed in, in fact, from my office I’ve had it faxed. In 1992 there is a press statement which apparently was made by the then state president Mr. FW de Klerk where he indicates a number of issues, but with that statement there was an information note which was addressed to the Commissioner of the South African Police / Deputy Commissioner of South African Police. It’s headed ‘secret.’ It’s dated the 28th of April 1992. The heading is ‘Transkei: Military activities of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army.’ The document identifies places in the Transkei at which APLA guerrillas were trained and it names a number of them. One of the places identified in that document is the house of Dumisa Ntsebeza in Cala. One of the places is the bookshop in Cala which was at the time our family ...more | Full Transcript |
| 35:08 | Well if he was framed back in 1993 it wasn’t very successful, because the frame was never really used against him. Why was it brought up now? The Truth Commission’s investigator clearly believes Sibaya and after the hearing even challenged Ntsebeza to take a lie detector test. Another question, if this whole saga was a police set up job, it would have to mean they planned it all in the minutes and hours after the tavern attack. Because Sibaya went to the police in the midnight hours shortly after the massacre and before news of the attack had been on radio, television or a newspapers. Would that mean that the police knew of the attack before hand and did not stop it? Another question. Why was a thorough investigation into Sibaya’s background and financial affairs never done? Why was his German donor never traced and asked if he indeed gave him a house? Now we have lots of suggestions that Sibaya might be part of a frame, but no evidence. Clearly, Ntsebeza and Sibaya can’t both ...more | Full Transcript |
| 36:43 | When I heard that Mr. Ntsebeza was being involved and was going to be here I didn’t see the relevance of his presence to the application for amnesty. That’s a purely personal view I’ve had on the matter. | Full Transcript |
| 36:55 | If the Ntsebeza issue was not relevant to the question of amnesty, why make it part of the hearing? And how could the Amnesty Committee decide beforehand that the allegations would not influence their decision? All one can say is that the Truth Commission handled this whole controversy in a very clumsy way. The Commission meets tomorrow to consider the implications of this hearing. Perhaps there will be more clarity after tomorrow. | Full Transcript |
