Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

THOMAS MANTHATA: And all this time Tsietsi was away were you able to, more especially since he left Botswana, were you able to know where he was and how he was keeping?

MS MASHININI: From 1976 when he left the country I knew where he was until after 1979 when he got married in Liberia and then from there he was in Nigeria at school and then from there it was quiet about him.

THOMAS MANTHATA: When you were in detention what statement were they demanding you to make?

MS MASHININI: The police?
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MR NYOKA: Yes.

MS MASHININI: They wanted to know what has gone wrong with my children, where do they get politics.  They would just ask me funny questions but at the end of the day they had no evidence and then when I was detained, Mpo also, one of my sons was detained.  Now because they had no evidence against me so they turned the whole thing, I was a State witness and when we went to court the prosecutors that morning told me that it's wrong to be a State witness against your child.  But even then I went to court.

THOMAS MANTHATA: It appears in the family one person who was relatively stable was Mr Mashinini, you could still continue working, how would you explain that?

MS MASHININI: He was lucky enough because the company he was working for was not Afrikaners, they were from, people from Australia.

THOMAS MANTHATA: That's good.  And perhaps you have already mentioned this, that what actually kept the family together at a time when everybody was warned not to associate with you?

MS MASHININI: I think it was just ill heart from the Afrikaners, from the police because there was nothing wrong with us.  That is why church people could come to our house.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thank you.  I will hand you back to the Chairperson.

YASMINE SOOKA: Mrs Mashinini could you tell us about how you learned about Tsietsi's death?

MS MASHININI: I was very, very sorry and sad because he died at the time that everybody was coming back.  I thought he would also come back but all in vain.  He was said, sometime back there was a story that Tsietsi is mentally
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disturbed, he had a lot of stress which sometimes it makes him violent, of which I thought we will bring him home to be put in the hospitals in South Africa, but most unfortunately we couldn't make it because we had no money to fetch him.  That is when we knew that he was staying in Guinea because all along we did not know where he stayed.

YASMINE SOOKA: Could you tell us how many of your other sons are today alive and well in this country?

MS MASHININI: They are all alive except Tsietsi.

YASMINE SOOKA: One of the things that you mentioned in your statement was that you received a letter from the government of Guinea explaining Tsietsi, the way Tsietsi died, could you tell us a little more about that please?

MS MASHININI: Yes.  The letter is written in a strange language, we can't read it, but what we know, we were told Tsietsi died out of - it was natural death.  But when his corpse came to South Africa, we buried him here in South Africa, when the corpse came back to us it was not like natural death, because he had wounds all over the body, mainly behind the ear.  He had a big wound which after three weeks was still bleeding, and the right eye, I'm not sure whether right or left, but one of his eyes was - seemed it had fallen in, it was a hole, and then the other one was swollen.  A number of bruises in the face.  So which only shows, all that shows he was brutally murdered.

YASMINE SOOKA: Were you ever able to make any enquiries about the manner of his death?

MS MASHININI: We made enquiries, we are still making enquiries through people whom we know.  Some are in America, but they agreed to go and find out what, because really, okay death is death but we wish to know how he died, what
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happened to him.  We have made enquiries.  People in that country won't talk to anybody, even a child, the reports that we get even a small child wouldn't talk to anybody.

YASMINE SOOKA: Just a point of clarification.  Somewhere you talked about the fact that whilst you were in detention you were asked to turn State witness against your son Mpo.

MS MASHININI: Yes.

YASMINE SOOKA: Could you just tell us what actually happened with that matter?

MS MASHININI: Luckily enough the culprits, the victims had a good lawyer, who when questioning me was trying to put them out of the prison trial they were tried for, he questioned me for two hours that day in court, I was even angry why is this man asking me so many questions, but after, from my statement, he was able to keep the culprits out of court.

YASMINE SOOKA: Could you tell us what the name of this lawyer was?

MS MASHININI: I think it's Swanepoel, under the company of Chan Chetty, no, what I know is Chan Chetty had ordered some lawyers, there it is Ron Allenwyk, if I am right.

YASMINE SOOKA: Who was your attorney whilst you were in detention if you had one?

MS MASHININI: I had none.  I had none, because when I was taken home they told my husband that they are taking me only for questioning and I will be brought back.  All these months I was in detention they were always telling me that, no, tomorrow you are going home, next week you are going home, so I couldn't arrange anything for myself.

YASMINE SOOKA: It seems that what happened with Tsietsi and your sons have in fact influenced the whole family's life.  SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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You have lost your job and you were constantly harassed at home, could you tell us, at the end of the day, how do you feel about all of this?

MS MASHININI: I am happy he took part in the struggle, South African struggle.  I am happy and proud of it.  But when it comes to death, death is everywhere, you can be hit by a car, you can be stabbed, anything could happen to you, you can be shot and die.  So there is nothing wrong with death and especially that is a long time that it has happened.  It's very sad, I am sad, I count myself as those who were born to be poor or to be unlucky that we couldn't get jobs, we couldn't progress, everything ran backwards than go forward, in any case we made our living out of nothing.  We are still under those circumstances.  I have children who have gone to school, as far as, I've one who has done Masters, I have one who has a B.Comm., I mean my children have progressed.  There are those who didn't get anything because of our poverty of which I hope they will make their living  (tape ends....)
... and difficulties at the same time.  The success is that your children are educated but it's difficult for you because it's not yet clear in your mind how Tsietsi died.

MS MKHIZE: In your statement that you made you said one of the people who told you that Tsietsi was ill is Miriam Makeba, I want you to tell this Commission did you ever contact Miriam in order to clarify the issue?

MS MASHININI: Because he had told us a different story, I am sorry to say, I wouldn't like to make a follow-up, but I never followed her up.  But in my curiosity I know very well that Tsietsi didn't die naturally.  In any case she was not in that country by then, she was in Belgium, she was not in
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Guinea, maybe it's the story she was told by other people, by people who were there, but she phoned us, she took her time, phoned us, told us that Tsietsi is in hospital, and then after a week, she even told us that come, he's going to die.  I think she saw the situation was bad.  And after a week still she phoned us and told us that Tsietsi was dead.

MS MKHIZE: Maybe it's another way of trying to find out how Tsietsi died, maybe you would like to tell this Commission that the time Tsietsi was outside in exile was he a member of any political organisation?