Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-14

UNKNOWN: And Jimmy Jones, is that name familiar to you?

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: I don't know Jimmy Jones.  Perhaps if I saw him I would remember him or recall him but the name Jimmy Jones I don't know.

UNKNOWN: You never trained in Butterworth at all?

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: Not at all.

UNKNOWN: Mr Madasi, you said you were proud and glad to be part of the fight of the war and in an answer, I think to the Chairman, you gladly carried out your instructions to kill people irrespective of who they were when you were simply following an order, is that correct?

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: What do you mean: "I was just following an order"?

UNKNOWN: I don't particularly want to get into that analogy between the elderly women or grannies in a hotel if you'd got there but you were glad to be part of the struggle as you put it, you were glad to kill people on instructions from your commanders, is that correct?  You weren't questioning your orders, you simply carried out your orders without question.  There was no room for you as the commander of that unit to turn away or to turn back if you saw for example, that they weren't security policemen, they were people other than the expected target?

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: We have 15 points of attention under APLA and they stipulate that you should always strictly obey orders and be punctual.  When you're given an order, that order is not given to someone who does not know what they are about.
	The orders were given to APLA members who voluntarily joined the APLA, not forced.  I was proud to receive the order because I was going to the battlefield.  What was left of me was to plan how to go about the order and to make sure that it is successful.  	The order was not given to someone who was not prepared or somebody who was not in anticipation of such.

UNKNOWN: You make - if I can just come back to the attack on the hotel.  Mr Jerling was 18 years of age, he was unarmed, he was enjoying a drink at the bar with three or four of his friends who were also unarmed.  How did his death, how did killing him, in your mind, further your political objective?  Did it in fact assist in any way?

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: Could you please repeat the question because I do want to answer it.

UNKNOWN: Yes.  I'm putting to you the facts, Mr Jerling was not a member of the security forces and that will be the evidence that I will lead in a short while, not were the other people at the bar that evening, there were four or five other people present who were not members of the security forces.  So, I want to put to you - maybe I can just rephrase the question, your instructions or your intelligence or your information was hopelessly incorrect.

MR LAX: Sorry, you left out one important factor as well Mr Prior, that they weren't armed.

UNKNOWN: Yes, they were unarmed.

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: As Sobukwe said, ...[no English translation]
"We regard them as the shareholders in the South African oppressors campaign right?  There are whites of course, who are intellectually converted to our cause right, but because of their position materially they can not fully identify themselves with the struggle of the African people.  They want safeguards and checkpoints all along the way with the result that the struggle of the people is blunted, stultified and crushed.  So I think" ...[intervention]

MR LAX: Sorry, can I just stop you?  We didn't hear the interpretation that preceded you starting to read the quote from Robert Sobukwe, so unfortunately it's difficult to know what the context around the quote is.  You began this quote by saying some contextual words but we don't know what that was unfortunately.

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: Alright.  The question was do we regard all whites as oppressors, that was the questions.

MR LAX: Sorry, that wasn't the question actually but ...[intervention]

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: What was the question?

MR LAX: The question was that Mr Jerling was completely unarmed, his friends were unarmed, they were not in any way connected to the security forces.  The question was, can you comment on the fact that your intelligence was so badly out of line with the facts? That was the question.

MS GCABASHE: Sorry, if I may?
	Your intelligence in relation to the information that he got, not his own natural intelligence.

MR LAX: The word in intelligence has a special meaning in the military, it implies the gathering of information.  Sorry, I'm not for one moment insulting the man.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Mr Chairman, I was going to say that - just before you intervened, that the question was not related.  The applicant was quoting and I'm sure he was trying to put into context the question which was being asked, by quoting from what Sobukwe had said and I think the Committee should allow him to answer in his way.

MR LAX: Please go ahead.  We don't have a problem with that, we're just trying to make sure we all understand that we're on the same question.

UNKNOWN: Maybe I can just repeat the question as we seem to be arguing about nothing.
	The question was - I broke up the question and I want to ask it in two parts.  The first part is, your information, your instruction was to attack Yellowwood Hotel because military personnel went there.  I'm putting to you that the evidence is the facts are in this case, Mr Jerling was 18 years of age, he was unarmed and having a drink with some other people, some friends who were also unarmed.  He was not a member of the security forces, the police or the army and nor were the other people at the hotel on that evening.  The question being, that on the facts it would seem that your intelligence, your information gathering and your instructions were hopelessly out of line, out of synchronisation, out of touch with the facts.  Are you able to comment?

VUYISILE LEBRAN MADASI: First of all, I don't know the gentleman that you're referring to, it is the first time I hear of him right now.  The order was such that the place was frequented by members of the security forces.  This hotel was located out of town and people who would go and have a good time out of town.
	What you're saying about Mr Jerling and not being armed or his friends not being armed, I did not know that at the time.  Even if I did know that the people in there were not armed, however if there were other reasons for the attack I would continue and attack.  It is the first time I hear that there were these men there.
	Excuse Mr Prior, give me a moment to finish.  I know that nobody has a right to take another person's life no matter who you are, where you're from, who created you, you have no right to take another person's life.  However, what I was about I am proud of.  This is what led us to the transformation in South Africa.  The loss of life is painful and I would like to reconcile with the families and the victims.
	Whether the people were armed or not armed or his friends were armed or not armed, that was not part of the information or the intelligence that we received.  I would have made a decision with the person who gave me the orders, however we attacked under the reasons that the place was frequented by security members.

UNKNOWN: A week before that you broke off the attack, you didn't continue the attack because you found that the hotel was closed.  If the order was to attack those premises, why did you not continue with the attack?  There were certainly rooms at the hotel, people stayed at the hotel?  Why did you carry on with that attack?