Human Rights Violation Hearings — Venda — 1996-10-03

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Radamba, we understand the hurt that you sustained and what seems to be more hurting too is the lives led by those people who brought you into that kind of a situation where they called you a terrorist or a supporter of terrorists.
 And they made it so difficult that you had to be brought under a Chief, where you - or it seemed you worked like a slave, not being paid, but at the same time what was more hurting was the fact that they had told the members of the community to look at you as someone dangerous.
 So what we would be interested in as you put it, is a question of how can you be restored - your dignity, your honour and even be in a position to earn a living like anybody else.
 But I would love to ask a few questions.  That is, did you know these people who you assisted or who it is alleged you assisted be the terrorists?

MR RADAMBA: Honestly not by name, I didn't know them by names.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Did you identify them as people different from other people in the community?

MR RADAMBA: There was, I saw, I believe quite different from society as we are now.

THOMAS MANTHATA: How different would you say they were?

MR RADAMBA: I can only submit without any fear that the people I helped providing with food, the people who I
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realised that they had their own firearms, but they never said they wanted to, or intended killing anybody.   That in itself made me feel that when providing food, I couldn't be fearful of them.  They were acceptable people.  There was nothing that was threatening in as far as the possibilities on my side.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Had there been anybody within or around your community who could have been, or who it could have been said that, had been killed by these people?

MR RADAMBA: I don't have any idea because I never heard of such.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Your brother, Daniel, where had he got it from that you could have been doing this kind of activity when he brought the police to you?

MR RADAMBA: When Daniel brought the police where I was, the policemen from Sebatsa arrived at my place.  Since I was staying with him in my neighbourhood, they found him and they asked him as to where his other brother was.
 Although he didn't explain to me, but I realised they asked him as to where his brother was and then they came straight to the orchard where I was.
 that is where it happened that I met them when I was going for lunch because I was feeling hungry.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Was your brother ever with you when you met these people that you helped?

MR RADAMBA: He was with the policemen.

THOMAS MANTHATA: No, the question is was your brother, did your brother know about these people that you were helping and that you were helping them?

MR RADAMBA: Oh, my brother didn't know about it that I as providing some people with food, because there was not so
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much that I had to explain to him.

THOMAS MANTHATA: If I understand, you were just a simple pheasant farmer.

MR RADAMBA: Yes, I was dealing with farming, that was the kind of work that I was dedicated in doing as I left the part of the job I was doing in town.

THOMAS MANTHATA: This is what you were doing in the village and were you giving orders to your wife to cook for these people, to give them place to sleep in or in what way were you helping these people?

MR RADAMBA: The kind of help which I used to give, as far as my wife was concerned, I didn't have any specific orders telling my wife that I was providing food to the terrorists, however, I knew that these people used a specific type of food.
 And I had to help them in purchasing food the way they wanted the kind of ration and that's how I did.

THOMAS MANTHATA: My last question.  You seem to have very strong feelings against the people or the police and the people who were supporting apartheid, if I get it so.  Do you still feel like that even at this time?

MR RADAMBA: The police people who were doing that during that time, I don't feel strongly against, however I feel very painful when I consider how I am already poor now.
 Because when I am living here and the services that people are getting, I have got a family and kids.  We don't have enough that we can use.  Let me just say this briefly as far as maybe this will be in a nutshell to those people who are working.
 While I am living, every household does drink tea, let me say this without any fear.  I might be poor and not 
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drinking tea, but I can go and get tea from other people as friends, who can provide it for me.  But what I know is that my kids or the kids that I have, they don't know that in the morning people have to drink tea.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Perhaps, can you roughly, how many years were you treated in this fashion where you were denied a living that is a possibilities of making a livelihood?

MR RADAMBA: What I can say or testify is that since I was arrested on the 7th of 11, 1983 until I was sent back home on the 24th of February 1984 and again I was given an order out of prison that I shall go and report at the Royal Kraal that I am alive and present, what I did since then, since the 25th of February 1984 till the 9th of April, 1990 I was just reporting at the Royal Kraal.
 But what made this thing, after the police stopped coming to my place and the condition that I was living, they realised that I was not acceptable as a normal person.  I am painful when it comes to the fact that some people who are in my community do not want to believe, I realise that maybe they receive that education or the fact that they are saying I am a terrorist, because maybe it was addressed in one Royal Kraal, because I was not that bad.
 I know that I am a very normal person as any other person.  I think this is why up to now, the people who were educated in that fashion, do not want to accept me because nothing has been addressed since then.  I think they are still living in the past.  They think I am still the very same person who used to be, because nobody seems to be saying he can sit down and talk with me, because now, they don't think things can go wrong.
 I might be saying something wrong, but when I look at 
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the people or somebody who did that, they don't want to listen to my questioning, because they say I am guilty of the rights that people have, in as far as the question is concerned.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Do I understand you that it is roughly seven years that you were placed in that kind of situation, that is 1983/84 and then 1984 up to 1990.  Okay, that is that.  And then you talked about the injection that you were given.  Do you think that it had an effect on you, the kind of effect that has a negative influence on your health?

MR RADAMBA: On feeling how my hand is at the moment, since I was born up to my arrest, I never experienced that before and I could not even, and even when I had coming, feeling when using my own imagination, I am not sure though that it could be true, I am forced to believe that that is why it really influenced.

THOMAS MANTHATA: You never consulted a Doctor thereafter?

MR RADAMBA: Well I do consult casually, even on the 23rd the past month, I consulted or I bought some medicine, but it is not even effective, it is not helping at all.
 Because they just say those are normal pains.  I can't really say this kind of a pain, because I don't have money at all.  If I had money, maybe I will get a special Doctor who will really diagnose me in as far as the cause is concerned, because I will be paying him, but I don't have money.
 And I know that where I am, is difficult for me to explain to anybody because people will look for money, and I don't have money.

THOMAS MANTHATA: thank you no further questions, Simon and over to the Chairperson.
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