Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-05-22

MR TIPP: Then I will read out what appears in the first affidavit which was recorded in Afrikaans.  There is a signature on the affidavit from a Mr Magomo who say he translated it from Zulu to Afrikaans and again from Afrikaans into Zulu.  Now that is - Mr Chairman, I think the first page I referred to is 293.
	You describe there that you moved from Park Station with a group of Zulu's in order to attend the gathering at the Library Gardens.  In paragraph 2 you say:
"We were a large group which moved from Park Station to the library, we moved in North Street and then turned down into Wanderer's Street"
Thereafter you moved in de Villiers Street, do you remember saying that?

MR NGOBESE: Yes, I do remember, but I would like to explain that further.  At the time that I received this statement from Magomo I was not fully conversant with the streets as well as the names of the streets.  What we did, we actually, I did the pointing out whilst I was in the car and they took me the second time.  I would point the streets out, then he assigned names to the particular streets, now I'm not exactly sure as to what street is which because I did not know the names of the streets at that time and I do not know the names of the streets now.

MR TIPP: Mr Ngobese and in fairness to you - Mr Chairman,  you will see in paragraph 8 where the witness himself says
"Ek is tans nie presies seker van die straat name nie en sal later die presiese punte aan die poliesie uitwys"
So you say in that statement Mr Ngobese, that you are not sure of street names.  It is a statement incidentally that was made very soon after the event, on the 30th of March of 1994, is that correct?

MR NGOBESE: I think it is true, I'm not really sure and I was in the car whilst I was doing the pointing out.

MR TIPP: In any event, after describing how you had moved in Noord Street and got to de Villiers Street, in paragraph 3 you say
"There were then policemen in de Villiers Street who showed us with their hands that we were to move in a different direction and people from Plein Street then fired at us"

MR NGOBESE: I don't remember saying that there were policemen who actually indicated the direction to us, as to which way we should move.  Is there anything that says there was a man with long hair who stopped us along the way?  It's possible Magomo does not know Zulu and the policemen to whom I submitted my statement are Afrikaans speaking.
	The possibility is that we did not understand each other at that time.  I remember the story about the man with the long hair, the white man with the long hair who stopped us along the way.

MR TIPP: Mr Ngobese, I want to - so these policemen that you referred to in this statement, can you tell us today who you intended to refer to?

MR NGOBESE: I don't understand the question when you say who was I referring to, I don't understand it, could you repeat it please?

MR TIPP: In this affidavit you mention policemen in de Villiers Street, are you able today to tell us who that reference should be to, if it is not to policemen in de Villiers Street?

MR NGOBESE: I did not see the policemen at de Villiers Street, at de Villiers Street I think I saw the white man who stopped or tried to stop us.  At that point I did not see the police.

MR TIPP: When you with your group came down King George Street and you got to de Villiers Street, did you see that there was a large group of marchers in de Villiers Street that had come from the direction of Wanderer's?

MR NGOBESE: No, I did not.

MR TIPP: Do you mean to say that there were no marchers in de Villiers Street or that you simply cannot recall?

MR NGOBESE: The marchers I will talk about will be us who were there at the time, others I did not see.  As I continue emphasising the fact that as Zulus, when we move with our Induna, he will always want all the attention to be drawn to him, don't bother about other things, that should be none of your business, just worry and take utmost concentration to the Induna.  We will do as we are instructed by the Induna and not bother about other things, the other outsiders.

MR TIPP: When the white man came and tried to stop you did your Induna then instruct the group to continue?

MR NGOBESE: I will explain it this way, the man that came to stop us wasn't bothered, I mean we never paid attention to that man.  We were looking at others.

MR LAX: We didn't catch the rest of that answer, it ended at: "we were looking at others" and then it just stopped dead.  He carried on talking after that, what was actually said?

MR NGOBESE: What I'm saying here is, this person or this man with long hair, white man, we did not pay attention to him and we did not even bother to find out why he was stopping us because the ones that we were following, we did not see them anymore.
	Why should he be stopping us and yet there were people that we saw right on top of the building with firearms in their possession.  And when he stopped us right next to that building we wondered why and what was he up to, we were questioning that man, whether he was a police or he was a traffic cop or he was some security of some kind.  This is why we did not even pay attention to this man who was stopping because we did not even know the reason why he was stopping us.

MR TIPP: What did you make of the fact that you saw people with firearms on the balcony of the building in front of you?

MR NGOBESE: I just thought it is people who were guarding the building and that didn't really matter much to me because I didn't see it involving me in any way.

MR TIPP: Mr Ngobese, I just want to show a photograph - which is in D54 Mr Chairman, that is a photograph of the portion of King George Street near Plein Street, does it look familiar to you?

MR NGOBESE: It doesn't look familiar, maybe I did not pay much attention to it when I saw it but I do recognise Nando's and I do remember Nando's.

MR TIPP: You will see on that photograph that there are concrete blocks right across the street.

MR NGOBESE: That is correct.

MR TIPP: That was the position on that day at the Southern part of King George Street.

MR NGOBESE: I can see King George as well as the sign that this is King George Street.

MR TIPP: There were also on that day similar concrete blocks at the northern part of that King George Street, save that two of them had been moved sideways in order to allow cars in and out.

MR NGOBESE: I don't remember seeing anything of that sort.

MR TIPP: Mr Ngobese, I want to put it to you that that can't be correct, that you were at the front of your group, you must have seen that here was a stretch of road that was clearly unsuitable for the passage of hundreds of marchers?

MR NGOBESE: I don't even remember seeing what you've referred me to.  As I was at the front, I don't remember seeing any of these things that you've identified in the photo.  Is this on the other side of de Villiers or is it on the corner of King George or before you cross de Villiers?

MR TIPP: The photograph you're looking at is the position at the southern part of King George Street where it runs into Plein Street, I think you can see that quite clearly, correct?

MR NGOBESE: If it's the southern part and we were moving along the north that's why I could not have seen it.  If you say it's on the southern part and I said I was moving along the north, then that is why I didn't see it.

MR TIPP: You were heading straight for that Mr Ngobese.

MR NGOBESE: As I've already explained, if you said that's the southern part, it's possible that I was moving on the northern part.

INTERPRETER: Excuse me Members of the Committee, there might be a confusion between the northern part because it's either the northern or the upper part because he said the upper part which might not necessarily be the northern part.