Human Rights Violation Hearings — Duduza — 1997-02-07

JOHANNES DHLOMO: I want to first thank this honourable Commission for having given me the opportunity to appear before you. You are doing a great job.  I am going to start with the first incident, that's when I got injured.
 On the 13th of June it was in the morning at about five.  I usually take a taxi when I go to work and I usually arrive at Germiston around about a quarter past to half past five because I start working at seven and the distance that I have to travel is quite long. 
   When I woke up that particular Monday morning and I got out of the hostel and went towards Mgadi Hostel, Mgadi Street, and the taxi turned at a certain 4-way stop, I ran towards it.  If I remember quite well there were about four men, it was slightly dark because it was in winter and the other four gentlemen were also in the taxi, they were boarding the taxi and I was the last one.  As I was setting my foot to board that taxi I heard a gunshot and I did not know what was happening at that time.  I looked back and saw a number of females vendors who sold fruit and vegetables, but they were not yet there because it was still very early in the morning, but they usually sit at that spot.
 At the time I didn't feel that I had been shot but I tried to get into the taxi but I was not able to and the taxi driver pulled off leaving me on the ground and there were two other men from the hostel who were following me from behind and we usually used to walk along together and they discovered that I had been shot in the leg.  They asked me who had shot me, and I replied that I didn't know because I did not see who shot me and that the taxi had left me there.  Another man came to help me.  
 I was already feeling dizzy and everything was just going hazy, I couldn't see what was happening and this Buthelezi guy helped me and I told him that I had been shot and just at moment we heard some gun shots coming from the top of Tokoza area, Everest in particular, and I could not stand up.  They stopped a taxi which took me to Cruywagen Hospital in Germiston, that's where I got medical attention and I discovered at the hospital that the wound was very deep and very big.  They helped me. I was not able to go to Katlehong Hospital because we were scared at that time that if you go to Katlehong Hospital you would not be safe, especially if you speak Zulu and if you stayed at the hospital, when you get there the nurses would ask you a lot of questions.  Zulus in particular, we were asked why we are killing other people because we were animals from the bush and from the mountains.  They would tell us to go back to where we belong, that is Kwa Zulu.
 The people who were taking me to the hospital decided to take me to Cruywagen, that's where they felt I would be safe. I was admitted there for a week and a half and later discharged.  My wife does not stay here, she stays in Natal so I had a girl friend who was staying at the location, who made attempts to came and see me at the hospital because I do not have any immediate relatives who were present and we could not go out of the hospital because the other residents always used to attack us and especially the people who called us names.  We could not get any thoroughfare in the location, so we had to take alternative routes to get to work, and my girlfriend came to take me to the hostel because I had been discharged by then.
 At the time I remained at home I was not working. I think I stayed there for about five months without going work and received no money and wasn't able to send money home. I was very depressed because I'm the breadwinner.  We are only three at home, the two girls and the only son.  My father died a long time ago while I was still very young. I went through a very terrible time while out of work because I could not support my five children as well as a wife. Two are staying with me because their mother left them with me. I try my level best to maintain them and put them through school.  
 This disturbed me quite a lot because I did not know who shot me and why I was shot. Maybe the person who shot me could come forward and tell me as to why he shot me because I never ever committed any offence, I'm just a peaceful citizen.
 That is the end of the first statement.  I was requested to continue with the second statement with regard to the incident that took place in 1994. 
 They have already related the incident that I'm going to talk about.  I think there was something that I can put as a tornado because we didn't see eye to eye with the residents at the location. There was a certain man by the name of Jeffrey Sibia who was a leader of the IFP, especially in the youth.  He was working with the Peace Accord group and we were also directly involved as the residents of the hostel.  We were chosen by some of the hostel dwellers, we had to organise ourselves into a group and get ourselves a representative to put forward our grievances so that we can be able to communicate because we were then attacked by police, we were being attacked by the soldiers, they were shooting and assaulting us.
 There is a fight that took place in 1990, it has also been mentioned where soldiers were fetched from Maputo who could not speak Zulu but they were black.  They assaulted us when they got there and some were killed, some were injured.  They broke down doors and we could not talk to them because they were speaking a different language, so there was absolutely no communication between us and them.  That is when the community decided that we should elect a leader or leaders that would represent us so that we could be able to air our grievances.
 Jeffrey was directly involved in organising some type of election and he was the one who was liaising with the soldiers that whenever they wanted to come and conduct a search, they would talk to him and he would relay the message to us as the hostel dwellers.  They would come in and search our houses and rooms and whenever we went back into our rooms we found that some of our possessions as well as money were missing. So Jeffrey is the one made these cards like the one I'm showing to you that when policemen come we would reach an agreement and as the hostel dwellers, we would talk to the soldiers as well as the police for them to tell us what they wanted in the hostel and if whatever they had to come to do was legal, then we would allow them to come in and search the rooms.  We also wanted them to have search warrants whenever they wanted to come and search a particular place and we would accompany them into the rooms so that whenever there was any loss that occurred we would be able to account. 
 That is the sort of job that we were doing as the leaders.  Then on this particular day I was woken up by another Mthembu man, he has since been deceased having been killed by the soldiers.  He woke me up and told me that the soldiers had come they had filled the yard and he wanted to know what mechanism we should employ.  They started kicking the doors at that stage and I tried to get out.  It was about 2am and they pushed me inside.  I told them that I was working at a bakery I wanted to wake Jeffrey up so that we could talk to the soldiers. They kept on trying to push me back but I made my way to Jeffrey's room and I woke him up.  I told him that we had soldiers as well as police in the hostel and we should try to negotiate with them and find out what their problem was.
 They didn't want to hear a thing that we were saying, they started assaulting us.  That's when I told them that they should not assault us, we want to speak to their commander and find out what they were looking for, and we told them that it was the custom or principle that they should tell us as to what they wanted and Jeffrey woke up, he wore his white overall and we went to the soldiers and said we wanted to see the commander, but they did not want to disclose his identity and we discovered that they had arrested Mr Xulu and were also assaulting him at that stage. When we wanted to see him they refused us permission to do so.  We went to F-13 and when we spoke to the soldiers who were in there we were shot at by the others who were at f-14. 
 We tried to duck for cover and by then we started running away and the hostel residents were now running after us realizing that as we were leaders and running away they also had to take cover.  When I got to the block where I stay, that is Block D were we wanted to speak to the commander so that he could tell us what they wanted and we could allow them to get into our rooms and search or do whatever they wanted to do.  They didn't accept our proposition that when they conduct their search we should be present.  We got to the main entrance gate where they refused us permission to speak to the commander, they were adamant that they wanted to conduct a search.  That is when they started shooting.  There was a lot of gun fire and that's when they shot my brother.  I tried to make way for him to run but when he tried to run they hit him on the back, they also shot him on the cheek and his whole face was sort of blown off and they started shooting the rest of the residents or the hostel dwellers.  They also shot another woman from Vinavesi, they shot here on the breast which was ripped apart, unfortunately she's not present at the moment. That's when my brother died as well as other hostel dwellers.
 In the morning it was very difficult to go to work.  They were actually accosting everyone who was going in and out of the hostel but I was able to go to the Alberton Commander where I discovered Jeffrey's corpse.  I went to see Colonel du Toit who was the then commander. When I got to him I saw that they had put an AK47 on Jeffrey and said that he was shot because he was shooting at them and they pointed to this AK47 as the gun that he had used against the solders.  I flatly denied that because I was an eye witness, were both unarmed and I knew that it was a lie that Jeffrey had a gun with him the previous day.
 That is what I've come here to say because it disturbed it very much because we as Zulus, where are we going to stay, where can we be free, we were chased out of the residential areas as well as places that we were leasing.  We were chased out because we were Zulus and we had to collect ourselves , men as well as women and there was a stage where women had to stay at the hostel together with the men and now we did not know what to do because we were fighting with each other.  We were fighting ourselves as blacks and we were also being fought by the then government and we did not have any place where we could stay peacefully. This has disturbed me quite a lot, that's where I can stop.