Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1996-04-17

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: It was Tembi Simbsimbiyabo who was captain of EAST LONDON  HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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an island, together with Nanamso Njobe.  We left South Africa in September 1980 after we had vowed never to return to Fort Hare again.  We went to Lesotho.  We met Comrade Chris Hani, Thosa Mile Botha and Comrade Ace,  We were eager to join the armed struggle, Mkhonto we Sizwe, Comrade Chris told us to first try and build the underground in the Eastern Cape because our underground in the Eastern Cape was very weak.  We received basic military training in Lesotho, this enabled us to go on missions in and out of the country. Sizwe, after coming back from mission which was in June 1981, said to me there are there are three persons who matter in his life.  I asked him who those persons were, he said, it was his mother, his sister Lindiwe and his girlfriend Norwi Chicken.

MR NTSEBEZA: Is that the lady to your right?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: That is correct.  He appeared to be disturbed, I didn't want to press him further and ask why he was telling me all this, but he went on to say that earlier in the week, he had spoken to Norwi, inviting her to come over in Maseru, but she couldn't make it because they were having family traditional rights in respect of her late father, and Sizwe was upset that she couldn't come.
    This was two days before he disappeared.  On the night in question, Sizwe came to where we were staying, because at that time we were not staying in the same house because he was taking care of the house of one comrade who was then In Lusaka, but coming back.  So we were not staying together that time.  He came to our place between one and two early in the morning, he asked for a cigarette. In the house was Majola and I. We had cigarettes and he said he was going.
      We then asked him as to where he was going?  The same 
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day in the afternoon, this was about four or five, I'm not so sure, Comrade Prins came to our place came to our place and asked about Sizwe's whereabouts. We said, well the last time that we were with him was in the early hours of the morning, between one and two. We asked him what the matter was.  Comrade Chris told us that Sizwe has been to his place in the morning and he told him about Norwi, that he was upset by the fact that Norwi cannot come at the time, so Chris told Sizwe to take his car which was a yellow stanza, SSS, Chris's car, the car that was used by Comrade Chris in Lesotho.  So sizwe took the car on his way to make a telephone call to Norwi.

MR NTSEBEZA: Was he going to make this telephone call from a public box?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Well normally they used public telephones when they were making calls.  So one will assume that he went to a public telephone.

MR NTSEBEZA: What time was it when Chris said he had driven his car?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Well he did not indicate time but he said it was in the morning, because Chris came to us in the afternoon.  He just said that Sizwe was at his place in the morning to tell him about Norwi.

MR NTSEBEZA: And it was in that morning that he had driven his car to go and make a telephone call?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Yes it was that morning.

MR NTSEBEZA: And he was coming to enquire because since then he had not come back.

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: That is correct.

MR NTSEBEZA: I see.

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: So Comrade Chris asked us to look for him in
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places where we normally go, so we left, it was Tosi Majola, Comrade Socks Sokupa and I. Chris gave us a car, we went looking for Sizwe.  That late afternoon turned into evening, and we couldn't find Sizwe where we normally go.  We decided to phone Norwi to find out whether Sizwe indeed did make the call which he was supposed to have made that day.  I phoned Norwi's place in Port Elizabeth, I couldn't get Norwi that night.
 The following morning we went back to Comrade Chris to report that we have not found Sizwe, and then Comrade Chris just said that we should phone his home, in Port Elizabeth.

MR NTSEBEZA: Whose home?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Sizwe's home. We were a bit hesitant to phone directly his home because we didn't know what to tell the parents.

MR NTSEBEZA: Were you already suspicious that something amiss had happened.

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Yes because it had never happened before that Sizwe would just disappear without telling anybody.  So I phoned Mr Silas Nganunu to inform him that Sizwe has disappeared.  We don't know where he is.  Could he please go and tell Sizwe's father, Mr Dumile Kondile.  I also phoned Norwi on the same day. I got her on the line, I asked her whether she has spoken to Sizwe recently.  Norwi told me, yes they did speak on the phone but they never finished their discussion.  I asked why, and she said well it looked as if Sizwe stopped talking.  She could not understand what was happening on the other side.  So that's briefly how it was.

MR NTSEBEZA: I see.  Now you have heard testimony of confusion that took place in Lesotho at this time.  Now I
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don't want you to repeat that, but to you as a friend and as a close friend, it must have been a painful nine years.

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: It was.

MR NTSEBEZA: And would I be right in saying, in some ways, though it is sad, that the only for you to discover this actual truth as to what happened to him is to know that he died and he died in such a gruesome way?  You are none the less relieved that he is not in fact what people suspected he was?  Is that right?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Yes that is correct.  You know, in the course of our liberation discussions we always believed that death is not really an issue because death is an integral part of a liberation struggle when you've got two opposing forces.  But what induces a sense of shock and revulsion, is the method and manner of how people were killed.  It came as a big relief when we read in the New Nation in 1990 that at least there is a person who seems to know exactly what has happened to Sizwe and this being in the person of Dirk Coetzee.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now you are now in the Ministry of Justice, are you not.

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: That is correct.

MR NTSEBEZA: You are in fact one of the advisors to the Minister of Justice.

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: You are not unfamiliar with the provisions with the promotion of national unity and the Conciliation Act?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: I'm not.

MR NTSEBEZA: You are one of the famous zeros, in some sense.

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Our ministry was central in the drafting of the law.
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MR NTSEBEZA: Do I understand therefore, that revolted as you may feel about the manner in which Sizwe died, you none the less would go with a decision of an amnesty committee provided it was satisfied, and satisfied in all respects, if there are perpetrators who satisfied all the requirements of the act as you know it, you haven't got a personal interest in this, do I understand you to be saying you would sanction the findings of that committee?

GUSUMZO BIKOLE: Our interim constitution being the supreme law of the land enjoins us to promote national unity inscribed for reconciliation in our country as a mechanism of ensuring that. It further tells us that those people who committed atrocities in the conflict of the past, who come forward to make a full disclosure and their act or mission having been associated with it's political objective, then those people shall be granted amnesty.  My own understanding of that tells me that it is not automatic that a person by virtue of having applied for amnesty, that person shall be granted amnesty.

MR NTSEBEZA: I accept that.  I was asking if all those requirements were accepted, would you, even in the case of your own friend, say, assuming you were satisfied, that in any event, that is what our Act enjoins that committee to say.