Human Rights Violation Hearings — Welkom — 1996-10-10

WITNESS:   I didn't know where to direct them for hiding.  I was pointing all the places.  I said to him, "Please hide yourselves."  They were standing still, not knowing what to do.  They said, "Mum, what should we do?"  I didn't know where to hide them, and I said to them, "Get out into the field, and you will be able to see which "direction they come from and you will run away."  After a few minutes they came back running.  I said to them, "What's happening?"  They said, "They are just on our heels."  And I went to this group and I said to them, "Kill me first, because what you are going to do I will never stand.  If you kill my children I would have nothing left to live for.  Kill me first."  And they all stood still.  They said, "Why are they running?"  And I said to them, "They are just school kids.  Who would not run away seeing you carrying such dangerous weapons, and we know that when you are present people die."  And I said to the first group, "Please kill me.  Here I am."  And they said, "Well, we will leave your children."  I last saw them when they got into the house, closing the door, when I went to the Three Million members to tell them that they should kill me.  While I was still negotiating with this first group the other one passed, and I saw my daughter coming from the house, saying, "Mum, please rush, they got hold of Solomon."  And I came running, and this group was just elderly people.  I said, "Please, this is just a baby.  What are you doing to him?"  I saw my son falling down, and he was shouting, crying, saying, "Mum, help me."  Oh my Lord, I wouldn't help my son.  My son was crying.  It's hard to forget his cry.  I prayed to them to stop.  I said, "Please, kill me first."  They were chopping him.  I even ran away, I couldn't stand.  I ran away.  My son was crying, and I went straight into the house.  After falling I went outside.  The police were already on the scene and they were shooting at me with their rubber bullets.  My son was lying on the floor.  I still have the rubber bullets with me as evidence.  People picked them up.  The police were busy throwing their tear gases on me.  I had a one-month-old baby.  This was my daughter's baby.  I forgot the child because we ran away.  They were shooting at us.  The community was trying to help, and some of them were praying to the police to go into the house to take the child, because the child was still alive, but - they requested permission from the policemen to take the child to the hospital, but the police refused.  But one member of the Three Million, who ran towards a certain house when the community wanted to attack him, the police went to rescue him.  The police were protecting him.  I went to them, I said, "I want to kill this one because they have already killed my son."  The police were shooting me with their rubber bullets.  I didn't even see that the other one was next to me, and his teachers were pleading with the policemen.  They said, "We are not going anywhere if you do not take Mr Rantie's son to protect him."  One gentleman came to me and he said, "Should I take your child to the hospital?"  I said, "Please," and I told them to call his father at work to contact the specialists just to save my son's life.  His father came.  We tried to go to Captain Floyd.  He was the captain of the police at that time, and we asked him, "Floyd, what's happening, what's taking place?  Why is my child so brutally assaulted?"  His fingers were being picked at the street.  He was chopped by heavily-built men.  My son was innocent.  He died as an innocent boy, and they are still free even to this day.

MR DLAMINI: Your other son, Papi, whom Solomon came back from school to alert that the Three Million Gang was approaching, did he escape, and how is he now?

WITNESS:   He escaped.  The teachers at Sasolville were pleading with the policemen to save him, and they pushed him to the hospital, and they said they had this feeling to take him and throw him somewhere.  He is still alive, he's a teacher at Koppies.

MR DLAMINI: So he is one of the teachers.

WITNESS:   Yes, he's a teacher.

MR DLAMINI: And he was saved by the teachers who were around?

WITNESS:   He was not yet a teacher at that time.  The teachers were pleading with the policemen because the schools even stopped.  Three Million members were still busy chopping the other one, and he was next to me and I didn't know what to do with him, and the police were there standing.  If they could have taken my son to the hospital in time he would have been saved, because the doctors tried their best but they said he took a long time.  He was lying in the street and nobody was prepared to help him.  A stranger came and took him to the hospital.

MR DLAMINI: We are grateful to the people who offered help under those difficult conditions, where they were prevented by the police to help.  I am sure the Chairman, when he summarises, he will make reference to the teachers who helped, and that strange person who took your son to the hospital.  And I believe from your statement that the harassment did not stop.  Even when you were preparing for Solomon's funeral you were still harassed.  Would you like to take us through that?

WITNESS:   It was on a Wednesday and the Council started by stopping the water.  The water was stopped from running and we had to go to Brand Park for water.  And this harassment continued, and on Wednesday, as the women were preparing the food, the police arrived and they shot in the house.  And they sprayed their tear gas and they shot this other child and - I don't know what happened to this child.  They turned over the pots and people took different directions running away.  That is the harassment that we got.

MR DLAMINI: I believe that coming back from the cemetery you learnt that Tsiyetsi had been abducted.  Would you tell us about Tsiyetsi?

WITNESS:   No.  We buried Solomon on Saturday, and on the same Saturday evening the Three Million gang arrived at home, at my home.  And I heard one person saying, "Get out of that house."  I was standing at the window.  They used a small entrance gate and they used the bigger one to get out, and shortly after they have left a person came.  This person was a security man at a tavern, and he said, "They have abducted Tsiyetsi."  I tried to call the police station and one captain answered the phone.  I cannot tell who he was because of the ranks.  He was a white man, and he said to me, "This is the new South Africa that you wanted."  And I said to him, "Who is the new South Africa?  I am just asking for help.  They have abducted one of my children," and he said, "There is nothing I can do.  You said you don't want us in the new South Africa.  This is your new South Africa you have been longing for."  And I called another woman, a white woman, Mrs Serfontein.  She was a reporter, and I gave her a call.  She was working for Star, and I said, "Madam, I do not know.  I called the policemen, they do not want to help me.  My nephew has been abducted."  Mrs Serfontein called the police station in town and she gave them my house number to come and see me, and they arrived.  I said to them Tsiyetsi had been abducted, and the policemen tried to get the direction they took when they left, and they went out to look for him but they couldn't get hold of the group.  The next day he was killed, he was murdered.  He didn't have his eyes.  His eyes were gouged out and he was chopped.