Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1997-06-10

MR SANDI: Is there anything Mr Belling Senior that you want to add to the testimony?
MR BELLING (SNR): He's gone through a lot of pain and suffering.  He was in hospital for a long, long time and he's been through numerous operations, three different operations.  His heart had stopped and they battled to revive him due to the fact that all the operations he was having.  He had up to three operations sometimes in one week which is too much for an individual and this caused the heart muscles to weaken.  I spoke to the anesthetist and he explain why.  They were very scared to take him on at any stage to do any operations as there was a big problem to operate on him because the fear was that he wouldn't come out of the anesthetic again.  He's had a lot of damage to himself and the specialist on the very first operation after the shooting told me that for the next thirty years he'll be going in and out or hospital for different operations.  The damage is so bad to his hip that they cannot replace his hip which needs replacement because a replaced hip only lasts for about ten years and they can only replace it twice.  Therefore he's got to wait until he's in his fifties before he can have a hip replacement so until then he has to suffer with that hip and other ailments that he's got and so on for which he is taking medication.
 The other side which I'd like to mention to the Commission is what must be taken into consideration is his social lifestyle at his age I mean these are things which sometimes we do not think about.  I'm discussing it because he perhaps wouldn't mention these things and to me it's not funny at all because at his age his friends are getting married and this type of thing.  If you go that far right into it which is not very nice for him living like that, he's sort of living on his own, he cannot socialise much in various places.  He's also got a colostomy, a permanent colostomy which will never be changed.  That has been told to us.  In the doctors' reports which I've given to the Commission you can go through them at any other stage and you can see what I'm getting at.  Even the Government on the Welfare side, their panel of doctors booked him as eighty percent disabled when they read these statements and I don't why this has actually taken so long.  I'd like to know, to find out if the Commission can go further with it.  I have got statements here which I've sent in long ago, long before the Truth Commission was ever thought of, I've been working on this case ever since then but I never seem to get through to anybody.  The first lot of documentation I sent through registered and so on didn't go through it just disappeared and nobody knew what was going on.  I eventually thought I must get somebody in Parliament to assist me now that we can talk directly.  I eventually got hold of Senator Ray Radie.  Everything with regard to what we're discussing here you can refer back to Senator Ray Radie, he helped us out a lot to get through so that we can get into the Truth Commission.  We were supposed to be in the first Truth Commission that came to East London but nobody called us up and the week after they'd finished off then only they got hold of us which was too late.  Ray Radie had already spoken to them about us going in there otherwise we would have been through this Truth Commission then already but the delays went on and on.  I've got letters here which I can show you which was now recently, last month that Ray Radie was sending to the Commission to get going with it and so on you know.  There's the claims that I've made you know which are claims to the Commission for compensation to him.  That is all on paper and I won't mention that now if you don't want me to mention it but it is here, you've got it all there too because I've given it all in so we can go through those things.  
 On his side of it the basic fact is he is disabled for life, he's got no social life anymore, he's got a future to look at ahead of  him and to look after him.  That is why I've made that claim so that he can look after himself because my wife and I are not going to be around forever.  Also this whole issue here has turned our whole lifestyle upside down.  We are completely in a shambles since this has happened, it's ripped us to pieces and my wife is ... it's taken twenty years out of our lives, this issue.  It was not funny at all and even now he's got a lot of chances of having heart attacks, strokes and all this.  There's a lot to take into consideration and the medical side is a terrible issue because he's now suffering with all sorts of things.  He's developed ulcers at a young age.  
 The other side of it is they changed the medication around to try and prevent the ulcers but all this medication ... what about is kidneys, he's got a chance of his kidneys collapsing and so on with all this medication.  We've got to think of all these things, it's not  you know funny to even ... you can't even sleep nice and so on.  He doesn't sleep properly, he's taking sleeping tablets.  He's got to live on these things and so on and he can't even sit in one place even now he's been complaining that he's getting a lot of pain again.  The hip is completely shattered, it looked like a spiderweb inside there and the specialist said to me only nature can take it's course now because they cannot put a new hip in hip and he has to carry on suffering until he's here in his fifties which is a long time until he can get a new hip change you know.  This is a very bad business and so on, very bad.

MR SANDI: Do I understand you to say that you are not happy with the medical treatment he is receiving?
MR BELLING (SNR): No, the medical treatment is excellent but it's the amount that he's got to take due to the damage that's has been caused by him being shot which is the big thing.  The thing is what I'm getting at too is, I'd like to mention to the Commission that these were really innocent people, I'm talking about High Gate, King William's Town, Queenstown and the St James Church. These were completely innocent people they had no connections or anything to do with political or criminal activities whatsoever.  I feel that these are the people that should be brought in as priority, do you understand.  They've never been in political issues that there was cause for them to be shot and so on.  They were completely innocent people.  Completely innocent.  So I feel that all in all those four I mentioned should be given priority, do you understand?  I don't want to push other people away or anything but these are the completely innocent people, they had nothing to do with any political issues at all that they got involved in those issues to be shot or gave anybody any reason to shoot them.  There was no reason whatsoever for these people to be shot.  Completely on a social basis and they got shot.  He went to his cousin and for the first time they went into a pub they went to the Kentucky Fried Chicken and on their way back they decided to go and play a bit of pool.  These are not guys who go and live in the pub, they've not those type of guys.  They just went in there to go and play snooker and they decided they will have a quick beer.   They didn't even have anything out of that beer.  I saw it with my own eyes, I even took video footage of the whole issue because I was in the force myself and the blokes let me in there to have a look.  I know exactly what that place looked like when I went in there.  Everything was there, their change was lying there, their cigarettes, lighter and everything was there in place where they fell when they got shot at that particular place.  It was totally uncalled for.  It was completely uncalled for.