Human Rights Violation Hearings — Venda — 1996-10-04

MRS MUKOSI: I will start from 1990.  I will jump a lot of information, but I am going to give you very important points, you know to save time.
 In 1990 on the 7th of March it was very early in the morning, eight o'clock, I was preparing myself to go to work.  A policeman came home, I think he was a CID.  If I have to say his name was Mr Muntso and he knocked at my door.
 The children that were in the kitchen called me, they said, granny there is someone looking for you and I got out of the room and Mr Muntso was in the kitchen door, was at the kitchen door.
 I was very scared because I knew him to be a policeman and that was my first point, the second point it was during that year when there was riots around the township.
 He was a friend to my husband, but when I looked at his face on that day, he was a totally different person.  He was no longer the Muntso I knew before and he said to me, where is Sipho.
 I said Sipho has already left for work, because every day Sipho would leave before I leave for work and I would follow.
 And he said, I am here to tell you that Sipho is going up and down the streets with the youth and they think they are fighting the Government.
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 You are the mother, I am here to inform you that no, that one day you'll be wearing bad clothes, mourning for your son and I said to him, you are a parent, let alone the fact that you are a policeman.
 And I said to him Mr Muntso, have you personally talked to my son to ask him what he wants as he is being going up and down the street?
 And he said to me I don't have time to ask him questions.  What I am going to tell you today is I will not leave my job because of the youth at Chiandima, we are here to inform you that boys will die one by one.
 And this was very uncomfortable for me, I wanted to see where Sipho was and it was now my time to go to work.  I couldn't see him.  As I was at work, I wasn't feeling well.  As a mother I had this bad feeling, because I was told the morning of the same day that my son would be killed.
 When I came back from work, just before I could do anything, Sipho arrived.  I said, Sipho, where have you been this morning.  He said, mom, I went to work.  I said to him Sipho, Muntso, was here telling me that you go up and down the streets, together with the youth, troubling him.  Where were you, what were you doing?
 He said, mother, did Muntso tell you anything that I did?  Did he give you any reason why he came to see you?  That was a very terrible year, we wouldn't go free to work in the taxi's, we used to walk on foot.  It was just violence.
 And on the 27th of May there was a civic association meeting at Chiandima and Sipho woke up very early on that Sunday morning and he said, mom, there is going to be a civic association meeting.  We will be telling you about the VENDA HEARING TRC/NORTH WEST
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demands that we put forward.
 I never really is a person to go these meetings, but on that day I felt in my spirit and in my heart that I had to go to this meeting and I went.  I first went to church and he said mom, today I am not going to church with you, but because you go out late.
 We have a meeting, can I go to Chilizeni church and then go for the meeting thereafter?  Truly my son on the 27th in the morning, went to church and I took his wife and the children, we went to my church.
 When I came back from church, we discovered that the youth were now preparing for the meeting at about two o'clock.  When I passed by the shops a soldier's hippo was driving by, it had four boys on the top.
 And when I looked, I saw Sipho among them.  I shouted, I said, Sipho where are you going to?  And he just gave me a sign, he said, mom, we will come back.  That was the last time I saw my son alive.
 When he was telling me that we will come back.  I went back  home with the children, we enjoyed our lunch and thereafter we went to the meeting that was going to be held.
 When we arrived at the meeting, it was already in the middle, the proceedings were in the middle and I looked around and I saw a lot of boys I knew, but Sipho wasn't among them.
 The meeting on that day was not a political meeting, it was just a meeting to give the community a feedback on the demands they put forward to the Government.  They wanted clinics to be built and Chandema, they wanted extension of classrooms, they wanted the cemetery to be corrected.
 In the middle of the meeting a boy came, he was among 
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the group of four men on the hippo and he whispered to the leadership of the civic and one of the leaders stood up to make an announcement saying the hippo that was driving by, was now involved in  an accident.
 I had the only child Sipho, I don't have any other child.  As I was standing there, another one came to me and said mom, let's go to Chilizene, the boys are injured and I got the shock of my life.
 We left for Chilizene and on our arrival at Chilizene, I saw all of them that were injured, I even saw the soldiers that were driving the hippo, but I couldn't see my son.
 And when I asked the nurses not even one of them wanted to look me straight into the eyes.  Even the ones I knew, they didn't want to give me an answer, they didn't want to look me into the eyes and I waited outside, I wanted to see what was going to be the end of this whole story.
 As I was sitting waiting, Doctor Mawashe, got out driving a car, Sipho was in the car and I was told that we are going to take him for X-Rays.  And I was told that I'd never see him again and it is true, I never saw him.
 I can't tell you how was I transported back home, I do not really know.  I only regained consciousness when I was at home.  My husband was left behind at the hospital.
 When he came back in the afternoon, he had in his possession Sipho's clothes, that were torn, that were full of blood.  He gave me a parcel that was wrapped in a tissue paper, it was Sipho's teeth.  I didn't know what to do and I said to him, what happened.  You give me Sipho's clothes.
 The youth went away to search for a helicopter to take Sipho somewhere.  It is true, they went together with Sipho to Garankua.
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 The next day, it was on a Monday when he came back, he gave me a word of assurance, he said Sipho will be alive, but because I am a parent, I didn't want to believe this.
 On Tuesday I took public transport and went straight to Garankua and I couldn't get it right, because they were always giving me promises, saying you will see him.
 He was in a coma from the 27th until he died on the 6th of June.  He wasn't speaking, he wasn't looking at you.  He was just laying there, quiet.  But I had this hope that my child will live.
 I came back home and the youth from the civic went to get Ramoswana.  They wanted him to give them advice.  He took out his Government car and he said they should take me to Garankua.  I went to Garankua accompanied by the civic people accompanied by the young men of this area and those who were sympathising with me, we went to see my son.
 When we arrived at Garankua, my son was in the intensive care unit, nobody was allowed to see him.  But we pleaded with them to give us permission to see him and they allowed us to see him.
 After seeing him, I had this feeling in me that Sipho will never be alive, he's going to die, but people were sympathising with me, telling me that he will be just fine.
 From the 1st of June until the 5th of June, I was phoning the hospital every day and they were telling me that Sipho will be fine, but on the 5th before I could go to bed, I phoned and another nurse said to me, I want to tell you the truth.
 Sipho is not going to make it.  On the 6th of June in the morning, Sipho was found dead.  People came to help me until I buried my son, but the thing that is most disturbing VENDA HEARING TRC/NORTH WEST
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is this one. 
 Sipho left me with a wife, this is his wife and he left two children behind.  This wife is at school and she is my burden and the children are my burden and Sipho was just killed.
 My husband is here, he lost his job in 1991 because the death of Sipho troubled him.  He is a sickly person today, he is always at the hospital, he's got epilepsy.  When I requested the Doctors to give me an explanation, they said he is diabetic.  I think this affected his heart.
 The second point that is troubling me is this one.  Muntso is a policeman, that is his own business.  He is doing his job, I don't mind, but he came to my house as a friend of my husband.  But on that day when he came to give me a notice that my son is going to die, he never set his foot again in my house.
 I am requesting the Truth  Commission to help me.  I want Muntso, wherever he is, I am pleading with him and I believe he wasn't alone in this thing, he must come up together with all the people he was with and maybe my heart will be at peace.
 Even if I have peace with my heart, I will never forget one thing in my life, the death of my son.