Amnesty Hearings — Thohoyandou — 1999-07-14

MR VAN RENSBURG: Another apparently conflicting statement that you made regarding the deceased, I want your comment on please.  The first is that at two occasions yesterday you referred to the deceased or the person that you thought to be the deceased as a person who's senses had left him, do you remember that?

MR RAMASITSI: Well let me explain first.

MR VAN RENSBURG: We will give you an opportunity to explain, I just want find out if you remember that you testified like that?

MR RAMASITSI: No.

CHAIRPERSON: You can take my word for it, you did.

MR VAN RENSBURG: Thank Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Let's accept that you did say that, he was dismissed or what he said to you was dismissed as words of that of an unstable person or words to that effect.

MR RAMASITSI: Well I said that, I didn't actually say he was mad or referring or alluding ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I think it was something less than - you used words less than indicating that he was a madman, I think maybe you meant or used the word that he was silly or unstable of mind.

MR RAMASITSI: Yes.

MR VAN RENSBURG: And obviously the reason why you used those words was because no person in his right mind can take that man's words seriously and I think the words that were just used, his words was 'dismissed'.  That is the one allegation that you made, yet on the other hand you testified that at one instance this man with his sons dismissed a whole crowd, two to three hundred people single-handedly and you said that the girls were screaming and afraid and all that and obviously it eventually resulted that you did take his words seriously because you actually killed him.  No I just want your opinion on these two apparent contradictions.

MR RAMASITSI: Regarding what?

MR VAN RENSBURG: Regarding the fact that you said you dismissed these words on one side and then on the other hand you took his words so seriously that you actually killed him.

MR RAMASITSI: Well we denied or we disputed that because we were so surprised why when there was this political awareness, this person was quite ignoring, as if he didn't know anything.  If he knew that, what was the reason that he denied or disputed that.

MR VAN RENSBURG: Yes but can you perhaps explain to us what changed so that at one stage you dismissed his words and later on you took it seriously, you held meetings about it, you eventually killed him for that.  What has changed?

MR RAMASITSI: Well it is because we met this person and he was saying the fact that the toyi-toyiing is going to confuse him and he was maintaining that the country was his and it led us into meeting again at the mountain because this person was maintaining that he didn't want these political activities.

CHAIRPERSON: It isn't really what the witness is saying Mr van Rensburg that at the beginning they dismissed it and didn't take notice of it but the consistency with which the deceased approached them led to them taking it seriously.  He didn't use those words but he says, he gives the impression that that's what he means.

MR VAN RENSBURG: Ja that is all actually that I want from him is just an explanation Your Worship and I will accept that.  Okay let's continue, in your evidence you started off by saying that if you do not get rid of the witches you will never be really free.  And then all of a sudden in your testimony you stop talking about the witches and continued about the actions and your reactions thereon of the deceased...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: This is worrying us as well, before you carry on, his actual killing of Edward, the deceased and attack on his house, did that have anything to do with witchcraft or any related matter to witchcraft or traditional healing?  Put it that way.  Was there any relevance of that witchcraft or traditional healing and his killing?  Let's hear that because we're very interested in that.

MR RAMASITSI: What happened was that, when the deceased came to warn us and where we undermined that we thought that he was an ordinary person and an elderly person that when it went on and when we heard about the hit list we also suspected him as on of the persons who were to be eliminated from Mahvunga.  That is why we were able to know that he was not really supportive of us because he was really a witch.  What was said was quite a mouthful because there were quite a lot of different stories.  I was one of the people who used to work in his fields, we used to go there on a tractor with our loaf of bread so that it should help us during the day and we would drop something in a shed, the mealie meal used to be eaten on a daily basis ...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: Kindly try and control your client.  Everything he says should be interpreted by the interpreter. Give the interpreter a chance to interpret.

MR NDOU: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on.

MR RAMASITSI: Well I was still saying the deceased was suspected of witchcraft and I even want to mention that in such activities, like I'm saying here, I used to be one of the workers on the farm the referred farm.

CHAIRPERSON: Even if that was true, all I asked was that when he went to his death was that in any way connected with this belief that he was involved in witchcraft?

MR RAMASITSI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Why didn't you tell us that?

MR RAMASITSI: I could not say that.

CHAIRPERSON: You were asked to tell us why this man was killed, then you went through the whole story about how he interfered with you people, how he assaulted the girls, him and his sons, how he got the chief to get him a "trek pass" which he ignored and refused to act upon, how you people went to him over 45 hours, begged him to leave and then he attacked the crowd that surrounded his house, a crowd of about three thousand and they got cross and they started stoning him and a group of you then went about, in fact you then went to buy the petrol and the decision was made that he must be killed and his house burned.  You even were party to asking his family to leave because they were party to the problem.  Nowhere in that whole version did you tell us that one of the reasons at least for his demise was that he was regarded as a witch or wizard.

MR RAMASITSI: Well I said that because I was trying to maintain that we were not really looking for his witchcraft activities, it was only because he was barring us from all the political activities and we were able to realise that he was fighting against us in activities because we wanted the youth to realise that the activities were very important.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes Mr van Rensburg.

MR VAN RENSBURG: I put it to you Mr Ramasitsi that you wilfully mislead this Commission yesterday as to the reasons why you killed the deceased.

MR RAMASITSI: Well I was trying to explain that when the deceased finally met his fate he was not really co-operating with the community.  The main reason of this killing was not witchcraft-related, it was because he was fighting against the youth, because were toyi-toyiing, he was not really co-operating.

MR VAN RENSBURG: Ja you've just on several occasions told the chairman that witchcraft was involved in his killing, now I ask you, which role did it play in the killing of the deceased?

MR RAMASITSI: Well it is because whatever happened, we have those ideas, it seems we wanted freedom; when we wanted freedom in rural areas when there are people who were not really co-operating and we were suspecting, we knew that people were bewitched and it was quite visible, the fact that there were so many activities happening, suspicions in those days.

ADV DE JAGER: Did he bewitch anybody?

MR RAMASITSI: Yes?

ADV DE JAGER: Who did he bewitch?