Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-11-03

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Yes that is correct.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Am I correct to say that you are - you have just about a month and half been released from prison, have been just granted amnesty for activities of APLA?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: That is correct.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Mr Buthelezi, you have heard Mr Malefane testifying here before this Committee, telling the Committee about his meeting with Mabena at former, the late President of PAC's welcome party  ...(indistinct).  Can you tell the Committee what do you know about Mabena yourself, whether this person was a member of PAC or not or role, in capacity was he in PAC, if he was a member of PAC or APLA?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Mabena was a member of APLA, he was coming from exile and he was a trained soldier, fully trained soldier.  We were in the same unit in Tanzania.  He was a commissar within the very same unit, that is how I know him.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Did you at any stage meet him inside the country?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Yes that is correct, we met whilst I was still inside the country and outside the country.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Okay.  My last question Mr Buthelezi, do you know anything about Mabena with regard to this incident at Stilfontein mine and Mr Malefane and what do you know if there is anything you know about it?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Yes I do know Mabena, he was operating in the country but with regard to the Stilfontein incident, there is absolutely no light I can shed but what I know is that before he was killed or before he died in 1974 he told us about a certain person who was recruited ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I think the date, he said 1974, 1994 yes.  It came across as '74.

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: During 1994.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry to have interrupted you Mr Buthelezi, if you could just repeat that.  You say before he was killed in 1994?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: He did intimate to me because whilst we were still in South Africa, we belonged to one unit and I was the commander of that unit and he was a logistics officer.  He pointed out to me that there is a certain member of the party that they met at Zeph Mothopeng's welcome party and wanted some money and he heard that that member had already been arrested and he was sentenced to death so he asked us to go and hijack or he wanted some reinforcement to go and hijack those Africans when they were attending court but we never discussed that any further because he was shot at a later stage and we did not know him or we did not know that he was involved in the Stilfontein operation until such time that I met him when I was given a 64 year sentence during 1995 and proceeded to the Johannesburg prison.  When the PAC leadership came to visit us, that's how we came to know him.  He introduced himself to us saying he was Phillip Faizel Malefane and Mabena is also from Khatlehong and also asked me as to whether I knew Mabena.  I said yes but he has since died.  He further explained to me that they tried to rob some money in order to fund raise for Mabena to train other members of the PAC in the Transkei, that's when he got arrested and he was shot.  That is as far as I know about him.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Will I be correct, Mr Buthelezi, by saying to you that he never told you that he gave an order, Mr Malefane, to go to Stilfontein, the only thing he told you was that - told you about a member of the party who has been arrested and you didn't know the circumstances?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Yes that is correct.

MR MBANDAZAYO: That is all, Mr Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MBANDAZAYO

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Mbandazayo.  Mr Mpshe, do you have any questions to ask the witness?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Was Mr Mabena a commander of any unit?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: I was the commander of the unit.  He was a logistics officer.  Mabena came into the country first, that is during 1990.  Could you please repeat your question?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Was Mabena a commander of any unit?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Yes he was once a commander in another unit.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Which unit?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: I do not know the unit or how they called it.  Maybe I just clarify this.  When we came back into the country as exiles we do not trust each other and people were conducting their own operations under certain names but Letlape was the director of operations but each and every unit had to report to Letlape.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Yes, but you know he was a commander of a unit?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Yes I do know that.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Now which unit was he a commander of?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: While we were still outside the country, he was the commander of our own unit and when we came back I became the commander of a certain or a specific unit.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: This unit of which he was a commander and you took over, was it an offensive unit or a defensive unit or a repossessing unit?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: It was an offensive unit.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: What was it's operations, it's activities?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: It was to kill policemen.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Would a defensive - I mean, sorry Mr Chairman, would an offensive unit carry out a repossession unit operation?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Yes it can do that because it depended upon the commander of that unit.  If there was a need for them to carry out such an operation, as a guerilla he could use his own discretion to issue out such a command or instruction.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: In 1991, particularly July 1991, who was the commander of that offensive unit?  Was it still Mabena or yourself, let me be direct with you?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: I think you do not understand me at some point, we lost each other.

CHAIRPERSON: I think so and I got a little bit lost as well, what Mr Buthelezi said was that Mr Mabena, when they were abroad was a commander of a unit of which he was a member, then they both came back to South Africa at different times and when he came back he was a member of a unit and Mr Mabena was a logistics officer.  I don't know if it was the same unit that existed overseas that came here.  Maybe you can ask on that but I think that's where the confusion has come in.  And also whether Mr Mabena was in Mr Buthelezi's own unit as a logistics officer or in a different one.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Right, thank you Mr Chairman.
	Did you belong to a unit, let's go outside, when you're outside the country.  Did you belong to a unit which was headed by Mr Mabena?  We're outside the country now.

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: Outside South Africa, the situation was like this.  We had a platoon which represented plus minus 33 people.  He was the commander of that specific unit.  Then when we came back to South Africa, we trained other members, members of the task force.  That is when he got to be a logistics officer and I became a commander of the very same unit.  We were the only two people who were trained and the other ones were civilians.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: So when you came back into the country you became the commander of the same unit which was commanded by Mabena outside, am I correct?

CHAIRPERSON: The unit abroad had thirty three members, he said here they only had two.  When they were in Tanzania there were thirty three in the platoon who were trained.  The one I understand, he can correct me if I'm wrong, then they came back and only two of those thirty three landed up in this unit, that is Mr Buthelezi, the commander and Mabena the logistics officer and they trained people.  The other thirty one no doubt went elsewhere so it wasn't the same thirty three that came to Transkei.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Alright, we're in the country, inside the country, you are now the commander okay?  How many members did you have in that unit in the country?

SHAKESPEARE THAMI BUTHELEZI: We were six.