Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-02

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: We started with Da Gama but because time had moved against us we had to abandon that one.  The first attack ended up being the Highgate Hotel.

MS COLLETT: Can you explain the circumstances to the Commission?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: I can explain.

MS COLLETT: Go ahead.

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: We moved from Friday after having - having arrived at Mdantsane on the Thursday we moved from Friday morning.  We put out arms in a bag, we moved to the Highway terminus, we boarded a taxi going to Mount Ruth.  This taxi carries about five people and we too were five.  When we embarked it was full, the driver came an he drove.
	Along the way to Mount Ruth there was a place that used to be a nursery where people buy pot plants and trees as you are facing Mount Ruth.  We told the driver to stop and alight from the car, truly he did so because he saw the guns we had pointing at him.  
	Our own driver tried to drive the car but it would not start.  We then called the driver back to come and drive for us.  We then proceeded to Da Gama.  When we got there we noted that the bus had already gone into the yard.  We turned back.  
	We used a black road behind the railway line going to that intersection going to the Nahoon Dam that joins the road we were using at the freeway.  We stopped there waiting for that school bus that carries school kids.  It did not arrive.  We then realised that our time might have been against us.  
	During that process a panel van Volkswagen old kombi arrived, it had two white people who were men.  As it was at the stop sign stopping there, Africa Kid Andile George alighted and shot at the minibus or kombi.  As that process was unfolding we saw a black man who had been hit from behind.  
	He ran trying to go to Mdantsane station.  We followed Kid so that he could come back into the car so that we could leave.  We left the car at six about works and we gave the driver about R20 and told him to leave.  We left and went to other ama Africa at the shacks at six.

MS COLLETT: Yes, and then?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: When we left there we went to the highway, it was late now.  I would not remember the time precisely but it was quite late.  When we got to the highway trying to get transport we realised that instead of highjacking a car let us use a taxi going to 14.  We boarded this taxi with other people.
	People were alighting along the way, along the way.  When the driver was alone with us we pointed our guns to the driver and told him, commandeered the taxi in essence.  The driver drove according to our instructions.  When we were about near the corner of the old deport that is the no more a depot, a driver saw an oncoming kombi.  
	Our driver went into that one, drove his kombi into this other one.  We also ran out of the car afte he had left the car and we went through the,  near to the depot.
	We went over the depot, next to the depot.  That's where we saw a Ford Sierra that was a station wagon.  It had stopped in a house that was a shebeen.  We resolved to go and try to get that Ford Sierra from that house.  We went in, myself, Africa Kid.  I cannot remember the third person. 
	We forced the people to lie down and asked who the driver of the car was.  He was pointed out and we demanded the keys and he told us the keys are at the room.  We went with him, me and Africa Kid, to that room.  There was one Africa at the door.  In the room we told him that we want keys and he told him that we want keys.  
	Someone who was a police was there.  We told him: "Guy we know you are a policeman but we don't want you to disturb us".  Indeed he gave us the keys but because we had seen this policeman we kind of realised we would not reach our destination.  Let us take this one so that they cannot follow us from behind thinking that this one may be hurt, the original driver of the car.  Indeed we took him to the car.  
	At the yard of the house me and himself, he reversed the car out of the ...[indistinct].  Other Africans also came and we then left.  We forced him out of the car near about Berlin.  We left him there and we came back to Mdantsane and we filled with petrol at Mobil and we went to town intending going to the bar at the station in town but we went via Cambridge.
	But when we were passing the Highgate Hotel we noted that the Highgate Hotel was full, kind of there was a disco thing on.  We went to make that u-turn at the station, railway station and we came back.  The car was now facing Mdantsane.  Africa Dumisane Ncamazana was at the side of the hotel, he prepared the rifle grenade and he hit.  
	I do not know what the driver did what, perhaps he may have been loose with his clutch control and the car moved a bit and the rifle grenade hit the wall and we then left.

MS CORLETT: Yes, and where did you go?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: We dumped the car at six, we wiped off the our fingerprints and left it there and went to my house and slept.

MS COLLETT: And the following day?