Human Rights Violation Hearings — Mabopane — 1997-05-08

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you very much. Mr Ntsoko  your statement is very clear, so I'm not going to ask him any questions, just on your last point, people may remember that last year the political parties, including the National Party, which was the government that you are referring to, the former government, also made a submission on the role of the National Party during this period you are looking at 1960 to now 1994.
  Next week starting on Monday all the political parties are being recalled. The present party that's in government, the ANC, also the National Party, also the PAC, maybe Inkatha and many questions are going to be put to these political parties and particularly to the former government, the National Party on it's role in gross human rights violations and the responsibility that it has to take for the whole system of apartheid and the consequences and, I'm sure that in the process many questions that people like yourselves want to ask, will be asked about it's role and the way in which people did have their lives destroyed and their futures destroyed, so hopefully there will be some of the answers which many people have posed. But what I'm interested in, is to understand how in 1960 somebody who was still very young at the time, who said you were in std 7, so I would imagine that you were what, 14, 15 years old, 18 years old at the time.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: I was about 17 or 18 .

RUSSELL ALLY: How is it that you became involved at that young age, especially at the time when it was in the 1960's. We know that it was very difficult times, people didn't just readily get involved in politics, unlike later in the 70's and 80's. What led to you becoming politically involved?

SHIKO J NTSOKO: I had no problems to involve myself in politics. Maybe it's your thinking that tells you that one couldn't join politics at that age at that time. Every person when he grows up has his aims. When I was a student I used to see some of the things that was not supposed to happen to me, that is why I said, when Mr Brozidsky came to us we showed him a student that there was a laboratory where they could conduct some practicals, their were no chemicals, we didn't know about chemicals like sodium chloride that is ordinary salt that you use at home. You wouldn't know, one didn't know how to use the sodium chloride to improve some of the things that you were supposed to improve and one other thing is that there was another room  that as big as half of this hall and you wouldn't even find a book in that hall and it was regarded as a library, and as an intelligent person I could see that those things were wrong. Even when you had aims, even if you were small we had problems as parents that younger children can do anything for themselves. Even if you are young, you have aims.
 If I can tell you the truth, when I promised my parents of being a doctor, I was 12 years old. What I'm happy about for is that part of what I wanted to do, one of my son is, one of my son followed what I wanted to do, he had a degree of what I wanted to study, that what makes me happy. Maybe he has fulfilled one of the promises that I made to my father, because one of my son has a degree of what I intended to become. So you can see that there is always a challenge in life, even if you are young.  
 It's not only that you have to listen to your parents, even a child has his own intentions or objectives in life.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you for that. In your statement and I'm going to read from your statement and maybe you can just elaborate on this if you want to. You say your detention happened at the time that the National Party was the ruling government. Then you go on to say we  were planning to overthrow the ruling government by blowing up the main power station and other government buildings.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: Yes, that was our aim. At that time we were a youth organization that didn't belong to any party, we were just small children and we had an aim that we were going to blow up Pretoria Power Station. It was true. If those things didn't happen to us, we were really going to blow that power station.

CHAIRPERSON: Silence please, silence please,silence, thank you.

RUSSELL ALLY: And do you think that the police found out about this here and that's why they picked you and a few of your other people up with you?

SHIKO J NTSOKO: Yes, there is that possibility, because everywhere where there is progress there is always a bad element. Maybe one of us informed them of our intentions, because they arrested on the day when we were supposed to blow that police, power station. It is possible that the police knew.

RUSSELL ALLY: (indistinct)... were in detention, was that one of the questions when they were interrogating you, that they wanted an answer to.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: No, they didn't ask me anything, they just started to beat me up. At that time I was didn't do any wrong to them. I was telling them the truth.
  At that time those police were not so intelligent because if you had better paper than them , they would hit you. They were not so intelligent, so as to question you and change maybe your aims, they thought we wanted to take the government from the boss and that's the kind of questions they used to ask, which I refer to as stupid questions.
  They wouldn't ask you any question, they would just tell you that you want to overthrow the government. If they could have asked me questions before they hit me I would say yes, because that was our aim.

RUSSELL ALLY: And after this incident, did you continue to be visited by the police, was there any harassment or what happened after you were released?

SHIKO J NTSOKO: I don't think I was released because after that I got married and after getting married I was employed at Isando. I was supposed to report at Kempton Park police station after I was alighting from the train at Pretoria police station I had to go to Pretoria police station.
 It was an everyday event or everyday routine until they were satisfied that I am not belonging to any organization, but at the present moment I belong to the organization, I only refrain to that everything can be normal again.

CHAIRPERSON: No applause is allowed in this hearing, please quiet and listen, enjoy what you hear, but no applause is allowed in the hearing. Thank you so much, continue please.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: After reporting to this police stations, I was accompanied by my wife, because we were working at one place. This caused me to be around at home, because they told me I that wasn't supposed to move where I wanted to and not be accompanied by more than 7 people. In the 5 years that I stayed with my wife she didn't enjoy her marriage years. She started enjoying her marriage life when all this stopped, when I stopped reporting to this police station and that is where we started having our first born.

RUSSELL ALLY: Was this for 5 years that this continued, these visits that you (indistinct).

SHIKO J NTSOKO: Yes, I was visiting this police station for those 5 years, because it was still the former government by then.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you very much Mr Ntsoko, I don't have any more questions Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Seroke.

MRS SEROKE: When you intended to blow the power station, had you been trained on the explosives?

SHIKO J NTSOKO: Most of us were doing scientific subjects at school, our science subjects and there was some other things that we were going to use, that we discovered. I don't want to mention where we got those chemicals. We had them and we were going to blow that power station with those chemicals, because in politics if you are in the struggle you have to find means to use anything at your disposal to achieve your aims.

MRS SEROKE: You said that Mr Magobe who used to harass you was your fathers best friend.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: Yes he was.