Amnesty Hearings — White River — 2000-05-04

MR VAN DER HEYDE: Mr Chairperson, I'm just going to put something to Mr Seemise, and I'm going to leave it at that.
	Mr Seemise, are you aware that Mr Napoleon Mkhonza and Dingaan Maluleke have been indicted by the Attorney-General or the Director of Prosecutions, to stand trial for certain things that happened in Kwadela in Davel?  Do you know about that?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes, I do.

MR VAN DER HEYDE: In fact you were going to be one of the chief State witnesses at the trial.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes.

MR VAN DER HEYDE: The trial should have started in July 1998, the morning when the trial was due to start, you told the Director of Prosecutions that you do not want to testify anymore against Mr Mkhonza and Mr Maluleke, is that right?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: No, that's not correct.

MR VAN DER HEYDE: Well I put it on record that the State has withdrawn their charges against these people on the grounds that you were not ready to testify.  In any case, it is my clients' instructions that they wish to deny any versions that you put, where you implicate them and at this stage they are not willing to testify.  Thank you, Mr Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VAN DER HEYDE

CHAIRPERSON: Yes thank you, Mr van der Heyde.  I assume you don't have any comment on that, Mr Seemise.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: What I can say about testifying, the truth is I am willing to testify against them, but in Court the police who were responsible, taking statements, kept on changing.  Sometimes I will be transferred to Ermelo and sometimes to another police station, and we were not given a reason why we were transferred.  I was transferred from Pretoria to Ermelo and then again from Ermelo to Pretoria, but I was not told why.  But I was always willing to give testimony about these incidents.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  Does that conclude your points?

MR VAN DER HEYDE: It does.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr van der Heyde.  Ms Mohammed.

UNKNOWN: Mr Chairman, in the light of the full disclosure made by the applicant, as well as the submissions made, the victims have decided to withdraw opposition to the application.  For what it's worth, Mr Chairman, the victims were not aware that the charges were withdrawn against the other implicated persons and certainly the matter will be taken up with the Attorney-General.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes thank you, Ms Mohammed, we've noted that.  Ms Mtanga, questions?

MS MTANGA: I have no questions for the applicant, Chairperson.
NO QUESTIONS BY MS MTANGA

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Ms Mtanga.

MR SIBANYONI: Mr Seemise, I didn't hear your comment on the statement, the last statement put by Mr van der Heyde, where he stated his clients deny any version you put implicating them.  What is your comment insofar as that is concerned?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: They are disputing that because it is a case and it is a crime, but I'm not making a mistake if I'm implicating them, I'm telling the truth, they were present.

MR SIBANYONI: Mr van der Heyde appears for the IFP.  In other words, if I understand you correctly you are saying the Black Cats were the youth organisation of the IFP at Ermelo and then they didn't say they are the IFP, they instead say they are Black Cats because they wanted to hide the fact that they are IFP.  Are you sure that they were really the IFP Youth Brigade?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: I am certain about that fact, because in a number of occasions, IFP leadership used to come and meet with the Black Cats, Themba Khoza for one, Alfred Ndlovu, they were coming from Gauteng to Ermelo to meet Black Cats members.

MR SIBANYONI: By Alfred Ndlovu, are you referring to Humphrey Ndlovu?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes, I'm referring to Humphrey Ndlovu.

MR SIBANYONI: Thank you, Mr Chairperson, I have no further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Seemise, can I just go back to the incident where Mrs Shongwe was shot and killed in her home by Israel Hlongwane.  Now you say that the order to execute that operation came from Noah.  I've got a difficulty to recall his surname, but would that be correct?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: The instruction to go to Davula, came from Mxobogazi, but the main person who pointed out the areas to attack was Mr Mkhonza, who was IFP Chairman in Davula.

CHAIRPERSON: We are talking at cross-purposes.  I am referring to - I'll tell you know what her first name is, I think it's Zini, but let me just make sure.  Yes, I'm talking about the incident that you deal with in paragraph 6.2 of your supplementary affidavit, Exhibit A, the killing of Mrs Zini Shongwe.  That incident.  Are you with me?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes, now I do understand.  Mxobogazi gave us this instruction to kill her.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it the sole reason that if you kill her there would be a funeral and her son would then attend the funeral and you would then be able to get to the son and kill him?  Is that what you understood to have been the reason why you had to kill Mrs Shongwe?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: That's how I understood it to be.

CHAIRPERSON: So there was nothing that Mrs Shongwe did that led to this decision to kill her, she's done nothing against the Black Cats or the IFP, if I understand you correctly.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: No, she didn't, but what I can recall is that she was an ANC member.

CHAIRPERSON: Did that play any part in the decision to kill her?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes, it did.

CHAIRPERSON: Assume you found the son at home, whom you were looking for, and the mother was also at home, would you have done anything to the mother?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: We were acting on instructions all the time.  If we found her son we would have killed her son, but the instruction came as that if we don't get hold of the son we must kill the mother.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because I'm trying to work out what was actually taking place.  Look, you said that Hlongwane was there before, the son wasn't there, Hlongwane didn't kill the mother and he went back to Noah and he went to report that the son wasn't there at home, not so?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: It is so.

CHAIRPERSON: So it seems as if the thinking was simply to use the death the death of this lady as a bait to lure her to get the son out, to come out from wherever he was.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes, one can say so because the instruction came like that.

CHAIRPERSON: Now you got to this house and now you find a lot of other people sitting drinking there, did you know any one of them?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: No, I didn't know them, I personally didn't know them.

CHAIRPERSON: You don't know whether they were politically active or not.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: No I didn't know.

CHAIRPERSON: They were basically sitting drinking in the shebeen, they were patrons of the shebeen, if I understand you correctly.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes, it is so.

CHAIRPERSON: And was there any indication that they had anything to do with this son that you were looking for?  This Mr Shongwe that you were looking for.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: No.

CHAIRPERSON: Now this idea of throwing the handgrenade, that happened on the scene there, if I follow your evidence.  Or do I misunderstand you?  I understand that you were saying that when you were there at the house, Hlongwane gave you the handgrenade and he told you, you will kill the mother and you must throw the handgrenade into the room where these patrols of the shebeen were being kept.

JOSIAS SEEMISE: Yes, that's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: If Hlongwane hadn't told you to do that, would you have done it?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: No, I wasn't going to do that, but Hlongwane was my Commander, so I was following his instructions.

CHAIRPERSON: Now in your view, did that throwing a handgrenade into this group of patrons of the shebeen, did that help your political struggle as the Black Cats/IFP, at all?

JOSIAS SEEMISE: No, it didn't help.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.  Mr Lubbe, any re-examination?

MR LUBBE: No, thank you Mr Chairperson.
NO RE-EXAMINATION BY MR LUBBE