Human Rights Violation Hearings — Umtata — 1996-06-18

CHAIRPERSON: The next witness is Teddy Williams. Please take the stand.

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: (sworn states)

CHAIRPERSON: Over to you Mr Sandi.

MR SANDI: Mr Williams ...(indistinct) and even today when we were talking this morning you stated that you have a long history to give to the extent that you would like to touch and highlight the most important details about your history, is that so. I'd request you to briefly give us details about what happened so that you can give us all the things that you know about, just tell us the highlights and briefly state everything that you think is most important. I would like you especially to explain on everything that you think is very important to you.

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: Firstly, I would like to thank and express my pleasure to have this opportunity to come here so that I do not hibernate and bottle up all the pain that I have endured for all these years. I'd like also to thank all the people who gave me support and those who have took the initiative so that we are here today and have these hearings. I would also like to thank the people of South Africa for giving support to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There is a lot I could have like to have said but I know it would - I could compile a book, would sleep and wake up again but I will try to be as brief as much as possible so that I do not bore you with all the details. Some of the things I won't state - in short, I would like to speak in English so that I can express myself as much as possible because I know that I could do that properly if I express myself in English. In 1953 at old location - Witbank, under the name of Teddy Edward Williams, my grandmother was Alice Cockrell and the father Teddy Williams Mwase. Some of my parents to the name of my grandfather and then they called themselves Williams. The others remain as Mwase. We stayed or had a home at Alexandra Township - 6th Avenue, this is where I grew up until my parents divorced and my mother was given custody of the children. I came here in the Transkei in 1964. I grew up in the Transkei under my mothers care, schooled in Transkei and then in 1970 I went to Johannesburg, Soweto. I was in the strike at Clugberry Institution that protested against the ill-treatment by the authorities there. We were taken to Ngobo and some of us were questioned, some where just beaten up or given lashes, this is where I started to have doubts about the present authorities.
 Being fed up with the life around I went to Soweto, Johannesburg to look for a job, despite the fact that I had a scholarship, I don't know whether this was a calling or what. I have a free scholarship to continue my education. I had completed Std. 8 in Clugberry and went to Soweto. At Soweto my parents, my father's sisters and brothers encouraged me to continue schooling. I went to Coronationville High School, even there I wasn't satisfied with schooling, I dropped school at Std. 9 and went to work at the Trust Bank Centre - I was one of those who were lucky to be employed there and later I got a job, the it latest was at Westvaal as a Stainer, relieving another white man there. From there on ...(intervention)

MR SANDI: Sorry Mr Williams, can I ask you to confine your self to the issues, if I may put it that way, I would like you to start off by telling us about the time you got involved in political activities and which organisations those were, then you go on to tell us about the time when you left the country for exile and the problems you encountered when you were in exile - after the time you came back. Thank you.

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: While I was working at Westvaal I was already involved in many underground discussion groups, I used to discuss with some Sasol BPC, Sazim and some ANC Members, underground because all these organisation, especially the ANC and the PAC were suppressed, they were underground. As the youth were a group of young workers and students we tried to create an organisation to challenge the system, we felt that these organisations which existed didn't have the power, they were incapacitated they were scared to challenge the system, wanted to create and organisation that would match the system we were with Jefferson Langani, Nlasi Siki

MR SANDI: Sorry Mr Williams, which organisation was this?

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: It was the South African Renaissance Party. We felt that it was sort of reviving, we took this name Renaissance because we felt we were reviving something that was dying or dormant or dead so we preferred to call it the South African Renaissance Party. Unfortunately we couldn't continue, we found out that we were being surveyed, I was staying at 697 Jabulani and we discovered sometime that there was already a policeman in one of the corner streets and another street again, then we had this friend of ours who was an ANC member, Jabulani mea, he organised ...(intervention)

MR SANDI: Sorry, Mr Williams, I hope you don't mind me interrupting you, I thought in your statement the name of the organisation was the South African Renaissance Movement - are you now saying that it was the South African Renaissance Party?

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: That's right, Movement / Party, I mean we didn't distinguish then between Party and Movement you see.

MR SANDI: Can you say very briefly what were the aims and objectives of that organisation were?

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: Mainly we didn't have actually our own ...(intervention)

MR SANDI: Thank you. Mr Williams, just to come back to you we were still at the stage where you were saying you were part of the group that set up the Organisation known as the South African Renaissance Party - in your statement I understand the aims of the Organisation were to mobilise and prepare students for what is going to happen in 1976, can you carry on from there?

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: We were not students as such, some of us were Workers like myself like another one who died in Lesotho was affectionately called "Marks" he was once a student at Morris Isaacson his full name is Batelomay Goodman Umvula. He was a worker like myself, a young worker we had student friends of course, like Tichi Masamini and so one those were our friends, we used to advise them as to what to do and so on but let me say now, what happened as we saw that we were being surveyed, I will just try to be short you see, as we saw that we were being surveyed we felt insecure and then we decided instead of trying to form a that thing - the new Organisation which will end up like the African National Congress or the PAC - let us join one of these Organisations so our ideas were basically those of the African National Congress because we had African National Congress groups with us from a member of the African National Congress - that is Jabulani Mia - he is the one who introduced us to Chris Hani, he had an arrangement - he first talked to Chris Hani while he was in Lesotho he came back and made an arrangement with us that we should skip the country if we feel insecure - he wanted the whole group of us to skip but then we couldn't group at once and go to him. We felt this would lead to danger, you see we would be imperiled. We decided to skip in groups. Some of up went to Chris Hani, some of decided to skip on our own because there was some who had tried to skip and got arrested. So I skipped with a group and we managed to reach that thing in exile safe. The Police tried to catch us in Swaziland but we managed to evade them. We reached the Swaziland and the Swaziland authorities the then Commissioner and Defence Minister Dhlamini forced us to join the PAC while we were looking around for the ANC, he said they would lock us up or deport us and send us back to South Africa.