Human Rights Violation Hearings — Port Elizabeth — UNKNOWN

WITNESS: Thank you, Chairperson.  I am going to start where I want to start.  Unfortunately I will not be able to start with Thozama's story because this is my very first time for me to be given the opportunity to talk about this and cry about it.  I would like to start here in front of this Commission if that will not disturb you.  If you give me that permission, thank you very much.
My name is Nombulelo Mani.  I was born in Korsten.  My father is Luthuli Mani.  He was very much involved in politics.  Our father used to tell us about politics especially the volunteers who are now called marshals.  Now you can imagine when you are born in a house that is so politicised.  Even in your own lives you would leave exactly the same way as you used to leave with your parents.  Thozama was killed by the boere.  I still have wounds of the apartheid era which I am so happy today to tell you.  Please bear with me.
The first person to die who was killed because of the apartheid period was Mtimkulu in 1985.  He was a journalist in Johannesburg.  He used to work for World.  He was stabbed by people who were sent by Charles Sebe.  The funeral was on 7 January 1966 and the MC was Besi Gqoboza, he used to work at the Herald.  
Because we were not so many at home, we were only three, I tried for him to be buried in Johannesburg.  That was my first wound.  Because I was the one who was taking care of all this I tried not to tell my parents.  My brother was in King William's Town busy with the politics again.  When we came back in 1972 after burying my brother we saw policemen who had clothes which had blood stains.  We were told that my uncle was being brought back who had been killed at Robben Island in 1972.
The third instant, in 1980 my youngest brother, Mgcini, was also shot by boere at Daku.  That was the time of the unrest.  That was the time when busses used to be thrown stones at.  He was knocked down by a bus and his brains were scattered on the ground.  The things that the boere used to do at the time were quite painful.  I still have those feelings inside of me.
When I am talking about Thozama the wound is very deep in me.  In 1980 I found myself reporting.  Now I started being a journalist.  I was now a reporter of the Evening Post.  I started during November, the Guy Fox day.  I was from work at that time.  I used to feel quite hurt when I used to see small children being shot at.  
Children would just be playing Guy Fox, just burning tyres in a playful manner.  I took a letter to Trevor because I was very angry because of the children who were killed just for playing around in the streets.  I wrote a story and I took it to the Evening Post.  Fortunately or unfortunately the person who was there at that time was Trevor Bisseker who was very impressed.  He wanted me to keep on writing.  At the time when the journalists were not allowed to go into the townships funerals turned out at that time to be mass funerals because they as Whites were not allowed to come to the townships.  I was then used to go into the townships.  At that time there was an organisation by students called PESCO.  That time is was not COSAS yet.  I am sure now that these students were taken up.  I used to take reports for the Evening Post for people like Andile Yawa, Bantjie Klaas, Mzolisi, Nontlokwana, some of these kids went abroad.  I was doing a clerical job at that time but in the evening I would take some stories because I did not want the people to see what I was actually doing.  Nobody trusted me at that time.  On days when they would go to meetings Thozama was 15 years old.  If you would report the story exactly the story as it was the youth would like you very much.  At that time Jimmy Matyu was overseas.  He was on accumulative leave for three months.  
Trevor Bisseker asked me to report for the Evening Post and they were impressed by the work that I did.
Another meeting which was held here at Centenary before Centenary was this beautiful students were complaining that they wanted this kind of education that exists today.  When I was just about singing a song, my daughter, I looked at her, my daughter, Thozama, when we started to sing this song, "Mhlazibuyayo" which means "When they are coming back", I looked at her.  Even the way she sang this song I could see that she was not here.  That was the time she was beginning to be aware of politics.
When we come to her death, I am trying to tell the history of the politics that came to affect Thozama, my daughter.  At the time Thozama was doing Std 9 or 8 when she was 15.  She went to Vista University in 1985.  Because at home it was only myself, Thozama and my mother, most of the people were dead by that time, it looked like we would not be able to give her money for education.  She had to go and find work.  She found a clerical job in 1987.  Mrs Fawa helped me out and I am very grateful to her.  At that time Thozama was going to do her second year at UCT.  
She got a job as a clerk.  She came back saying, "Sisi, I was told that I was going to get a bursary."  She was everything to me.  She was my daughter, she was my sister, she was my friend, she was my advisor as well.  She was very brilliant and she was very beautiful.  She was a very kind person.  She was a peace-loving person.  When I say she was advisor, sometimes she wound, when I usually blow my top, she would not answer me.  She would just say, "Sisi, Koliswa was here."  My mother then says, "You mean that one who did not borrow me money yesterday?"  I would just say, "She said she missed you a lot."  What I am trying to say to you is that I learnt a lot from her.
Coming to her death.  Thozama had an affair with Mzolisi Dyasi when this happened.  It is the incident that Dr Maqina was quoting.  Because they did not know it Thozama met the cadres through Mzolisi.  The boere arrested Mzolisi but were actually looking for the cadre.  They tortured Mzolisi in prisons.  They found some information that the real person who would know everything would be Thozama.  They got this information through bribery.  Thozama was given half day off on that day.  When I came back on that day I found that she had been here and she was cooking but she was not in.  So I thought maybe she is not far off.  
When it was in the afternoon, when it became early evening, I wondered what happened to Thozama.  We slept without Thozama.
The following morning I went to work and I thought this is not like Thozama.  At that time she was quite exited about the job she got.  I went to work.  I met one of my colleagues.  Her name is Nomtu Luzipho.  I told her about my worry.  I said, "Nomtu, I do not know what happened to my child."  I did not have a car at that time.  Nomtu had a car at that time.  She knew what kind of people we were at home.  Then we went to Le Grange.  When we got there she was not there.  Then we went to Mzolisi and we were told that she was not there either.  We went up and down for about three weeks, going to Le Grange for so many times and we were told she is not there.  On the third week, now it was during the week, when I got home, because I used to just come in at home at any time during the day, I saw Thozama.  She was very pale and she was very nervous.  She was a bit dirty.  She was not the Thozama we used to know.  I asked, "Where are you from?"  She said, "Please Mama, come over here.  I am from Le Grange."  Quickly she briefed me.  She showed me marks on her wrists, that is where they put electricity on her wrist, the torture she had gone through.  
She told me that she had to go and hide because the policemen were coming back again.  She told me that she did not want the policemen to find her at home.  I said, "No, do not go."  Then she told me, "No, Sisi, I have to go."  I gave her a photo of a person who usually pray for us.  I said, "Go my child, I am going to pray for you."  I gave her money.  She took a few clothes and she left.  She used to come back to me but she would not go to work.  She would just come home, take a few clothes and leave again.  At that time they used to call this "scattering".
Three weeks later when we were still asleep I was with my mother, she is very old, my mother is suffering from high blood pressure, at that time it was not so serious.  While I was still asleep I heard the shattering of windows, the breaking down of doors.  My mother asked, "What is going on?"  It was around midnight or 01h00.  We were still staying at Kwazakhele at that time.  When I looked out I could see that all the doors were broken.  I was still in my pyjamas then.  I do not usually show my emotions immediately.  I have what is called a delayed response.  They blinded me with a torch.  I said to him, "Look, just switch on.  Just behind you there is a switch, you can just witch it on."  I said that in English.  "Just behind you there is a plug.  Just switch on the plug and do not use the torch."  
I had electricity though in Kwazakhele there was no electricity amongst these other houses.  There were more than 30 boere in the house.  They were wearing soldiers attire.  It was only after they had left that I started to respond to this shock.   My shock started at that time.  I had a large poster of a freedom charter but it was hidden under my bed.  They said to me they were looking for Thobeka.  I said, "No, it is not Thobeka, it is Thozama."  I said, "The person who lives here is Thozama and she is my daughter.  She has been at Le Grange.  She has been there and has not come back."  We argued.  I said, "I am supposed to be the one who is supposed to come to you and look for her, from you."  They did not search much, but they thought I am innocent.  After they left I took that freedom charter and everything else that was written ANC on it and I burnt everything.  
Thozama arrived the following day at the time she estimated that I would be at the house.  I told her what happened the previous night.  She packed everything that was hers.  Then I said I was going to arrange for her to get money from me.  I made these arrangements through my friend.  I do not know if Koliswa is here in this house, but the part that she played during that time, during the illness and torture of my child, was enormous.  
Koliswa Skweyiya used to own that shop which is now called "Pink Huis" at Zwede.  When this started it was around July 1987.  By now I was already used to it, but that was just the first visit of these boere.  only two days would skip and they would come back again and ask for her and I would say that she is not back yet.  Later they realised I was lying.  Even now my door, we had to fix that door so many times because when they came they would just break the doors.  Whenever they came in they would make this noise on my window and knock consistently on my window until the morning.  Sometime they would through in something that would make me cough.  I would tell my mother not to make any kind of noise so that they would not know that we were inside.  My mother then got sick.  She could not see anymore.  She was now diagnosed to have diabetes.  At time I still had to work.  I was an insurance broker at that time.  Even though I did not have a car I would go and see my mother in hospital and I would go back and sleep in this house that I am so afraid of.  I was so afraid that these boere would come and find me alone.  Nobody would let me sleep in their houses.  I was so isolated at that time.  I had no one to turn to in that whole street.  The person who had just said here somebody used to switch off electricity in a certain area was telling the truth.  I left Kwazakhele.
Now trying to make this story short, they harassed me for so long.  Sometimes they would continue knocking consistently on the glass for a whole night until the morning.  They would put something through.  One friend, I can still remember, I used to say to her, "I do not want to go back to my house because I was so scared."  I would pretend as if I do not want to go out when it was so late and yet I was just afraid of my house.  Eventually I would go back to my house because I was even afraid that they would rape me.  I had one wish that something which was going to shut this thing up and close everything up.  I had that wish.  My daughter was so strong.  I was just trying to think about my daughter, the well-being of my daughter.  I tried to give her money through Koliswa.
During some time in August one of my cousins, she was a daughter to my mother's sister, I was told now that Nombulelo was a go between myself and my daughter.  I said, "Why can I not send money to Thozama?"  We were both Nombulelo.  Nombulelo is working at SANDF at that moment.  Thozama used to write to me.  I remember those boere arrived once when Thozama had written me a letter.  In that letter she used to tell me what she had bought for herself.