Human Rights Violation Hearings — Umtata — 1996-06-20

ZOYISILE NELANI: Thank you Commissioner.  Firstly, I am going to talk about his birth.  Twalimfene Joyi was born through Dalunga Joyi.  There are three men here from Joyi family.
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They are all from the family tree of the Joyi's.  The first one is Mangaliswe Joyi, second is Dalagube Joyi, next one is now Twalimfene Joyi's father.  These are brothers.  
 Twalimfene became prominent especially as an orator especially regarding the political matters.  I can say that in our area he is the one, he was the leader in the campaigning of our political matters.  He was a member of the ANC such that during his presence all the men of my age at the time use to be his followers.  We use to believe quite a lot in what he use to say.  Earlier today the Commissioners heard from Mr Sigwela about Twalimfene Joyi's arrest.  He use to be arrested with them.  When he came back from Robben Island he was banned for two years.  This was now before his death.  During the time of his banning he got a job here in Umtata in the bus transport department.  That is where he use to work.
 Now on a certain day, it was during the weekend, Twalimfene was plastering a certain house at home.  He talked to Bangilizwe Joyi who was his older brother who use to have a tractor.  He asked for the tractor so that he can transport sand from the Basha River.  He did give it to him.  He was also given a driver to drive this tractor.  So they went on with the transporting of this sand.  At the time the Basha River was overflowing because of the rains that use to fall at that time.  When they came back it was wet.  The rain fell again just for a while.  He was walking on foot, the tractor was driven by this young boy. The tractor was a little bit far from the road.  When the Traffic Cops saw this tractor they came towards the tractor.  Apparently, when he saw the Traffic Cops he slowed down and the boy stopped the tractor and ran away.  
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 When the Traffic Cops saw that the boy has run away they went to him.  Now that is Twalimfene, the boy, Joyi.  Apparently these policemen were looking for him for a long time because there was no reason for these cops to go to him when he was not the driver of the tractor.  Now, apparently, this policeman followed him.  They went over the hill and then later bullet shots were heard by the people who were next to this place, but nobody actually realised what really happened.  This other policeman, in a mysterious way, he just left.  He asked the other boys where this tractor use to belong to.  So they were told that it belongs to the Chief's place.  So when they went to the Chief's house before this other one who went with Joyi came back.  This other policeman asked who was the driver of the tractor, but the way that he asked this question, he did not ask who was the driver of the tractor, he just asked who is your driver, Sir.  Now Chief Bangilizwe gave them Sobetwa's name who was the Chief's driver.  He did not mention the boy because this boy did not have a licence.  While they were still talking this other policeman came back and his pants were wet.  It was obvious that he was walking in the tall grass.  He also wanted to know that who was the driver.  Then he was told.  He did not ask that he was leaving somebody next to the banks of the river and the person was injured.  They got into the car and they left for Umtata.  
 After a while the boy arrived again.  He then reported that the man he was with was followed by a Traffic Officer, but nobody took this into cognisance because, but later when he did not come back people wanted to find out what happened, but nobody could see where he was and we would tried to ask, but nobody could see anything.  In the
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following morning they started to take some steps now.  They tried to go and report because they could not find him anywhere.  Now, in short, they came to the police.  They reported the case.  We were still looking for him on the other side and there was another trace that there was another man who has been shot by the Traffic Officers and after shooting him they dragged him to the river.  It took us two weeks for us to get the body.  We found the body in another location at Nabane location in Idutywa.  When we got there the people there said they picked this body up at the riverbanks.  
 As we usually do with a body we, there was a funeral.  It was very difficult for us to get into the water because it was full.  The body was buried on the other side next, in Idutywa not on the other side which belongs to Umtata district.  When the body was exhumed we did identify that it was him.  Now, after we had exhumed him we had to bury him again.  This time now we buried him officially.  Now that was the time now we had to give the report to the police.  Some police were investigated about this.  After we have told them that we have exhumed this body and reburied it we had to go again back to Idutywa to see the District Doctor so that this body can be looked at to see, to have a post mortem.  We did buy a coffin so that if this body had to be brought back again we must have something to put it in.  
 The person who talked to the doctor, it was his elder brother, Chief Bangilizwe.  He brought the doctor to the river and it was the doctor who said there must be something like a jug, just a container so that we can carry water, but we did not even know what the water was going to be for.  We did all that.  When we got there we were forced again to 
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exhume the body.  When we did that the doctor said the reason why he wanted a container was that he wanted to make an experiment to make sure that, to make sure if this body went into the river when it was already dead or when the person was still alive.  He said he was going to cut a piece of his lung and after cutting that piece of lung he was going to put into this water and if the person has been drowned while still alive in this water, this piece of lung is going to go down into the bottom of the container, but if this person was put into the river when he was already dead, this piece of lung is going to float on the water.  Indeed he cut a piece of his lung on his left lung and then he put it into the water, but that piece of lung simply floated, it did not go down.  Then he said, yes indeed, he went into the river when he was already dead.  Again, we had to rebury the body now with the coffin that we had brought with us.  
 Now we had to wait for the authorities from the police so that we can rebury the body.  Even on that day we were now, we were going to ask experts to investigate and examine the body so that we can see what killed him, that is a post mortem.  When the day of the post mortem came we again went to go and exhume the body.  Now we were together with the police and it was the police that brought the body to Umtata.  Then we were told what time the doctors would come here in Umtata.  We were here at eight am.  We stayed here for the whole day until it was four pm.  There were no doctors even though we were told that they were going to be here at nine.  They came after four.  They were already in a hurry touching here and there.  After that they said, no, they cannot see anything.  That is now how we were officially given the body to go and bury it again and yet we UMTATA HEARING EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE
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were not satisfied at all.  When we wanted to find out why did they come so late, we were trying to find this out, but later we discovered that they were in Butterworth the whole day.  They were talking together with the Government.  We do not know why they were, what they were talking about and then we were forced to bury the body again without getting any report of a post mortem regarding his death.
 Later the policemen went on saying that they are investigating such that this Traffic Officer while he was surrounded by the policemen regarding the bullets that were missing in his gun, he said, no, he had fired in the air.  So then he was asked why did he shoot in the air in the first place, where is the driver of the tractor?  He then said that the person, the driver that he had met was Sobetwa, then he was asked do you know Sobetwa.  Then he said yes, he know who Sobetwa was and he can even point him.  Then there was an identification parade.  We were also there.  This Traffic Officer, his name was Kalipa, could not identify Sobetwa.  He simply identified another policeman who use to work at Qumbu.  It is there now because he could not identify then the Investigating Officer had the authority now to arrest him because he could not identify this driver.  
 Now, on the third day of his arrest there was a command from K D Matanzima, who was the leader of the country at that time, that this Traffic Officer must be released because he has not done anything.  So then he was released.  At the time the Council of Churches had delegated a field worker who could help with the investigation.  His name was M Sooki.  He helped out quite a lot because he even had witnesses, but what was the problem was that he was now 
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arrested by the Security Policemen.  He was kept for two years here in the Transkei prison, that the office of the South African Council of Churches was banned.  So that all those who had their human rights violated should not have anyone to defend them.  Later on the South African Council of Churches tried to make amends, but it looks like that is the reason why the South African Council of Churches was banned.  There was never even an inquest.  That is just how it was ended.  That is how Twalimfene Joyi.  We still feel hurt about his death.  We will never forget it.  It will always remain in our history.