Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-28

MR CLARKE: ...(inaudible) during the day.  And you stated that there were other people in the shop when you entered the shop, in your evidence-in-chief, is that correct?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: That is correct.

MR CLARKE: Mrs Clackers will refute that, she will deny that, she will state that shortly after her husband had left for town, at 2 o'clock when she opened, one of the three of you entered the shop and no-one else was in the shop.  Now is that not what you recollect?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, I don't remember it that way because what I can remember is that there were people in the shop when we got there.

MR CLARKE: Which of the three of you entered the shop first?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I was the last one to go inside the shop out of the three that were with me.

MR CLARKE: What role did you play there?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: When I got inside I told them we must hurry up, we must not waste time, because the police would arrive and we would be arrested.  I then went to Mrs Clackers and I asked her why was she trading, because there was this consumer boycott we were not supposed to buy in the shops in town, why was she not closing the shop.

MR CLARKE: Yes.  And what then happened?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I then got on top of the counter and I asked her why was she trading because she knew that we were not buying in the town.  So it looked as if she was reaching for something under the counter, I thought that it was a firearm, I then told her to give me that firearm.  We struggled and I went to the other side of the counter and the dogs came out, they wanted to bite me and my colleagues went in and there was that struggle, and the people who were inside the shop, I don't know what happened to them but some of them ran away.  I don't know which direction they took.

MR CLARKE: Which of you entered the shop first?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I don't know whether it was Mzuyanda Ntonga or Melville, it was one of them because I was the last one to get into the shop.

MR CLARKE: Which of you was dressed with a balaclava to disguise your face?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: We - nobody had a balaclava on, it was on the pocket because we, it was in my pocket. I was the one with the balaclava, but it was, I forgot it in my pocket when we went there.

MR CLARKE: Mrs Clackers will say that one of you was wearing a balaclava.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I don't think that we would wear a balaclava during the day.  I don't think that that would happen, that one would wear a balaclava and the others would not do that.

MR CLARKE: You then manhandled her, one of the three of you, two of the three of you manhandled her, is that correct? - assaulted her.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, we manhandled her, we didn't assault her.  I was the one who was involved in the struggle with her because I told her to give me that firearm because it looked as if she was reaching for a firearm below the counter, so she wanted to go out of the door.  I told her to give me that firearm.  What I did is that she fell down because of that struggle between the two of us.

MR CLARKE: Do you recall - my instructions are that you demanded that the till be opened so that you could take the money, do you recall that?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, I don't remember that.  What happened is, she said that she would give us money and then she took off her panties and she told us to rape her and we told her that we were not there for those reasons.

MR CLARKE: Was this ever mentioned in any previous statement, this evidence, this rather shocking evidence that you're now advance?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, because those details were not asked, if I was asked I would have told.

MR CLARKE: My instructions are that you wanted money, that you tried to force her to open the till, that eventually she pulled the till off the counter and it fell heavily on the floor.  Do you not recall that?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I do recall something like that.  She was the one who wanted to give us money.  We told her that we didn't want money.  We just thought that she was wasting time, she didn't want us maybe to get the firearm we were looking for.

MR CLARKE: Your evidence is that you, on your own explanation, that you entered the shop and simply told her she was to stop trading because she was breaking the boycott, is that the case?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct.

MR CLARKE: I suggest to you that it is a great deal more likely that this fracas took place because you were demanding something of her that she was unable to give you, which was money, that this was nothing more, nothing less than a common robbery.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: We didn't got there - we didn't have intentions to rob, we didn't even go there for a firearm.  The reason why I wanted a firearm is because she reached below the counter, I then thought that she was reaching for a firearm and that is why there was this struggle.

MR CLARKE: Was it only then that you thought it a good idea to demand a firearm of her, when you saw her reach under her counter?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct.

MR CLARKE: Before that you had no intention of collecting firearms from her?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct, because we didn't think that we'd get a firearm from her, we just thought about this issue of trading because there was this consumer boycott.

MR CLARKE: Now tell me, my - and I've lived in these parts for a long time, my understanding of a consumer boycott is that you persuade the consumers to stop buying from particular individuals, you thereby boycott them, is that not the position?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is so.

MR CLARKE: You persuade them by means fair or foul, that you go to the consumers, you don't go to the suppliers.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct, but we would also go to certain shops and tell the owners not to sell anything to the consumers.

MR CLARKE: But that doesn't constitute a boycott, a boycott is the act of persuading consumers not to buy from identified shops.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, it is like that, but what angered us is that she was trading in that area and those people were forced, she was forcing those people to buy in her shop because they were not allowed to buy in town.

MR CLARKE: How could she force people to buy, you tell me that.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Because her shop was opened and she knew that in town people were not supposed to buy in the shops.  So because of that the people didn't bother to go to town to buy stuff, they would just buy in her shop.

MR CLARKE: You see I suggest to you that this explanation of imposing the consumer boycott is nothing more than a thin cover-up for what the Supreme Court, as it then was, correctly found, that you and your two accomplices were participants in a robbery.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I don't know anything about robbery.

MR CLARKE: Well that's I think incorrect, because you know lots about robbery, the court sent you to jail for a few years for that robbery.  That further, if you had simply visited that shop to tell her to stop trading, the awful assault that was perpetrated on her would not have happened, she would have listened to you and you would have left the shop and that would have been the end of the exchange.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: The mistake that she made was to reach under the counter because when she did that we thought that she was reaching for her firearm.  We didn't go there to rob, we were just there to tell her and then leave.

MR CLARKE: Why should she have reason to, and why should you think that she had reason, to grope under a counter for a firearm after you had simply told her what you'd set out to tell her?  There is just no reason, there's no justification for it.