Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — UNKNOWN

MR MADASA: Thank you, Mr Chair, I submit that the conduct of the applicants in apprehending and subsequent killing of the victims, as they have admitted, was in line with their political objective which they wanted to achieve, and that political objective is gleaned from the mandate which their structure, as the SDU, was mandated to do.   Amongst other things that the SDU was expected to do was to eliminate, and the ANC in its submissions used those very words, agents of the then white regime, and Tusanang, when he gave evidence, he also considered this fact, that anybody who was harassing the community was seen as an enemy, so this was a common understanding within these structures in the community, that enemies of the community were those people who were harassing the community, killing the community.   I therefore submit, Mr Chair, that the conduct therefore of the applicants must be seen in that light, and this is the mandate they received from the people who called them to form the SDU's.
	And, Mr Chair, the applicants did not only capture and kill these people, but they did so in accordance with the code, so to speak, which they were expected to follow, because when they were called to form the SDU's, the under-standing was that they should be accountable to the community and be non-partisan, and I submit that the applicants did exactly that.   
	The conduct of the applicants clearly was not that of execution, the applicants adhered to the tradition of the time, namely that people must be captured first, in other words investigations must be done before people are killed, or anything is done to them, and I submit, Mr Chair, that this is what the applicants did, they rounded up these people, despite their anger, despite the obvious evidence which they had, they did not execute them.   Contrary to what Tusanang did, they took them, they rounded them up and they took them to the shack.   I therefore submit that their conduct was definitely associated with a political objective, namely to defend the community. 
	And, Mr Chair, I also would like to submit that they, now it refers to the Act, section 20, 20.3(f), in terms of the criteria spelt out in sub-section 3 ...(intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: You are referring us to section 20?

MR MADASA: Section 20 ...(intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Sub-section ...(intervention).

MR MADASA: 3(f).

CHAIRPERSON: Sub-section 3(f)?

MR MADASA: Yes, Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR MADASA: That is the nexus between the act, that is the act of killing, or rather the nexus between their objective and the act of killing, which is important, it must be established by the use of that conjunction and, meaning that (f) has to be satisfied.   Now if it is established that the conduct was associated with a political objective, the applicants must, in addition to that, show that there was a nexus between that political objective and the act of killing.   I submit that is the way I understand that sub-section.   And my submission is therefore the following:  that the applicants, having been convinced that these people they were rounding up were a nuisance to the community, or a menace to the community, when they rounded them up and they killed them, I submit that that conduct is linked to the killing, in this sense, that the killing was proportionate to the political objective.
	I say so for the following reasons.   Mr Chair, we should not look at the numbers of the people who were killed, we should rather look at the victims as a unit, as members of an organisation, or as individuals who were targets, legitimate targets for elimination because of their conduct.
	Now the applicants did not, despite the fact that they all the time had information about the conduct of these people, they did nothing, precisely because it was not their discipline they were trained in to eliminate people.   They waited for a time when these people, when they will have hard evidence, in other words.   
	Now, the killing of Bulelwa and Blanko was therefore the last straw, as I have mentioned in my heads, Mr Chair, that was a plain indication to the applicants that these people were bent on eliminating the SDU, therefore exposing the community to violence.   Now I'm saying it was as a result, direct result, of the killing of Bulelwa and Blanko that, within that period, these people were rounded up and subsequently killed.    Therefore I'm saying that the act of killing Bulelwa and Blanko is the proximate act which has caused the killing of the victims, and it is proportionate in the sense that Blanko was the chairman of the SDU.  So if these people, and that is the evidence of Tusanang, that on that day they were rounding up these people, they were looking after them, but on the contrary, they did not round them up, they were actually shooting them.   So the SDU at that time was aware that the Youth League was after killing all of them, and the killing of Blanko was evidence to that, and therefore the reaction to kill the victims was the reaction to the killing of Blanko and Bulelwa.

CHAIRPERSON: Well the evidence of Mr Likana was that at a gathering at block C, those who had gathered there included members of the community, and ANC Youth League members said, "Enough is enough", because of the killing of Bulelwa and they took a decision to round up members of the SDU, disarm them and then take them to KBA, where the community usually gathers, presumably so that they can account there.   The killing of Blanko, Mr Likana said, was because, upon being requested to accompany them, he resisted and therefore he was killed.   Apart from that, there is nothing which would suggest that they were going about executing members of the SDU as you suggest in your evidence.

MR MADASA: Mr Chair, the evidence, I will deal with the evidence of Tusanang, but shortly my answer to that is that Tusanang cannot be believed what he said.   Their conduct is contrary to what he says was their request, or the mandate from the community, but ...(intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: That is a simple question, (indistinct) reason with you is that there is no evidence before us which indicates that the members of the Youth League were going about executing people.   The incident that was referred to in evidence I think relates to, I think it's a Mr Majola, I think it is, is it Majola, Majola, who was a member of the South African Communist Party, who was allegedly killed by members of the Youth League because he was believed to be what was described as being an enemy agent, that was what would be known.