Human Rights Violation Hearings — Uitenhage — 1996-08-28

CHAIRPERSON: I am going to thank the witnesses who we referred to this morning, who we spoke about this morning, but due to time constraints, we are going to proceed and call upon Notolo Regina Plaatjie, and ask her to take the stand.  Over to you Rev Xundu.

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: (sworn states)

MS MAYA: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Ms Plaatjie, the evidence that you are going to give this afternoon before this commission is about your brother, Matthews Lindile Faku.  Is that correct?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: Yes.

MS MAYA: You said that your brother left South Africa in 1961, and he left home saying that he is going to fight for the struggle outside.   Can you just give us an idea who Lindile was so that we can speak about somebody that we know, what kind of person he was and what his position was in the struggle?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: Lindile Faku was in the struggle with my parents, Mr and Mrs Faku.  When he left in 1961, I was at  my marital home, but when he left home, he said that he was working at Industecs and he was to go in at 5:50, but he knew that he was leaving.  He left for work, took his shirt and left for work, and he did not come back home at 6 o'clock when he normally came back, he didn't come back from UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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work, and my mother waited and he saw Mr Makidwana and Tebe coming and Mrs Chaka, and they said Mrs Faku, we have come to let you know, please do not worry, that your son has crossed the border, please do not tell too many people this, do not even tell your children, rather keep it under wraps, and that is how my brother left.
 One day, while I was at home in Dumbaswa because my mother had been arrested and had been put in jail for 7 years, when they were released, they were released to Dembaswa because they were told that they can not stay here in Port Elizabeth, so we had to move to Dembaswa and I was at home because my mother had been in custody at the time so my father was there.  My father then said to me, you must please turn on the radio at 12 o'clock, you are going to hear your brother singing.  At 12 o'clock that night, I switched on the radio, and tuned into the station that my father had told me about and I heard my brother singing these songs.

MS MAYA: Do you remember which station this was?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: No, I have forgotten it, because it was a long time ago.  No, I have forgotten which station it was which the people who were involved in the struggle used to tune in to.  My father used to know which one it was.  And that was the last time I heard about him, and thereafter, when my mother returned from jail, she had suffered a stroke in prison, and when she came back from jail, she passed away after 2 weeks in Dembaswa because after the stroke she had a stomach ailment and she passed away and she was survived by my father.  My father also passed away without having any idea where this child was and at a time where the exiles were returning home, we thought we was also going to come
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back, and now the reason I am here today is because I see that everyone else has come back except him.

MS MAYA: Let us just go back to your mother, why was she arrested, so that she served 7 years?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: She was involved in the struggle.  They used to burn corpses because they said that they should take them to Strydom.

MS MAYA: Which year was that?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: I don't know, it was many many years ago.  I can not even remember.  It was Mrs Matomela and Mrs Bart, they were all arrested at the same time.

MS MAYA: Do you remember, since you brother left, saying that he is going to join the struggle on the outside, which organisation he was affiliated to?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: He was a member of the ANC.

MS MAYA: You mentioned Mr Tebe and Mr Makidwana, what were they, as far as you know?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: They were also members of the ANC.  This is Mr Makidwana next to me, he is also a witness.

MS MAYA: Did your brother keep in touch with you people.  Did you know where he was?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: No, I just heard from my father that I should tune into the radio that night and listen to his voice on the radio, but he never wrote to us.

MS MAYA: What made you sure that he was on the outside.  Was it that you heard him on this radio station?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: Yes, and also these people that had helped him cross the border came to tell us that he had crossed the border and that we should not worry.

MS MAYA: And after they had told you that he had left, would they during the years, tell you that he was still
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alive, and where he was and so forth?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: No, they never told us over the years but at the time that we were at Dembaswa, when this other group came back, Mr Tebe's son said that our brother is still alive and that he is still there.

MS MAYA: What year did you last hear him on the radio?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: That is why I say that I can not remember any more, it was a long time ago.

MS MAYA: Mr Makidwana and Mr Tebe, or anybody from the organisation, when last did anybody hear any information about your brother?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: Mr Makidwana and Mr Tebe were the ones that said that they had helped him across the border, and my mother was then in jail and she came to Dembaswa thereafter, Mr Makidwana was the one that came back to Port Elizabeth after his release from jail.

MS MAYA: Since you knew that your brother was in the ANC did you attempt at all, after the unbanning of the organisation, to try and establish where your brother was and what happened to him?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: I phoned once when Lindile Faku came from this rural village and somebody had given me a number, telling me to phone this number.  I phoned him and asked them about Lindile Faku, and I was told that this Lindile Faku had been fetched by his sister and that he lived in a village and I wanted to know about our Lindile Faku who had left and this person said to me, Ma'am, a lot of people haven't returned yet, wait for him, he probably will come back.

MS MAYA: As far as you know was he in the ANC, this person that was telling you that many people haven't returned yet?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: Yes, these were the numbers of the office that UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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I had been given.

MS MAYA: Do you have names of people that you had spoken to at this ANC office?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: No, I don't.

MS MAYA: You mentioned somewhere that somebody said to you that your brother had moved up in the ranks of the ANC, outside, which meant that he would come back long after other people because he still had work that he had to finish.  Who told you this?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: Mr Tebe's son.

MS MAYA: Have you spoken to Mr Tebe's son thereafter?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: No, I haven't seen him yet because he is in Dembaswa.

MS MAYA: Haven't you heard anything more about your brother?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: No.

MS MAYA: Is there anything else that you would like to say, in addition to your statement?

NOTOLO REGINA PLAATJIE: I would like the Truth Commission to please investigate for me and to try and establish what happened to me brother so that at least we can know where he is so that if he is not alive we would like to know where his bones are lying.

MS MAYA: Thank you very much Ms Plaatjie, I am going to hand over to the Chairperson of the Commission,  maybe they have some questions that they would like to put to Mr Makidwana.