Amnesty Hearings — Thohoyandou — 1999-11-15

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: It's because in our village there was a time during which two children were missing and the missing children - it was the people who were killed who were suspected to have made those children to be missing.

CHAIRPERSON: What has that got to do with the government?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Where there is a link with the government is here.  I have indicated in the beginning that members of the government that was ruling were killing people and by killing people and all these things we were trying to intimidate the government to stop killing us in this way, because when looking into these things it was politics mixed with witchcraft.
    Firstly,  I can take an example of a case which happened in 1988.  When a certain woman was found having being killed during a ritual murder, her name was Mashiki.  While it was being investigated it was found that she was killed by members of the government.  
	I can also take an example which happened in 1990 when the youth at Mbengwi were marching to the Parliament with a skull who they claimed was killed by Mr M M Mpapure.  When taking that into consideration we realised that the people who were participating in the killing of people were members of the government which was in power and all these things were linked with witchcraft.

ADV DE JAGER: But why didn't you kill the members of the government who killed Mashiki?  Why did you kill witches?  They didn't kill Mashiki, it was the members of the government who killed Mashiki.

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: I have explained that those witches, when they were killed, more especially those at Itsane, they were killed after there was a case of two children who were missing and it was suspected that the people involved were the members of the government.

ADV DE JAGER: What have the witches got to do with it?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: I was saying, those people who were killed on that day linked with these people when it comes to two children who on that day were missing and the people who were suspected were the victims who were killed.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ndou, I speak for myself, I have difficulty about a connection between the political motive and the witches.

MR NDOU: Mr Munyai, okay just try to relax and think properly.  Right, what the Committee wants to find out from you, it is the connection between the killing of the witches and a political motive.  I asked you a simple question.  I asked you as to how - was there any connection between the list that you drew up and politics and the government as such?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Yes there was a link. The link which was there between politics and witchcraft was on that day of the second, when we took that action, the community was tired by the way in which the government was ruling. And as such people tried many other ways in the government to try and meet the government so that they could talk of those actions but it was difficult because the government which was ruling was not prepared to listen to us.     Just as an example, if we said that we were being killed or ritual murder was being committed, some of us were being shot like what happened on the 21st of March when Elsi Parama was killed, when the society was going to complain to the government that the way you are ruling us was not in order.  Now because of that, while investigating, we found that here in Venda, first it's in the villages, the way which can help us to reach our objective causing the government to fall, was that there was only one thing that we could do in the village, which was killing the witches.  And all that was happening because of the political thinking of the time, because on the 11th of February we were told that Mandela was going to be released.  But when people looked into that, they said that when Mandela is released he must find that most of the job which is left which he could do, he would find that the people having done that just like ...(intervention)

ADV DE JAGER: You're now telling us of the 11th of February, you have already killed the man on the 2nd of February, and you're referring to the 21st of March, it's things that happened after you killed him.  So why did you kill him on the 2nd of February?  Why did you decide to kill the witches on the 2nd of February?   Why didn't you go and kill the politicians?  Or did you consider the witches to be politicians?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: It is not that.  On that day, I tried to indicate before that because mostly activists were dying, young activists who were dying at that time, they were dying in a mysterious way.  People themselves took a decision that these acts of witches be dealt with in killing them, so that they can not be an obstacle for us in fighting with the government because to tell the honest truth our aim was to fight with the government.  But because those people were disturbing by killing our activists who were showing that they could lead us to reach our objective.  Then we were forced to kill them, so that we can reach our objective.

ADV SIGODI: The person that you killed, did he have any official position or was he a government leader?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Like I say, the person we killed, one of them was nothing, an ordinary person;  another one was regarded as a headman.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay Mr Ndou, page 4 of the application
are annexures, who is the author of that?

MR NDOU: I'm not aware.  These documents in the papers, apparently these were sent with the applications to the Amnesty Committee.  And it seems like in every application, the documents that were sent to the Committee had this sort of document. I'm not sure who the author is.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on.

MR NDOU: Now you've drawn up a list, you identified people that you said must be killed, what then happened?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: From there it happened that we went to all those places which were on the list.

MR NDOU: Would you explain to the Committee where you went to?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Firstly, we went to to Makabu's place.

MR NDOU: And how many people would you say were at Makabu's
place?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Plus/minus 500.

MR NDOU: And how did they come together?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: For this who gathered because we have got small villages and then we realised that in a certain small village, who is active to such an extent that they could recruit those people for us and then at Chiuyuni, one of the people who recruited people is a certain guy called Chimanga Ndzamakungo.  At Ngumo village the person who recruited people is Tiane Richudo.  At Itsane they were made to gather by me.  From there we went to Makuba's place as it was written in the list.  On arrival we found him and then we started to attack.

CHAIRPERSON: And what did you do?  What was important?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Mzwande was there, he was listed as a witch.

MR NDOU: Yes we want you to explain to the Committee, what you did, how did you get there, what did the people do and what did you as a person do?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: On our arrival there I requested all the people who were there that before they can destroy or do anything, that I must first knock and ask them to get out of their house so that I can put some questions to them, so that if it is true that he is having zombies and their like, they must take them out.

CHAIRPERSON: What has the existence or otherwise of zombies or witches got to do with overthrowing the government?  Tell us that? Because I'm being quite honest to you, it seems like you murdered that man for nothing, for no political reason and we would like to know what the political reason is.