Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pretoria — 1996-08-12

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you very much for your story.  I just want to ask you a few questions for clarity.  Could you tell us, besides yourself, was your mother involved in any political activity?

MR MASUKU: I may say that my mother was just a civic person.  She was involved our African Housewife League and she was supportive to our cause.

YASMINE SOOKA: You yourself you were 13, I think, at the time in 1977 when you were first arrested.  Can you tell us about your own involvement in the movement at the time?

MR MASUKU: Well, I have been involved in the student's organisation.  I have been one of the leadership and also in the community and because we were fighting for a better education I may say that we were spearheading the campaign to have English as a medium of instruction and also because the police were harassing our people in our communities, I actually spearheaded one campaign where we said people should not greet, talk, buy, use anything that belongs to the police.

YASMINE SOOKA: Why do you think the police targeted your house for the bombing and do you think that the police were involved in it?

MR MASUKU: Because, you know, Atteridgeville is a very small township we know each and every one because of this campaign when we were saying people should not have any relationship with the police, they must not talk to them.  Even the shabeens we told them not to sell liquor to the policemen.  Then the policemen started buying liquor, some
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were from the bottlestore and drink them outside the community and started.  When they come back they harass the activists, they visit the houses of the activists and then they harass their parents looking for activists in our community.  That showed that the police have done this through their agents or through other means they have done it.

YASMINE SOOKA: You say in your statement that in 1980 you were arrested on your way to Swaziland.  What exactly were you going to do?  Were you leaving for exile?

MR MASUKU: Doctor, actually we were going for schooling because all of us, the people who were there, we were ten in a combi.  All of us we were sick and tired of this education we receive here and the harassment of the police.  We said the best thing is just to go outside the country and get a better education and come back being educated people, but when they arrested us at Piet Retief, the police actually laid a charge of saying that we wanted to leave the country illegally, getting military training and the other thing it was recruiting people from South Africa to other countries to undergo military training and come back and overthrow the country, the Government of that day.

YASMINE SOOKA: You talked a lot about the documents you have in your possession which indicate the way there were restrictions placed on the burial of your mother.  For instance the night vigil was restricted to a particular group of, a number of persons and the funeral as well, but can you tell us about, it is commonly said that, in fact, funerals were a political event.  Can you give us a little bit of information on that?

MR MASUKU: From this?
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YASMINE SOOKA: No, no.  I am asking for your view.

MR MASUKU: Yes.

YASMINE SOOKA: On the fact that activists like yourselves generally used funerals as a place to communicate because people were not allowed to meet freely.  Can you give us your own view on the way funerals and night vigils were used for furthering political education and activities?

MR MASUKU: Yes, I may say that the funerals which, I mean funerals for the person who died for the struggle or for matters that are related to the struggle that it is true that we come there, we politicise that funeral, that night vigil.  Therefore this Magistrate here maybe from the orders, maybe got the order from the police, the Security Police that this one is one of those funerals.

YASMINE SOOKA: Could you also tell me about, were you a member of the ANC or were you a member of AZAPO or any other political organisation?

MR MASUKU: During that period the ANC was banned and I was member of the UDF and a member of COSAS, a founder member of COSAS, and a member of Civic Organisation and therefore being a member of the ANC then it was a banned organisation.  You cannot actually disclose that whether I was a member of the ANC or not.

YASMINE SOOKA: Were you in contact, direct contact with any members of the liberation movement on the other side of the border?

MR MASUKU: I cannot say.  Well I know many people who have left, you know, and, but we could not get two way communications, you know, because they could not do so.  I was not really in contact with anybody.

YASMINE SOOKA: Were you at any time involved in any military
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activities or any of the activities against the State at the time other than the normal activism?  Were you involved in any kind of explosion attacks, that sort of thing, against the old State?

MR MASUKU: Not really on a military activity, but I was mainly on the student's politics, marching and so forth.  Also the UDF.

YASMINE SOOKA: Was there ever any kind of compensation for the damage done to your property?

MR MASUKU: No, no we never actually received anything, you know.  After the bombing of our family house I did actually report this also to the City Council of Atteridgeville because the house is under, is covered by insurance and the properties inside the house were damaged and they never came back.  They never actually compensated us.  They never gave us anything.  We fixed everything on our own and actually I was assisted by legal, assisted by Legal Resources Centre in Pretoria to contact those people.  They were doing it on behalf of me because most of the time I was actually in detention, but at the end they said we reported the matter very late, they cannot attend to that and they never compensated us.

YASMINE SOOKA: The case also, you said that the Magistrate indicated that if there was any more evidence then the inquest would be reopened.  Was that ever followed up?

MR MASUKU: I may say that no, no because the lawyer who was in charge, Priscilla Jana, we gave her everything and the advocate who was the one representing us in court Tonki, I never heard from them, but I was keeping in touch with Priscilla Jana to find out.  They said, no, they have not heard anything, but at this present moment I may say that
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sometimes in May this year, the Special Investigating Team, they said they have a lead and now they said they wanted something from me to get to, do you know any person whom you think that he had bombed and so forth, but they have not yet come to me.  I phoned them, asked them how far they.  They said they went to the Department of Justice, they went to the court to check this document.  They cannot get those documents.  They are being banned or something like that, you know.  That is what I cannot understand because I have all the statements of the people who made that thing here, you know, I mean in court, you know, and also there are the finding, the outcome of it, you know.

YASMINE SOOKA: This Special Investigation Team was this from Jan de Olivier's office, from the Attorney General?

MR MASUKU: Yes, they are linked with the Attorney General.

YASMINE SOOKA: Does he think that there was a hit squad responsible for this attack?

MR MASUKU: Well, this Detective Els told me that they are the guys who are investigating these things.  They are the ones who arrested de Kock and others and they are following all these activities of Askarries and third forces and so forth.  Then they said they will come back to me, but I am still waiting.

YASMINE SOOKA: Will you be willing to make the information that you have there available to the Commission?